Ten minutes later she’d stitched the opening, bandaged it carefully, and stripped off her gloves. Cruz watched her closely, marveling at the look of calm satisfaction in her expression. She was amazing. “You do this often?”
She smiled at last. “He’s not out of danger yet. Let’s get him on the bed.”
Cruz frowned. “He’s a bloody, filthy mess.”
She arched both brows this time. “You think I care about my bed linen right now?”
Annoyed, he stood and walked into the hall. He’d noticed the narrow closet on his way in, one of those abstract facts you store unaware in your mind. A linen closet. He opened the door and reached for the most worn-looking sheets and blankets he saw.
“This’ll do,” he said, spreading a blanket and a torn, but clean sheet over the light lavender comforter.
She’d already begun cutting off Cole’s clothing with scissors, stripping him naked. Cole’s body was white and dingy and aromatic. Together they worked to get him on the bed, and Frankie wrapped him closely in the other sheet and blanket, leaving the left part of his chest exposed.
“Now what?” Cruz asked.
“Now we wait to see if he lives,” Frankie answered.
They stared at the homeless man for long moments.
“Why do you keep a bottle of vodka in your bedroom?” Cruz asked in a rare moment of non-sequitur.
Chapter 44
Cruz never made it to breakfast with Slater the next – or rather, this – morning. After tending to Cole’s wounds, he and Frankie had tanked on volumes of coffee to keep their minds sharp enough to figure out what the hell they’d gotten themselves into.
Slater would have to wait.
Cruz turned off his cell phone after the first several voice mails and text messages that started with the same annoying question, “Where the hell are you, Cruz?”
Frankie stared at Cruz across the kitchen table, holding a coffee cup to her lips. “You should call him back,” she suggested, nodding toward the cell phone. “It might be important.”
Cruz swiped a weary hand across his damp forehead. Like this wasn’t important? But she was right. While she went upstairs to check on Cole, he dialed the Sheriff.
A cloudy, moody pallor shadowed the view through the living room windows as Cruz looked out onto the calm residential street. He powered up his phone. Another voice-mail message.
Slater.
“We’ve got deep, crazy shit going on, Chago.” Slater’s voice was rushed and tremulous. “Patch finished Dickey’s autopsy. Dr. Foster’s report was correct. He died from blunt force trauma to the head, but hell, it’s strange. The internal exam was different from the Hightower girl’s autopsy. Although Patch found Valerie didn’t have an – ”
The voice message exceed the time limit and ended abruptly. Cruz dialed Slater’s cell. Direct to voice mail. This revolving machine crap was wearing on Cruz’s nerves. He walked back into the kitchen, finding Frankie there, puzzling over the note.
“We’re going to work on this now?” He heard the sharp tone in his voice.
“All right, then let’s talk about tonight,” she retorted. “Like who attacked us? In fact, who was the man after? Me – or Cole? How did he find out I was here? That enough for you to chew on?”
Frankie lifted one brow, but remained silent after the brief outburst. Resigned, he refilled his coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. “You’re right. The answer to all those questions is – I don’t know. Maybe you were followed from the station house earlier?”
She’d already begun shaking her head. “Pretty sure I wasn’t.”
“So neither of us knows. Let’s look at the note.”
Both stared at the scribbled, incomprehensible letters. “I got nothing,” Cruz said after a few moments. “But I’ve been wanting to ask you a question.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You admitted to keeping secret medical records on the inmates that passed through your clinic.”
He cocked his head to examine her normally passive face. Right now it was pale and deep shadows lay under her eyes. He imagined he looked just as haggard. “What made you suspicious in the first place?”
She shrugged uncomfortably, her face flushed with momentary color. “I just thought that something illegal – or at least ethically wrong – was going on in the prison.”
“Is that why you specifically targeted Pelican Bay?”
She shook her head negligently. “That was sheer accident. An opening came up and I applied. I just – you know – wanted to stay close to Rosedale, where I’d been raised.”
She would not tell him about her father unless it was absolutely necessary, she vowed. That was private, personal business, and anyway, she didn’t want her father’s situation to color Cruz’s view of the facts.
He gazed at her shrewdly and took another sip of his coffee. Was she so transparent?