“The man lured my daughter into the woods and left her there to die. I’ll kill him. I swear—”
“Mel, stop, please. You need to stay focused again. Okay?”
Luke slid next to Wyatt. “Is this for real?”
“Hope said he told her he saw a puppy running in the woods and they went to find it.”
“That bastard!” Miss Gina muttered. “If I get my hands around his neck—”
“Get in line,” Zoe added.
“Guys, enough with the death threats. Jeez, I am a cop and Burton here is a Fed.”
Agent Burton offered a little shake of her head. “Emotions are high. But Jo is right. If this bastard ends up dead, I don’t want to have to stand witness. Keep that among yourselves. I’m going to check in with my partner.” She looked around the faces. “Then I’m going to have to interview each of you . . . see if we can gather any more information about our Mr. Lewis.”
“His address and credit card are all at the inn,” Miss Gina told them.
Agent Burton released a drawn-out sigh. “All of which are bogus. Along with his name.”
“But I saw his ID,” Miss Gina said.
“When was the last time you saw a fake ID?” Jo asked.
“The sixties.”
Jo patted her arm.
Wyatt realized that Melanie had gone silent.
“You all right?” He placed his arm over her shoulders.
She shook her head. “Do you think he pushed her?”
“I don’t know.”
“The doctor said Hope might not ever remember falling. You saw her, she knew she didn’t go down the hill willingly. Why would he want to hurt my baby?”
Everyone stopped talking and focused on Melanie.
“Why would a grown man want to kill my child?” She started to tear up. “Hope wouldn’t step on a spider.”
“We’re going to find out, Mel.”
When she started to shake again, Zoe stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. Wyatt moved away and watched.
“C’mon, Mel. You heard Jo, hold it together. We’ll find the bastard.”
“He hurt my baby, Zoe.”
“I know. C’mon . . . let’s find a ladies’ room and clean you up a little. Splash some water on your face so you don’t scare Hope when you go back in.”
Wyatt watched as Zoe grabbed her bag and led Melanie away.
“Why would he toss her down a hill?” Luke asked the moment Mel was out of the lobby.
“God only knows. Sociopath? Child molester?”
“Oh, hell no!” Miss Gina cussed.
Jo lifted both hands. “Hold up, Hope isn’t giving any indication that anything like that happened.”
“Could be an offender trying to avoid the crime. We don’t know yet,” Agent Burton said.
“Kill the kid so you won’t touch them? Damn, that’s sick.” Luke turned away and started to pace.
Wyatt had heard stories from his dad over the years of just how twisted and vile the human condition could get. Although his blood boiled that this had touched Hope, he wasn’t surprised at anything Agent Burton and Jo were concluding.
“Right now it’s all speculation. Once we find Mr. Lewis, we’ll have our answers.”
“I’m sure he’s long gone.”
Agent Burton offered a sly smile. “We’ll find him. Every perp leaves a path. It’s our job to find it.”
“He left a witness,” Wyatt muttered.
The small group went silent.
It felt as if everyone had ducked into their own heads after Hope had revealed the series of events leading up to her “fall” down the hill.
Jo had handed Melanie a notebook before returning to River Bend with Agent Burton, Miss Gina, and Luke. Any time Melanie remembered even the slightest detail of the bastard that hurt her daughter, she wrote it down.
Zoe had found a physician’s shower that Melanie could use, and after three days in the same clothes, she finally had on something clean. Eventually, she knew she was going to drop. But as the afternoon started to slide into the evening, she had another shot of adrenaline forced on her.
An unavoidable shot of adrenaline.
Doctor Bellingham walked through on his evening rounds. The pediatric neurologist sat somewhere between fifty and sixty with a receding hairline and a thick waist.
“Good news,” he said with a smile as he walked over to the light box and flipped on a switch.
Hope was awake but groggy after her full day of tests and visitors.
Zoe and Wyatt had sweet-talked their way into the room with a plate of cookies for the staff, so Melanie had the distraction of friends while she sat by her daughter’s bedside.
“Looks like Hope’s second CAT scan is showing improvement.”
Melanie stood beside the doctor as he showed her a series of images side by side. “This is last night’s, and this is today’s.” He ran a pen alongside the spot on the film the doctors had told her was the bleeding inside Hope’s head. “It’s tiny, but it’s going in the right direction.” He pointed to a few other things on the film they were watching, but he didn’t anticipate any problems with a full recovery.