by Lisa Jackson
Things would be far different.
That’s right. And Sylvie Morrisette wouldn’t be fighting for her life, would she?
Angry with that horrid little nagging voice in her head, Nikki pushed that painful thought aside, adjusted her sling, then craned her neck, but Reed was nowhere in sight. In fact, the area around the nurses’ station appeared to be empty.
One of the female nurses, the one with thick black hair pulled away from her face and sharp dark eyes over her mask, glanced down quickly, said something unintelligible to her coworkers, then slipped off of her chair to hurry out of sight.
Nikki couldn’t help but wonder if the nurse had gone to check on Morrisette, if something had happened, though she knew that was unlikely. If Reed’s partner were in surgery, she would be on another floor or in another wing, in an operating room, no longer a patient in the ER.
So where had Reed gone?
To check on his partner? Had Morrisette taken a turn for the worse? God, she hoped not.
Or had Reed been called away because of a development in the case? Maybe the bodies had been ID’d or more corpses located? Had the crime team found some evidence? A new lead? And what about Bronco Cravens? Her mind spun with dozens of unanswered questions.
She kept her gaze glued to the door and wished he’d return.
If only the damned doctor would release her.
Soon. It had to be soon. To pass the time, she concentrated on the case. What did she know? Two bodies had been discovered by Bronco Cravens, a lowlife if there ever was a lowlife, but she didn’t know the identity of the corpses or how long they’d been buried there, or even where on the property they’d been located. In fact, she hardly knew anything. She thought she’d spied someone hiding beneath the curtain of willow tree branches, but she wasn’t even certain of that. Yes, she was certain she’d seen the boat, but had she witnessed someone helming it? It had definitely been moving. In her mind’s eye she remembered that flash of red visible behind the curtain of silver-green leaves turning in the wind.
Was it important?
Someone with something to hide?
Just a lookie-loo motoring on . . . on what? The rushing river filled with debris from the storm? Unlikely.
Another reporter?
She chewed on that and wished she could get out of here so that she could dig into the story. More details may have been released, but she had no way of checking right now. She wasn’t expected to stay overnight but was waiting for a doctor’s orders to release her. The holdup, as she understood it, wasn’t her shoulder, just a matter of paperwork.
Good.
She shifted on the bed and felt her shoulder twinge again just as Reed reappeared. His anger had ebbed a bit, though he still wasn’t smiling. “The doctor is supposed to be signing you out soon,” he reported. “So, I’m going to check on Morrisette, then I’ll swing over to the house and grab you a change of clothes.”
“Wait,” she said. “Have you heard anything about Sylvie?”
“Not yet.”
“Still in surgery?”
“As far as I know.”
“I need my phone.”
That brought a wry smile. “It’s dead.”
“Wha—oh.” She remembered sliding it into her back pocket before she’d fallen into the river. “I need one.”
“Not tonight.”
That thought made her heart sink. Yeah, there was a hospital phone on the nearby table, but it wasn’t preprogrammed with the numbers in her contact list and every call would have to go through the hospital’s switchboard.
He checked his watch and frowned. “Look, I’ll be back in half an hour or so. Just sit tight.”
“As if I could do anything else.”
He actually barked out a short laugh.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. To let the dog out. And to change, maybe grab a shower. I’ll bring you clean clothes.”
“And a new phone.”
“Dream on.” He gave her a wink. “Hang in,” and then he left.
And he was gone. As the door closed she caught a glimpse of a gurney being wheeled in the curtained hallway beyond, an orderly in scrubs pushing an elderly woman with pale skin and a bony hand clutching the rail, an IV pole attached.
Impatiently Nikki adjusted the ice pack on her shoulder, leaned back on her pillow and closed her eyes as she waited. She needed to get home, to check on Bronco Cravens, maybe schedule an interview with him. That would be a start. And then there was research on the old Beaumont estate. What had happened to it in recent years? Yeah, it had fallen into horrible disrepair, but there had been a time when it had been rented, right? After Beulah had moved into a retirement community? Or had it been after her death? She tried to think. Beulah and her husband had one son, Baxter . . . or had there been a girl as well? Maybe one who had drowned in the river.
