He was finally grabbing a late supper in a nearly deserted Bertie’s, when he got a call telling him he was needed at the emergency room in the West Dunville hospital. Someone reporting an assault, the dispatcher said. Liam pressed for more information, visualizing a crowd of irate locals and a battered and bloody Baba. But the night dispatcher, neither as efficient nor as helpful as Nina, didn’t know anything more. Just that Liam had been requested by name.
He waved an urgent hand at his waitress, signaling her to bring him the check, but Bertie herself came out of the kitchen to plop the remains of his turkey, avocado, and bacon sandwich in a to-go box and give him a scowl that was only partially due to the insult to her carefully prepared food.
“Looks like something’s up, Sheriff. Not another disappearance, I hope,” the older woman said, drying chapped red hands on a sauce-stained apron.
Her short-cropped gray hair bristled as stiff as her manner, but what she lacked in charm she made up for in both her cooking skills and the care with which she fed the people who entered her front door. Barbara might even call it magic, Liam thought, wanting to be gone.
“No,” he said shortly. “Nothing like that. There’s been a report of an assault victim from the hospital. I have to go check it out.”
He handed her a twenty and waved away the change. He knew Bertie probably would have closed up already if he hadn’t come in. As it was, the lone remaining waitress was putting the chairs up on the tables as they spoke, weariness dragging at her sneaker-clad feet.
Bertie’s plain, mannish face crinkled with concern. “Not anyone we know, I hope.” Of course, she knew almost everyone, so that was unlikely. Her eyes widened. “It’s not that poor herbalist they’re calling a witch, is it? I told that ignorant lout O’Shaunnessy that he was being an ass when he was in here earlier shooting off his mouth. Like folks need any help getting more riled up, what with everything that’s been happening.”
Liam’s stomach pulled itself into intricate knots that would have made his Boy Scout leader proud. “Thanks, Bertie,” he said, grabbing his hat and pushing it down onto his head. “I’ve got to go. You’re the best.”
She snorted at him, pushing him toward the door. “You just say that because you don’t have anything to compare me to. One of these days, you’re gonna have to get yourself another woman.”
Right, Liam thought. That was exactly what his life needed right now. He slid into the squad car, flipped on the siren, and raced off toward West Dunville, praying that the one woman who could never be his was not at the other end of his journey.
*
LIAM FORCED HIMSELF to walk at his usual measured pace as he entered the hospital emergency intake area. He nodded at the clerk sitting there, a woman he knew slightly from around town.
“Hey, Louise,” he said. “I got a call that you had an assault victim here who was asking for me. You know anything about that?”
The woman nodded, her professional manner slipping to show disgust for a moment before she regained her poise. “It’s a terrible thing when a woman isn’t safe to walk the streets at night, Sheriff. I’m glad they called you in. Not everyone does, you know.” She shook her head and pointed at the door to the back area, hitting a buzzer to allow him through.
Damn, he thought as he moved in the direction of voices. I should have made her go home with me last night. Or put her in police custody. Something. This is my fault. The fact that Baba wouldn’t have put up with any of that didn’t make him feel any better. There was nothing worse than not being able to keep those you cared for safe. Nothing.
Liam pulled back the curtain over the only occupied bay to be faced by a completely unexpected sight.
The woman in the bed was battered and bruised; one eye almost completely closed, the cheekbone underneath it swollen. Various spots on her bare arms showed a turbulent rainbow of mottled black and blue and green that clashed with the red from her bloody nose. But her hair was an icy fall of platinum blonde, and the untouched eye shone a bright, innocent blue instead of the cloud of black and mysterious amber he had been expecting.
“Ms. Freeman!” he said, shocked and relieved in equal measure. “I was told someone had called me in on an assault case. I’m guessing that would be you.” He pulled out his notebook and a pen, feeling vaguely guilty by how grateful he was that the pathetic figure in the bed was Maya, and not Baba. “Are you up to telling me what happened?”
Liam had been so focused on Maya, he’d barely taken in the presence of the other people in the room. But his sense of relief evaporated rapidly as he took in Clive Matthews standing on one side of the bed, and Peter Callahan on the other, sitting in a chair, holding an oversized bouquet of flowers in a pretentious crystal vase.