“What happened, Stan?” I asked.
He shifted his eyes to William, who pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “I knew Claude had been in a bad way for years, but especially after his momma went to jail. He just seemed like he was destined to not make his eighteenth birthday. Go ahead, Detective. Please tell me what happened. Let’s just get it all out at once.”
Brook took the reins before Stan could speak. “Apparently, Claude was up in the hills with two girls close to his age, a girl named Nikki and—” She stopped short.
“Go on, Detective. Don’t hold back on our account,” William said.
Brook nodded, looking my way. “The other person on the scene was Cristina.”
I poked a finger at my chest while trying to catch my breath. “My Cristina?” My dizziness returned with a vengeance, but this time it felt more like I was hyperventilating.
“What the hell was she doing with Claude?”
“I might know, William,” I said, thinking about our newest ECHO case, where Cristina was going to learn more about the bad influences on Nikki Maldanado.
He turned to me. “Hold on, Ivy,” Stan said. “You haven’t heard everything yet.”
“Did she kill him?” William asked.
“William, it was not a good situation. A lot of stuff went down. Drugs—”
“Did Cristina kill my grandson?”
I wanted to shout “no,” but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what had happened. And I was almost afraid to hear the details.
The boys whimpered as Brook held up tissues for both of them. Neither boy cared that they were draining tears and snot all over their faces. .
Stan ran his fingers through his hair. “No, Cristina did not kill Claude.”
“Is she hurt? Who shot Claude?” I asked in rapid fire.
“She’ll be okay. She has some bruises and scrapes mostly on her chest, arms, and back.”
I turned to look for my purse. Zahera had already read my mind. She pulled my phone out and handed it to me.
Stan continued. “And we’re not sure who shot Claude.”
“Don’t tell me, you cops have bungled another case involving one of my precious grandkids.”
I could practically see fire coming out of William’s mouth.
“It’s complicated, William,” Brook said.
“And still very fluid,” Stan said. “We’re working with the Texas Rangers and the local police department to search for the shooter.”
“What kind of leads do you have?” I asked while sifting through umpteen text messages. I turned to Zahera before Stan could reply. “Nothing from Cristina. She didn’t even text me. Can you believe it?”
“You’re getting ahead of me, Ivy. Give me a second.” Stan looked like he’d aged ten years without losing an ounce of fat.
I gave the hand signal for him to continue.
“Okay.” He waited until he had William’s attention as well. “For starters, Cristina was the only one on the scene who wasn’t high or emotionally distraught. But she was still upset. Apparently, the kids from summer school skipped this afternoon. They wanted to tube down the Guadalupe River. No harm, right?”
I nodded just to get him to keep talking. Stan then told us about how Claude had taken Nikki and Cristina out to this location in the middle of nowhere and began to cook up a batch of heroin.
“That’s where things got out of control. Cristina wouldn’t let Nikki get high, and then things got physical.”
“Who got physical?” I asked.
Stan shifted his eyes to William, then back to me. “I think Claude was an addict. Nikki too. They couldn’t deal with Cristina getting in the way. Claude especially.”
William’s chin almost bounced off his chest. “I knew that boy was heading down the wrong path. He just wouldn’t clean up his act. I—” He put a hand to his face.
Stan kept talking. “Claude was shot from behind, at least twenty yards away, maybe more. Neither Cristina nor Nikki saw the shooter.”
“And this guy didn’t try to shoot the girls?” I asked.
“One shot, and nothing after that. Cristina and Nikki ran off and eventually made it back to the main road, where they flagged down a driver.”
“Why didn’t she call or text me?”
“She tried while she was in the camp, but she said it didn’t deliver. Bad reception. Then in the melee, her phone fell to the ground and was crushed.”
I took in a breath, my mind trying to process everything while watching the Cooper boys break down in front of my eyes. “Stan, do you have any leads?”
“Not much. Apparently, before the gunshot, even before the kids started fighting over the heroin, Cristina and Claude both saw someone in the brush. At first they blew it off, thinking it was an animal. But when we questioned Cristina about it, she’s thinking it was on two legs.”
“A person,” I said.
He nodded. “While she’s not certain, she could swear this person had, uh, curves.”
“A woman?”
“Maybe. She’s not sure. She’s upset.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s given her statement, and I had one of my uniforms take her to the hospital to make sure nothing was broken.”
Heaving out gasping breaths, Drew looked up at his Gramps. “Claude is dead, Gramps. We’re broken. We’ll never be a family again.”
No one said a word. We couldn’t dispute what Drew had said. And now wasn’t the time to try to convince him of any silver linings—that he still had two other brothers and his grandfather, and that over time his pain would subside and he’d be able to remember the fun times with Claude. We all just stood there and helplessly watched the Cooper family crumble.
33
The reception area of the emergency room at Stone Oak Hospital had turned into a mini rock concert. As I flipped pages on a Hollywood gossip magazine—it was either that or forcing myself to digest day-old coffee—some guy wearing more eyeliner than Zahera had just started plucking away on his bass guitar. That quickly prompted a drummer to start tapping away on the metal arm of the chair. A couple of others began to clap to the beat, and then another head-banger started screaming lyrics I couldn’t understand.
