The black pickup nearly sideswiped Keoman when it barreled out of the parking lot. He slammed on his brakes and jerked the wheel to avoid a head-on collision. The other truck sped away as Keoman's vehicle hit a patch of ice and skidded.
Time slowed and instincts took over. He turned the steering wheel, regaining control before he ended up in the roadside ditch. With an effort, he loosened his white-knuckled grip and breathed a sigh of relief.
"You'd think something like this would cause a migraine," he muttered as he flexed his shoulders to ease the strain.
He stared in the rear view mirror at where the other truck had disappeared. He hadn't had time to notice the driver, and there must have been two or three dozen black pickups in the county. Not a lot with that type of black camper shell, though. Given it was leaving the tribal parking lot, it was probably Radin Paul. He could ask Gagewin in a minute.
In the lot, he parked beside the red Ford Gagewin drove. No other slots were filled, so they would be alone in the building. No need to close the door and suffer nosy conjecture about what they discussed in private.
He found the chairman filling his cup at the coffeepot. A box of pastries and sausage and biscuits also sat on the counter, full and untouched.
"Was that Radin Paul I saw tearing out of the parking lot when I got here?" he asked Gagewin. When the other man avoided his gaze, Keoman fixed himself some coffee. Then, realizing he hadn't even thought about breakfast, he laid a pastry and breakfast sandwich on a paper plate beside the box.
"Well?" he finally prodded Gagewin.
He sighed. "Yes, it was Radin."
Gagewin led the way toward his office, and Keoman followed with his coffee in one hand, the paper plate in the other. He sat in a chair in front of the desk and waited for a few seconds until Gagewin sat down. But the tribal chairman kept quiet at first, staring into his coffee.
"Are you going to tell me why Radin went tearing out of here?" Keoman asked.
Gagewin exhaled, his expression a mixture of confusion and uneasiness. "I don't want this to go any further right now."
"We'll trade confidences, then," Keoman responded. "I need to tell you what Hjak found."
Gagewin sipped his coffee, and Keoman noticed he hadn't picked up anything to eat. Too bad. Keoman's own stomach was crying foul, given his lack of food and the narcotics he'd downed. He bit off a quarter of his sausage-biscuit and chewed as he waited for Gagewin to speak.
After a moment, Gagewin said, "Radin and Annalise were having an affair."
Keoman choked and swallowed some coffee before he could say anything. "Those two? They were close to each other in high school years ago. Annalise never was the type to settle for a tribal life, though."
"I didn't know her that well until after she married Yancy," Gagewin said. "Since you and Radin have been buddies so long, I knew him a lot better. Or at least, I thought I did. He seems torn up over those kids, too. We were talking about that right before I told him about finding Annalise."
"He admitted the thing between him and her?"
"He broke down. I don't think he realized what he was saying at first. Then, when he did, when I went around and put a hand on his shoulder …." Gagewin shook his head. "He knocked me off and tore out of here. I tried to stop him, but he'd have none of it."
"He nearly hit me as he came out of the parking lot."
"With the shape he was in, he had no business driving. But like I said, I couldn't stop him."
"You didn't tell him how we found her, did you?"
"No." Gagewin grimaced. "I don't ever want to tell anyone about that. He could probably figure it out on his own, though. He heard about how Nenegean killed Alan."
"I'll see if I can find him after we're done here." Keoman finished the biscuit, but pushed the pastry aside. "I need to tell you what Hjak found on Yancy's computer."
~~~~
Even though she knew she had no business eavesdropping, Channing couldn't make herself move. Keoman hadn't closed the door completely after he asked if he and Nodinens could use her clinic office to talk for a moment. She glanced down at her trembling hands. Finally, the quiet in her office told her someone might come out at any minute and catch her there. With an effort, she forced one foot in front of the other until she made it into an empty exam room.
Any room would have done, she mused as she collapsed on the rolling stool she used to assess patients. The clinic's patient load was finished for the day, and she and Nodinens had been getting ready to leave when Keoman showed up. She wished they had already been gone. She gripped her hands together tightly, but the shakes only spread to her lower arms. How could anyone hurt a small child? Mistreat them and photograph them so they could get off on the ugly photos and horrible videos?
