Guarding Suzannah

by Norah Wilson

Saving Grace

  Being drunk slowed Ray Morgan’s reaction time. The telephone managed a full ring before he snatched the receiver.

  “Grace?” To his own ears, his voice sounded like someone else’s.

  A second’s silence, then a man’s voice. “That you, Razor?”

  Ray sagged back into the depths of the couch. John Quigley, from the station.

  Not Grace after all. Never again Grace.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” Ray dragged a hand over his face. “’Fraid I’m no good to you tonight, though, Quigg.”

  Another pause. “You okay, Ray?”

  “Sure. Been keeping company with Jim Beam, is all.” Ray’s lips twisted at his own wit. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t that witty, but it was either laugh or cry. “S’okay, though. I’m not catching tonight anyway. Hallett is.”

  “Just a sec, Ray.”

  Quigg must have covered the mouthpiece, because Ray could hear muffled conversation in the background.

  “Okay, I’m back,” Quigley said.

  “I was sayin’ to call Gord Hallett. He’s your man tonight.”

  “I don’t need a detective, Ray. I was looking for you.”

  “Huh? You’re looking for me at, what…?” He squinted across the room at the glow of the PVR’s digital clock. Grace’s PVR. She hadn’t slowed down long enough to take anything. What had he been saying? Oh, yeah, the time. “…eleven o’clock at night?”

  “It’s Grace.”

  At the mention of his wife’s name, Ray felt the hollowness in his gut open up again, wide and bottomless as ever. Guess the bourbon hadn’t filled it after all.

  Leave it to Grace to get stopped on her way out of town, in her red Mustang the boys in Patrol had come to know so well. Had she explained why her foot was so heavy tonight? His grip on the phone tightened. Had she told the uniform—a guy Ray would have to face every day for the next ten years—that she was rushing off to meet her lover and couldn’t spare the horses?

  Her lover.

  “You got her downtown?” he asked evenly.

  “Downtown? Hell, no. They took her to –”

  “’Cuz you can keep her. You hear me, Quigg? I don’t care.”

  “Dammit, Ray, listen to me. She’s been in an accident.”

  Ray shot to his feet, dragging the telephone off the table. It hit the floor with a crash, but the connection survived. “What happened?”

  “She missed a bend on Route 7, rolled her vehicle.”

  He felt his stomach squeeze. “Is she hurt bad?”

  “Hard to say. By the time I got there, they were already loading her into the bus. But she didn’t look too bad, considering she rolled that puppy like the Marlboro man rolls a cigarette. Paramedic said he thought she might have lost consciousness for a bit, but she seemed pretty with it to me.”

  Wait a minute, Quigg was off duty. Why’d they call Quigg?

  Unless Grace was hurt so bad they thought his best friend should break the news.

  Ray gripped the receiver so hard now his fingers hurt. “Why’d they call you?”

  “Nobody called me. Suz and I were on our way home from visiting friends when we came on the scene. I stopped to see if our Mountie friends could use a hand. When I saw it was Grace, I offered to make the call.”

  Okay, relax, man. Breathe. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. But she’d rolled the car.

  Pressing a thumb and forefinger to his closed eyelids, he pushed back the images from every bad wreck he’d seen in his twelve years on the force.

  “They taking her to the Regional?

  “She’s probably there already.”

  “I’ll be there in –” Ah, hell, the booze. Morgan, you idiot. “Quigg, I’m in no shape to drive. Can you send a car?”

  “Way ahead of you, buddy. Stevie B will be there in about four minutes.”