When he returned from the garage, Simon looked at Clarice seated stiffly on a small, hard chair in the foyer. “Mrs. Hanson, please come into the library and have something to drink.” He was already putting an arm around her shoulder and gently but firmly helping her rise, steering her toward the room at the left. “Do you like brandy?”
“I’ll just have a glass of water,” Clarice said almost shyly, not looking at him.
“Water!” Simon sounded as if she’d just asked for a glass of poison. “That’s absurd. Water won’t do a thing for your nerves, and they need soothing. So do mine. You’ll be doing Diana and me a favor to have a drink with us. Won’t she, Diana?”
“Yes,” Diana said lifelessly, knowing a glass of liquor wasn’t going to calm any of their nerves tonight.
Diana followed them into Simon’s library, which was really the heart of the house where he spent most of his time. Mrs. Hanson took two steps beyond the entrance and halted. The room spanned the width of the house. The woman’s gaze traveled over the soaring vault of the ceiling from where a large bronze-and-amber chandelier hung above a long, shining walnut table bearing stacks of books and small brass desk lamps with opalescent shades.
At the front of the room, a smaller version of the bronze chandelier gleamed over a grand piano placed near a floor-to-ceiling bay window bordered with opened cream-colored draperies. Quality antique and modern chairs and couches dominated the center of the room. The hodgepodge of styles and colors should have clashed, but instead they looked comfortable and inviting. Another bay window graced the back of the room. An outside light shone through a center pane bearing an inset of stained glass depicting a vibrant sapphire-blue water lily with a golden center. Beneath the window stretched a wide, dark blue velvet-covered window seat.
“Goodness gracious,” Mrs. Hanson breathed. “This room is awesome, as my grandson would say.”
Simon emitted a dry laugh. “Overpowering is more like it. My grandfather built this house. He demanded that his son and wife, my parents, live with him. I was born and reared here, so I don’t pay much attention to it—not even this humdinger of a library.”
“You and Penny worked in this room, didn’t you?” Mrs. Hanson asked. Simon nodded. “She told me it was beautiful, but I didn’t imagine it to be so grand.”
Simon gave her a comforting smile. “Mrs. Hanson, you’re hardly in the presence of royalty. I was a university professor. I never made enough money to build a house like this one—I simply inherited the place. My father believed the male child should have the house. I wanted to sell it and split the profit with my sister, but she wouldn’t hear of my selling the old place. She said it’s the family home.”
“No wonder she didn’t want you to sell it. The house is lovely.”
“Thank you. Now please sit and make yourself comfortable, Mrs. Hanson.” Simon led her to a large easy chair and offered her an arm to which she clung, as she slowly bent her stiff, arthritic knees and lowered herself.
She let out a sigh of relief then blushed. “I suppose I was more tired than I thought. And do call me Clarice.”
“Clarice is a beautiful name. I’m Simon.”
Clarice smiled shyly at Simon, but when he turned away from her, Diana saw the woman’s face turn desolate again. Clarice was trying hard to be sociable and strong, not to fall apart in front of strangers, Diana thought, but she’d suffered the fright of her life, not to mention the crushing grief for Penny.
As Clarice’s gaze scanned the room, Diana joined Simon behind the bar. “She needs her walker,” she whispered to him. “We didn’t get it out of her house.”
Simon spoke softly. “Luckily, I bought the one that fool doctor insisted I use after I twisted my leg on my last expedition.”
“You didn’t twist your leg, Uncle Simon. You broke your thigh.”
“A hairline fracture is nearly nothing!” Simon hissed back impatiently. “The walker is in the attic. I never wanted to see it again,” he said, raising his voice. “Clarice, would you prefer cognac or armagnac?”
Clarice jumped in her chair and let out a startled “Oh!” She caught her breath. “I wouldn’t know the difference. As I said, water would be fine.”
“Cognac it is. I know armagnac is becoming more popular, but I’ve always preferred the lighter notes of cognac. . . .”
Impatience washed over Diana as Simon rattled on about cognac—trivial chatter, considering the circumstances. Then she noticed how his hands shook as he poured three generous servings, splashing some over the side of one brandy snifter. She had seen her great-uncle enter dark, frightening tunnels in pyramids—tunnels that had caused even a few seasoned explorers to balk—and he’d never shown the slightest hesitation, the tiniest tremor of apprehension. Yet now Simon prattled and quivered.
