Smiling, everyone crowded into the elevator together. In a few minutes they were walking down the hall to the ICU waiting room. When they walked in, they saw that Lucy was there with Nick and Sharon. All three looked up, stood and came forward to greet them. Karen and Jan gave Lucy Fresia their warmest hugs, and Lucy thanked them all for being such good friends.
“I can’t believe the support we’ve received,” Lucy said. “Nick has been great. And Sharon. A new friend, but a kind one. We get to have shrimp for dinner tonight, and home-baked cookies.”
“Her cookies are the best,” Ashley said, grinning at Sharon, who smiled in return.
“I pay her to say that,” Sharon teased.
“Is that your dinner in the bag over there?” Ashley asked. “Where’s Nathan? You two should go eat while it’s hot.”
“I’ll just go get him, Ashley, now that you’re here. I can’t help but feel that Stuart knows when his friends are with him.” She glanced at Karen and Jan. She shrugged. “They’ll know I’m lying, but we’ll just say Stu has a few more relatives. Excuse me, and I’ll talk to the nurse. Nick, Sharon, will you join us in the cafeteria?”
“Lucy, I’d love to stay,” Nick said. “I should get back to the bar, though.”
“Yes, we should get going,” Sharon agreed.
Nick gave Ashley and the girls a quick peck on the cheek. Jan nudged Ashley and whispered, “I was hoping he’d be around to walk us back to the car.”
Karen nudged Jan. “It’s all right. Ashley may not have her gun, but I have mace in my purse.”
“What’s the whispering about?” Sharon asked. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, it’s fine,” Ashley lied quickly. She didn’t want to say anything to either of them about what had happened the other night. “I have to admit, I’m glad you’re heading back. Katie seemed to be in a bit of a bind, and I felt guilty leaving her.”
“I’ve got to get more help,” Nick murmured.
“Sandy was pitching in.”
“Sandy?” Nick said.
“Hey, he probably knows what everyone in that place drinks better than we do,” Sharon assured him. “All right, girls, drive carefully, okay?”
Lucy reappeared with Nathan, who greeted them all warmly, his pleasure at seeing his son’s friends apparent. At his urging, Nick and Sharon agreed to join him and Lucy in the cafeteria for a few minutes, even though Nick looked a little impatient. Ashley wished that she hadn’t spoken.
“Girls, only two at a time, but they’ve let me give them the relative story,” Lucy advised them. “And we won’t be gone long,” she said a little anxiously.
“We’ll be here when you get back,” Jan said.
The older couples left, and Ashley said, “You two go on in. I got to see him yesterday.”
Karen nodded, and she and Jan started down the hall. Ashley looked around, saw a magazine, picked it up and took a seat.
Until then, she had barely noticed the man in the waiting room with the paper in front of him. Once she was seated, she nearly jumped when he put his paper down and joined her.
He was the man Nathan had pointed out, the obnoxious reporter.
“What do you want?” she demanded sharply. She didn’t bother to keep her voice down, since they were the only people left in the waiting room.
“Don’t yell,” he said. “Everyone thinks I’m out to write a sordid story. Even the Fresias don’t want to believe I’m a friend of their son’s.”
“I’ve never met you,” she told him.
“Yeah, well, and how much of Stuart have you seen lately?” he demanded.
That hit home.
“Why don’t they believe you’re his friend?”
He sighed. “Because I write for a tabloid—even though they know that he was selling stuff to the same paper. I don’t know, maybe they feel I’m responsible. I think they know I introduced Stuart to the managing editor, and that’s when he disappeared from their lives. They had the police question me, and man, did they question me. I guess I’m just not the Fresias’ type. They don’t trust me. Unfortunately, I’m famous for headlines like I was spirited away by aliens who kidnapped my two-headed child.”
“Wow. What journalism.”
“Hey, it pays the bills, you know?”
“If you knew Stuart and have an idea what he was doing, why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I did tell them. I told them he told me he was interested in the economy, agriculture and what big business was doing to the Everglades. And that’s what he was doing. Finding out about the waterways, pollution…you know, an environmental piece. But he was really excited. He thought he had something going that was much bigger. The thing is, I have no idea who he was after, and what I can’t figure is how he was looking into the environment and wound up on drugs.”