She shuddered, knowing how cold that water could feel and now Morrisette . . . no, she wouldn’t think about that now and pushed any worrisome thoughts aside. She wished she had her damned cell phone. She was clearheaded enough that she could connect to the Internet and do a little search on the Beaumont estate.
The phone on the bedside table rang sharply.
Thinking the caller had to be Reed, she stretched, winced and managed to get the awkward receiver to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Nikki? Oh my God, I just heard!” Charlene sounded breathless.
Of course.
Didn’t she always?
“I saw it on the news and I tried to call you, but I couldn’t get through, so I got hold of Reed and he filled me in . . . well, a bit. What happened?”
“It’s a long story, Mom.” Nikki’s relationship with the woman who had borne her had always been complicated, never easy. An impossibly thin woman with fine graying hair, sharp features and eyes that missed very little, Charlene prided herself on being the boss while playing the victim. Forever trying to manipulate those around her while pretending to “go with the flow.” That hadn’t worked with her headstrong daughter and so they’d never gotten along all that well, and then there had been the big wedding that hadn’t come off. Charlene had yet to forgive Nikki for eloping with Reed rather than go through with the over-the-top nuptials her mother had planned. Though Charlene always appeared on the edge of frail, Charlene Gillette had true inner grit and had survived a loveless marriage, as well as the death of her oldest son. A born survivor. And Charlene Gillette wasn’t known to be all that great in times of crisis. No matter how many she’d lived through. Unfortunately, there was no avoiding Charlene. Not now.
You can do this.
“Are you all right?” Charlene asked.
“Fine, Mom. Dislocated shoulder. It’s no big deal.”
“You’re sure?” Charlene was obviously unconvinced.
“Yes, of course.”
“And the baby?”
“All good. And I have an appointment with Dr. Kasey tomorrow morning. She squeezed me in, just to make sure.”
“She didn’t come see you?”
“Not yet. Another doctor examined me here at the hospital. Really, Mom, it’s okay. I’m going to be released soon, hopefully within the hour.” She checked the clock and saw that it was after ten.
Charlene said, “Okay, good. That’s good. But I’ve been watching the news. They’ve pulled two bodies from the old Beaumont home. I assume that’s why you were there?”
Nikki closed her eyes as her mother rambled on and on about what she’d seen on television, where the crack news team from WKAM had filed the first report of two bodies being located in the basement of the Beaumont manor. “The reporter said that not only you but a police officer was pulled from the river, Detective Morrisette.”
“That’s right.”
“Reed saved you? But she was trying to save you?”
Nikki wanted to argue that she hadn’t needed saving but knew there was no reason to pick nits over what had happened. “Yes, essentially.”
“Well, what were you doing? Nosing around again? Nicole, when will you ever learn? You seem to have some kind of death wish.” She started rambling about Nikki’s past near-death experiences, and she really did have a point. For someone in her midthirties Nikki Gillette had defied the grim reaper more than once. This—falling into the river—didn’t compare with the other hair-raising times when she’d faced what she’d thought was certain death. Charlene, though, wasn’t convinced. “You have to be more careful! It’s not just you this time, you know.”
“Yeah, I do,” Nikki agreed, though she didn’t want to admit it.
“You’re carrying my grandchild.”
And our child, Reed’s and mine. But she bit her tongue rather than start any kind of argument and said instead, “Look, Mom. Sorry, but I’ve got to go, the nurse is back.” It was a bald-faced lie, but she had to end this conversation before Charlene really got going.
“Oh. Well. Fine.” Her mother sounded disbelieving but didn’t push it. “You’ll call after you see Dr. Kasey tomorrow?”
“Yeah, of course.” She was nodding as if her mother could see her.
A pause. Then, “Well. Okay, then, you . . . you take care and knock off all this investigating stuff, okay? You’re a wife now, soon to be a mother.”
