by Fran Stewart
“We’re taking you to the hospital,” she told me. “You’re going to be just fine.”
How would she know? Why was I being held down?
“Don’t move like that. You have to lie still. All you need to do right now is just wait for the doc to take a look. Stop thrashing.” More fog slid into me.
* * *
When I woke, a nurse immediately hit the call button and announced my waking state. I’d never seen her before. You’d think in a town this small, I’d know everybody who lived here. I reached up to my head, where an ache the size of Montana had settled in with a vengeance. “You’ve had some stitches,” the nurse said. “Don’t fiddle with the bandage. It needs to stay in place. The car window shattered, and we had to pull glass out of your head.”
“I thought cars had safety glass.”
She looked inordinately pleased. What was there to smile about?
The door opened, and a vaguely familiar face bent over me. “We’ve had quite a morning, haven’t we?”
We? He wasn’t even making eye contact.
“You have a concussion, and we’re going to keep you quiet until we’re sure you’re okay.”
“I have to work. The ScotShop.”
His face twisted but so quickly righted itself, I thought I might have imagined it.
“The what?”
“I own the ScotShop. In the old Pitcairn Building.”
He held out a hand, and the nurse placed a clipboard in it. My chart? I thought they did everything on computers nowadays. “Looks like you’re from Hamelin.”
Where am I?
“You just stay quiet.” After that pronouncement, he left.
The nurse stepped closer to me and touched my hand. “You’re in Arkane Hospital, Ms. Winn. We have a better trauma center than the clinic in Hamelin, and it looked like your injuries might have been extensive. It’s better to be safe than sorry, wouldn’t you say?”
On that platitude, she patted my arm, told me her name was Amy and that all I had to do was push the button if I needed anything, and left.
I took a good look at my left hand, where an IV line snaked in, delivering its cold fluids. I stretched gingerly. Everything hurt. A padded brace of some sort encased my neck. I felt the side of my head, wincing as my left shoulder objected to being moved. A bandage, just like Amy had said, covered what I could tell was a rather substantial lump. My fingers met with stubby bristles where they’d cut my hair. Oh crap! Now I’d be even more lopsided than usual. Looked like I’d be wearing my kerchief for a good long time.
I pushed back the covers, lifted the blue-dotted hospital gown, and examined some rather spectacular bruises along my left side. I must have slammed into the door when the car spun. Luckily, my heavy arisaidh had cushioned the blow somewhat.
I looked around the room. There was a narrow closet on the opposite wall. It couldn’t have been ten feet from where I lay. I gauged the possibility of making it over there. I could do it. I pushed the sheet to one side and hit the buttons to lower the bed and raise the back of it. I turned my back to the door and swung my legs over the edge, on the side next to the IV pole. I could hang on to it while I shuffled across the room. My left thigh protested. That was where the bruises were the worst—why didn’t they make softer armrests on cars?
A throat cleared. “Shouldn’t you be staying in bed?”
The cold air wafting across my bare back where the johnny gapped wide open froze me almost as much as the voice. I twisted around, gasped in pain, and immediately felt an arm across my back—my bare back—supporting it as a hand grasped my right shoulder and held me still. The hand slipped down my arm and slid beneath my knees, lifting me gently back into place. He could do all that leaning across the bed? I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t get a hernia. “Hello, Harper.”
“You were planning an escape?”
I studied his face but couldn’t detect any sarcasm. “No.” I pointed across the room to the closet. “I wanted to see if my arisaidh survived the crash.”
He pulled the sheet up over me and nodded. Keeping a wary eye on me, as if worried that I might bolt, he opened the closet door and pulled out a plastic bag. Without any prompting, he opened it, laid the contents on the bed for my inspection. Thank goodness I’d worn pretty underwear, but he didn’t seem to pay any undue attention to it.
The kerchief, for which I’d paid an inordinate amount of money, even at wholesale, had a fat line of dried blood along one side. He picked it up and held it out in front of him. “It’s only on the right side,” he said.
“That’s the left side,” I told him.
He frowned. “It’s the right side as I’m looking at it.”
“It’s the left side when I’m in it.”
He compressed his lips and stepped to the sink.
“Cold water!”
“I know. Grew up with sisters.”
Hmm. I watched him saturate the kerchief, agitate it gently, scraping one layer against another, squeezing and rinsing several times. He repeated the process twice more, adding soap the third time through. After that, he ran a sinkful of water and left the kerchief to soak. “It’ll be good as new.”
I glanced down at my chemise. “Is there blood on anything else?”
He took a moment to look carefully, and then reached for a coat hanger. “Nope. Everything else is okay. Just wet from the rain.” He hung the chemise and overskirt from hooks on the wall, put my underwear back in the closet, and picked up the arisaidh. “And how are you doing? Other than wanting to leave, that is.”
“I’m okay.”
He raised an eyebrow, and his eyes ran the length of me.
“No, really, I’m fine. I just want to get home.”
“You’re fine?” There was a quizzical twist to his words. “Do you know what fine stands for?”
I shook my head as much as the brace allowed.
