Chapter 23

 

Kent Taylor’s warning dimmed a little after he left. Yes, I got it that he wasn’t happy about our looking through Victoria’s emails, but he would soon know that we hadn’t deleted or messed with anything. To save his own skin he’d have a police forensic team all over that thing. I took a slow breath and resolved not to let it bother me. Sally’s message slip was still in my pocket so I pulled it out. The police had now officially shown no interest in the flowered address book so I fully intended to resume my mission—to either find something worthwhile or discard this line of thinking.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number Carol Ann Henderson left.

“Yes, Charlie. Yesterday you asked me to call you back if I thought of any more information about the Morgan family you’d asked about. I’m so sorry to say this, but I had to be sure I could trust you.”

Her voice definitely had a Southern accent—funny how I hadn’t especially noticed that the first time we spoke.

“And now you do?”

“Well, yes. I checked out your private investigation firm to be sure you were for real. See, I think I made a terrible mistake a few months ago. Someone else called, asking about my friend Juliette … and I’m afraid I let it slip that she’d changed her name to Morgan. And then the man hounded me into saying she’d moved to New Mexico. Well, when you said you were calling from Albuquerque … I don’t know … I got so worried you might be helping him. The man frightened me something fierce.”

“Why is that?”

“I mean, how was I to know? Juliette died years ago and I—well, it just didn’t occur to me that there was any way he could harm her anymore. Anyway, I’m sorry I said anything to him and I wanted to apologize to you, and that’s really all I had to say.”

She hung up before I could process her rapid train of thought. I stared at the dead phone in my hand, debating whether to dial her right back. Maybe better to let some time go by and try to catch her by surprise. If I could even begin to formulate questions to go along with the babble she’d just offloaded. I hung up my phone and headed across the hall to Ron’s office to run it all past him.

Ron wasn’t at his desk and when his cell phone rang it startled me. I reached toward it. The display said it was Albuquerque Police Department.

Uh-oh. Despite my bravado earlier the guilts came creeping back, along with Kent Taylor’s lecture about our having searched Victoria’s computer for evidence. We really should have told him about it, not acted on our own. Now, if he’d discovered anything he didn’t like—well, he had mentioned jail time and I had no doubt he was serious. So, answer it or not?

On the third ring I succumbed to the need to shut the thing up so I answered.

“Ron, Kent Taylor here,” came the familiar voice. Some detective—he hadn’t noticed it was my voice.

“Sorry,” he said, when I corrected him. “I called with some news.”

Dread. Hope. Elation. It took all of one-point-two seconds for my emotional range to hit all of them.

“Where?” I asked, a moment after I’d shrieked for Ron to get to his office—now!

“UNM Hospital. She was brought in early this morning. Charlie, I have to tell you that she’s in critical condition.”

“Alive, though.”

“Yes, she’s alive. She has a gunshot wound and severe hypothermia. She must have been out in the elements most of the past three days.”

Ron came into the room in time to catch my query. I had to stop and pass along what Taylor had said. I couldn’t imagine poor Victoria out there in the cold and what all she’d been through.

Ron took the phone from my hand and hit the speaker button. “We’ll be right down there,” he told the detective.

“You won’t be able to see her,” Taylor said.

“I have to. I have to see that she’s okay. I’ll hold her hands—she’ll get better when she knows I’m there.”

“Ron, until we can talk to her and get her version of the events, I’m afraid you’re still a suspect.”

“What! Seriously?”

“It’s procedure. I’m sorry.”

Ron was breathing hard. I expected a temper explosion any moment so I stepped between him and the desk.

“I can’t stop you from going to the hospital,” Taylor said in a low voice, tossing us a bone I supposed. “But there are guards outside her ICU room. I’m asking you not to make a scene.”

I tried to assure him it wouldn’t happen but it was kind of like promising to hold back a raging bull. I would have to get Ron settled down before I dared let him walk into that building.

“The doctors have said they will call me the moment she’s conscious,” Taylor said. “Once I can talk to her, I’m sure we’ll get the answers we need and—most likely—you’ll get to see her then.”

He was saying he didn’t truly believe Ron to be guilty, which was huge. My relief must have been evident as I clicked off the call because Ron’s whole demeanor changed. He rubbed his eyes, scrubbing at his face to hide the intense emotions.