It had been hard enough for her to stay after she had found signs of molestation on the tiny girl Keoman found. Had the storm not kept her off the roads, she would be back in Texas now, close to Rose's grave. The child who carried Channing's heart with her into that small white coffin.
She laid her arms on the diminutive desk and buried her face. She had to leave. The town would have to find someone else to care for their illnesses until Dr. Silver recovered. She couldn't handle this.
She lifted her head and grabbed some tissues. It had seemed such a peaceful town. Small, cozy, a place that needed her, since their only doctor was aging. But buried beneath the peace and quiet, revolting malevolence teemed. Nenegean, a monster who kidnapped children, was part of the maliciousness. Entities like those usually could be eradicated when the proper procedures were uncovered, though it was taking an inordinate length of time to find a way to get rid of this one.
But child pornography was evil personified. There was no explanation for men — or the rare woman, for that matter — engrossed in such depravity.
She shuddered. Suicide was too simple a way out for Yancy Peterson. Cyanide wasn't an easy death, yet it was over fairly quickly. Had she known what the man was into, would she have touched him even to save him?
The thought shocked Channing. She had always believed deeply in the ethics of medicine. Now, though, perhaps she needed to find another profession. A doctor shouldn't have thoughts like that.
She would call Nurse PawPaw and inform her that she needed to take over the clinic until they found another doctor. PawPaw was the most experienced nurse she had ever met, a woman as close to being a doctor as possible without the degree. Channing imagined Dr. Silver had leaned a lot on his nurse, given the seclusion of the area where they worked.
Resolutely, Channing tried to stand. Her knees wobbled and she fell on the stool again. It rolled backward too fast; she missed her grab for the desk. Her head hit the wall with a resounding thud, and new tears blurred her eyes. With a stifled sob from the mixture of pain and the swelling knot, complicated by the emotional agony stabbing her, she pushed herself to the desk and re-buried her face.
Someone lifted her effortlessly, and Channing didn't fight. She already knew the feel, the smell, of Keoman. She laid her face against his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. When he cupped the back of her head, she flinched. Evidently he felt the burgeoning knot and lowered his hand.
She cried for a long while. When her sobs subsided, Keoman lifted her onto the exam table. She sniffed, and he wiped her face with some tissues.
"Will you be all right while I ask Nodinens for an ice pack?" he asked.
"You don't need to leave her," Nodinens said. Channing glanced at where Nodinens stood in the doorway. "I know where they are."
She disappeared, and Keoman pushed gently on Channing's chin in order to look at her eyes. "I'm not a doctor," he said, "but your pupils are the same size. Doesn't that mean there's probably no concussion?"
"I didn't hit that hard," Channing admitted.
"Then what's wrong?"
She shook her head. She didn't feel like revealing what she'd overheard right now. He probably wouldn't appreciate her leaving the area without a doctor. She would make the arrangements with PawPaw, then say her goodbyes.
Nodinens came back with the ice pack, and Keoman took it from her before Channing could. He laid it tenderly on the knot, and she pushed his hand away to hold it herself.
"I'll be all right," she said, forcing a chuckle. "I've sat on those darn little stools for years. You'd think I'd know better than to let one get away from me."
"Are you sure that is the only problem?" Nodinens asked.
She couldn't lie to the elderly woman. However, she barely had a hold on her emotions and a discussion of what she was feeling was out of the question.
"I'll be all right," she repeated. "I'd just like to go back to the cabin and lie down."
"You shouldn't drive," Nodinens said. "I can take you in your car. Or Keoman can drop us off and we can come back later for your rental, since I am not on your insurance."
Channing wasn't ready to spend any more time with Keoman right now. They had barely met, and to say they were in a relationship was stretching things quite a bit. However, deserting him would probably be as big a wrench as leaving the people here without medical help.
"I'm sure Keoman has things to do," she said. "You and I will be fine."