JOANNA BUGGED OUT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE A FEW MINUTES early, raced home, and spent half an hour feeding Sage. It turned out to be good timing for both mother and child, and a lot less complicated than using the breast pump. She showed up at the hospital a good fifteen minutes before Latisha’s parents were due to arrive, so she popped into the ICU long enough to say hello to Tom.
“You gave us quite a scare,” she said accusingly.
“I know. Sorry. How did the press conference go?”
“It was a three-ring circus. Marliss was surprisingly subdued, but Ernie did all right.”
“See there?” Tom said with a smile. “I told you he’s a natural.”
“Enough about the case,” Joanna said. “What about you?”
“I’ve got a blockage,” he said. “I’m going to need a stent. I’m sorry about this, Sheriff Brady. I know you were counting on me—”
“And you came through with flying colors,” Joanna said. “What you need to do now is concentrate on getting well.”
“It was really rough,” Tom said. “What he did to all those girls . . .”
Shaking his head, he left the rest of it unsaid, but Joanna knew that the mental anguish caused by what Tom Hadlock had encountered the day before would be far more difficult to banish than a chest pain which could be easily remedied with the simple installation of a medical device. One was a wound to the body, while the other had damaged his soul.
“By the way,” Joanna added, “Deb told me to give you a message. You remember that chair you were sitting in yesterday, the one in Calhoun?”
“Right,” Tom said, “the one under the tree. What about it?”
“She said that as they were getting ready to head out, she took a look at that chair and saw something that looked suspicious to her. She brought it back to the lab, sprayed it with luminol, and guess what?”
“What?”
“It lit up like a Christmas tree. She thinks Arthur Ardmore was sitting in that chair at the time someone shot him.”
“So Jimmy assumed Arthur’s identity and has been masquerading as him ever since?”
“That’s how it looks.”
Tom breathed a sigh of relief. “At least now we know where it happened.”
Leaving Tom behind, Joanna arrived at Latisha’s room a few minutes later, where she found the patient sitting up in bed with a bright turquoise blue scarf wrapped around her head. The improvement in Latisha’s appearance between yesterday and today was nothing short of remarkable.
“You came!” Latisha said.
“Of course I came,” Joanna replied. “You asked me to, didn’t you?”
“But where’s your baby?”
“Sage is at home today with her father.”
“But she was with you yesterday,” Latisha objected.
“Yesterday I was on maternity leave. Today I’m working.”
There was a flurry of activity out in the hallway, and a man and a woman charged into the room. The woman raced past Joanna without a sideways glance and rushed straight to Latisha’s bedside, smothering the girl in a heartfelt embrace, while the man hung back, as if uncertain of his reception. He was the one Joanna approached with her hand outstretched.
“I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady,” she said.
“And I’m Lyle Richards, Latisha’s stepfather.”
“Your stepdaughter’s one brave individual,” Joanna said. “She escaped the clutches of a very dangerous man, and in the process she ended up saving the life of one of my deputies.”
“Yup,” said Lyle. “That’s our girl.”
“Lyle,” a small voice called, summoning him from the far side of the room. Stepping away from Joanna, Lyle turned and approached the bed.
“How are you doing?” he asked, almost as though he were inquiring after the health of a total stranger. “I hear you’ve been out making like a superhero.”
“I’m not the superhero,” Latisha told him. “You’re the one who saved me.”
A look of utter astonishment crossed Lyle’s face. “Me?” he asked in disbelief. “How did I save you?”
“I remembered some of the words you used to say to me, the ones I always thought were so stupid,” she told him. “And remembering them gave me courage.”
“What words?”
“ ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ ”
“That one?” he asked with a chuckle. “If that’s what did the trick, I’m not the one who saved you. My mother did, because she’s the one who gave those words to me.”
“What you said,” Latisha told him, “and your pancakes. When we were locked in the basement and chained to the wall with nothing to eat but dog food, the other girls—Sandra and Sadie and Amelia—and me, all we did was talk about food. Sadie talked about her grandmother’s fried chicken. Sandra remembered her foster mother’s chocolate-chip cookies. Amelia was all about her grandmother’s tamales. As for me? I told them about your Saturday-morning pancakes. Do you still make them?”
“I haven’t made them in a very long time,” Lyle admitted. “Not since you’ve been gone, but I will again, once you’re home, I promise.”
“Have you ever had tamales?” Latisha asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Many times.”
“Where did you get them? In St. Louis?”
“When I enlisted in the army right out of high school, I ended up being stationed just a few miles from here, at Fort Huachuca. I ate tamales all the time.”
“Do you think I’d like them?”
“Your mom and I will go out later, find one, and bring it to you,” he said. “That way you’ll be able to decide for yourself.”
“But tell us what happened,” Lou Ann said. “From the beginning. You really had to eat dog food?”
As they pulled chairs close to their daughter’s bed, ready to hear her story, Joanna realized that although Latisha had wanted her to be there to begin with, they were gathered as a family now, and her presence was no longer required.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, edging her way toward the door, “I’ll be on my way.”
She was gone seconds later, and it seemed unlikely that any of them noticed.