ADAM HAD NEVER FELT LESS LIKE ROLLING OUT OF BED TO START A new day. He squinted at the face of his watch and made out “Th.” Thursday. The few days he’d been back in town had provided at least a month’s worth of excitement. If he could make it through today and tomorrow, maybe he could use the weekend to rest and organize his thoughts. Right now he felt as though he was trying to unravel a tangled ball of yarn, one with multiple loose ends.
The attack last night had left him shaken. He knew he should call Carrie sometime today and give her that news, and he dreaded the conversation. Adam could almost hear her saying, “How much longer?” He’d spent most of the night searching desperately for a way to track down the shooter, but so far he’d come up empty.
After some coffee and a shower, the world looked marginally better. In his bedroom he repacked his briefcase for the day. He tossed in his cell, then remembered to add the throwaway phone as well, since that was the number he’d given Corky. After that call maybe he could discard this one entirely.
Adam’s eye lit on the balled-up handkerchief on the top of his dresser—the cartridge shell he’d picked up in the hospital parking lot. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he wondered if there was any way it would yield usable information. He sealed the brass casing in a plastic sandwich bag from the kitchen and dropped it into his briefcase. Maybe he could check into it later today.
The shell made him think of Dave. He’d planned to ask his brother if he could have it checked for fingerprints, maybe even run the prints through some kind of database. Surely a marshal would have contacts for something like that. But now Dave was out of circulation for a while, in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away.
Adam lifted the semiautomatic from his bedside table, where it had given him a measure of confidence as he tumbled about in fitful sleep. The odor of gunpowder assaulted his nostrils, and he remembered what Colonel Johnson told him during their quick introductory session on the pistol: if you fire it, do two things immediately: clean and oil it, so the barrel isn’t pitted by the products of the explosion, and reload it, because you never know how many shots you’ll need next time.
Adam ejected the magazine, then racked the slide to clear the bullet that was in the chamber. When he was certain the gun was safe to handle, he set about cleaning it, using the kit sold to him by the clerk at the same store where he bought his holster. He shoved two fresh bullets into the magazine, reassembled the pistol, and set the safety. When he was certain the weapon was ready for action, he strapped it securely into his ankle holster.
Somehow, feeling the weight of the pistol resting against his calf wasn’t as comforting to Adam as he thought it would be. In his braver daydreams, the stalker pulled out a gun but Adam’s lightning-fast draw allowed him to put a bullet into the assailant’s shoulder before the man could fire the first shot. In other, less pleasant fantasies, the gun in Adam’s hand was useless while the shooter fired from point-blank range. That vision ended with a black haze descending like a curtain to signal Adam’s death.
By ten o’clock Carrie was not only caught up, but a few minutes ahead. “I’m going to get some coffee and a donut,” she told Lila.
“Out of luck,” Lila said. “The Merck rep was supposed to be here today, but he had to cancel.” She grinned. “But if you’re hungry, I hid a couple of pastries from yesterday in the fridge. They may be a little stale, but I’ll share.”
“Sounds good,” Carrie said.
Lila microwaved the two cherry Danish, and she and Carrie eased into chairs in the corner of the break room, fresh coffee in hand. “Thanks so much,” Carrie said.
“Consider it payback for giving up your Sunday afternoon to come to the ER and take care of my mother.”
“How’s she doing?”
Lila looked at the clock on the wall. “You can see for yourself. She has an appointment with you just before lunch.” She took another bite of Danish, chewed, and swallowed. “But I think she’s doing fine.”
Carrie reflected on the way she’d solved the diagnostic puzzle presented by Mrs. James, Lila’s mother, and her hypertension. Diagnostic puzzles and grateful patients would always be an important part of the practice of medicine for her. They were what kept her going, even when it was hard. And the more she thought about it, the more grateful Carrie was that God allowed her to do something that brought her so much pleasure. Thank You, Lord.
Adam worked hard to follow his usual routine at work: he came in early, made the coffee, buried his nose in the tasks left for him, and spoke only when spoken to. He hoped if he did that, no one would notice his bloodshot eyes, the frequent yawns, the two tiny pieces of tissue stuck over the cuts he’d inflicted on himself while shaving.
If he were a drinker, the picture could be passed off as the aftereffects of a hard night on the town. But Adam, in sharp contrast with Bruce Hartley, was a teetotaler, and the staff knew it. So if anyone noticed his state this morning, questions were sure to follow.
Other than a brief conversation with Brittany, who was more interested in relating her own experiences of the prior evening than asking Adam about his, he managed to pass the morning with a minimum of interaction with others in the office. That changed at about eleven, when Mary Delkus tapped on the frame of his open office door.
“May I come in?” The question was apparently rhetorical, because before Adam could respond she was settling herself in one of the chairs across from him.
