News of the girl’s appearance spread through Rain Valley like a spring shower. By nine o’clock that evening crowds had formed outside of the county hospital. Cal was answering one phone call after another. He’d surprised Ellie by offering to work late. Usually he raced home to make dinner for his wife and kids. But by now the story being told was of a flying wolf girl with magical powers over the weather, and everyone wanted to be part of it. Tomorrow morning there would be lines at the Olympic Game Farm; everyone wanted to see the wolf pup they’d captured.
Inside the hospital, the girl lay in a narrow bed. There were several electrodes attached to her head and another pair that monitored the beating of her heart. A single leather restraint coiled around her left wrist and anchored her to the bed rail, although in her unconscious state she certainly posed no threat to herself or others. It was the first time the restraints had been used in ten years; nurses had spent forever in the storage room, trying to find them.
Ellie stood back from the bed, her arms crossed. Peanut was beside her. For once, her friend wasn’t talking. They both felt badly about leaving Earl to handle the crowd outside and Cal to handle the phones, but they had to delegate. Ellie needed to talk to the doctor, and Peanut … well, Peanut did not intend to miss one iota of this drama. She’d left the station for only thirty minutes since the girl’s appearance—and that was to drop off dinner at home. Her daughter, Tara, was babysitting for Cal.
Now, Dr. Max Cerrasin was examining the child. Every now and then he murmured something under his breath; other than that, no one spoke.
Ellie had never seen him so serious. In the six years he’d lived in Rain Valley, Max had gathered quite a reputation—and it wasn’t only for his doctoring skills. Ellie still remembered when he’d moved to town. He’d taken over Doc Fischer’s practice and settled into a piece of lakefront property on the edge of town. The single women had been all aflutter; every woman between twenty and sixty—Ellie included—had been drawn to him. They’d arrived at his front door in a steady, chattering stream, always bringing a casserole.
Then they’d waited impatiently for him to choose one of them.
And waited.
Over the years, he’d dated—plenty, in fact—and he’d made friends with almost all of the available women in town, but no one could really lay claim to him. Although he was an outrageous flirt, his attention was spread out evenly.
Even Ellie had failed to coax love from him. Their affair had been like all the others—white-hot and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief. Lately he’d been seen going out less and less, becoming that strangest of animals in a small town: a loner. It made no sense at all to Ellie. All those good looks gone to waste.
“Well,” he said at last, shoving a hand through his steel gray hair.
Ellie eased away from the wall and went to him. When she looked up into Max’s blue eyes, she saw how tired he was. No wonder. She’d heard they’d found him on some rock face only a few hours ago. He’d come straight from the mountains, not even bothering to change into work clothes or put on his white coat. He wore an old, faded pair of Levi’s and a black tee shirt. His curly gray hair was slightly damp and messy, but—as always—it was his eyes that demanded attention. They were an electric blue, and when he looked at you, there seemed to be no one else in the room. Even now, looking tired and confused, he was the best-looking man she’d ever seen.
“What can you tell me, Max?”
“She’s seriously malnourished and dehydrated. The hydration we can take care of pretty quickly, but the malnourishment is serious.” He lifted the child’s unbound wrist; his fingers easily encircled it. Next to his tanned skin, her dirty flesh looked splotchy and gray.
Ellie flipped open her notepad. “Native American?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that under all this filth, she’s Caucasian.” He let go of the girl’s wrist and moved down the bed. He gently lifted her right leg at the knee. “You see those scars on her ankle?”
Ellie leaned closer. Beneath the grime she saw it: a thick, discolored band of scar tissue. “Ligature marks.”
“Almost certainly.”
Peanut made a gasping sound. “The poor thing was tied?”
“For a long time, I’d say. The scarring is not new tissue, although the cuts around it are fairly recent. Her X rays show a broken left forearm that healed badly, too.”
“So, we’re not looking at some ordinary kid who wandered off from her family in the park and got lost.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Any evidence of sexual trauma?”
“No. None.”
“Thank God,” Ellie whispered.
He shook his head, sighing quietly. “I saw a lot of bad shit in the inner city, El, but I never saw anything like this.”
“What can you do for her?”
“This isn’t my area of expertise.”
“Come on, Max …”
He looked down at the girl. Ellie saw something in his eyes—a sadness; or maybe fear. You could never tell with Max. “I could run some tests—brain waves, blood samples, that kind of thing. If she were conscious, I could observe her, but—”
“The old day care center is empty,” Peanut said. “You could watch her through the window.”