Disclaimer: Jess, Rob and the motorcycle belong to Meg Cabot and various publishers around the world.
Chapter two: the hospital
The hospital buzzed with noise and activity as the Mastrianis and Mary Wilkins rushed into the waiting area. Their frantic questions were met with anguished glances from the young nurse until a doctor came to her rescue. Murmuring quietly to the three distraught parents he pushed them back into the uncomfortable plastic chairs synonymous with public waiting areas across the globe and moved away, leaving them to wait.
And wait they did, until two hours later when a different doctor, his face creased with fatigue, hurried in, whispered to the receptionist and then, at a more sedate pace, moved towards the pathetic huddle.
"Mrs Wilkins?" his voice was apologetic. "I'm Rob's doctor. I imagine the police officer told you what happened?" Silently she nodded, willing him to get to the point, to tell her whether she still had her baby boy. In a daze she listened with half an ear as the man no boy, he couldn't be more than a few years older than Rob, perhaps the same age as her oldest niece, as he described, with rather too much relish for her liking, the extent of her little boy's injuries. And then those words she had been dreading "I'm sorry, Mrs Wilkins, we did everything we could, but Rob didn't pull through."
Mary Wilkins' next actions would have surprised anyone with only a basic understanding of human psychology. She didn't start screaming, or hit the doctor or even bust into hysterical tears. Instead she said "oh" in a very quiet voice and sat back down.
A mere five minutes later it was the Mastriani's turn to have their family shattered as they too were given the dreaded "sorry," this time by the same doctor who had spoken to them earlier. In sharp contrast to Mary Wilkins, Antonia Mastriani did everything that an outsider would have expected, short of beating someone to a bloody pulp, although that probably had more to do with her lack of strength than with any hatred of violence.
Just about holding back tears of his own Joe Mastriani just about managed to stammer out, on behalf of both families, "could we – could we see the bodies?" the doctor blanched and said awkwardly "it might be better to wait while we clean them up - everything was a bit of a mess." With these comforting words he hurried off like a rat to a hole, leaving some poor nurse to calm down Mrs Mastriani.
An hour later they were still waiting, both to say their goodbyes and for some answers about what exactly had happened to their children. None seemed forthcoming until, on a visit to the coffee machine, Joe bumped – quite literally – into special agent Jill Smith.
She looked surprised to see them and asked, with raised eyebrows, what Jess and Rob had done this time. "Rob crashed his bike. They were both killed." It was Mrs Wilkins, her first words since hearing of her son's death. Quickly Joe filled in the rest of the details, up to and including the disappearing doctor. Her face set in an expression of determined sorrow special agent Smith marched over to the receptionist. At first the woman seemed unwilling to cooperate with whatever was being demanded, but one flash of the FBI badge soon had more results than a thousand smiles. Not, however, that this seemed to be impressing the FBI woman. As the altercation became more heated another woman was called and she seemed to be coming up with the same disappointing results as her colleague.
Returning to the Mastrianis and Mrs Wilkins, special agent Smith looked puzzled. "Um…" she said, looking momentarily stupefied, "I'm not entirely sure how to put this, but according to their records, neither Jessica nor Robert has been admitted to the hospital for several months."