Charlene was SO old school. It ticked Nikki off. Big-time. And she didn’t need any reminders of her mother’s disapproval or a lecture—make that another lecture—on how to live her life. “Got it,” she said, though that was another lie just to cut her mother off. They both knew Charlene was wasting her breath, and man, oh, man did Nikki want to keep arguing, to push her mother out of the Dark Ages. But they’d been ’round and ’round on the subject before with neither woman ever backing down nor giving an inch. A waste of breath. It was time to end this. Past time. “I really have to go.” And she didn’t wait for her mother to respond, just hung up the bulky receiver and told herself to cool off.
She thought about the news reports. Charlene and the rest of Georgia knew as much about the bodies located at the Beaumont estate as Nikki did. Despite being on the grounds at the crime scene and her husband being the lead investigator Nikki hadn’t gotten any more information than the general public through the Public Information Officer. It was irritating and frustrating and . . . and just plain wrong.
However, Bronco Cravens’s name hadn’t been released.
Yet.
So Nikki still had a bit more insight into the case and if she could get Reed to open up a little—not enough to compromise the investigation, but give her something—she would have a little more to go on. She was trying and failing to remember Millie’s cell phone number when the nurse who had helped admit her returned with the news that the doctor, having spoken to her obstetrician, had signed the discharge orders. Nikki, complete with sling, ice pack and instructions on care for her shoulder, was essentially released. Reed showed up ten minutes later with fresh clothes. While he again checked on Morrisette, Nikki, with an aide’s help, managed to dress in the sweats her husband had plucked out of her closet. She was still trying to figure out how to broach the subject of the investigation when he returned, his face once again grim.
“Bad news?” she asked, immediately concerned as she adjusted her sling.
“Not good. She’s still in surgery.” He met the worry in her eyes. “Complications.”
Her heart dropped. “What kind of complications?”
“I don’t know. It’s a brain injury, Nikki. I’m sure there can be lots of things.” As he gathered her bag of wet clothes, he added, “Her kids are here. In the waiting room. With their father.”
That surprised her. Morrisette had never had a kind word to say about Bart Yelkis and had often put him in the category of “deadbeat dad.” “I didn’t think they got along.”
“They don’t, but he’s probably here to support his kids.” He glanced around the small room. “Can we get out of here now?”
As if on cue, an orderly appeared with a wheelchair and soon enough she was home, where Mikado and Jennings greeted her at the front door. Mikado, a small mutt of undetermined heritage, wanted to lick her face and had to be ordered to sit, so he wriggled, tail swishing the floor, while Jennings twined between her legs before she gave them each a pet, then climbed the stairs to their bedroom.
“I might have to go out again,” Reed told her as she sat on a bedside chair and kicked off the flip-flops Reed had brought to the hospital. “I just got a call from the station. We’ve located Bronco Cravens. You okay with that?”
She looked at him as if he’d just flown in from the moon. “It’s only my shoulder, Reed. I think I’ll be fine.”
It didn’t seem fine with him. “If you say so.”
“I do.” She knew what he was getting at: the pregnancy. But she let that elephant in the room remain invisible, for now. Wouldn’t bring it up, not directly. Instead she said, “Seriously, I’m okay.”
“I wouldn’t even consider it, but since Morrisette’s laid up, we’re a body down.”
“You’re going alone?”
“Delacroix is going with me.”
Making her way to the bed, she asked, “Delacroix?”
“A newbie. Assigned to the case. Computer wiz, as I understand it. Figured out it was Cravens who called.”
“Good. Then go, go.” She made shooing signs with one hand as she sat on the edge of the bed and tried to stifle a yawn. “You need to find out what he knows,” she added, and winked at him. “You can fill me in when you get home.”
“In your dreams, Gillette.” But he rapped on the doorjamb with his knuckles. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” As Mikado jumped onto the bed, Reed pointed a finger at the scrappy little mutt. “And you. You’re in charge.”
Nikki laughed, then winced at a sharp pain in her shoulder. “Damn.”
