Dan had just checked the third floor and entered the stairwell when he heard Angela’s scream. A full-out gallop down the steps brought him to the bottom in moments. He slammed through and found Angela bent over, sucking in deep breaths in the empty parking lot.
He grabbed her by the shoulders, heart pounding. “Are you hurt?”
She stared at him, mute with terror. No visible signs of injury. He gripped her hands. “Purse your lips like you’re blowing out a candle and breathe like that.”
She did, and the hyperventilation began to dissipate. After a few moments, she was able to straighten, still clutching his fingers in hers.
“What happened?”
He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed. “Harry Gruber and his brother were in the stairwell.” She told him about the bloody print on Harry’s shirt. “You must have passed them when you came down.”
“There was no one there. Just a hospital gown left on the steps.”
She gaped, letting go of him. “I just ran by them. They have to be there. Harry and his brother, Peter.”
“I passed no one, Angela,” he said gently.
“Are you saying I’m making this up? That I’m hallucinating or something?” The beginnings of angry tears shone in her eyes.
“Not at all,” he said calmly. “They must have returned to the second floor. Probably took the elevator down to the lobby and left.”
A stroke of calm trickled across her face. “So...you believe me?”
He searched her face for a moment, wishing he could see the tiniest flicker of confidence there. Instead he noted only a desperate need for reassurance. “Yes, I believe you. Something weird is going on at this hospital.”
A little flicker of emotion told her he’d eased her turmoil, at least for a moment. He told her about the sock.
“What is happening in this town?” Angela said.
“I don’t know. I asked a nurse to call the police.” He scanned the parking lot. “Where did Lila go?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I know why she ran. Does Lila have a child?”
“She mentioned a son once.”
“I think someone left a lock of his hair along with the flowers,” she said, face pale. “As a message.”
A tight band fastened itself around his chest. Threats to Lila’s child? Things were growing darker every moment, like a shadow gradually blotting out the sun. “We have to find her. Now. I’m going to drive the nearby streets. Can you...?” He tried for tact. “Do you want to sit down in the lobby and wait for me?”
Her chin went up, a flame kindling in her green eyes. “I can make it to your truck.”
He thought how magnificent she looked. Strong and scared, undefeated even in her terror. Strengthened by God, even if she didn’t feel it. They made it to his truck and checked out all the side streets adjacent to the hospital. No sign of Lila. By the time they made it back to the hospital, Lieutenant Torrey was already there.
He jutted his chin at them. “Talked to the nurse. Lila bolted, huh?”
Dan and Angela filled him in on the hair and the dropped sock, on Harry Gruber’s appearance in the stairwell and his bloodstained shirt.
Torrey’s eyebrows raised a notch higher with each revelation.
“So you’re accusing Gruber of what, exactly?” Torrey said.
“Not accusing him of anything. Just telling you the facts,” Dan said. “He can try and explain the bloody shirt.”
He flicked a glance over Dan’s shoulder. “I guess he can, since he’s standing right over there.”
Angela jerked around. He turned to find Harry Gruber striding over, an affable smile on his face, a khaki jacket zipped to his chest.
“Is there a problem, Max?” Gruber said.
Max. The two were tight.
Lieutenant Torrey did not return the smile. “Seems we’ve had a patient fly the coop. Ms. Gallagher says you had contact with the woman as she fled. Lila Brown. Did you and your brother encounter her in the stairwell a half hour ago?”
“Me?” He laughed. “I’ve been waiting to visit Lila. The doctor was in with her when I arrived. Always waiting in these hospitals. Doctors don’t value anyone’s time but their own.” He flicked a look at Dan. “Haven’t been near the stairwell. My brother is at the clinic. I just called him. It’s been crazy busy, but we’re going to try and squeeze in a little fishing time. There’s a perch with my name on it out there—I can feel it.” He held out his cell phone. “Call him if you’d like.”
“You’re lying,” Angela said.
A hurt expression crossed his face. “Hey, now. I don’t know how we got off on the wrong foot, since I hardly know you, but calling me a liar?”
“Take off your jacket,” Angela commanded. “There was blood on your shirt. Lila’s blood. You can’t lie about that.”
Harry frowned, flicking a glance at Torrey. “I’m just a truck driver, but I’m fairly certain I don’t have to comply. Do I?”
Torrey shifted. “Maybe not technically, but what’s it going to hurt, taking off your jacket?”
“Unless I have something to hide,” Gruber finished, eyes hard as wet stones.
“No offense intended.”
“Well, I am offended,” Gruber said. “Wouldn’t you be?”
Dan stared down at the shorter man. “Like he said, what’s it going to hurt, Mr. Gruber? Put the whole situation to rest right here.” There was a challenge in his tone, and Gruber did not miss it.
“We’ve always been colleagues, I thought. You work at my clinic, Dan, and this is as far as your loyalty goes?”
“Your clinic does good work for many people, and I am pleased to be a part of that. This is a different issue.”
