“He couldn’t have hit up.”
“Look here, Miss Newland. I’m the law here. I’m going to consider every possibility no matter how much you want to deny—”
“Mick talked to him in the parking lot as he was driving away and he didn’t see him take anything. Randy’s about one eighty, one ninety. If he took anything on the drive home, it wouldn’t have been absorbed in his system in less than ten minutes. Any barbiturate, narcotic, stimulant. The substances couldn’t have been digested and absorbed into his bloodstream that quickly. Not quickly enough to affect his CNS. And he had a full stomach. He had a burger and fries…”
Will watched her frown as her gaze followed two doctors striding down the hall. Impressed with her assessment, he was glad she came. Sharp and focused, she was in her element.
Eric clapped three times. “Well, thank you very much for the lecture. I’m sure the doctors will do whatever they think—”
“They need to run a tox screen,” she said as a doctor came forward, heading for Eric.
“Officer—” the doctor began.
“Run a tox screen,” Kelly insisted. “Blood and urine.”
“Excuse me?” The doctor eyed her. “Who are you? Are you family?”
“No. But time is running out. I suspect GHB. There wouldn’t have been enough time for flunitrazepam to take effect. He could have been slipped GHB at Alan’s.”
Eric chuckled. “Miss Newland, you can’t run on with crazy ideas like this.”
Kelly slapped his shoulder. “Shut up.” She turned to the doctor. “Date-rape drugs don’t remain in the body for long.”
“Yes, ma’am, I am aware. We’ve had a couple cases of Rohypnol this summer. We’ve arranged for a blood screen.”
“No. Blood and urine.” She checked her watch. “It’s already been two hours. It probably won’t be detected in his circulatory system anymore, but it should show in urine.”
As the doctor hesitated to reply, Will held up his hand. “I’m family. I’ll pay if that’s the case. I’ll authorize it. Can’t hurt, right? Save some from a bedpan.”
Kelly shook her head. “Probably going to have to set up a cath if he’s unconscious.”
“We’re going to do everything—”The doctor checked his pager at his hip. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He nodded to Eric as he left.
“Well, I’ll be interested to know what he was drinking, or smoking, on his way home when he wakes up.” Eric flicked a piece of dust from his uniform.
“You said he was beaten. Was he robbed?” Kelly said.
Eric sighed. “Fred said it looked like nothing was stolen. Wallet was on him. Nothing out of the ordinary except a hospital shoe in the grass.”
“Shoe?” Clay asked.
“One of them paper things.”
“You mean a surgical bootie?” Kelly brushed her hair back.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass, little woman?”
“Oh, so sorry I’m making you do your job, Eric.”
“Every time I get a call, you’re butting in the way. You taking charge about Roger’s kid with the cottonmouth—”
“Adder,” Will corrected.
“Whatever. Snake’s a snake.” Eric glared at him before jerking a thumb at Clay. “Then you show up to haul him home after he smashed the stop sign. Now this.”
Will jabbed a finger at him. “Maybe if you wise up and act like a cop, she wouldn’t need to.”
Clay armed him away.
“Both of you need to mind your own. Let me do my job.” Eric pointed at Will. “Don’t tempt me to book you.”
Kelly knocked his pointing hand away. “He didn’t even do anything!”
“And you.” Eric stepped back and shook his finger at her. “You quit being a know-it-all. I swear, ever since you came to town it’s been one thing after another.” After glancing at his phone on his belt, Eric cast them all a final glare and headed down the corridor.
Waiting for more news, they hogged the hallway. Jaycee came and the girls cried softly together while Clay resumed his pacing. Kelly darted from nurse to nurse, demanding information.
Will stood off to the side, too nervous to be social, questions germinating from Kelly’s idea.
Why would anyone slip Randy a mickey?
Chapter 26
“Yes, ma’am, I will let you know if he—”
“What are you doing?” Kelly pointed at the nurse’s hands. “Jesus Christ. You take the gloves off inside-out. It’s the foundation of PPE. You contaminate your skin by removing your gloves like that—hey—hey!”
She kneaded her eyes with her palms as the nurse walked away. None of them would tell her shit. Probably because none of them knew anything. Randy’s condition hadn’t worsened or improved, that was why the nurses wouldn’t tell her anything. They weren’t giving her the polite blank replies nurses shared when they really wanted to tell visitors and family members to fuck off and let them do their jobs.
