She hesitated.
“Cooper Vance,” he said with an engaging grin. “We met a while back. When you broke up that kidnapping attempt in the ER parking lot.”
Great. The obnoxious reporter. Just what she needed.
“Small world.” He glanced toward the prison gates. “Both of us spending a Saturday—”
“I need to be going,” Sloane said, cutting him off. “Have a good one.”
“Sure. You too.”
Sloane had been home barely ten minutes when Jerry rang the doorbell. He was holding a huge shipping carton.
“Oh, hi.” He shifted the box in his arms. “I didn’t want to disturb you, but I wasn’t sure if it was safe to leave this on the porch.” He glanced down at the box. “It says General Mills, but . . .” His expression looked sheepish. “None of my business. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Sloane told him, grateful this one thing was less complicated than the rest of her last twelve hours. “It’s cereal. I was expecting a shipment. But they don’t usually come on weekends.”
“One of those local delivery vans,” Jerry said, nodding toward where it still idled at the curb end of Celeste’s driveway. “The delivery person asked if I’d take it. It looked like she was in a hurry. I said I was glad to help.”
“The main house is the mailing address,” Sloane explained. “Hardly anyone knows I live back here,” she added, then realized it wasn’t really true anymore. Jerry, Micah . . . Paul. “Anyway, thanks. It saves Celeste from having to lug it down here.”
“And now you have your Lucky Charms,” he said, pointing at the brightly colored leprechaun on the side of the box. “My wife and I are scrambled-eggs-and-bacon folks. Grits too, sometimes.” He tapped the leprechaun. “I’d forgotten about these.”
Wish I could . . .
“You want me to bring the box in for you?” Jerry offered. “It’s kind of heavy.”
“No problem. I can manage,” Sloane said, taking it from him. It was heftier than usual. Extra samples probably. “Thanks again, Jerry.”
“Watch out for Marty. He’s right behind you.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Sloane nudged her cat aside and carried the shipment box to the pantry closet. She’d make time later to move it to the bottom of the stack, for freshness’ sake. Which was ridiculous, considering how few times she ever really ate any.
“Are you, like, a food hoarder?”
Sloane gave the box a kick to scoot it the rest of the way in, then attempted to slide the pantry door over it. It hung up halfway, so she kicked the box again. Harder. When the door still wouldn’t close, Sloane got down on her hands and knees and shoved the box, both hands flattened against the grinning leprechaun’s face. It wouldn’t budge, and then she saw the problem: it didn’t quite match up with the other boxes lengthwise. It might even be an older box. It looked a little worn. Sloane rolled her eyes. The cereal company was recycling boxes. Next it would be the cereal itself—sending her the broken bits, misshapen pieces, and color goofs. So much for the glamour of a grand prize.
“This is what you won, baby. For your whole life—that’s quite a net worth.”
Sloane sat back on her heels, holding in unwelcome tears. It had been such a pile-on of lousy moments since last night. Marty missing, Paul showing up, and then that awful, nonsensical conversation with Bob Bullard. If it weren’t for the fact that she was six months into her AA recovery, it would feel like she’d never left Sloane Wilder behind. As if, even with all those efforts to claw her way out of the dark hole of her old life, nothing had really changed at all.
Her phone rang in her pocket and Sloane stood, pulled it out. Her heart leaped.
“Hey,” she said, accepting Micah’s call. “What’s up?”
“Just needed to hear your voice.”
The husky sound of his made her stomach dip. She leaned against the kitchen wall. Micah needed her.
“You’re on call today?” she asked, finding her breath. “With the crisis team?”
“Yeah. I’m still at a callout for the motel fire. Did you see it on the news?”
“No. I didn’t get to the news yet today.” Too busy battling the old stuff.
“Sounds like a better plan,” Micah said. “Skip the news. On your day off, you deserve only good things.”
Sloane blinked against tears again, a whole different kind.
“Anyway . . .” Micah’s sigh warmed her ear. “I’m taking some extra call for one of the other responders, so I won’t be finished until late. And you work tomorrow morning? Your split weekend?”