“It means Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.”
I could hear the capital letters. I laughed, but that hurt, so I took a deep breath instead.
“There,” he said. “That’s better.”
“How is the truck driver? Was he hurt?”
“He’s fine—I mean he wasn’t hurt at all. He told me that he’d been wondering for some time about whether or not he should sell the garbage business.” A funny expression, one I couldn’t interpret, flitted across Harper’s face.
“He owns it? What was he doing driving a truck then?”
“Well, that’s the funny part. His business started small, here in Arkane, but then he was so successful, he expanded into Hamelin and a couple of the other towns around here. Usually he sits behind a desk, shuffling paper, but some of his men are out with the flu, and he decided to take one of the runs. That’s the only reason he was in the truck.” He paused, sliding my arisaidh, which he’d been holding all this time, onto the coat hanger.
He was quiet so long I prompted him. “So, what does this have to do with selling his business?”
“He said that running into you made up his mind. All because he filled in for somebody else.” He held my gaze for a second or two and then looked away. “Amazing what can happen when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Fill in for somebody.”
That didn’t make sense, but I let it drop. “Does Gilda know? Is the shop open?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes. I called her. She said she and Sam would be there all day. They’re planning to stop by this evening during visiting hours.”
“My car?” I hated to ask, but imagining the worst was no fun.
He shook his head. “Back end is crumpled. Frame is bent. Totaled.”
“Oh, jolly.” Why hadn’t I taken that old ’57 Chevy when my dad offered it to me? It would have been dented but still drivable, although it probably would have gotten abou
t twelve miles per gallon. “How’s the garbage truck?”
The man actually snickered. “You think your little car could damage a garbage truck?”
“Whew. At least my insurance won’t have to pay for truck repair.”
He smiled. “Martin, the guy who owns the garbage company, told me at the scene that it was entirely his fault. He was going too fast. He said he thought his insurance should pay for the whole thing.”
“You’re kidding.” I remembered the voice that had pulled open my door, terrified that I might have been badly injured.
“Gave him a ticket.”
“You gave that nice man a ticket?”
“He was practically asking for one.”
The door opened and Amy, the nurse, bustled in. Why do nurses always seem to bustle? She winked at Harper. I had the distinct feeling that these weren’t visiting hours. He’d probably just smiled at her and she’d let him in. “Hi, Harper. Don’t worry; she’s doing just fine.” She turned to me and lowered her voice. “My friend here has been sitting in the waiting room for the past two hours, ever since he got through doing his cop stuff.”
“Buzz off, Amy; I’m working.”
She stuck out her tongue at him. “No, no, no. I’m the one who’s working here. Out you go.” She lifted my hand, inspected the IV site, and winked at me. “I’d be willing to bet my patient has to use the potty.”
Harper blushed a bright red. I didn’t know he could blush. Amy looked at me and giggled. He left hastily as she pulled back the sheet. “Close the door on your way out,” she called.
After I took care of the essentials, Amy helped me rinse the kerchief and wring it out.
It wasn’t long before I was inundated with visitors. Well, only two, one on each side of the bed, but it felt like a crowd.
“They made us wait out there in that dreadful waiting room, when I should have been in here with my baby the whole time.”
“Hi, Mom. I’m doing just fine.” Harper’s definition rang in my head and I grinned.
“What’s so funny?” She reached back and pressed her hand into her lower spine. It was a movement I’d seen her make so many times, I almost didn’t notice it anymore. “Here you are almost dead and I haven’t even been able to stay with you, and now you’re laughing?”
“Not laughing, Mom.” I was tired already. “I just thought of something funny, that’s all.”
She didn’t ask what—not that I expected her to—she was too caught up in her monologue. “We’re taking you home as soon as Doctor Carrin says you can leave. Your old room is still just the way you left it. You can move in there for a week or two. Maybe three. However long it takes my baby to heal. You certainly don’t want to go out in public with your hair looking like that. I don’t mind waiting on you hand and foot, even though it will be hard on my back. Whatever it takes to get you well.”
Oh my God, I’d forgotten about Dirk. “Mom, I need to go back to my own house.” He must be frantic. I remembered seeing him in the bay window, shouting and waving his dagger. “I need to get there right away.” I pulled back the sheet and swung my legs to one side, more successfully than the first time.
“Now, honey.” Dad sounded reasonable and absolutely adamant at the same time. He reached for my legs, had second thoughts inches from my bare skin, and simply stood in front of me, leaving me no room to haul myself to my feet.
Sighing, I pushed the call button. Amy’s voice came through loud and clear. “What do you need, Ms. Winn?”
“I need to go home. How soon can I get out of here?”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Your brother is absolutely frantic. I told him he could stay with us while you’re there. That way we’ll be a cozy, happy family again.”
“Mom, I don’t need cozy,” I said as the door opened. “I need to be home in my own house. Call Drew back and tell him I’m okay. He won’t want to stay there, either. You know you don’t like Tessa.”
Amy must have had years of practice reading body language. She very kindly but firmly ushered my parents out. “I need to check her vitals,” she said. “We may be able to release her early. You’ll need to go to the waiting room.”
