“Yes?”
“Can you tell me how he’s doing?”
“No.” He lunged his very short haircut, square glasses, and stethoscope eight steps down the hall before Lily caught up.
“But I’m the next of kin. You have to talk to me.”
Square Glasses sighed and flipped the chart while still walking. “So you are.”
Her feet started burning. “Could you stop a second? I have—my feet are sore. Please. Just an update.”
He stopped but stared at a picture on the wall while he spoke. “It could go either way. If he responds to the antibiotics over the next twenty-four hours, he has a chance. But I don’t want to offer false hope. He’s unconscious.”
Lily watched the tails of his coat disappear down the hall. What was up with that? She twisted her head to study the expressionless guard. Poor, huh? Guess that meant Art’s secrets were going with him. Lily tried hard to find some regret. Her well of sympathy was drained for a guy who told little kids that all black guys should be in prison.
Kenny would have known his voice, so it must have been someone else on the phone with Berta. Lily wandered on slowly, glad of the exercise, to be out of Kenny’s room. The doctor would be releasing him soon, and child protective services had been to see him right before lunch. Things were pretty complicated.
She took the elevator down to the first floor. On the other side of the big reception area, glass doors separated the emergency entrance. Was that…?
Creeping closer, she eyed the people who manned the various desks, hoping no one would stop her. Forbes stood on the other side of the glass, fists on hips, feet wide, anger and sorrow leaping from every inch of him. He barked at a black-clad woman nearby, the one who grabbed Cam the other night. What was she doing here? It couldn’t be about Cam, could it? Where was he?
With another check of the desks, she quickly palmed the silver plate that said “Open” in blue letters and slipped inside. Forbes’s knuckles were bloody.
The female agent gestured. “We called for backup. I told you, he was already down…”
Forbes ignored a nurse who tried to hand him a towel. “I don’t want that. I want…”
Someone grabbed Lily from behind and she gasped. “Oh! It’s you.” She recognized Cam by touch, by heat, by chemistry of scent, when his cold nose burrowed into the side of her neck. It didn’t matter, as long as he was not the donor of the blood on the agent’s hands. She turned swiftly and took a deep breath. “You’re all right? What’s going on?”
Cam closed his eyes and raised his face. She watched his Adam’s apple bob. “Stewart…” he said.
Lily started to tighten her grip on his arms until the warning tingle stopped her. “Is he…”
“I don’t know. He was shot.”
“Where?”
“In the back. They weren’t man enough to wait until he turned—”
“I meant, where was he when…when it…?”
Cam drew her close again and rested his chin on her temple. “By my place. He was out there to meet us for another look around.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Everything is such a mess,” he said. “It’s like a really bad true crime story.”
Lily turned her head slightly so she could view the agents. “What’s she doing here?”
“Deice? She’s the one who’s investigating Internet hacks.”
“Yeah, so why is she here?” Lily asked again, wondering if Cam was in shock. He seemed to be missing the point too frequently.
“From what I could tell, she and her partner were trying to track me down again for a little more interrogation when they came across the shooting.”
“She’s got Forbes pretty upset.”
“Yeah, nothing gets to a fed like seeing his partner shot.”
Lily pulled away and took a step back. She palmed Cam’s face, feeling his jaw muscles clench and release. “You watched it happen? You saw who—”
“No…no. I just meant…it could have been us out there. We went to check out the ambulance first and let Stewart…let him take the hit. We were on the way.”
“I’m sorry about all this. I really am, but I’m more worried about you, and Kenny. And my stupid sister.”
“And what about you?” Cam seemed fired up as he looked at the doors she’d come through. “Where’s the guard? Who’s watching you?”
She squirmed. “Deegan’s on guard with Kenny. I’m all right.”
Cam walked backward two feet and slid into a plastic chair. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s just…it’s like after a firefight, ya know? Adrenaline rush and all. I’m sorry.”
