Alex’s CSI team had arrived, and she walked outside under the trees with Nathan to call the hospital and check on Mae. The operator put her through to the ER.
“Are you family?” the nurse asked.
“No, but if you check her records, you’ll see that I’m authorized on her HIPAA form to get information.” Thank you, Gram, for insisting that Mae put me on the form the last time you took her to the hospital for blood work.
“We have to be so careful to follow HIPAA rules,” the nurse said.
“I understand. Can you tell me her condition?”
“Hold on a sec.” Alex heard her keyboard click, then she came back on the line. “Stable and she’s been sent for a CT scan.”
“Thanks.” After hanging up, she turned to Nathan and updated him.
“Why don’t you go on to the hospital,” Nathan said. “I’ll help with the investigation.”
She was tempted, then shook her head. “All I could do there is pace the floor. At least if I stay here, maybe I can find out who broke into her house.”
“I figured you’d feel that way,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “You know she’s in good hands.”
She did. Time and again, the paramedics who came today had saved lives. “I hope they got her to the hospital in time to use that clot-busting drug.”
“They should have. Mark said he overheard the chief paramedic discussing it with the doctor.”
Pearl Springs Regional was a good hospital, but it was small. “Do you think they’ll send her on to Chattanooga?”
Nathan shook his head. “Peter Wexler was the doctor the paramedic was talking to.”
Wexler was Mae’s cardiologist, and knowing he’d been pulled in already made Alex feel better. “Let’s see if Taylor and Dylan have discovered anything.”
As they walked toward the small frame house, Nathan wiped his brow and pulled off his jacket. “Getting warm.”
“Summer’s coming.” She inhaled the clean scent from the rising sap in the pines scattered among the hardwood. “It’s too pretty a day for something bad like this to happen.”
“I agree.” On the porch, Nathan slipped on a new pair of nitrile gloves, and she followed suit. Inside the living room, her CSI team dusted for fingerprints. Taylor Owens, the female half of the team, looked up.
“Find anything?” Alex asked.
“If anyone was here, they wore gloves,” she replied. “And they knew how to avoid leaving any trace evidence behind.”
“Is there anything obviously missing?” Nathan asked.
“No,” replied Dylan, the other half of the team. “But her computer shows someone booted it up at 9:15. What time did the 911 call come in?”
“9:28. Hayes arrived in fifteen minutes.”
Dylan nodded. “He probably scared off whoever it was.”
“Could you tell if any files were opened on the computer at 9:15?” Alex asked.
“There weren’t any opened, but I just did a quick scan. Her internet history showed several searches for a Dani Collins, both last night and this morning.”
No surprise there—Mae would have researched the name.
Taylor motioned toward the hall. “I saw a journal on Mae’s desk, but I didn’t open it.”
Alex wouldn’t read it either, not without Mae’s permission. “I guess that wraps it up here. Appreciate you two dropping everything to come up here.”
“I wish we could be more definite,” Dylan said.
“We need Mae to tell us what, if anything, is missing.” Alex rested her hand on her holster. “Where’s Mark?”
“I think he and Gem are tracing the path Mae took this morning.”
“I’ll see if I can find him,” Nathan said.
“I’ll come with you.” Alex glanced around the room. There was nothing more to do here for now. She nodded at Dylan and Taylor. “I’ll see you two back in town.”
As she and Nathan walked toward the ridge, a bark drew Alex’s attention, and she turned toward it. The trees hadn’t leafed out completely, and she could make out Mark and Gem approaching from the ridge above the house.
“Find anything useful?” she asked her K-9 handler when he reached them.
“Gem took me along the path Mae took this morning. Found where she’d cut a few mushrooms, but she left quite a few behind. That’s not like her, so I figure something drew her to the house where she may have seen her door open and called 911. Then she retreated to where Gem found her.”
“Was Mae able to tell you anything?” Nathan asked.
Mark shook his head. “I asked her to squeeze my hand instead of trying to answer me. There was no grip in her right hand, so we tried the left, and Mae indicated she wasn’t attacked. I wonder if she can identify the intruder.”
Nathan winced. “The stroke could completely wipe out the memory of what happened this morning.”
That was Alex’s fear. “I’m going to the hospital. Perhaps she can tell me what happened.”
Mark nodded. “Do you want me to assist Dylan and Taylor?”
“They’re done here.” She glanced back toward the house. “Hayes didn’t see a vehicle anywhere, so the intruder either walked up the road or came in from the ridge. See what you can find.”
The three of them walked to their vehicles in the drive. Nathan cleared his throat, and Alex looked up. He was watching Mark, and his eyes had that teasing look in them she’d seen before.
“I heard Mrs. Grayson fixed you up with her granddaughter last night.”
Red crept up Mark’s neck. “Aw, come on, Nathan. Don’t start.”
“Went that bad, huh?”
“Let’s say I won’t have to worry about Kinsey Grayson calling me.” He whistled for Gem, and the dog came running.
“What did you do to the poor girl?” Alex asked.
Mark tossed the tug toy for Gem to chase. “Nothing. Just told her I wasn’t husband material, and if that’s what she was looking for, she needed to keep looking. Don’t know why it made her so mad.”
She coughed to cover a laugh. No woman wanted to be told she was looking for a husband. Alex hadn’t known Mark before his tours in Afghanistan, but her grandfather had told her he wasn’t the same man when he came home. And the conversation was making him uncomfortable. “Matchmakers like Mrs. Grayson and a few others at church are one reason I stayed away from Pearl Springs so long,” Alex said.
“Might be the reason I leave,” he grumbled.
She laughed and opened her door before turning back to her K-9 deputy. “There used to be a path from here to her daughter’s house on Trinity Road, at least that’s what it was before the county renamed all the little roads with numbers. I don’t know what it’s called now, but if you check around Mae’s house, you might still see signs of the path.”
“It’s still there,” Mark said. “Mae told me she took the path to the house every week.”
“If someone was here, that’s where they could’ve parked.”
“Could still be there,” Nathan said. “So be careful.”
Alex agreed. “Take Hayes with you.”