He’d loved Penny and Willow. Obviously, shock, horror, and devastation filled Simon tonight. Still, he refused to give in to his own emotions, using banal talk to hide his feelings from the delicate, shaken Clarice Hanson. Diana’s annoyance with Simon vanished, as her love for him grew even stronger on this dreadful evening.
Simon handed Diana a glass, and she immediately took a gulp she couldn’t swallow, her throat feeling like sandpaper from the smoke and tight from the effort of holding back tears. She closed her eyes and rolled the liquor around her mouth before letting it slowly trickle down her throat. She had felt cold to her bones, but within a couple of minutes, the liquor’s warmth began to spread through her. Slowly Diana’s inner trembling lessened, and for the first time since Penny’s house had erupted into flames, she was able to draw a deep breath.
“How’s your cognac, Clarice?” Simon asked.
“Delicious,” she said with a smile. “The last drink I had was a glass of champagne on my seventieth birthday two years ago. Actually, my Henry, God rest his soul, said I had three glasses. I don’t remember.” Clarice’s slight smile disappeared. “But that was a happy night. Not like—”
“Tonight.” Simon nodded as he looked down at the fragile woman. “I know it seems wrong for us to be serving drinks after what’s happened, but it isn’t as if we’re having a party. We’re only trying to hold ourselves together. After all, we aren’t in a position to help Penny, and we have young Tyler out looking for Willow.” He frowned. “Diana, who is this Tyler Raines fellow?”
Diana tried to hold her own glass steady, although she knew her hand jerked at the mention of Tyler Raines. Still, she tried for a nonchalant shrug. “All I know is what he told you. He doesn’t live here.” She looked intently into her great-uncle’s face. “I don’t know one thing about him except what he claims is his name,” Diana said significantly.
“And that he’s brave,” Clarice added staunchly, seeming to miss the nuance of skepticism in Diana’s voice. “He carried me out of my house to safety, then he went back and tried to help the firefighters, and now he’s looking for Willow. I’d say all of that is far above and beyond the call of duty, especially when he’s doing it all for absolute strangers.”
“Yes, it is,” Simon said thoughtfully, picking up his own snifter of brandy and shifting his acute gaze from Clarice to Diana. “It certainly is.”
Twenty minutes later, Simon sat in a chair across from Clarice as he sipped his second glass of cognac. “Yes, indeed, Diana was only eighteen when she accompanied me on an Egyptian expedition. Her parents died in a car wreck when she was fourteen. Afterward, she lived with her grandmother—my dear sister whom I could cajole into just about anything—and I persuaded her to let Diana go along. My niece was particularly mature and self-sufficient for her age—her grandmother knew it, too—but even I was shocked by what a trooper Diana was, Clarice! She didn’t complain once, no matter how rough the conditions. And the photos she took were excellent! I used three of them in a book—”
“Mrs. Hanson, did you notice Penny acting strange this week?” Diana interrupted, unable to remain silent one moment longer while Simon surged on with the diverting story. Simon looked at Diana in exhausted surprise while Mrs. Hanson blinked with bewilderment. “I mean, did Penny seem upset?” Diana floundered, angry with herself for dragging Clarice back to the hell she’d witnessed earlier but unable to go on trying, like Simon, to act as if nothing was wrong. “Was Penny . . . well . . . afraid?”
Mrs. Hanson’s slender hand started shaking, and Simon quickly took her brandy snifter before throwing Diana a severe look.
“Was Penny afraid?” Clarice repeated in a weak voice. “Well, of course she was concerned about Willow. The night they admitted Willow to the hospital, Penny came to my house after visiting hours. She was so worried. I told her about my own young granddaughter who’d had an appendectomy and done splendidly. I could tell that didn’t help much, though. She only stayed about fifteen minutes, but I saw her lights on past one in the morning.” Clarice paused, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sometimes I have trouble sleeping. I really don’t watch Penny’s house twenty-four hours a day.”
“Well, of course you don’t,” Simon said reassuringly. “I have trouble sleeping, too, and it’s only natural to glance out the windows when you’re up and you feel like the rest of the neighborhood is snoozing comfortably.”
Diana knew Simon slept like the dead, but he did not want Clarice to be embarrassed. Diana appreciated his concern for the woman’s dignity, but she needed answers.
“But was there something besides Willow troubling Penny?” Diana persisted. “Did you get the feeling Penny was frightened of being harmed?”
Simon snapped, “Diana! What a question!”
