effort, serving three Native American tribes and the nearby community of Johnson City. It was an exceptional clinic given that there weren’t 20,000 people in the whole county, and Johnson City didn’t swell to a population of 3,000 except in the summer.

To either side of the entryway, a trickling stream splashed over stones meant to look river smoothed. The stone was artificial, the water pumped and chemically sterilized. A large ceramic bullfrog adorned the edge of a tiny pond. Just through the main entrance was a spacious lobby with a receptionist’s desk flanked by cubbyhole offices used for filling out forms and admitting patients.

Kier walked through the lobby with a barely perceptible nod, as if he knew where he was going. Two male physicians in green scrubs turned out of another corridor and walked in front of him for a hundred feet or so. They were apparently arguing over a golf score.

The place had almost no scent, which Kier found disorienting. To the ultra-sensitive nose, hospitals usually had the occasional pungent sting

of alcohol, the ammoniac aroma of industrial-grade disinfectants, the genuine-article piss smell from all the urine-filled plastic bags, and the lemon-peppermint odors of chemical deodorizers used to mask the first three. Powerful electrical filters, such as those in Mountain Shadows, tended to leave only the faint scent—like that of a hot router in cherry wood. A good whiff of a dirty diaper would have been refreshing to Kier.

Without much effort, he found the maternity nurse’s station. Shuffling papers and moving charts, the busy charge nurse barely noticed him at first. She wore a dark green sweater over whites, the various layers of polyester stretched tight across a belly that had seen its own births, and had been hostage to long stints of a sedentary life.

After a moment, she did a quick double take. Kier knew what she saw, and he could read in her face what she thought. With his dark eyes and jet-black hair braided down his back, Kier had the general mien of the Tilok people. The rest of him looked more European, the nose narrower and the face less round. The nurse’s glance went

Next Page