Forbes turned in their direction, anger still emanating from him like an invisible shield. Deice had moved away and spoke urgently into her phone. Lily sat next to Cam who slumped over, putting his elbows on his knees and locking his fingers behind his neck. She put her hand on his back and waited. People came and went from the bay and from behind the desk. No one seemed to pay them any attention.
“Why he thought I would make a good agent, I have no idea,” he mumbled through his fingers.
Figured—that was why Forbes stuck to Cam so hard. Lily brushed her hand along his shoulder blades. He straightened and took her hand to study the damage from the frostbite.
“You should take it easy yet,” he said, and enfolded her hand between his, the warmth and callouses reminding her of the comfort and help he’d provided since he’d found her in the woods.
“I’m trying.”
“And I guess if there’s no one else who can protect you, I’ll have to stay close.”
“I’m good with that,” she said quickly. They stared at each other, stealing a few seconds from the whirlwind of commotion around them. “Part of me keeps screaming this is all my fault.” She held a finger to his lips when he would interrupt. “But I know I can’t take the blame for getting caught up in something that Art…” She shook her head. “No. Not him. Not even my father coercing his gullible stepson could have been behind all this. There are too many weird things going on, including your truck and the fire…and the…you know, in the kitchen.”
Cam shifted his attention to Agent Deice. “I don’t understand how my research has anything to do with what’s going on with you and Kenny—the human trafficking.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Lily said. She tugged Bonnie’s diary from the roomy front pocket of her hoodie and opened it. “But I think I know why those other feds are targeting you.”
FIFTY-TWO
Cam wrapped his hands around Lily’s to hide the diary. Movement behind the glass door from the hospital reception area made him wary. Making a quick glance behind her and back toward the door, he thinned his lips and tried to will her to silence as he gently pushed her hand and the diary back into her pocket.
Minerva whipped into the area lugging her briefcase, her shawls flapping in her wake. Cam stood and divested her of the black umbrella. “Minerva! I wasn’t expecting you. What a…a surprise.”
“It should not be,” she said in her throaty voice. She unwound a fringed shawl from her head while staring at Lily. Quick as a dust devil, the woman lunged forward and awkwardly patted Lily on the shoulder. “Lily, I’m Minerva. Cameron is my special project for the moment.”
Lily’s mouth opened and closed. She swallowed. Her composure had Cam grinning large. If he hadn’t already been impressed, he would certainly have gotten in line to ask for her number.
“Nice to meet you, Minerva. Cam mentioned he contacted a, a lawyer.”
Matt barreled in behind her and clapped Cam’s shoulder, hugging him awkwardly from the side. “Buddy! The commotion never ceases around you!”
An unsmiling nurse and a tech approached the group. “May I ask your business here?”
Matt squinted at her nametag. “Miss Carol Freyburg—”
“It’s Mrs. Freyburg. I know you. Mr. Heuer, a representative of the hospital will contact you later with a statement for the newspaper if you’re here about a
particular incident. Right now, everyone who is not in need of urgent care…please, I must ask you to leave. We’re not in a position to handle—”
“You’re absolutely correct, Mrs. Freyburg,” Minerva said. “I came to pick up my client. Come along, Mr. Taylor. You too, Miss Masters.” She took her umbrella from Cam and plowed over to the agents who milled on the other side of a bank of orange plastic chairs. “The sheriff and Barter Valley police chief are waiting for a consultation. Perhaps you could join us.”
Lily stood next to Cam, clutching his arm. “I can’t leave Kenny,” she whispered urgently. Cam didn’t particularly have an urge for more consulting, either.
“I’m staying until my partner is out of danger,” Agent Forbes said.
Matt crossed his arms. “Huh,” he muttered toward Cam. “From what I heard my, uh, sources say, there’s something you might not be aware of.” At Cam’s skeptical eye roll, he said out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes still on the agents, “For instance, what those other agents were doing when that one was shot.”
“How did you—”
“Someone was taking potshots at the firefighters who were there earlier checking hotspots.”