He composed his features into what he hoped passed for a pleasant grin. “What’s up, Mary?”
“I’m still wondering if I could take you to lunch. If we’re going to be working together, I think it would be nice if we got to know each other better.”
Wheels were spinning in Adam’s head before Mary finished speaking. Did she want to know about him so she could undermine his chances of getting his permanent job back? Was she setting him up as a fallback if her relationship with Bruce Hartley fizzled? Or—and Adam sort of regretted the cynicism that put this so far down the line of possibilities—was she truly a nice lady who just wanted to get to know a coworker better? Whatever the cause of the invitation, he needed to wriggle out of it. It had always been important for him to maintain the anonymity that prevented anyone from digging too deeply into his cover story. Right now that was more imperative than ever.
Mary raised her eyebrows in a silent follow-up to her invitation.
Adam tried to deepen his grin. “Believe me, Mary, I’d like nothing better. But I have a luncheon appointment that I can’t change, so I’ll have to take a rain check.”
The raised eyebrows turned into a frown. “Adam, that’s twice you’ve turned down my invitation to lunch. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were trying to avoid going out with me. It’s just a lunch. Nothing more.”
Adam spread his hands. “I know, and I wish I could take you up on it. But I’ve been gone, and I’m trying to catch up.” He pulled out his cell phone and opened the calendar function. “How about next week? Maybe Tuesday?”
Mary reached into the coat pocket of her stylish navy suit and pulled out the latest iPhone. She touched the screen a couple of times, then smiled. “I’m putting you down for lunch on Tuesday.” The smile stayed on her lips, but her blue eyes conveyed a different message altogether. They said, No more excuses, mister.
As Mary left, Adam made a note on his own calendar. This gave him four days before he had to face Mary’s questions. And he was sure that there would be questions. The woman might be only a paralegal, but he’d already figured that she’d be great on cross-examination of a witness.
His next step was a phone call. He’d need to be out of the office to make it, which was yet another reason not to accept Mary’s invitation. Adam reached into his in-box and pulled out the top sheet. To a casual passerby he’d seem deep in thought. Actually, he was, but not about Jason Whitley’s will. He was putting together a cover story to explain his lunch appointment, in case anyone asked. And the way his luck was running, someone would.
Carrie was pleased to find that, as Lila had said, her mother was indeed doing well. Having been sufficiently frightened by the effects of the weight-loss product from the health food store, she’d decided to substitute willpower for herbs and had lost a pound since her last visit. Her blood pressure was behaving. Carrie assured Mrs. James that if she could drop another eight or nine pounds, she should be able to come off her blood pressure medicine entirely.
“You’re welcome to join Mom and me for lunch,” Lila said as she escorted her mother down the hall.
“Thanks, but I’ll just grab a sandwich at the hospital,” Carrie said. She left mother and daughter at the checkout desk.
Fifteen minutes later she was flipping a mental coin between the tuna salad and smoked turkey sandwiches. Finally, her choice made, she took her tray to the most remote corner of the food court and slid into a chair at the last open table for two.
When her husband was alive, he and Carrie unashamedly said grace in public, holding hands, taking turns praying. But after his death, she dropped the practice. Although she was back on speaking terms with God, bowing her head to pray in a crowded environment was still beyond her. She decided to compromise. Without bowing her head, she breathed a silent prayer. She knew God wasn’t picky about whether the prayer was voiced or simply formed in her mind.
She had a potato chip halfway to her mouth when a familiar voice caused her to stop. “May I share your table?”
Carrie looked up and put aside any idea of a quiet lunch to refresh her mind and calm her soul. The voice belonged to Rob Cole.
“Going to lunch,” Adam said to Brittany as he hurried by her desk and out the door.
Although his assailant had never targeted him in broad daylight, Adam continued the practice of parking in a space other than his assigned one in front of his office building. He hurried to his car, half expecting to hear a shot at any moment, maybe even feel a bullet sink deep into his flesh. Once in the Forester, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
He pulled away, one eye on the rearview mirror, and began a series of turns that by now were second nature to him. Eventually he backtracked toward his office and pulled to a stop near one of the small cafés that was a gathering place at noon for lawyers with business in the courthouse nearby. He made casual conversation with a few of the men as he waited to be seated. If anyone at his office asked about his lunch appointment, he was ready to say he met with someone from another law office, exploring the idea of a position there if his return to Hartley and Evans didn’t work out. Beyond that he’d be tight-lipped.
Adam settled in at a booth in the back of the café. He ordered a sandwich and waited until it was served. Then he unfolded the newspaper he’d brought with him. Behind it Adam pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number. He hoped his brother was feeling up to answering—wasn’t there some rule against cell phones in hospitals? Maybe they’d make an exception for a lawman. Did Dave even have his cell phone with him?