“You’re not pleased,” Harry hissed. “It strokes your ego, working with the down-and-out. The brilliant surgeon walks among the lowly masses, doling out free care for which you charge exorbitant prices in your hospital setting. Feeds your God complex, doesn’t it?”
Dan refused the bait. “Open your jacket, unless you’ve got some reason to refuse to comply.”
“Refuse to comply,” Gruber said, shaking his head. Anger coiled in his voice. “Lofty words. I guess I never really saw you clearly before, Dr. Blackwater.”
I guess I made the same mistake, Dan thought. He’d taken Gruber at face value, a genial guy, generous, a philanthropist, a salt-of-the-earth type who loved tacos and fishing trips.
“On his shirt,” Angela insisted, “there are bloody fingerprints where Lila must have touched him. He took her, maybe abducted her.”
Harry waved a hand. “Hang on just a minute. Before I am accused of everything since the Hindenburg explosion, let me clear my name.” He yanked down the zipper of his jacket.
Angela’s expression went slack with shock.
Instead of a yellow shirt, Gruber now wore a tee with “Gruber and Gruber Trucking” emblazoned on the front.
The shirt was a blinding white, clean as a rain-washed beach.
* * *
There was no way what Angela was seeing could be true. Her reeling mind could hardly take it in. “He changed shirts.”
Gruber sighed. “Think what you want. Look, Lieutenant Torrey, I hope Lila is all right. She’s a great employee, the patients at the clinic love her and my brother, Peter, thinks she’s the bee’s knees. If she’s in trouble, I’ll help you and her any way I can, but I didn’t see her in the stairwell. And this lady—” he shot a disdainful look at Angela “—is obviously too distraught to be of much help.”
“The lock of hair,” Angela said, wishing she had taken it from Lila’s room. “In the florist’s card. That proves that someone was trying to scare Lila by threatening her son.”
Gruber arched an eyebrow. “And I suppose that’s to be laid at my doorstep, too? I’ve been nothing but kind to Lila, helping her finish dental hygiene school so she could support the kid. She’ll tell you the same thing once you find her.” He chuckled. “Besides, I really don’t have the time to be a criminal mastermind. I’ve got a trucking company to run and two grandkids to spoil.”
“Mr. Gruber, I am sorry to have bothered you,” Torrey said. “I’ll contact you if we have further questions.”
Gruber nodded and strode away, whistling.
“He’s lying,” Angela insisted.
Torrey rubbed a hand over his fleshy cheeks. “Right now I have nothing that proves anything happened other than Lila decided to check herself out. You two need to come with me to Lila’s room and we’ll see about this card you say you found.”
You say you found. Torrey thought she was lying. Or crazy.
Was she? Or was Torrey involved in whatever had just happened? He was on a first-name basis with Gruber. Her palms grew cold and sweaty as they headed to the elevator. As they passed each floor she worked on breathing, trying to calm her rattling nerves. Dan’s arm slid around her.
She wanted to push away, but she desperately needed that grounding touch. She shot a look at him.
He winked. A silly gesture that reassured her more than a volume of words. He believed her. He knew she was not crazy. Dan Blackwater was standing with her. She was not alone, at least in this.
They found the orderly with a broom and dustpan, sweeping up the shattered remains of the vase and fallen roses.
Angela edged past Torrey. “It should be here on the floor.” She searched. Nothing. Dropping to hands and knees she checked under the bed and in the broken glass in the dustpan.
“Where is it?” she asked the orderly.
“What?”
“The envelope that came with the flowers.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just got here.”
He was tall, a good six feet, whip thin with a face pockmarked by acne.
“Are you sure you didn’t see it?” she asked.
His tone grew surly. “Are you saying I’m lying?”
“She’s just asking a question,” Dan said.
“I do what I’m told,” he said. “They tell me to clean, I clean. No one told me to make an envelope disappear.”
His smock was loose fitting, covering baggy pants that no doubt had pockets. She had no reason to accuse him or suspect him even. She stepped back and allowed him to finish sweeping up.
Torrey called for the nurse, who said she’d never seen any envelope, but she had been distracted by Lila’s violent bolt from the room. The woman appeared bewildered by the whole affair.
They continued upstairs. Dan took them to where he’d seen the sock.
His mouth opened in surprise. She crowded in close behind him to look. There was nothing there, no sign of the sock.
They approached Dr. Lane, who emerged from an exam room, scribbling on a chart. She looked at them over the top of her glasses, gaze lingering for a moment on Lieutenant Torrey. “Another problem?”
“The sock is gone,” Dan said, gesturing to the stairwell.
She stared at him. “I told the floor staff to leave it, per your orders. We’ve been using the other stairwell when necessary.”
“Well, it’s gone now,” Dan said.
Dr. Lane summoned the shift nurses and custodian. No one claimed responsibility for removing the sock.
“I apologize for the confusion,” Dr. Lane said to Torrey. “There was a sock there,” she told him, “just as Dr. Blackwater said, but I can’t tell you what happened to it. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for your time, Dr. Lane,” Torrey said.