“Yes,” Sloane confirmed, letting herself hope this was headed where it sounded like it was. “Day shift.”
“I’m at church till noon.”
Sloane thought of that image on the Prescott website, Micah at his cousin’s funeral. She pushed it down, not wanting anything to spoil this moment.
“I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said over the distant sounds of sirens. “Tomorrow night. Somewhere nice. With a table, not a tailgate.”
She laughed, tempted to say she couldn’t imagine anything nicer.
“It’s late notice, I know. Again,” Micah added, his soft groan apologetic. “Next time I’ll get it right, I promise.”
“That’s fine,” Sloane breathed. Next time . . . promise . . . Beautiful words.
“So,” Micah finished, “pick you up tomorrow evening around six thirty?”
“I’ll be ready,” she told him, not sure if it was entirely true. She wasn’t sure she was ready for any of this. Especially the way she’d begun to feel lately. She needed there to be a next time; she needed to finally know a promise kept. Sloane suddenly needed those things more than anything she’d ever thirsted for. “Six thirty is fine.”
“Great. I’ll see you then.”
They disconnected and Sloane stood there for a few moments, corralling her senses. Then she got back down on the floor and took hold of the oversize shipping carton, twisting it to a sideways position that fit the closet’s depth—and hid the faded but grinning face of the leprechaun. She closed the pantry doors, stood again, and brushed dust from her hands.
“You deserve only good things.”
She’d been wrong to think that nothing had changed. Everything was changing for the better. Micah Prescott was proof of that.
25
“THE INVESTIGATORS finally released her photo,” Sloane noted as Harper looked up from the newspaper spread between them on the table outside the ER. The SICU staff had done what they could to make Jane Doe appear less ghastly, with minimal success. “I guess they were trying to identify her by that recent surgical incision, but no luck. I knew they’d have to go public at some point.”
“Right.” Harper frowned. “Especially when she finally scribbled some words in, like, Russian?”
“That’s not certain,” Sloane said, recalling what she’d heard via the hospital grapevine: the girl had scrawled something that looked foreign. The news hadn’t reported it. “I guess one of the night housekeepers speaks a Russian dialect. But she wasn’t sure what Jane wrote. They’ll have to bring an official interpreter in.”
“My money’s on an FBI translator.” Harper set her juice bottle down. “The Feds are already involved because of the tattoos. It totally smacks of human trafficking.”
“It does,” Sloane agreed, a prickle of anxiety rising.
“Especially after that motel fire yesterday.” Harper grimaced. “They’re going to have to wait for dental records on those poor girls.”
When Sloane finally saw the TV coverage last night, she’d understood why Micah said to skip the news. It was awful, tragic, and her first thought was of Zoey Jones. She’d tried to ignore it, reminding herself she hadn’t seen Zoey’s complete tattoo. She told herself the girl was streetwise and had learned to land on her feet. When the nagging worry refused to die, Sloane picked up the phone and called the YMCA in Bakersfield. It had been closed for lack of funding. The nearest Y
was in Visalia, seventy-eight miles away. The next was in Miramonte, then Lancaster, Valencia, and on down to Santa Barbara. Sloane called every one within a hundred miles of Bakersfield. None had an employee or even a volunteer named Zoey.
She glanced at Jane Doe’s grim photo on the newspaper page, wishing she’d thought to give Zoey her phone number. Then she caught herself, nearly groaning aloud at the truth: the girl stole surgical instruments from the ER, then scored a thousand dollars from Sloane. Why was she beating herself up for not helping Zoey more? She could well imagine what people would think if they knew she’d willingly fed and sheltered someone capable of all that.
“. . . no better proof than the kind of company Jesus kept. Liars, thieves, outcasts.”
Sloane dismissed the unwelcome memory of Bob Bullard’s words. This wasn’t about God’s grace or some kind of woo-woo prison revelation. She was simply concerned for a troubled kid.
“Sloane?”
She blinked, turned to Harper. “Sorry. What?”
