“Mrs. Davenport. In 314.”

“Thank you,” he said and went down the hall to 314. “Mrs. Davenport?” he said to a gray-haired woman in the bed. “I’m looking for Dr. Lander, and—”

“So am I,” Mrs. Davenport said peevishly. “I’ve been having her paged all afternoon.”

He was back to square one.

“She told me I could have the nurse page her if I remembered anything else about my near-death experience,” Mrs. Davenport said, “and I’ve been sitting here remembering all sorts of things, but she hasn’t come.”

“And she didn’t say where she was going after she interviewed you?”

“No. Her pager went off when I was right in the middle, and she had to hurry off.”

Her pager went off. So, at that point, at least, she had had it turned on. And if she had hurried off, it must have meant another patient. Someone who’d coded and been revived? Where would that be? In CICU? “Thank you,” he said and started for the door.

“If you find her, tell her I’ve remembered I did have an out-of-body experience. It was like I was above the operating table, looking down. I could see the doctors and nurses working over me, and the doctor said, ‘It’s no use, she’s gone,’ and that’s when I heard the buzzing noise and went into the tunnel. I—”

“I’ll tell her,” Richard said, and went back out into the hall and down to the nurses’ station.

“Mrs. Davenport said Dr. Lander was paged by someone while she was interviewing her,” he said to the nurse. “Do you have a phone I can use? I need to call CICU.”

The nurse handed him a phone and turned pointedly away.

“Can you give me the extension for CICU?” he said. “I—”

“It’s 4502,” a cute blond nurse said, coming up to the nurses’ station. “Are you looking for Joanna Lander?”

“Yes,” he said gratefully. “Do you know where she is?”

“No,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes, “but I know where she might be. In Pediatrics. They called down earlier, looking for her.”