It wasn’t going to work.
“Yeah, it’s sad. It’s terrible. But where’s the gold?”
Jane was thoughtful. “It’s in the theater.”
“Why the theater? It could be anywhere. We just dug out a wall and found the note. And here’s another question—why kill Berman? He was a stranger as far as we know. Berman, and then Caleb Hough. Hough is probably involved. But...why kill people, when the gold hasn’t even been uncovered?”
“They both had to be in on it,” Jane insisted.
“You seem convinced,” Kelsey said. “I’m going to call Logan again. If the county cops are handling whatever they just found in the mine, Logan can come back and get started on figuring out the connection. There has to be a connection.”
“I think I know,” Jane said slowly.
“Know what? The connection?”
Jane nodded. “How do you best hide anything?”
“Um, in a deep hole?” Kelsey suggested.
Jane laughed. “No. In plain sight. I think one of these conspirators found some of the gold, maybe a piece. He brought them all in on it, but the hiding place must be so obvious that no one’s seeing it.”
“Right. No one—like any one of us.”
“So, call Logan and tell him about the note. Meanwhile, we’ll go check out the theater.”
*
The county officer on duty at the hospital, a conscientious man in his late twenties, was distressed when Sloan arrived at Jennie Layton’s room.
He started to move a few feet from the door to greet Sloan, and Sloan smiled as he heard Jennie calling out, “Don’t you leave me, young man!”
He grimaced as he saw Sloan, speaking softly. “I keep telling her I have to keep an eye on three people here and she’s just one of them. She doesn’t want me to leave her, not for a minute.”
“It’s okay. Go see Jimmy and Zoe Hough. I’m here. Do you know what got her so upset?”
He shook his head.
Sloan went in to be with Jennie. “Hey,” he told her. “You have that young officer all in a dither, Jennie. What’s up?”
“They’re going to find me now, and they’re going to kill me!” she said, her voice hushed. She glanced at the door as she spoke.
“Who are they and how are they going to find you?” Sloan asked.
“They know I’m here. Maybe they didn’t mean to kill me at first, but they do now,” Jennie said decisively.
He sat for a minute, wondering if—despite her job or perhaps because of it—she was still essentially a lonely aging woman with no family of her own.
“Jennie, we haven’t let it out that you’ve even regained consciousness.”
“There’s someone in here, watching me,” Jennie said stubbornly. “One of the nurses, I think.”
“None of these nurses has anything to do with the theater.” He took her hand. “This is a county hospital. We’re from the little town of Lily. Honestly, a lot of county people hardly know we exist.”
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You’re wrong. Someone is here, Sloan. Watching me—waiting for an opportunity.”
Sloan was torn. Jennie obviously felt afraid, certain of her own conviction. He didn’t want to sit at the hospital and worry about her imagined fear. Just as he began to tell her that he couldn’t stay with her, he noticed a nurse hovering in the doorway.
“I’ll come back,” the woman said in a husky voice. She had long dark hair with bangs and wore glasses with large green plastic frames.
“No, no, come in, we’re just talking,” Sloan said.
“It’s all right. I can, uh, check Ms. Layton’s vitals later,” the nurse said, and turned quickly to move down the hall.
Sloan stood, frowning. He wouldn’t say that the nurse had been ugly, but she had a strange, rather masculine look to her.
He lit out of the room.
“Sloan, don’t leave me!” Jennie cried.
“Stop!” Sloan commanded in the hallway, watching the nurse all but run away. “Stop!”
He was completely ignored. He didn’t want to threaten to fire or shoot off a warning in a hospital. With Jennie’s voice fading in the background, he tore after the nurse.
The nurse looked back and then forward, running, pushing a work cart between the two of them. It flipped onto its side, and Sloan hopped over it as paper cups filled with medications flew into the air and onto the floor.
He caught the nurse about twenty feet past the overturned cart. Tackling the buxom brunette from the rear, he brought both of them down. He finally straddled his madly scrambling prey.
The brunette wig fell off, so did the glasses. He found himself staring down into the face of Brian Highsmith—easily recognizable now despite the eye makeup and bright red lipstick.
“Brian, you’re under arrest for the murder—”
“No, Sloan, no, please! This isn’t what it looks like,” Brian wailed.
By then, they had an audience. Patients, some dragging their IVs, had come out to the hall. Nurses, doctors and orderlies, as well.