Clarice Hanson raised her hand to quiet him. “No, Dr. Van . . . Simon. It’s all right. I should have said something before now. Penny hasn’t been her usual self, aside from her worry about Willow’s operation,” she said definitely.
“How was she different?” Diana asked.
Simon leaned forward. His expression told Diana that although she hadn’t mentioned Penny’s agitated phone call to her the night before, he’d already guessed something besides Willow’s illness had been bothering Penny.
“To be accurate, I have to say Penny seemed different the past three weeks. Maybe a bit more.” Surprise tingled through Diana, but she said nothing, not wanting to break Clarice’s train of thought. “Maybe the week before last I noticed she was staying inside a great deal. That isn’t like her. She loved the outdoors, no matter how cold or hot. When she wasn’t working for Dr. Van Etton or at the university, she spent time outside, playing with Willow or gardening. Yet the little flowerbed she’d taken such particular care of this summer wilted because she didn’t water it.
“This week she stayed in the house almost constantly, and she kept her lights on all night I only saw her coming from and going. She usually looks so neat, so carefully groomed,” Clarice went on. “But every time I caught sight of her going out, she had on the same pair of ragged jeans and a loose wrinkled blouse.”
Clarice frowned. “She came to my house on Thursday evening when she got home from the hospital. Willow’s surgery had been performed Tuesday and she’d come through just fine. Penny was bringing her home the next morning. I would have expected her to be ecstatic, but she wasn’t. She asked me if I thought Willow could travel safely by Sunday. I must have looked surprised because she quickly said Willow was bored, and she’d been thinking of taking the child for a car ride.
“Penny was terribly pale,” Clarice went on. “Her jeans just hung on her. Clearly she hadn’t been eating. Or drinking. Her skin and lips looked dry. I offered her iced tea or a soft drink, but she refused. She said she felt a bit nauseated—too much bad hospital coffee, she claimed. Then she said the oddest thing.” Clarice frowned. “She said, ‘You’ve been such a wonderful neighbor, Clarice. I hope you’ll always remember us fondly.’ ”
“ ‘Remember us!’ ” Simon repeated loudly. “What did that mean?”
Clarice looked startled at his tone, then raised her hands in bafflement. “I said, ‘My goodness, dear, are you and Willow moving?’ Penny flushed and burst into high-pitched laughter, saying she was just being sentimental. Then she started crying. Before I could say a word, she jumped up from her chair and ran out the door. I thought about calling her to make certain she was all right, but I decided she needed to calm down and get some sleep, so she’d be ready for Willow to come home the next day.”
“You did the right thing,” Diana said, thinking that Penny must have called her hotel room shortly after she ran out of Mrs. Hanson’s house—called and begged her to stop by the next evening.
Diana snapped back to attention just as Clarice was saying, “No one who looked like they could be Willow’s grandparents even stopped by to see Penny, much less stayed with her this week. There was only . . .” Clarice looked at Diana and stopped abruptly.
“There was only who?” Diana asked.
“Oh . . . no one.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.”
“Yes, it was.” Clarice’s gaze shifted to a crystal ashtray on the table beside Diana. “I wasn’t going to say anything else . . . important.”
“Oh, Clarice, don’t think you’re protecting me,” Simon said. “I went to Penny’s, Diana. I thought she would be too tired and worried to shop, so I raided our kitchen. I also picked out two bottles of good wine, and I stopped at the bakery to get baklava. Penny loves baklava.”
“I know,” Diana answered in faint surprise. Simon was a kind man, but it wasn’t like him to haul around groceries for someone. “Was Penny home?”
“No, so I just let myself in.”
“You let yourself in! You have a key to Penny’s house?”
“We have a key, Diana. Have you forgotten that Penny gave us a key in case she ever locked herself out or lost her key?”
“Now I remember. I don’t suppose you noticed anything odd when you were in the house.”
Simon looked reluctant for a moment, clearly not wanting to discuss something troubling. Then he gave up. “First of all, I must say that I, too, noticed a difference in Penny the last two weeks she was here. Each day she was quiet and distracted. On Monday, her hands trembled so much she could barely work at the computer. I was going to ask her on Tuesday if there was a problem, but that very day Willow got sick.”
Simon took a deep breath. “The day I went to Penny’s house with the food, I put the cold items I’d brought in the refrigerator, set everything else on the kitchen table, and wrote her a note. As I left the kitchen, I noticed four or five large, packed boxes in the living room. Then I glanced at that awful recliner Penny had gotten at a yard sale. Her birthday is in two months, and I’d planned on buying her a new recliner—something sturdy, very comfortable. . . .” Simon’s voice trailed off and he swallowed hard.