Had I just aged another ten years?
I got up from my seat, dodging a pack of cigarettes being tossed by someone who looked to be associated with the band, and made my way over to the receptionist’s window. A plain woman sat behind glass—I wondered if it was bulletproof—writing notes with her head down. When she didn’t notice me for a few seconds, I knocked on the glass. She glanced up, and I could quickly see by the agitated look on her face that it wasn’t going to be a cordial greeting.
“Yeah?” She pursed her already thin lips.
I gave her the same story I’d given the first receptionist when Zahera had dropped me off over an hour earlier.
“I wasn’t aware that you were waiting to see the patient.” She thumbed through a number of green manila folders. “What did you say her name was?”
A roar of laughter and hollering behind us. I turned to see a scantily clad girl standing on a chair doing some type of sultry dance right in front of the drummer’s face as the bassist banged out some riff you might hear at a strip joint.
“Damn kids. For the love of—” The woman spun in her chair, snapped her fingers at another woman in scrubs, and then went through a door. She appeared at the waiting area’s doors a moment later.
“All right, okay, everyone. This isn’t a rock concert.”
Her voice didn’t come close to drawing anyone’s attention. I gazed around the expansive area and thought how inaccurate her statement was. Based upon age, attire, and engagement, there must have been twenty-five people associated with this group, which only grew more raucous with each passing second.
Glancing at the swivel doors that led to the examination rooms, I thought about just sneaking past the nurse and searching for Cristina on my own. I took one step and then
a shriek pierced the air.
I jerked to a stop. The nurse had whistled so loudly the entire room went silent and still. It looked like one of those group mannequin bits I’d seen all over social media. My heart—still not fully back to normal after my earlier drunken state—was in the back of my throat.
“If you guys don’t keep it down, then I’m going to have to call security,” she said, hands at her waist. She was trying to give off a dominant presence, but her dumpy body and five-foot-nothing frame didn’t help.
“I hear Mall Cop isn’t busy; call him up. Maybe he’ll want to rock with us,” some voice said from the crowd.
A smattering of laughter as the mannequins started moving.
“You heard me,” she said, shaking a finger. In a strange moment of déjà vu, I had a flashback to high school and my chemistry teacher named Mrs. Moon. She had a similar method for trying to keep our class quiet. It never worked. A lot of the kids took every available opportunity to mock her name, including a group of guys who mooned her on the last day of school of my junior year.
More laughter, then the bassist stood up. “We will do our best, Miss Nurse. We just love our music, and so do our fans. Right?” He turned to the crowd, who responded with more hollering and chants of “rock that clock, rock that clock.”
She rolled her eyes, swatted a hand at the band and their groupies, and walked back to her post behind the glass.
“What does that mean?” I asked through the open window.
“I think it has something to do with one of their songs. Who knows? I just hope the doctors finish up with the lead singer.”
I was curious, so naturally I asked, “What’s he in for?”
“Broken leg. He jumped into the crowd. Instead of catching him, they let him drop.” A smile actually pulled her lips up at the edges. “I would say it serves him right, but I’m not allowed to say it. I just want them to be gone. I can’t deal with this much craziness at two in the morning.”
I nodded, then realized I’d forgotten about Saul. Dammit. I grabbed my phone from my purse and found five text messages. The last one said:
Maybe you and Z went for drinks after the party???? Sleep tight.
I thumbed a quick response.
Soooo sorry, Saul. Another tragedy to Cooper fam. Cristina involved but ok. Will call u tomorrow.
I got back to why I was standing in front of the window. “Her name is Cristina Tafoya.”
The nurse was already distracted by another ruckus behind me. I didn’t turn around, and she finally noticed. “Sorry.” She flipped through the folders once again. “Yes, here we are. Exam room seven. Go through the doors, and I’ll meet you on the other side.”
She ushered me through a maze of hallways until we came upon exam room seven. It was nothing more than a curtain draped around a space smaller than my closet. She pulled back the curtain at the same time a doctor—a woman wearing a white coat over her scrubs—was wrapping Cristina’s torso with an ACE bandage.
I raced over and gently put my arm around Cristina’s back. She rested her head on my shoulder. I could see dirt in her hair.
“Are you okay?”
“I can’t breathe. This damn thing feels like I’m wearing a corset.”
The doctor, whose red-rimmed eyes told me she hadn’t slept in at least a day, didn’t say a thing.
“Is she going to be all right, doctor?”
“She should be okay. Her pain will be the toughest thing to manage. I’ll give you a sample of pain meds and a prescription that you’ll need to get filled by tomorrow.”
“Any way you can loosen this?” Cristina tugged on the bandage.
“If you keep pulling on it, then it won’t be effective.”
Cristina pulled down her T-shirt and brought her hand to her side.
