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ALEX AND I WALKED ALONG Greenland Road as Jacksonville Fire and Rescue vehicles drove past us. The Sheriff’s vehicles were right behind.
Alex held a t-shirt from my trunk against the back of her head.
I said, “You don’t think you should’ve waited for the EMT’s, have them look at your head?”
Before she could answer, Billy’s Lexus pulled off the road behind us.
He stepped out and looked at the bloody t-shirt Alex had against her head. “Let’s get you to the hospital.” He took the t-shirt and handed her a clean towel with ice. “Get in back,” he said as we both helped her into his car.
Alex said, “I don’t need to go. I’m fine.”
Billy and I both exchanged a look as he closed the rear passenger door. “She’s going to the ER. I don’t care if she doesn’t want to.”
I nodded as I opened the passenger-side door. “You know how she is.” I stepped inside and turned around as Billy pulled out onto the road. I watched Alex close her eyes. “Try to stay awake,” I said. “How’s it feel?”
She kept her head back and still had her eyes closed. “I told you, I’m Fine.” She opened her eyes. “We should call the Sheriff’s Office. They’ll be looking for you.”
Billy looked toward me, “She might have a concussion. We can worry about calling the cops later.”
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MY PHONE RANG AS SOON as Billy pulled the Lexus into Baptist Medical Center.
He followed the signs for the emergency room entrance.
I looked down at the screen on my phone. “Shit. It’s Mike Stone.” I turned around toward Alex as my phone continued to ring. “Should I answer it?”
She opened her eyes and nodded.
“Walsh Investigations,” I said, as if I didn’t know it was him.
“Walsh?” he said in his deep, raspy voice. “Mike Stone.”
“Oh, hello Detective...what a surprise.”
“Cut the bullshit, Walsh. Where are you?”
“Where am I?” I paused a moment. “Why?”
“Just got off the phone with one of our officers. There’s a mess down in an industrial park just south of 295, off Greenland Road. He ran a plate on a pile of burning metal they found tipped over back there. And wouldn’t you know it...it just happens to be your car.”
“My car? You sure?”
“Cut the bullshit, Walsh. There was blood on the ground, all the way out to Greenland. So you’d better start talking.”
Billy parked in the circular driveway just outside the Emergency Center’s entrance. I held the phone up to my ear and stepped out to help Alex from the car. “Mike, I gotta go. I can’t talk right now.”
“What do you mean you can’t talk right now? You’d better tell me what the hell’s going on with you.”
I hesitated a moment. “I’m serious, Mike. I gotta go. I’m at the ER. I’m taking Alex in to get checked out.”
“What? What the hell happened? What emergency room?”
Alex walked ahead of me inside the ER and headed straight to the front desk.
“I gotta go,” I said and was about to hang up.
Mike snapped. “Tell me where you are, right now. What hospital?”
“Baptist Medical.”
“Which one?”
“South.”
“What happened to her?”
“Mike, I’ll call you back. Let me help her...” I hung up and stood next to Alex as she told the woman behind the desk what’d happened, with as few details as possible.
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THE DOORS AT THE ENTRANCE slid open and Mike Stone, toothpick hanging from his mouth, walked right past me and Billy in the waiting area. I didn’t know if he saw us, but he headed straight for the woman behind the desk.
“I’m here about a patient,” he said. “Her name’s Alex Jepson.”
The nurse tapped on the keyboard, then looked up at Mike. “She’s still in with the doctor. If you want to have a seat I’ll let you know as soon as we have more information.”
He started to pull his badge from his wallet but glanced over his shoulder. He turned toward me and Billy. He pulled the toothpick from his mouth. “Walsh?” He walked toward us. “You’d better start talking.”
I stood from the chair. “She’s fine.”
“Goddammit Walsh, tell me what the hell happened.”
“She’s getting stitched. Had a pretty good cut on the back of her head...maybe a concussion. But they weren’t sure when I spoke with the nurse.”
Mike looked at Billy, his eyes narrowed a bit.
I said to Billy, “You remember Detective Stone, don’t you?”
They both exchanged a nod.
“Billy owns Billy’s Place.”
Mike nodded, but didn’t seem to care. “I just stopped by the scene and saw your car. At least what’s left of it. I’m guessing Alex wasn’t inside, or we’d be looking at more than a cut on her head. Especially driving in that piece of shit, death trap.”
“You saw it?”
Mike nodded. “Witness from one of the businesses back there said they saw two people walking away from the scene.” He turned, looked back toward the nurse at the front desk, looked around the room as he stuck the toothpick between his teeth. “So why would you run from the scene if you weren’t up to something you shouldn’t have been.”
“They were both in shock,” Billy said.
Mike gave him a look, pulled the toothpick from his mouth and turned back toward me. “If I have to take you downtown...”
“Downtown? What’d you watch some cop movie last night? Do they even say that anymore?”