“You’re being waved at.” Harper looked toward the doors to the ER. “Cooper Vance.”
Sloane acknowledged the reporter with a reluctant nod, then watched him disappear inside the building. It made her uncomfortable. “What’s he doing here?”
“Probably nosing around about Jane Doe. The PIO’s been fielding inquiries from media since early morning. One of the SICU nurses said some female reporter caught her in the cafeteria and tried to give her a business card. Asked her to call if any family showed up for Jane Doe.” Harper raised her brows. “How do you know that guy?”
“Don’t really,” Sloane said, wishing he’d never spotted her in the prison parking lot. If she’d tolerated her stepfather for a few minutes longer, they’d have missed each other. “He probably remembers me giving him a hard time in the parking lot that day.”
“Oh, right. That business with our AWOL kidnap victim. I wonder how things worked out for her.”
Me too.
“Anyway,” Harper said, gathering up the newspaper and remains of her lunch, “he’s probably looking to pester some staff too. Or meet up with Micah.”
“Micah?” Sloane’s pulse quickened the way it had when she’d received a text from him an hour ago. He rarely came in on Sundays but had offered to help the PIO run any necessary interference with media after the Jane Doe announcement. “You mean Vance would want to question him?”
“Maybe. Or just hang out. They’re friends.” Harper raised her bottle, drained the last of her juice. “From way back, I guess. Someone said they went to college together.”
“I thought you’d be lurking around the SICU waiting room,” Micah said as Coop finished off one of Fiona’s persimmon cookies. “Bribing nurses.”
“Not my style.”
“Right. Tell me another one.”
“Besides, I’m much more interested in what happened at that motel.” Coop raised a brow. “Stuff the cops aren’t reporting. The sort of details that volunteers on scene might overhear?”
Micah frowned. He was fast approaching the end of his rope with this guy. “You know me better than that.”
“There’s always a chance I’ll catch you at a weak moment.” Coop shook his head. “Okay. Snowball’s chance in—”
“I thought your new source was keeping you busy,” Micah dodged, knowing Coop would be frothing at the mouth to know what Essie Malone might be telling the investigators right about now. The elderly motel resident had seen young girls and their handlers come and go for months. “You said your idea was to work the story backward from Jane Doe to organized crime in LA and points farther north. Connect the dots?”
“I’m doing that. I was at State Prison just yesterday morning to take my source out for breakfast after her night shift. And maybe find out who might be visiting our Russian boss. I’m making good progress. Hey—” his brows lifted—“I saw your nurse there.”
“Who?”
“Sloane.”
“She was at the breakfast place?”
“No. The prison.”
Micah’s breath stuck. What?
“Visiting an inmate,” Coop said, toying with a paperweight on Micah’s desk. “Some dude up for parole.”
“Her stepfather,” Micah confirmed for no other reason than to derail any impending Cooper Vance “gotcha” jab. “He’s serving a sentence there. I knew that.” So back off.
“Twelve years for manslaughter. Hoping for an early release at ten. According to what I heard, he looks good for it.”
“Your source told you all that?” Micah asked, torn between an urge to call the prison and have the woman fired and another to seriously lay into Coop for invading Sloane’s privacy. “You asked and she just looked it up?”
“No HIPAA laws there.” Coop’s casual tone said he had no clue as to Micah’s irritation. “Visitor logs fall under the California Public Records Act. Though . . .” The paperweight slid off the desk, and he stooped to retrieve it. His gaze met Micah’s as he returned the object to its place. “It wasn’t that easy to find. They had Sloane listed under two names: Wilder first, then Ferrell. She changed it.” Coop shrugged. “You probably knew that, too.”
“I’ve got it,” Harper said, reaching for a second bag of IV fluid. She smiled down at the expectant mother, four months pregnant and just beginning to show. Things were crazy in the OB department, so they were getting started in the ER. “We’re watering you like a ficus tree in the California drought. I’m betting your veins will make slurping noises.”
