Dead Past

would never happen again. Although she believed what Rankin said about not being able to stop the drug trade, maybe there was a way to stop it in her corner of the world.
    When Diane arrived at the museum, one of the museum’s SUVs was waiting in her parking space. Before she went back to the circus—as she thought of the tent city—she headed for the hospital. She stopped at a toy store on the way and bought a stuffed dolphin.
    Diane was becoming an all too familiar face at the hospital—visiting Frank, Star, Mike, Neva, not to mention her own time in residence as a patient. Too many hospital visits, too many violent injuries. Maybe someone she knew would have a baby and she could come for a happier visit. She rode the elevator to Darcy’s floor and walked down the stark gray corridor to the ICU waiting room. She recognized Darcy’s parents right away because Darcy looked just like her mother—dark hair, dark eyes, and dimples in her cheeks and chin. The two parents sat together on a small crimson sofa. Both were looking at the clock. Waiting for another of the timed visits to ICU, Diane guessed.
    “Excuse me, are you the Kincaids?” asked Diane.
    “Yes, we are.” Her father stood up, his wife after him. They looked to be in their fifties, fit, and terribly worried. “This is my wife, Edwina. I’m Jesse Kincaid.”
    “I’m Diane Fallon. Darcy works for me at the museum.” She held out her hand.
    “Yes, she’s told us all about you,” said Mrs. Kincaid. Each took her hand and shook it in turn. “Darcy just loves working for the museum. She says it’s her dream job.”
    Her father put his hands on his belt. “You folks at the museum have been so good to us. We sure do appreciate it.”
    “Not at all. Anything we can do to help, just ask. How is Darcy? Do you know?”
    “They won’t tell us anything,” said Mrs. Kincaid.
    “They don’t know anything, Edie,” he said. “They said we might know something in forty-eight hours.”
    “It’s just this waiting,” Mrs. Kincaid said. “And they only let us in for fifteen minutes at a time. Darcy looks so swollen, I wouldn’t even recognize her.”
    “I know the waiting is hard. It’s all hard. Do you have a car to get you places?” she asked.
    “Yes, we have a rental car,” said Mr. Kincaid.
    “We have a restaurant at the museum. It’s not that far from here, and if you get tired of eating hospital cafeteria food, please come to the restaurant as my guest. Just tell them who you are.”
    “That’s so nice. Are you sure?” said Darcy’s mother.
    “It’s a small gesture in a very trying time,” said Diane. She didn’t say, “I lost a daughter and the kindness of good people pulled me through.” She removed the stuffed dolphin from the sack she was carrying and handed it to them.
    Her mother took it and held it to her chest. “Darcy just loves dolphins. You all have been so kind. We don’t know how to thank you.”
    “You don’t need to. We all pray for the best for Darcy.”
    Diane started to leave and Mrs. Kincaid laid a hand on her arm. “We heard that the explosion was from a drug lab. Darcy wasn’t into drugs; we would have known.”
    “She probably didn’t know the lab was there,” said Diane. “The house was divided into student apartments. There were lots of people going in and out. It’s in my neighborhood. It’s a good neighborhood. I live a street over and heard the explosion when it happened. No one knew.”
    “When I first heard, I thought it was a gas leak or something,” said Edwina. “This . . . this is just so much worse.”
    “Have they arrested anybody?” asked Darcy’s father.
    “They’re investigating,” said Diane “The people in the lab were killed. We’re concentrating our efforts right now on treating the injured and identifying all the victims. But believe me when I tell you, right now in Rosewood, getting to the bottom of this has top priority.”
    The Kincaids were decent people, but Diane was glad to take her leave. The tragedy of this event was weighing down on her and she had too many burned body parts to process. She needed to find her way back to her objective anthropologist self.
    Leaving the hospital, she took a shortcut through the sunroom. Even though there was no sun shining through the windows, the room was warm and cozy. With its open feeling and warm golden brown walls and an abundance of plants, it was one of the more pleasant rooms in the hospital. Several patients