Mike stared straight into my eyes and took a step closer. We were close to the same size, although I’d admit he could be pretty intimidating when he wanted to be.
The door to the treatment area swung open and a nurse stood looking at the clipboard in her hand. She looked right at me. “Henry Walsh? You can come back to see her now?”
I stepped past Mike and walked toward the nurse.
But he reached for me and tried to push me aside. He pulled out his badge and flashed it for the nurse. “I’m Detective Mike Stone with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.” He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye. “I’d like to speak privately with Ms. Jepson.”
The nurse looked back and forth from Mike to me.
“Don’t listen to him,” I said. “It’s not official police business.”
The nurse shrugged and turned from the door. “You can all just follow me.”
Mike walked right behind her and I stopped to hold the door. “Billy, come on back.”
We all walked to the treatment area with some of the small individual spaces enclosed by curtains, although plenty of them were empty.
The nurse pulled open one of the curtains. She said to the young man on the other side, “Doctor Carter, the whole gang's here for her”
He raised his eyebrows and looked from me to Mike to Billy. He turned back to Alex and smiled. “I guess you’re popular?”
I looked past the nurse and the doctor toward Alex, lying in the bed but smiling.
“I’m Henry Walsh,” I said. I reached out and shook the doctor’s hand.
Mike gave him a nod. “I’m Detective Mike Stone.”
Alex lifted her head from the pillow. “Mike? What are you doing here?” She looked at the doctor. “I’m sorry about the crowd.”
The doctor turned to me, Mike and Billy. “I was just telling Alex, the results came back negative for a concussion. But we stitched her up pretty good. Fifteen stitches on the back of her head.” He turned to Alex. “We’ll keep you on that IV for another twenty minutes or so, then you can get out of here.” He looked at Mike. “She was very vague about what happened...so I guess I’ll leave that part up to you.”
The doctor turned back to Alex. “You should rest for at least the next twenty-four hours. Try to take it easy.”
I gave the doctor a nod as he walked away from us, then turned back to Alex. “You okay?”
She nodded with a slight smile on her face.
Mike looked back and forth from me to Alex. “So, who’s going to tell me what happened?”
“Didn’t you hear the doctor?” I said. “She needs to take it easy for twenty-four hours. What part of that didn’t you understand?”
He narrowed his eyes and stared back at me. “I told you, if I have to take you downtown to get answers out of you...I will.”
Alex winced as she lifted her head from the pillow. “Just tell him...”
I stared back at her for a moment, then looked at Mike. “We were followed by someone driving a Ford. Pretty sure it was an F-250. Unless he was just a bad driver...I’m pretty sure the goal was to kill us both.”
“You know it was a male?”
Alex and I looked at each other and both answered at the same time. “No.”
Where’d you first see the vehicle?”
“After we left Billy’s Place.”
“That’s when you noticed the truck?”
“We were a good eight miles down 95.”
“And what’d you do?”
I shrugged. “Just kept driving. Once I was sure he was following us, we went past—” I knew I didn’t need to tell him where we were going, so I said, “We jumped on 295 going east. Of course, the truck’s still on our tail. We turned off onto Greenland Road, going back the other way.”
“West?”
I nodded. “Grabbed the first road off of that, don’t even remember the name.”
“Fayal Drive,” Mike said.
“Maybe. We ended up in some industrial park...thought we lost him.” I thought for a moment. “Or her.”
Alex said, “We were stopped. I was turned around in my seat, looking the other way. Henry screamed to get out of the car...” She reached for the back of her head. “I just made it out of the car.” She looked at me, standing at the foot of her bed. Her eyes seemed to fill with tears. “I wasn’t sure if you got out.”
We both had our eyes on each other for a moment, all of us quiet.
“The car was crushed like an accordion. If you both hadn’t gotten out you’d be dead.”
Alex nodded. “The truck came out of nowhere.”
Mike stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a toothpick. He stuck it between his teeth and looked behind him, at Billy. “Nobody got a plate?”
Billy shrugged. “I wasn’t there, remember?”
Mike turned to me. “Didn’t you think to get the plate before you ran away, left Alex for dead?”
Mike and I kept a stare on each other for what felt like five minutes.
But I knew he was right. If I’d only gotten the plate...
Alex said, “Pretty slim chance it’s a real registration.”
Billy said, “What if it was the same kid who came in looking for you last night?”
Mike pulled the toothpick from his mouth and turned to Billy. “What kid?”
I was hoping that didn’t come up. But it was too late.
Billy had no choice, went ahead and told Mike about the young man who’d stopped by his restaurant looking for me.
Mike said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like it if you would come down to headquarters. We’ll run you through some visuals, see if we can come up with someone who matches this person’s description.”
Billy looked back at me and Alex then shrugged. “Sure, I can do that.”
I said, “But we have no idea if the person who was looking for me had anything to do with it.”
Mike raised his chin and gave me a look. “You got a better lead?”