Reed caught her grimace. “You okay?”
“Fine. Just got to remember the stupid shoulder. So go already. Go ‘serve and protect’ and most important: Find out what Bronco knows.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I am. Just keep me in the loop.”
“You never give up.”
“And you love me for it.”
“Oh!” He actually managed a grin. “Is that why I love you?”
“Pretty sure.” Exhausted, she nestled under the blankets, her shoulder throbbing slightly. A very determined part of her still wanted to question her husband about the bodies that had been located and if the police expected to find any more, and she really needed to find out if Bronco Cravens was somehow involved. But now wasn’t the time. She’d learned long ago when to push it with her husband and when to bide her time, which, of course, wasn’t in her DNA.
But she’d go with it.
For tonight.
Just for tonight.
CHAPTER 7
Delacroix was waiting for him at the station. Since Morrisette wasn’t on active duty, Delacroix had been assigned, at least temporarily, as his partner. Reed wasn’t pleased about it, but the department was shorthanded and he didn’t really have a choice, at least not for the time being, so he rolled with it. He didn’t know much about her, only that she’d recently been hired and had some, if limited, experience at another department. New Orleans, maybe? Or Baton Rouge? He didn’t recall and it didn’t matter at the moment.
Jade Delacroix was young, in her early twenties, with shoulder-length auburn hair, hazel eyes and sharp features. She was lithe and trim, all of five-four, and wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses, jeans and a black jacket over a gray T-shirt. After quick introductions, they settled into his Jeep, he behind the wheel, she in the passenger’s seat, and just for a second Reed thought about Morrisette, who had occupied that spot for as long as he’d owned the Jeep.
As he pulled out of the parking space, she gave him the rundown on Bronco Cravens’s whereabouts. “He was spotted at his favorite hangout, a dive bar called the Red Knuckle. It’s not far from the university.”
“I know it. It lucked out. Didn’t get hit by the hurricane.”
“Right. One of the lucky ones. Anyway, a deputy spotted his truck leaving the bar and followed him to his cabin. Called me and I said we’d want to interview him at his home, right?”
“At least give him the option.” Reed was already heading out of the city to Settler’s Road, backtracking a bit as the Cravens family’s home was closer to the Beaumont estate than it was the city. In fact, it was situated on a parcel of land directly across the river from the old house and had once belonged to the Beaumont family. “Any idea how long Bronco was at the bar?”
He cracked his window, letting in the cool night air.
“Hours, mainly nursing beers, watching baseball according to the barkeep.”
“You already talked to him?”
“Yeah, by phone. While waiting for you. He wasn’t too happy about it as he was busy.” She explained that Guy Thomas, the bartender, had said Bronco Cravens was a regular and had been hanging out there for hours, was there when Thomas had signed in for his shift at 4:00 p.m. and insisted that one of the TVs over the bar be tuned to the local news. “According to Thomas, Cravens seemed irritated that there was so much coverage of the hurricane and kept asking the bartender to flip the channel from one local station to the next. Really ticked the bartender off. Finally, about forty minutes ago, he left. That’s when the deputies caught sight of his truck. I’d already put out a BOLO for it, so they called it in and I asked them to follow him. He led them home, I called you, told them just to make sure he didn’t go anywhere but wait for us. And here we are.”
Reed checked the clock on his dash. 1:23. Again he thought fleetingly of his partner. Surely Morrisette was out of surgery by now, but he hadn’t received any calls.
A good sign?
Or bad?
No telling. He’d phone once he’d talked to Cravens.
He hit the gas, leaving the lights of the city behind. The road wound along the river and into the woods, where the brush was thick, moonlight barely filtering through the leaves. As they reached the lane leading to the property where Bronco Cravens had lived most of his life as far as Reed knew, they came across a cruiser for the department, parked fifty yards from a clearing where a small cabin sat, moonlight illuminating the dark structure. An older Ford Ranger was parked in the two ruts that stopped before a small garage, its door slightly askew.