The call rang for the fifth time, and Adam figured it was about to roll over to voice mail. Then there was a click, a pause, followed by a voice, weak but familiar. “Branson.”
Adam felt himself grinning. “Dave, it’s me. Adam. Can you talk?”
“Let me see. I have the president and the attorney general here in my hospital room, but I guess I can tell them they’ll have to wait.” This was followed by what started as a chuckle but ended in a barking cough. “Sorry. Still coughing some. They say it’s due to the anesthetic.”
“Are you okay to talk?”
“Sure. Other than getting tortured by the sadist in physical therapy twice a day, I just lie here and channel surf. I’ve watched so much daytime TV my brain is starting to rot.”
“What do the doctors tell you?”
“They say I got shot in the shoulder.”
“You know what I mean.”
Dave’s voice took on a more somber note. “The initial surgery was done to stop the bleeding and clean up the wound. I’d lost too much blood for them to do more than that right then. I’m getting built back up, but we have to decide soon what to do next if I want my arm to be fully functional again.”
Adam couldn’t imagine a marshall with an impaired right arm. Did this mean his brother was going to lose his badge? Did they have to pass some sort of proficiency test? Never mind. Those were questions for another time. “Listen, I need to ask you a question.”
“Ask away.”
“We . . . uh. That is, someone shot at Carrie and me the other night. Grazed her scalp, but we’re fine.”
Dave wanted all the details, and Adam spent five minutes pouring them out. He finished with, “Now I have a question for you.”
“Okay.”
“I went back to the parking lot and found an empty shell casing the police must have overlooked. I’m pretty sure it’s one the rifle ejected. Do you think it will tell us anything?”
“Sure. Someone who knows a thing or two about guns could tell you the caliber of the weapon.”
“Can it be matched with the gun?”
“I’ve heard they’re working on something like that, but at present you can’t identify a rifle by the ejected shell casing. You have to compare an actual bullet with one that was test-fired from the gun. Do you have the slug?”
Adam thought about police combing the field with metal detectors. “No, and we’re not likely to find one.” He decided to ask the other question, although the more he thought about it, the more he realized he already knew the answer. “Do you think the shell might have fingerprints on it?”
“Possibly, but if so, they’d most likely be partials. If that’s the case, they might not be enough to provide an identity. Sorry.”
Adam felt the wind leave his sails. “So it’s not worth running them?”
“Let me talk with a friend. Hang on to the casing, and I’ll let you know.”
They talked for a few more minutes before ending the conversation with Dave warning his brother to be careful and Adam promising to call again the next day. He folded the newspaper and dropped it on the table for the next customer. Then he rose and walked slowly out of the café, leaving his partially eaten sandwich behind.
Carrie knew what she had to do, but she crammed a full-fledged argument with herself into the few seconds that followed Rob’s request. Part of her longed for a quiet half hour to recharge her emotional and physical batteries before she returned to the clinic for the afternoon. On the other hand, Carrie recognized this encounter as a tailor-made opportunity to embark on the task she’d set for herself last night: find out more about Rob Cole.
She gestured to the empty chair. “Sure, Rob. Have a seat.”
Rob unloaded his food and looked around for somewhere to put his empty tray. Finally he shrugged and shoved it under his chair.
What if Rob was the shooter? Would this encounter put her in danger? No, the tables around her were filled with potential witnesses. Oh, if this were a spy story, Rob might try to touch her with the poisoned tip of an umbrella, but it wasn’t. This was real life. And the longer she hesitated, the less likely he was to open up to the questions she knew she had to ask.
She was surprised when Rob closed his eyes and bowed his head over his food. His lips moved, although he said nothing. The grace probably lasted less than fifteen seconds, but in that short period of time Carrie found herself rethinking her opinion of Rob Cole.
Carrie took the first bite of her sandwich, chewed, and swallowed while she pondered how to work her way into her questions. Before she could put down her fork, Rob gave her the opening she needed.
“I’m sort of glad this seat was available,” he said around a bite of burger. “I’ve wanted the chance to get better acquainted. But I’m afraid I’ve put you off, the way I’ve gone about it.”
This was certainly a different Rob from the brash, almost intrusive EMT she’d seen before. “You have to admit, Rob, that all our interactions have seemed more like flirting than getting to know each other.”
“I know. Sometimes I come off that way, but I don’t mean to. My therapist says it’s a defense mechanism.”
“Why don’t we start fresh?” Carrie said. “Get to know each other.”
“I understand you used to be married. What happened?”
Well, he certainly didn’t lob her an easy question to start. Carrie felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She’d kept most of this locked up for the better part of two years. Could she share it now? With a man who might be trying to kill her? Her gut tightened when she realized the only way to find out about him was to make the trade.