“She’ll be all right,” he said in a ragged voice.

“She’s alive. That’s the important thing.”

“I’m going up there,” he said. “I know, I know.” He held up a hand to quash my response. “I’ll behave myself. I need to be there, in the same building, in the same place if I can. She’ll come around and I have to be there for her.”

Truthfully, I’ve never seen my brother so emotional and it hit me how very much Victoria was his whole world now.

“I’m coming with you.” Finding Victoria alive, if not exactly well, was only half the equation, I realized. We still had to find out who shot her. What possible motive could they have had?

 

* * *

 

There are few places less fun to be than a hospital waiting room. Bright upholstery on the chairs and cheery pictures on the walls do nothing to dispel the weighty sadness and worry of the people who would pretty much give anything not to be there. It was nearly noon so added to the generally depressing atmosphere were overtones of cafeteria-cooked food, that mélange of flavors and smells that do not go together, no matter how much they try to spice it up.

We approached the ICU nurses’ station but didn’t have to ask which room was Victoria’s. Armed policemen stood on each side of the first door on the left. Beyond the glass windows we could see a bundle of white blankets with a bank of blinking machines beside the bed. Wires and tubes ran everywhere. At this distance, the only real sign it was our girl was her long brunette hair visible in tangles against the pillow.

The nurse took pity, no doubt because of the ravaged looks on both our faces, and led us to stand in front of the window for a moment. Both cops straightened their stances, letting us know that breaking through and getting inside was out of the question.

“The blankets and heat packs are there to warm her up. Her core temperature had dropped dangerously low,” the nurse said. “She may lose a couple of toes.”

Ron and I both blanched a little at the reality of it.

“Once we get her warmed to a safe temperature and she’s stable, she’ll go to surgery for the gunshot wound. The bullet’s still in there. We have to get it out and address any infection.”

“How long—?”

“With luck, we can get all that done today. A surgeon is on call, waiting for us to let him know to come. We’ll address the frostbite issues, and then it’s a matter of recovery. Her own strength and will to live have a lot to do with it.”

She glanced sideways at Ron when she said this, and I got the feeling she’d heard the news stories which had so badly branded him already. Luckily, his attention was so fixed on Victoria he hadn’t really noticed the nurse’s hesitation.

“I’m afraid there really isn’t anything you can do but wait. The detective told us to notify him when she’s conscious and able to speak, but I have to be frank. It’s not going to be until later tonight, maybe tomorrow. You might as well go home for awhile.”

She ushered us out of the forbidden zone and went back to her desk and all those monitors. I steered Ron toward the row of stiff-looking chairs.

“Should we do as she suggested?” I asked. “Go home, figure out what’s next?”

“I can’t even wrap my head around what’s next,” he said. “I can’t imagine being anywhere but here until I get the chance to talk to her.”

“Okay, buddy.” I patted his arm. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

I discovered going back to the office with the hope of catching up on my accounting duties was useless. Businesses have so many little things to do at the end of the year, tax-wise, December is always a busy month. With the wedding plans last week and the heartbreak this week I was already hopelessly behind. I spent two hours doing what should have been fifteen minutes’ worth of work, and I didn’t make even a small dent in the whole job.

Finally, I closed everything up, ran by the house to take Freckles home, called Drake to bring him up to date. He told me he’d finished the game count and was now returning the Fish and Game crew to their headquarters, then would be on the way home. He would hangar the helicopter and pick up his truck then come join us at the hospital.

I picked up Ron’s favorite burger—he’s addicted to Whoppers—and found him in the same chair where I’d left him.

“Any news?”

He brightened at the sight of the food, dipping into the bag for the fries. “So far, so good. She’s stabilized enough for the surgery. As soon as the doctor arrives they’ll take her in and get rid of that bullet.”

I had a feeling Kent Taylor would show up around that time. I knew he wanted the bullet for testing, to compare with ballistics tests from Ron’s gun. My theory proved to be true, although it was still awhile before the nurse called him over and handed him a little baggie, the contents of which I didn’t even want to look at.

I wondered if he would wait with us until Victoria came out of the anesthetic—it could prove to be an awkward wait—but he didn’t. No doubt the hospital would call him again when she could talk.

Again, Ron asked if he might sit by her side. Again, the answer was no.

It was going to be a long night.