Lane excused herself, and, as she passed, Angela noticed that her forehead was damp with sweat. Was it warm in the hallway? Angela’s hands were still ice-cold from her earlier encounter with Gruber so she could not accurately tell. Again her mind swiveled between suspicion and fear that she was becoming paranoid.
Once they were alone, Torrey folded his arms across his barrel chest. “No sock, no envelope, no bloody fingerprints, no witnesses to corroborate Gruber or his brother being in the stairwell.”
“Gruber did something to Lila Brown,” Angela insisted through gritted teeth. “And he’s lying about everything. His brother’s involved, too.”
“Nice story. Look, I don’t know what game you’re playing here, but you are the stranger in Cobalt Cove.” His cheeks took on a reddish flush. “You arrive in town and accuse a longtime resident of harassing a woman with no shred of proof to your claims.”
Dan moved forward. “Lila’s in danger. Her car blew up. That’s got to be enough proof of danger for you.”
“We’re investigating that, if you recall, Doctor.”
“You should look for Lila,” Dan told him.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” he snapped, chin thrust out. “We will look for Lila, but as of this moment, there is no proof that a crime has been committed in this hospital. Stay out of this investigation, and stay away from Harry Gruber.”
He turned on his heel and marched out.
Angela finally allowed herself to be led back to Dan’s truck.
“Gruber snatched her—he must have,” she murmured. “Maybe the orderly or the nurse took the envelope and the sock. They might be helping Gruber.”
“There’s still the big ‘why’ here. Why would Gruber go after his employee?” Dan stared out the windshield without turning the key. “And how would he have forced her into a car or his trunk without anyone seeing? Lila was scared, but able-bodied enough to run down four flights of stairs. She would have fought.”
“His brother was there. Two men against one woman.”
“Maybe.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Maybe she got by him.”
Angela chewed her lip. “Dr. Lane and Lieutenant Torrey. I got the oddest sense that they know each other.”
“Probably. They’ve both lived in Cobalt Cove for a long time.”
“What type of surgeon is Dr. Lane?”
“Started as a urologist in her early days. Now she’s a kidney transplant specialist. There were times when our paths crossed.” His voice faded away.
“When?”
“If a patient didn’t survive, if they were an organ donor, she consulted.”
She looked into his gray eyes, which had darkened to a pewter, and knew he was in the grip of memories, bad ones. “That must be hard, to lose a patient.”
He blinked. “I remember every one I lost in peacetime. Some were harder than others, but none of it could compare to what happened in Kandahar.”
And then she was holding his hand, squeezing to show what she could not say. Before she would have prayed; now she could only listen. I know you lost so many in Afghanistan. Too many. I’m sorry. So sorry.
As if he read her mind, he answered, “In Kandahar, there was a constant flow of wounded. Often I saw soldiers on the worst days of their lives. The last day they would walk, the final moment they would see, the beginning of a tortuous road. Those were bad, but the others...” He swallowed. “The ones that didn’t make it, the ones I couldn’t save. I knew they were with God, but their family’s pain, their worst nightmares, were just beginning.”
She knew. Her pain, her worst nightmare, began when Julio had died in her place. Tears crowded her eyes. It was probably only a few moments, but it seemed like a very long time they sat there in his truck, side by side holding hands, allowing grief and memory to swirl between them like the steel-blue waters of Monterey Bay. When it became too much, the pain too strong for her to endure, she pulled away.
Realizing her face was wet with tears, she patted her pockets and located a tissue. “It’s only ten-thirty,” she said, checking her watch, steering them back onto safe ground. “My family won’t be here until tonight. I guess I should go back to the hotel and try to do some research.”
“Or we could go find Tank.”
She blinked. “How? We don’t know where to look.”
“I went to the clinic this morning and pulled his file. I know his address.”
Her mouth fell open. “And what were you going to do with that info?”
“Find him. Talk to him. Tell him I’d help him so he wouldn’t involve you in trouble.”
She glared at him. “You shouldn’t be doing things on my behalf and especially not without my knowledge.”
He regarded her with a maddeningly calm expression. “Okay. I’m going to talk to Tank. Now you have knowledge. Do you want to come or not?”
“But Lieutenant Torrey told us to keep out of the investigation—”
“Tank is a former patient. I have a right to check on him. Besides, I’m perfectly comfortable disobeying orders when necessary.”
She could not repress a smile at the outright cockiness. “You’re arrogant—you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“By whom?”
“Plenty of people, but notably my former fiancée, AnnaLisa.”
“Did she also mention that you’re bossy?”
“Repeatedly. Bossy, freakishly neat, overly competitive and a sore loser with a limited fashion sense.” He grinned. “Now that we’ve got that established, are you in or out on the Tank visit?”
Angela thought that Dan Blackwater just might be one of the most infuriating and completely charming men she had ever met. “I’m in,” Angela said, buckling her seat belt. “Let’s go.”