“No one said anything about that.”
Matt nodded. “I just did.”
Cam pursed his lips and stared at Lily. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Kenny—”
“Has protection. I need you with me.”
Her face made a war of sympathy, fear, and puzzlement.
“We have to get a handle on this—make some kind of plan,” he said. “Before anyone else gets hurt.” He put his arm around her, hugging her to his side, and pressed his lips to her ear. “Please. I don’t want to do anything without you. Kenny is well-protected at the hospital. I don’t trust Mrs. Iversson’s place for your safety.”
“I already decided I wasn’t going back there,” she whispered back.
“Where…”
“My house. Where I lived with Art.”
When he frowned his disapproval, she added, “It’s my house. I’m going to live there.”
“Not without guards,” Cam told her.
“I refuse to live in fear.”
“What about Kenny?”
Lily slumped. She truly didn’t understand, though Cam hated to manhandle her and her emotions to make her see the risks. He hugged her again. “Let’s get this over with so he has someplace safe to come home to.”
He gave her time while Minerva waved her magic umbrella at the agents. Deice was on her phone again, holding her other hand over her free ear. She snapped the phone shut and gave a terse nod to her partner, Agent Wykstrom.
“Excuse me, ma’am? Sir?” Lily jumped. They turned to the young man from the other night.
“What’s up, Mike?” Cam asked coolly. He tucked Lily back.
“Doc Hanson—he said for the lady to come. Her brother’s awake.” Mike nodded, bright-eyed with curiosity and eagerness, then turned and hot-footed it back out of the room, gliding on those plastic shoes with the holes in them.
Lily looked unnerved. “The doctor said he was in pretty rough shape. I don’t know what to say to him.”
Cam rubbed her shoulders. “Just a sec. Let me talk to Minerva.”
He asked Matt with his eyes to stay close while he trotted the four steps to the other side of the room. They really needed to give the space back to the ER people, whose blistering glares were likely to render someone in need of their services any second.
“Hey, Minerva, Lily’s stepbrother woke up and she has to see him.”
She turned to him while lifting the black shawl’s hood over her hair. “That’s all right, my dear. Matt will accompany you, and then make sure you get over to the conference room at the police station.”
He groaned. “Isn’t there someplace else we could do this?”
“I thought of the library at first, but considering as that is the origin of this most recent problem, I hardly think you’d be happy there. Then there’s the motel and your family.”
“Gotcha.”
She raised an eyebrow before sliding her sunglasses along her nose. “Speaking of which, I believe it would be in Miss Masters’s best interest to join you there.”
“Uh, later.” Cam spun and headed back to Lily. Keeping her close didn’t mean what Minerva thought. He sighed. His legal counsel was not helping. And he had yet to warn Lily about Georgia.
“Okay, then, let’s go.” Cam took Lily’s arm and beckoned to Matt. He grabbed his jacket with his other arm and left the ER lobby with a backward glance at the agent. Stewart had been covered with so much blood when Forbes ripped open his coat it was hard to tell how badly he’d been hurt, or even where he’d been hit. Forbes leaned against the wall, arms folded, his face emotionless.
No way did Cam want a job like that.
He hurried Lily as fast he thought she could handle walking. “You left your coat in Kenny’s room?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll go get it after you see your brother.”
“Stepbrother.”
Lily was wound tight as a grapevine tendril. Outside Art’s door, he stopped and turned her to face him. Matt looked on, his cherubic face covered in a bright-eyed grin. “It’ll be okay. You’ll do fine.”
The police officer on duty, J. Serle, watched them. Lily nodded. “I’m ready,” she told Serle. Matt made an attempt to follow, but a no-way expression from the officer stopped him.
“Think he’ll confess?” Matt asked.
Cam laughed. “To what?”
Matt turned his head to ogle a nurse walking past. A tall woman with beautiful, sleek black hair rolled at the back of her neck walked by. She could have been on a Paris runway by the sway of her hips.