“I remember the recliner,” Diana said quickly, knowing her great-uncle would be deeply embarrassed if he broke down in front of Clarice.
Simon promptly regained his composure. “There was an end table next to that awful chair. I saw an object lying on the table.” Simon took a deep breath again then lowered his voice. “It was a very nice Glock 23 handgun, clean and loaded.”
The phone beside Clarice’s chair rang. All three of them jumped and Simon shouted, “Good God!” Then he flushed at betraying his nervousness.
“I gave Tyler Raines this phone number,” he muttered before snatching up the handset and barking a loud, “Hello!” Diana watched his handsome, hawklike face relax slightly. He closed his eyes before saying, “Thank God. Where is she?” Diana was nearly tugging on his arm by the time he hung up after saying, “Thank you, Tyler. You must be exhausted. Forget about the car—we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“Did he find Willow?” “Is Willow hurt?” Clarice and Diana asked at the same time.
Simon took a deep breath. “Clarice, you were right. Willow was in the woods. Unfortunately she saw the explosion. She saw her mother . . . on fire.” Simon paused. “Afterwards she went deeper into the woods, scared to death and refusing to answer the police or paramedics who were calling for her, but Tyler found her. He didn’t say how. He said the paramedics looked her over and she seems perfectly fine—physically, that is. Still, they want her to spend the night in the hospital for observation.”
“I’ll go to her.” Diana stood up. “I’m sure she needs somebody she knows.”
Simon frowned. “I doubt if they’ll let you see her until morning.”
“I don’t care. I’ll ask someone to tell her I’ll be there all night. That might be some comfort for her.”
Clarice began to fumble, trying to rise from her chair. Diana noticed the woman looked exhausted. She also seemed extremely unsure of herself. “Clarice, I’ll show you to your room and get you some nightwear,” Diana said.
Clarice gave Simon and Diana a weary smile. “I accept your hospitality with gratitude.”
“No gratitude needed.” Simon offered Clarice his arm to help her up from the chair. “Diana will have you fixed up in no time. We have a housekeeper—a young woman named Nan Murphy. Her mother has worked for me for years but she had a mild heart attack, so Nan is taking her place for a while. Her demeanor is less than warm, but she does arrive on time. She’ll be here in the morning.”
“Just get up when you please,” Diana added. “We don’t have a routine. If you’ll show Clarice to the bedroom, Uncle Simon, I’ll run upstairs and get something of mine for her to wear.”
Ten minutes later, Clarice sat on the bed in a large, soft gray and dusky blue bedroom. “This is lovely, Diana! Simon said you decorated it?”
“Yes. You should have seen it before—all velvet, tassels, valances, dried flowers under glass. It was my great-grandmother’s room during the last months of her life. I didn’t know her. I’ve heard she was rather stiff and formal, though, not at all like her daughter, my grandmother, who raised me after my parents died.”
“Your grandmother was the sister Dr. Van Etton seems to have loved so much.”
Diana smiled. “Yes. They quarreled constantly and enjoyed every minute of it. They seemed as different as night and day, but underneath, they were very similar. Simon was heartbroken when she died four years ago. He never married, and I’m afraid I’m the last of his family. That’s partly why I moved in with him. He would never admit to being lonely, but he was and it showed. Simon had always loved to entertain. He threw big parties for every possible occasion, but after Grandmother’s death, he never even had a small dinner party.
“Two years ago, I was divorced, living in a small apartment and making do with a tiny bedroom for a darkroom. Simon did me a great favor by inviting me to live here, but he seemed to think he was the only one benefiting. He kept promising not to act like a parent and assuring me that this was a big house and he wouldn’t get in my way.” She smiled. “Not too long after I moved into the house, I asked Simon if I could redecorate this room.”
“You did a fine job. The gray and blue are beautiful with the yellow and russet accents. You have excellent taste, Diana.” Then she looked dubiously at the nightwear Diana had brought for her. Diana always slept in one of her many mid-thigh-length T-shirts. The only other thing she’d been able to find was a bright pink nightgown and robe with chiffon flounces and satin ruffles at every opening, embroidered all over with bunches of cherries.