“Better yet,” I called after them as Amy pulled the curtain between the bed and the door, “go home and wait for me to call you.”
I could hear my mom’s objections fading as the tap tap tap of her high heels receded down the hallway. “Thanks for saving me,” I said, and Amy chuckled.
“I really do need to get your vital signs,” she said. “You’re doing pretty well, but we have to be sure. Any headache?”
“Nope. The stitches hurt, but no headache.”
“Difficulty swallowing?”
I gave it a try. “None.”
“How’s your vision?”
“I can see just fine,” I told her with some impatience. “I really do have to get home. There’s somebody there I need to check on.”
“Cat? Or dog? You look more like a dog person.”
I couldn’t very well say I needed to check on my ghost. “His name is Shorty,” I said. Amy bent over me and pulled my lower eyelids down as she looked at my pupils or something. She checked the computer readout and noted some numbers on a chart. Then she typed something on the console that sat, like a broody hen, beside the bed. An apt image, since I felt like a plate of scrambled eggs.
I did my best to look alert.
“Who’s going to take you home? Your parents?”
“Heavens, no! I’ll call Sam. They’d haul me across town to their house. I need to be at my own place. Sam can take some time away from the store to come get me.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Not hardly. Cousin.”
“Hmm.” She looked pleased.
“And employee,” I added. I’m not sure why I wanted to clarify that point. “I own the ScotShop in Hamelin.”
“I know. I love that store. I bought my dad a tie there a couple of years ago.”
“You’re welcome to come back anytime.” Every tie helped.
“We have to get you out of here first, though.” She tugged absentmindedly at the corner of the blanket, straightening it. “Is there someone at your house who can stay with you for a couple of days, just to be sure you don’t fall? With a concussion, your balance may not be the best right away.”
Did Dirk count? “Yes,” I said. “There’s somebody there. My, uh, housemate.”
“You shouldn’t do any bending, either. Keep your head above the level of your heart, and let your housemate walk the dog.”
“I have a fenced-in backyard,” I told her. And Shorty is an indoor cat.
“That’s good. Just be sure you take it easy. Let other people wait on you. Does your housemate cook?”
I had a brief vision of Dirk gutting a squirrel and roasting it over an open campfire. “Not exactly, but my friend Karaline will bring me food from her restaurant.”
“Oh? Which one?”
“The Logg Cabin.”
“I love that place. We go there a lot on Saturday mornings.”
“Yeah. It’s great having a friend like that.”
“You let her pamper you, okay?”
“Fine with me. I love being spoiled. I’ll be just fine.” Fine. Right. Freaked out, insecure, and . . . something or other. I couldn’t remember the rest. Neurotic. That was it. What was the e for?
“I’ll call Dr. Carrin and see if he’ll release you.”
“Just don’t let my mother know you’re releasing me until I can get Sam here.”
“Don’t count your chickens. Call Sam after Dr. Carrin agrees. He might not release you, you know. And you might not need Sam anyway.”
“Why not?”
She ignored my question and said something about a brolaw, whatever that was. “I’ll go get the doctor
.”
I nodded, and she left the room. A minute or so later, the door opened and Harper walked in. “You doing okay?”
I shrugged. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have something else to do? Like finding out who killed Mason?”
“Just thought you’d like to know Shoe was released about an hour ago.”
“Really? That’s great! Did you catch the guy who did it?”
“No, but that lawyer of his convinced the judge to reconsider the fact that all the evidence was completely circumstantial. He pulled in affidavits from leading town citizens saying that Shoe was a young man of upstanding character.” His smile was wry.
“The baseball game, right? Those leading citizens all want Shoe to be able to play against the Arkane Archers on Independence Day?”
“Probably. The charges weren’t dropped, but he’s out on bail.” Harper frowned slightly, and his eyes seemed to go darker. Maybe it was just the shadow from his eyebrows. “It didn’t seem to occur to the judge that a number of convicted serial killers were thought to be of upstanding character before they were caught.”
“Shoe is not a serial killer. He’s not any kind of killer. He’s—”
“Don’t get your britches twisted. I’m just stating an obvious fact that the judge missed.”
“My britches twisted? That’s what Moira says. Did you ever live in the south?”
He avoided the question by asking one of his own. “You ignored my first question. How do you feel?”
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
“A garbage truck.”
“Just my luck. But what about Shoe? He had a forty-thousand-dollar bond. He couldn’t possibly pay that.”
“Reduced to ten thousand.”
“Yuck. That’s still way more than he can afford.”
“Uh-huh. Karaline Logg put up the money.”
“Karaline? You’ve got to be kidding.” This was getting more bizarre every moment. “I didn’t know Karaline had that kind of money.” Why would she bail out Shoe? Surely there was no romantic interest there. Karaline was way too sophisticated for Shoe, and he was goofy over Gilda, anyway. I wondered what was going to happen when he found out Sam had moved into his territory. We’d probably have a testosterone war on our hands. I could only hope that it didn’t invade the ScotShop.