Cam shook himself. “Matt!”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your angle on this?”
Matt visibly collected himself. “Yeah, been wondering that. Seems like three different stories here. This Townsend character—well, he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, but he wasn’t ever any kind of hard-core criminal. There must be something going on over in the pen. If only I could get someone to go undercover, you know…” He waggled his eyebrows all hopeful toward Cam, who snorted. “No way.”
“No way, what?” Ole clumped up the hall to stop near Cam’s elbow.
“We been deputized,” Sven said when he cruised up behind his brother. “We’re here to make sure you arrive safe at headquarters.”
Ole folded his arms. “Yeah. At Headquarters.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Matt asked.
“There’s safety in numbers,” Sven said with his “so there” hmpf.
Lily, followed by the guard, walked back into the hallway. Her eyes were bright, but she hadn’t cried.
“What did he say?” Matt was all ears. Cam nudged him hard in the ribs, and he immediately apologized.
“How is he?” Cam asked softly.
The brothers looked everywhere but at Lily.
She stared straight at Matt, then Cam, her lips straight and taut. “He didn’t confess or anything. He told me it wasn’t too late. I could still carry through…” She slid a sideways glance toward the officer. “Let’s just go. I have to say good-bye to Kenny, reassure him…” She hitched a little breath. “And get my coat.”
“Okay, you jokers, meet us down at the door,” Cam said firmly.
Sven tried that non-verbal communication thing with him that the agents were so good at. Cam nodded back. “Police all over—we’ll be all right.”
Matt gave him a sour look and shuffled after Sven and Ole.
Cam put his hands on Lily’s shoulders. Serle stared at the wall across the hall, apparently fascinated by a pastel floral print in a plain pink frame. The absence of scents or noises made more of an impression than any sensation he could anchor to. “Okay?”
She nodded and turned but took hold of his hand. They rode the elevator in silence. Electr
icity flowed between them, comforting Cam. He hoped she felt the same.
Kenny’s face lit up when he spied his aunt. Cam wondered if keeping Lily away was truly the best thing.
“Hey, pal, buddy-of-mine, genius, how are ya?” Lily waved her hands and duck-walked toward the bed, making the boy laugh.
It must have hurt, putting pressure on her feet like that. He watched her ruffle his hair and slide onto the bed. She hugged him.
“What’s the matter, Aunt Lily?”
Intuitive, too, Cam thought. How could she rise from such ugliness in her family? He shouldn’t pass judgment—he’d never met the father or sister. He leaned against the doorframe and looked on. Deegan was on duty this time. They nodded to each other. He couldn’t hear Lily’s words as she tried to explain.
Kenny’s voice, however, was loud and clear. “You’ll come back, won’t you?”
“Of course. I’m not going far. And just at night, like last night. You were okay, weren’t you?”
“I woke up once.”
“So did I. I missed you,” Lily said.
“I meant, today. You’ll come back today?”
“I think so. I’ll come back and eat supper with you. You can watch a movie or two in the meantime, right? Let’s check what they have.” Lily picked up the remote and started fiddling with it. The menu scrolled across the screen, and soon they were picking out shows for him.
“Officer Deegan and the nurse will call me if you need me, remember.”
“Yeah.” Kenny pouted as he watched her gather her coat and start to slide one foot into her over-sized boots. She grimaced and Cam came forward. She waved him off. “I’ll carry them until we get to the door.”
Cam stooped and grabbed her footgear anyway. “Hi, Kenny. You look a whole lot better awake,” he said.
“I feel a whole lot better awake, though it’s boring here.”
Cam chuckled. “I hear ya.”
“I bet if I asked your teacher, she’d bring some work for you to do,” Lily said.
Kenny immediately closed his eyes and commenced snoring. Lily sighed and kissed his forehead. “See ya later, kiddo.”
She looked backward when they got to the door.
“Ma—uh, Lily. Cam,” Deegan said.
Understory Page 26