“When I was married, my mother-in-law desperately wanted grandchildren,” Diana said. “She gave me this negligee for Christmas the last year of the marriage. I believe she thought it would drive my husband wild with passion.” Diana paused. “One of the last good times he and I had together was after his mother left and I tried it on for him. He said all I needed was a crown and a wand and I’d look like Glenda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. We both howled with laughter.”
Clarice smiled and held up the mass of chiffon and satin. “Well . . .” Her smile faded. “I was going to say something nice about it, but I can’t think of one thing.”
Diana couldn’t help giggling. “I like your honesty. I’ll get you some proper nightwear tomorrow. What do you prefer—pajamas or a nightgown without ruffles and embroidered cherries?”
Clarice looked at her in surprise. “I wear short nightgowns so I won’t trip over them, but I’ll be going home tomorrow.”
Diana said gently, “Your house suffered quite a bit of damage. You’ll need a second home for a few days, and Uncle Simon and I would love having you.” The woman looked unconvinced. “Frankly, Clarice, I think your presence would be good for Simon right now. He and I are close, but having someone nearer his own age to talk to at a time like this would be a blessing for him. I would really appreciate you staying.”
“In that case, I’d be delighted.” Clarice smiled, then her expression turned quickly to one of concern. “Diana, you don’t need to play hostess to me. You’re terribly anxious to go to the hospital and see Willow. You’ve been fidgeting with your hair and your watch for the last ten minutes. Please go. I’ll be fine.”
Diana had been sitting in a small boudoir chair and she almost jumped up, saying, “I do need to see Willow, and you need to get some rest. Promise me not to look at yourself in the mirror once you’ve donned that lovely gown. If you do, you really won’t be able to sleep!”
Diana left Clarice’s room and discovered Simon had abandoned the library. Maybe he’d gone to look for the walker. Or he may have decided to search for the walker tomorrow morning and simply retreated to his own bedroom, she thought. He had exhausted himself trying to keep Clarice from dwelling on Penny, but Diana knew that his own mind had not wandered far from the young woman. For the three of them, the chatter, the liquor, the comforting ambience of the library had merely formed a thin veneer under which lay the shattering knowledge that Penny had suffered unspeakable injuries and probably would not live.
Diana had washed her hands and soot-smudged face when she arrived home, but she did so again and changed her blouse before going to the hospital. She pulled her long wavy hair—smelling of smoke—into a ponytail, brushed her teeth, swiped gloss on her dry lips, and put some drops in her eyes—bloodshot from smoke.
As Diana left the house and got behind the wheel of her car, she felt oppression descend on her. She wished she could cry, which might be a release—poor, at best, but at least a slight release. She couldn’t do it, though. Her tears had spilled at the site of the explosion and now her emotional landscape felt arid and bleak, like some of the vast deserts in Egypt she’d seen years ago.
Traffic was light at this time of night—or rather, morning—giving Diana a better chance to think. The gun. Ever since Simon had revealed he’d seen a loaded gun sitting by Penny’s chair, Diana hadn’t really been able to concentrate on anything else. She was certain Penny would not have left the gun out if Willow had been home, but Willow had been in the hospital. Diana imagined Penny sitting in the old recliner at night, tensed, all the lights on, the gun beside her, waiting for . . . For what?
Penny never seemed to be afraid of living without a man in the house. Diana hadn’t asked her if she owned a gun, but Penny had known Simon owned a collection of guns and kept a gun in his room, insisting that Diana keep one, also. He believed in defending one’s home—not depending on a security company or the police.
Diana deftly maneuvered the narrow, hilly roads of Huntington’s large recreational and residential Ritter Park. In record time, she pulled into the well-lit hospital parking lot. She ran toward the glass-front emergency room and dashed through the doors, her mind filling with dread at the condition she might find Willow in. She nearly hurled herself against the reception desk.
“Willow Conley,” Diana burst out. “I’m here about Willow Conley.”
A nurse with brown hair nodded absently and continued to read the scrawled handwriting on a chart. She put the chart in a rack and slowly looked up at Diana, her blue eyes set in a long face showing fatigue. “Sorry, but I didn’t want to break my concentration. How can I help you?”
“Willow Conley.” Diana leaned on the counter and casually held two fingers over her mouth. She didn’t want to take a chance of blowing the smell of liquor into the nurse’s face. “She’s a little girl, five years old, who witnessed a house explosion and saw her mother on fire. The mother is Penny Conley. They’re both here. Or were.” Diana watched the nurse’s eyebrows rise. Diana knew she was talking at a rapid-fire rate, as she always did when she was upset, and tried uselessly to slow down.
