Ellie searched her memory, trying to recall how she should be acting right now, how to look like she didn’t need to be treated with kid gloves. Shifting from one side to the other, she pushed her shoulders back, legs still hanging out the open passenger-side door. When a hand touched her knee, she nearly fell off her seat. She looked up, armed with an extrabiting glare, but it wasn’t Chet looking back at her. It was Travis.
“Hey, Ellie.” He used her first name again. It was unnerving. She wanted the good-natured teasing back, the jokes about cops eating doughnuts and firefighters failing the police exam. “How are you doing?”
The fire department and police department crossed paths often, and Ellie had made a few friends over the past several months. There was one officer whom she always seemed to end up talking to at the end of a difficult call or who would stop by the firehouse when she was on duty, and that was Officer Rivera.
Though he seemed genuinely concerned, the part of her that just wanted to get on the road and to the hospital outweighed the polite, friendly parts she usually lived her life by.
“I’m fine! Would everyone stop asking me that? I just want to get to the hospital.” Ellie leaned forward and tried to look around the back of the rig, not even caring that her face was inches from Travis’s. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he took in her expression silently in a way that was graver than Chet’s earlier assessment.
“Chet! Let’s go!” Ellie called, and then swung her legs into the cabin of the ambulance, hand on the door. “Sorry, Trav, I gotta go.”
But Travis didn’t move. He just stood in the way of the door, thumbs hooked into the Velcro panels of his bulletproof vest.
“I’m sorry, Ellie, but we need to talk. I need some information from you about the scene, about your sister and her husband. I know the timing sucks, but . . .” Chet slid into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition.
“Ready?” he asked, not waiting for an answer before revving the engine. So he wasn’t going to push for an assessment after all. Ellie owed a lot to Chet today, maybe even her sister’s life. She nodded at Chet and then returned her attention to Travis.
“If you want to ask me questions, you are going to have to get yourself and your badge into a car and follow me to the hospital, because I’m not answering anything until then.” She pulled on the handle until the door bumped Travis’s shoulder. “Now, please move.”
“Brown,” Travis said through gritted teeth, bracing his hand against the door. Something in the forceful nature of this movement reminded Ellie that he took down men with guns for a living. She tossed her soiled paramedic shirt onto the floor of the truck and put her feet on top of it. Then she wrapped the seat belt around her chest and waist. If Travis wanted to get her out of the ambulance, he’d have to drag her.
Immediately guilt tugged at her conscience. Travis was trying to help. He was trying to find out what happened inside that house. He wasn’t the enemy. Ellie blinked three times, staring at the mailbox that held the tarnished gold numbers representing her sister’s address. Then she looked directly into Travis’s dark, stormy eyes.
“This is my sister, Trav. She’s all I’ve got left of my family.” And then her voice cracked, any attempt at sounding professional lost. “Please let me go.”
Travis’s fingers danced on the door panel, the thump thump thump echoing in Ellie’s ears like a heartbeat. His flat palm against the plastic interior, Travis took a deep breath through his nose and then stepped back.
“Fine. You win.” He put his hands up in defeat and stepped up on the soggy grass on the side of the road. “I’ll see you at the hospital.”
“Thank you,” Ellie said, remembering to give a little nod of appreciation, since a smile was beyond her capabilities at the moment. The sound of the door slamming shut filled Ellie with a brief moment of relief. Finally. She settled back in her seat, wrapping her arms around her body, the tank top she’d been wearing as an undershirt not providing nearly enough warmth now that the adrenaline was wearing off. When Chet shifted the rig into drive, Ellie shot up in her seat. How could she have forgotten?
“Chet, stop!”
“Stop?” He looked at her from the corner of his eye, confused.
“Stop,” she repeated. He put his foot on the brake, and Ellie pushed the button on her window. It lowered with a whir. “Travis!” she shouted. Travis cocked his head and took a step forward.
“You okay?”
“Yeah! I forgot something.” She leaned out the window as far as her seat belt would let her. Ellie pointed toward a light pole with a black rounded box midway up. “Amelia and Steve had them installed two weeks ago.”
“What?” Travis searched in the general direction of her finger and took another step toward the car.
“Those.” Ellie couldn’t believe it’d taken her this long to remember. Someone entered Amelia’s house with guns, ammunition, and dangerous intention. Who and why were still a mystery, a mystery that could at least be partially solved by the newly installed devices she was pointing at. She motioned for Chet to start driving, afraid that Travis would make her stop and talk if they didn’t escape quickly. She shouted one more time before flicking on the sirens and lights. “They just put in security cameras.”
Chet took off with a lurch, and Ellie rolled up the window, not looking back. Then she let herself get lost in the scream of the siren, forcing herself not to consider what was waiting for her at the hospital.
CHAPTER 10
AMELIA
Tuesday, April 5
Five weeks earlier
Of course today had to be the coldest day of the week so far. Amelia shivered. She’d been sitting on a bench with her back to the cement fountain in the middle of Broadlands Park for twenty minutes. She knew it was crazy to show up so early, but she seemed to finish every one of her morning tasks really quickly, bringing her to this exact spot at eleven forty-five. At the time, she’d just sighed and decided it was a good opportunity to clean out her in-box and old apps on her phone, but now her fingers were frozen and the phone dangerously low on power.
Five past noon and still no sign of either Steve or the mysterious Sue-z-Q. Well, at least as far as she could tell. The old lady feeding the pigeons two benches over could potentially be good ole Suze, but Amelia highly doubted it unless she was hiding hot coffee in her quilted handbag.
Where the heck were they?