Carrie closed her eyes for a moment as the memories came flooding back. “John was a general surgeon, in the same group where I practice.” She told him of the fatigue, the struggle to get her husband to see a doctor, the eventual diagnosis of Ebstein’s anomaly.
Rob raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.”
It had been hard for Carrie to share the story with Mr. McDonald. It was pure torture to tell it to Rob. “What John had—what was causing his spells of fatigue—were runs of tachycardia. The runs were so brief I never picked up on the rapid heart rate. Then they changed to ventricular tachycardia.”
Rob gave a low whistle. “People can die from V tach. What happened?”
Carrie laid out the events in a flat voice: unsuccessful attempts to control the problem with medications, the failure of cardioversion with an electrical current, and eventually the transvenous radiofrequency ablation—the procedure to destroy the focus of heart muscle that threatened John’s life.
Finally she bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t cry in front of Rob. She wouldn’t. In a moment she looked up and blinked hard before saying, “The catheter punctured one of John’s coronary arteries. It’s a one-in-a-million thing—but it happened to my husband. They rushed him to surgery to repair it, but it was too late. He died.”
“I’m sorry.” Rob’s simple response seemed sincere.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m trying to move on.” She forced a smile. “How about you? Where are you from? What brought you to Jameson?”
Rob took his time swallowing a bite of sandwich and washed it down with water. He sighed. “I grew up in a small suburb of Chicago. Small family—mother, dad, one sister. My dad died the day I was supposed to graduate high school. That turned my world upside down. Instead of college, I started work at a local hospital. Then I found out I could take a night class and become an EMT. It took awhile, but I got through it and even got certified as a paramedic.”
“And I’m glad you did,” Carrie said. “You’re an excellent one.”
“Thanks.” Rob acknowledged the compliment with a small nod. “My mom remarried, and things were going better. Then—” He shook his head, emptied his water glass, looked away. It took him a minute to regain his composure. “Then my stepdad . . . he did something awful.”
Carrie looked at him expectantly. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t speak. Let him get it out. Don’t force it.
Rob pursed his lips and ducked his head. He was silent for a moment. When he looked up again, tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. “He did something so awful that I changed my name and left town.”
Carrie felt as though she’d just entered a minefield, where careful steps were necessary, and one misstep would spell disaster. Rob had given her the opening she needed, but she had the feeling that if she asked the wrong question, took him in the wrong direction, he’d clam up and she might never get the answers she needed. She needed to come at it slowly. “How did you end up in Jameson?”
Rob kept his head down. “There are some online sites that list EMT jobs. This one looked good. I always wanted to see Texas. And Jameson was a long way from where I’d been living.”
She bought time with a swallow of iced tea, then centered the glass on the napkin beneath it. “Would you like to tell me why you left?”
He shook his head. “This is silly. We started out trying to get to know each other, and now I’m playing true confessions. You don’t want to hear this.” He shoved back his chair as though ready to spring from it.
Carrie put one hand on his wrist. “Rob, you’ve said you wanted to get closer to me. Maybe I feel the same way too. But we’ve never had the time or been in the right situation.” For a moment she felt a twinge of guilt for the way she was manipulating him. Then she realized that he might be the same man who’d been trying to kill her and Adam. Forgive me, John. Forgive me, Adam. You know I don’t mean this. “I’ve told you about the biggest loss in my life. But what I haven’t said is that now I’m trying to go forward, maybe even let someone into my world again. It could be you, but I can’t know unless you tell me more about yourself.”
Rob’s expression was hard to read, and his tone of voice was neutral as well. “What about Adam Davidson?”
She worked to put a frown on her face. “I don’t know what kind of trouble Adam’s in, but it’s almost gotten me killed three times now.”
“So there’s nothing between you?”
“Let’s just say I’m keeping my options open.”
Rob eased back into his chair. He placed his hands flat on the tabletop for support as he leaned toward her. “Maybe you’re right. It’s time to let you know about the real me.”
He met Carrie’s eyes, but she couldn’t read his expression. “What my stepdad did—”
The strident tones of a pager pierced the lunchtime noise of the food court and stopped Rob in mid-sentence. He frowned, pulled the instrument from his belt, and glanced at the display. In one motion he shoved back from the table and stood. “Sorry. Guess lunch is over. Got an emergency call.” He grabbed his tray, loaded it with his dirty dishes, and turned to go. Two steps away, he said over his shoulder, “Let’s continue this sometime soon. I’ll call you.”
Carrie’s stomach churned, and she struggled not to bring up the few bites of lunch she’d managed to choke down. As she watched him hurry away, Carrie had mixed emotions about her encounter with Rob Cole. She’d been close to finding out what she needed to know about him, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.