Leaning her head against the wall, she remembered her place. She was a visitor. Not a nurse. She couldn’t bear the thought of Randy in pain and it was even harder to swallow the ache that she couldn’t help him, as a visitor or as a nurse.
Too numb to cry anymore, she bottled her angry energy as she tapped her finger against her thigh. Sweet, responsible throat-clearing Randy. Mama’s boy Randy. If it hadn’t been a random act of violence, it made no sense. Eric seemed entirely incompetent but he said nothing seemed stolen. Only thing out of place was a surgical bootie on the sidewalk.
How? Why? Who? Kelly couldn’t think fast enough. She had been finishing her shift at Alan’s when Randy came in for dinner. It had felt like he had been making a habit of checking on her, probably because he was so worried about her heartbreak over Will. She had talked with him some, mostly about sports. He wanted advice on adding on to his house and Kelly told him what her brother had suggested.
Between the bowling alley and his little suburb house, someone had drugged him. Beat him.
Who could hate Randy? Who could want to hurt such a caring and peaceful guy?
Was it a homophobic reaction? No one seemed to know he was gay.
It was the only motive any evil person could have against Randy, but Kelly dismissed it. Eric didn’t comment on such an angle. From the number of times Clay had suggested Randy find a woman, Kelly assumed even Clay hadn’t known he was gay. She bet there was only one other person in Churchston who might have figured out Randy was homosexual and kept it a secret.
And despite his temper, Will wouldn’t hurt a fly.
She caught a glance of his poorly stifled fixation on her fidgeting finger. She stuck her hands in her pockets. She couldn’t go to him. He’d have to wait because this was about Randy. Randy was hurt. If she went to Will, she would have lost all of her control to keep distance from him. They were there together for Randy regardless of their problems with each other.
***
Randy stabilized and he would survive. That was the diagnosis they received. He didn’t remember anything. There was no evidence. No weapon. No witnesses. Tidy violence. The last he recalled, he had left Alan’s and felt dizzy and sick to his stomach as soon as he turned off Main.
Will’s admiration of Kelly grew even more when they received word of positive screening results. Traces of the date-rape drugs had been found in his urine.
Not only was she courageous enough to behead a snake, she was smart enough to consider the possibility of GHB in Randy’s attack.
How the hell had Randy made it all the way home before the GHB had hit? It felt like too precise of a timing to Will. Someone had known exactly what he was doing. Randy was still in the hospital. Broken collarbone, a concussion, fractured jaw, and busted femur. It had been a hell of a beating.
Most of all, why would someone want to target Randy?
Will visited him every day.
Kelly visited, too, judging by the get-well balloons and silly gag gifts only she could pull off. After Juni
or had his snake bite, she brought him about fifty cheesy get-well balloons, a monstrous plastic cloud of bright yellow Mylar filling the kayak hut. She had a stubborn way of making people smile when they were down. Probably an old habit from her nursing days.
It was a couple weeks after Randy’s attack when Will brooded through a slow day at the garage. He tried his hardest not to think about her until a stranger came in. Clad in an impeccable suit, he was a tall striking man who oozed accomplishment from every pore.
“Do you know where I might find Kelly Newland?” he asked Will at the garage.
Will kept his face void of emotion as he took the flat tire the man was dropping off for a fix. He pointed to the kayak hut on the beach and the man grinned.
“Thanks. Could I come back in an hour or so for this?”
Will nodded. He didn’t want to know what the man wanted to do with Kelly for an hour or so. After the man left, Will dropped the tire to the ground.
Everyone in Churchston knew where to find Kelly. So he had to be someone from Atlanta. Probably the lucky dumb bastard ex-husband.
Will leaned back at the workbench and drank water as the suit crossed the street toward the kayak hut. His heart clenched when Kelly looked up, shrieked, and threw herself into the man’s arms.
“Oh my God! I can’t believe you’re here!” Kelly kissed the man’s cheek.
“Missed you so much I had to see you for myself.” He chuckled and set her down.
“Yo. Will.” Clay’s voice and the snap of his fingers broke Will’s stare. He crushed the water bottle and threw it to the floor.
***
Kelly hugged him again, amazed he was there. “How’d you get away, Grant? Thought you had a bunch of projects lined up. Since you’re a new Partner and all.”
He messed with her hair in the way all the boys did. She slapped his hand away. “I always have time to see my baby sister.”
