Fifteen
The ambulance sped through Eden with its lights flashing and siren screaming, putting everyone who saw it on alert and feeding the gossip mill’s curiosity to find out who was inside.
That information began to spread quickly after they wheeled Talia Champion into the ER and began to assess her injuries. The EMTs were explaining her condition, where they’d found her, and what her stats had been when they’d loaded her for transport up on the mountain.
Someone overheard “car wreck.”
Someone else overheard “off the side of the mountain,” and by the time Bowie got to the hospital the news was spreading throughout Eden.
When he asked where she had been taken, he was directed through a set of double doors to room A3. There were people all around her when he walked in. She had an IV, which they’d probably started in the ambulance, and a heart monitor and a blood pressure machine were hooked up to her fragile body. What he saw was enough to make him sick.
This had happened to her because of him.
“How is she?” Bowie asked.
The doctor paused and looked up. “Are you Bowie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She was asking for you.”
Bowie frowned. Damn it. I should have come straight from the mountain, even with the blood and dirt. “I got here as fast as I could. Is she going to be okay?”
“She has two broken ribs, a concussion, and I’m putting staples in the cut on her head. Her knees have serious contusions, and she had a dislocated shoulder, but it’s already back in place.”
Bowie winced with every injury the doctor mentioned. He wanted to break Justin Wayne’s damn neck.
“Is she going to need surgery?”
“X-rays didn’t indicate the need at this point. It’s a miracle, considering what happened to her.”
“I know. My brother and I were the ones who pulled her out of the wreck.”
The doctor looked shocked. “You went down the side of a mountain?”
“I love her, so, yes, I—we—did that. You are admitting her, right?” Bowie asked.
“Yes. They’re getting a room ready for her now.”
“Am I allowed to stay with her?” Bowie asked.
“Yes. One more staple and we’ll move you both upstairs.”
*
While Bowie was waiting for Talia to be taken to her room, Chief Clayton was beginning his investigation in her neighborhood. He took the east side of the block. His deputy took the west.
It was nearing four in the afternoon. The sun was hot, and the breeze was pretty much nonexistent. The beauty in this part of Eden came from the old growth elms and oaks lining both sides of the streets and the welcome shade they provided. He parked against the curb in the shade of a majestic elm and headed for the first house. A couple of sharp knocks at the door made a small dog inside begin yapping.
He frowned. A damn ankle-biter. Man, he did not like those little yapping dogs.
As soon as the door opened he recognized John Bailey, a fifty-something man who owned a local auto parts store.
“Mr. Bailey, I wonder if I might have a few words with you?”
“Well, sure, Chief. What can I do for you?” John asked.
“By any chance were you home this morning?”
“No, sorry. I didn’t get home until a few minutes ago, but Patsy was here.”
“May I speak to her?”
“Sure, I’ll go get her,” John said, and a few moments later his wife, Patsy, came to the door, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel as she approached. She stepped out onto the porch to talk.
“I’m here. What’s up?” she asked as John came out with her.
“By any chance did you notice someone loitering in the neighborhood this morning? Specifically, around the Champion property?”
Patsy thought back.
“No, I can’t say that I did, but I wasn’t here all morning. I went to Marshall Champion’s funeral. It was graveside only, so I was out at the cemetery for about an hour, and then I went straight from there to the supermarket before I came home. Why do you ask?”
“Just checking some facts.”
“Is Talia okay? I mean, I did notice her car is gone. It was there this morning, along with a pickup truck.”
“She had an accident but I don’t have any information on her status.”
“Oh, no! Bless her heart. She just buried her daddy today, and now this happened to her? Sometimes life can be so unfair!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Clayton said. “Thank you for your help, and sorry to have bothered you.”
“No bother,” Patsy said.
Chief Clayton walked down the shade-covered sidewalk to the next house, but no one was home.
He walked to the third house, a small red brick with a white picket fence, and as he rang the doorbell, he noticed a big black-and-white cat inside the house, sitting on the windowsill to the right of the door. The cat blinked big yellow eyes and proceeded to stare him down.
Clayton was frowning at the cat when the door finally opened. He recognized a retired teacher named Edith Fairview, who looked a bit startled when she saw him.