The doctor looked at me. “She has three cracked ribs and a number of contusions all over her body. If any of them are really sore, you can apply a cold compress. Any other questions?” She roped her stethoscope around her neck.
“I’m good.” Cristina grunted as she adjusted her position a couple of inches on the examination table.
“The nurse will return with some paperwork to sign and then you can leave.” The doctor left us alone.
“Can I get you anything? Are you thirsty or hungry?”
“Nah. Leo dropped by—”
“Is Nikki here?”
“She was two curtains down. But they took her up to a room. Leo said they were getting some type of psychological evaluation. He was thinking she’d probably end up in rehab before the end of the day.” Her eyes looked away as I took a seat in an uncomfortable plastic chair.
“Cristina, I—”
“I really don’t want to hear any speeches right now.” She rubbed her face, then grimaced.
“Your ribs?”
She nodded.
“No speeches from me. I’m just thankful you’re alive.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She plucked a tissue from a box and just held it for a moment, her gaze stuck to the floor.
“Is it hard to talk about?”
She closed her eyes, which squeezed the tears out. They dripped off her cheeks. “I had no idea it would turn out that way.”
“No one would. I’m so sorry you were put in that position.” A wave of guilt washed over me. Though just seventeen, Cristina had lived a hard life, too many experiences involving drugs and abuse and near-death experiences. “I should have never let you take this case, not without more protective measures in place.”
“Don’t blame yourself, okay?” she shot back. “It was my decision to skip school. I could have said no.”
I pressed my lips together, reached over, and touched her knee.
“I could have pretended I was sick to get Claude to take me back into town.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She shook her head. “I knew I was so close. I thought Claude might be Nikki’s drug dealer, but I wasn’t certain. Then, when he started talking and I found out he was the older brother to Billy and Drew… I don’t know. It just became much more personal.” She used the tissue to dab her wet eyes.
I bit my lip to keep my own tears at bay.
Her eyes found mine. “For a moment, I thought I was going to die. When Claude got shot, it took a second for it to register. And when it did, I could feel my whole body freeze. I was bracing for a bullet to tear through me.”
Her words nearly took the breath out of me. “But you got Nikki out of there. That was incredibly brave of you, Cristina.”
She released a shaky breath. “Leo said I saved his sister’s life.” She took a hard swallow. “I just wish I could have stopped Claude from dying. I knew he had issues, but he didn’t deserve to die.”
I could hear a loud roar of laughter in a distant hallway. Apparently, the traveling band had infiltrated the bowels of the hospital. Cristina acted like she didn’t hear anything. She tried to run her fingers through her hair, but they hit a snag. “Shit,” she said.
“You’re on edge.”
“I’m fine,” she said abruptly.
She hated it when I assessed her, so I went for a more factual approach. “Stan said you might have seen the shooter, earlier, before Claude got shot.”
“It was the strangest thing. I just saw this flash of red. I almost thought it was my imagination, but Claude saw it too.”
I followed her eyes to the wall behind me. There was a framed legal notification hanging off a white-painted wall. Otherwise, the wall was bare. But Cristina apparently found something there that pinged her memory.
“What is it?”
She blinked. “I don’t know. I keep going back to that quick image.”
“It was a person?”
“It had to be. The red was probably four or five feet off the ground.”
“But you saw this color on the hillside. So, maybe your depth and height perceptions were off?”
“Not likely. I was sober. I saw her…him.” She rubbed her e
yes.
“Was the person female?”
She opened her lips, then shut them just as quickly.
“What?”
“I keep trying to convince myself one way or the other, because I know Stan and the detectives need clear information to find this person who killed Claude.” She paused momentarily, turning her head to look at the bottom of the curtain where we could see a number of shoes shuffle by. “Just when I think I’m clear on exactly what I saw, doubt creeps into my mind. And then I start the whole cycle all over again. It’s just so damn confusing.”
She leaned forward in frustration, but stopped herself from moving any farther as pain ripped through her body. “Ahh. I can’t—”
“We just need to get you home. And I mean my home, not some shelter.”
She rolled her eyes. But I didn’t care. I pushed up from the chair. I lost my balance, and reached for the counter.
“Dude, are you drunk or something?”
I sure could count on Cristina to be tactful when others were in distress.
“I’m fine. Just need some food in me.” I took in a breath and got my bearings.
“Okay.” She gingerly slid off the table. “Hey, I think I’m going to stick around here for a while and see how Nikki’s doing.”
“Can’t Leo call you?”
“Maybe.”
The same nurse walked back through the curtain and had Cristina and I both sign papers. She left the curtain open and gave us directions on how to find the exit.
“Ready to go?” I heard my phone buzzing, so I fished through my purse and pulled it out. “It’s Zahera,” I said, putting the phone to my ear.
“At two in the morning? Are we talking about the same Zahera I know?” Cristina asked with her typical sarcastic tone.
“Hey,” I said into the receiver.
“I wouldn’t call you at this hour, but I couldn’t sleep. The Cooper boy dying, watching the family just disintegrate, it was just too much.”
“I know. It broke my heart, honestly.”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 18