“Found it,” Sloane reported, holding the Doppler in place over the forty-two-year-old’s gently rounded abdomen. She adjusted the volume so the woman could hear. And breathe finally—classic first-time-mother worry. “Your baby’s heartbeat. Hear it?”
“Oh . . . yes. It sounds good, right?”
“Loud and clear.” Sloane’s heart tugged as tears filled the woman’s eyes.
“Thank you,” she breathed, a tear escaping. Her gaze swept toward the ceiling of the ER exam room. “I’m so grateful, Lord.”
“Your doctor’s ordered an ultrasound,” Sloane continued, handing her a tissue. “As an added measure of safety. They’ll do that in OB when we roll you down there. We’re getting started on replacing the fluids you’ve lost with the vomiting. We can handle that right here, no problem.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Harper winked, then pulled up the cotton blanket as Sloane lifted the Doppler away. “The medicine your doctor ordered will lessen the nausea. Perfectly safe. I just gave you a first dose through the IV. That’s why you’re feeling sleepy.”
“I . . . am . . . a little,” the woman admitted, her palms spreading protectively over the blanketed mound that was her growing child. “It’s better. But I think the best medicine was hearing my baby’s heartbeat. Our daughter . . .” Her drooping lids fluttered open again and she smiled. “We found out last week that we’re having a girl.”
Harper offered a thumbs-up.
“I didn’t think I’d ever have a child,” the woman continued. “Because of my age. And because I haven’t always been responsible with my health. Or my lifestyle. I made a lot of mistakes.” Her lids closed again and she sighed. “This . . .” Her thumbs stroked the blanket. “This is my second chance. A blessing and a miracle. A beautiful miracle. She’s worth every miserable moment I’ve spent hunched over that porcelain—” A small laugh escaped her lips. “I was sort of going for Hallmark card until that bit about bathroom fixtures. Tell me it’s the meds.”
“Definitely,” Sloane assured, then reached into her scrub pocket as her phone buzzed. She read the text, glanced at their patient. “And now it looks like you have a visitor.”
“My husband?” the woman asked, raising her head from the pillow. “He’s finally here?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re sending him back. He should be here any min—”
A rap on the exam room door said he’d set a new record.
“We’ll let Dad in and scoot ourselves out.” Harp
er smiled. “This is family time.”
They gave the worried husband a quick, reassuring update, then headed back toward the nurses’ station.
“I don’t mind helping OB out at all,” Harper said as they settled in front of the computers. “They get a bigger slice of happy than we do most of the time.”
“They do,” Sloane agreed, thinking of the woman’s reaction when she heard her baby’s heartbeat.
“This is my second chance. . . . I made a lot of mistakes. . . .”
“Hallmark,” Harper added, chuckling. “That was cute. Actually, it could be a pretty funny card, considering how many women have problems with—”
“Hey there.” Micah arrived at the desk. Still dressed for church probably: checked button-down shirt, slacks, hair neatly combed, and that same woodsy scent . . .
“Oh, hi,” Sloane said, hoping Harper’s similar greeting hid the foolish breathlessness in hers.
Micah smiled at Harper, then held Sloane’s gaze for a fraction of a moment longer. “Well,” he said, giving the desktop a quick tap, “I’m heading home.”
“Okay,” Sloane said, feeling as idiotic as she sounded.
He patted the desk once more, nodded at Harper, and then strode away.
Sloane tapped the computer keys, almost wishing the air would wail with code 3 sirens. Oh, please, Harper, don’t ask me . . .
“What was that all about?”
“What do you mean?” Sloane made herself look at Harper.
“Since when does the assistant director of PR and marketing report off duty to you? He didn’t even have a handful of Face of Hope nomination forms.”
“Um . . .” Sirens. Please.
“Oh, wait a minute,” Harper said, her toothpaste grin spreading. “Because Micah’s hoping—”
“He’s taking me to dinner,” Sloane admitted, ending it. Or beginning it. She wasn’t sure. She only knew that for some crazy reason she wanted to share. It was a completely foreign feeling. She probably shouldn’t risk it but . . . “Tonight. Some place called Geoffrey’s.”
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