“I’m sure Penny has already been taken to the burn ward, but Willow was hiding in the woods so thank heavens she wasn’t burned. Someone found her and took her to the paramedics. He phoned us—the man who found her, not the paramedics—and said she seemed all right, but the paramedics were going to bring her here in the ambulance, so I think she could only have arrived about half an hour ago,” Diana ended breathlessly.
The nurse spent at least five seconds looking into Diana’s bloodshot eyes before asking in a cautious tone, “Are you family?”
“No. Penny and Willow have no family.” Diana forced herself to take a deep breath and try to sound more calm and competent. “I mean, Penny and Willow have no family anywhere nearby. Penny works for my great-uncle, Dr. Simon Van Etton. He’s a retired professor of archaeology. I live with him. My name is Diana Sheridan. Simon and I are the closest people Penny and Willow have to relatives in this part of the country.”
Diana had no idea if the last part of her statement was true, but she did her best to look trustworthy. She wouldn’t allow herself to blink as the nurse’s intelligent gaze probed her face, obviously deciding whether to believe her. Diana knew she must look awful—messy hair, skin pale from shock and dry from recent washings with strong hand soap, her lower lip swollen from nervously pulling it between her teeth.
The woman finally seemed to make up her mind in Diana’s favor. “Willow Conley is still being examined, Ms. Sheridan.”
“I see.” Diana tried to sound calm. “Which examining room?”
The nurse looked regretful. “I’m afraid you can’t go in. As you said, you’re not family.”
Diana’s artificial poise vanished. “But I’m the closest thing to family Willow has!” She hated the shrillness of her voice but was helpless to quiet it. “I mean, I’m the closest thing Willow has to family except for her mother! She needs me. Please!”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Yes, but—”
“Rules are rules, Ms. Sheridan. You can’t see Willow Conley.” Diana drew back, wanting to be angry, but aware the nurse realized Diana would have argued for at least ten minutes unless cut off firmly. “Now try to calm down because the doctor needs to ask you a few things about Willow,” the woman went on crisply, not giving Diana a chance to interrupt. “We know nothing about her except what the paramedics told us.”
Diana forced down her ire, telling herself the nurse couldn’t be as emotionless as she looked. The woman had to maintain her composure even if Diana couldn’t maintain hers. Allowing herself to get visibly disturbed over every patient who came into the emergency ward wouldn’t be good for the patient or the family, not to mention the nurse’s own well-being. A nurse prone to hysterics wouldn’t last long in the profession.
Diana felt her frustration begin to ebb before she said in a softer tone, “I’m sorry if I sounded unreasonable. Of course you couldn’t know anything about Willow because Tyler Raines doesn’t know Willow. Or Penny.”
The nurse’s eyebrows rose again. “Tyler Raines?”
“The man who brought in Willow. I’m sure he spoke to you as soon as he could after Willow arrived.” The nurse continued to look at her quizzically and Diana felt her frustration level rising once more. “He’s early thirties, at least six feet tall. He has blond hair and blue eyes. He had on jeans and a T-shirt. He would have been dirty because he helped the firefighters at the site of the explosion. . . .” Diana trailed off, watching a vertical line form between the nurse’s eyebrows. “Maybe he didn’t give his name—”
“Ms. Sheridan, no one came with Willow Conley. The paramedics who brought her in said a man handed her over to them, and then he drove away.”
“Drove away?” Diana asked faintly. “He just drove away from the site of the fire?”
“Apparently, if that’s where the child was found. The paramedics said he didn’t even give his name.” Diana stared, surprised, as the nurse continued. “Now if you’ll have a seat in the waiting room, I’ll let you know when the doctor who is examining the child can speak to you.” Diana continued to stare at the woman, unable to close her mouth completely as shock ran through her. “Ma’am, if you will please just have a seat—”
“Yes. Okay. A seat. I’ll have a seat,” Diana said vaguely. She turned away from the reception desk and ambled toward a crowded waiting room, her mind whirling. Tyler Raines had called, told Simon he’d found Willow, and that the paramedics had said Willow seemed physically fine. He had appeared to be so concerned about Willow earlier that Diana had been certain he would come to the hospital and find out what the doctors had to say about the child.
But he hadn’t. Tyler Raines had simply handed over the little girl to the paramedics at the explosion site and disappeared into the night.