“What’s the occasion? I told Dad I was coming back to visit for his birthday.”
“So this is home then, huh?”
“For now.”
“Anyway, that’s months away. I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out.”
“What?” She matched her second oldest and busiest brother’s mischievous grin.
“It finally happened.”
She frowned.
“Tara’s expecting.”
She squealed and pulled him in for another hug.
***
Aside from the stress of Randy’s attack, Kelly’s heartbreak over Will was marginally lessened by Grant’s visit and the news she would be an aunt. He wasn’t likely to stay long, as his law firm always needed his constant attention in Atlanta, but she would make the most of the visit however long it lasted. She gave him a Churchston tour, complete with kayaking, swimming and bowling. She took him to meet Randy in the hospital, and they argued sports.
Kelly had forgotten Grant could be a snorer and she wished her couch was further away in the apartment. That was the thought she was smiling at as they had ice cream cones and sat on the beach after she was done at the bowling alley.
“Now there’s a rare sight,” Grant said.
She faced him, licking at ice cream melting down her hand. “Hmm?”
“You’re smiling.”
“I always smile.”
“Something’s bothering you, Kelly.”
She quirked a brow at him. “Am I really so transparent?”
“Only to people who know you. What gives?”
She shrugged.
“Come on Kel. Do I need to beat someone up around here?”
She almost smiled. Men and their testosterone. Like a fight was the fix to all the bad things in her life. Something bothering little helpless Kelly, well her big old brothers will make it right. She sighed.
“Kel?”
She swallowed and sniffed. Why am I such a baby? “I’m still in love with him.” She blinked back tears. “I try to stop thinking about him, but I can’t. And I know he doesn’t even deserve me. As much as I hate him, I want him back. But…it’s—”
Grant laughed lightly and pulled her over to hug her next to him. “You’ve got too big of a damn heart.”
“It’s so annoying.”
“And you’re a tomboy.”
“I know!”
“Last time I saw you cry was when we watched Bambi. Divorce is hard, kiddo.”
“What?”
Grant lowered his ice cream. “What what?”
“Oh. No. Not John.”
“You met someone?” Grant raised his brows.
Kelly crinkled her nose. Girl talk with her brothers had always been…well, weird. “Yeah. But he doesn’t love me.”
“Then he’s a moron.”
She smirked. “No. He’s too damn smart.”
“Want me to beat him up for you?”
She shook her head with a smile. “Not now. Besides, he was a Marine.”
Grant pulled back, mocking a wounded chest. “You think I’m getting old or something?”
“I don’t know…are you?” she teased.
He tickled her until she laughed. “Good to hear you laughing again.” Grant hugged her to his side, one arm around her shoulders. “You seemed pretty beat about Norbert.”
She nodded. “Not just him. All of it. It was an accumulation of all those years, all those patients, all the deaths I saw. I saw Dad in him. A lonely old man, no one at his bedside.”
“Thought he had a girlfriend.”
“Well, yeah. But she seemed more like a secretary. She was probably sleeping with him, but I only saw her when she tried to act on his living will. He’d never actually signed his papers. He’d actually never disowned his daughter. That’s how we found her. The girlfriend brought in his copies of his will, but he’d forgotten to sign them. They weren’t legit. So I had to hunt her down.”
“Good thing you did.”
“It took a whole day of cajoling her to come in and see him.”
“Well, no one can stand a chance when you get set in your ways.”
She smiled. “They really patched it up. I guess there’s something about being on your deathbed to make you appreciate what really matters in life.”
“They have you to thank.”
Kelly considered his perspective. It was a nice alternative. She’d given Norbert and his daughter one last chance to be together. He’d lost his first daughter in a car accident years ago. But Kelly had facilitated his reunion with his estranged one. It was a prettier picture than the fact she gave her a false hope her father was going to be there for her.
“I doubt she would have said ‘thanks’, coming after me in the parking lot as she did. I’ll never forget it, Grant. The look on her face, the tears. How crazed she was. Kept screaming about taking Norbert away from her, he was supposed to be hers.”
“Whatever happened to her? You never did file a restraining order.”
“She was admitted to a psych ward and I left town. No point to protect myself from someone who isn’t a threat.”
Chapter 27
In the darkness of the beach, Emily steadied her breath and listened for any approaching sounds. There was nothing. Only the waves sloshing at her feet. She was alone.
She had lost her temper earlier. Temper led to mistakes.
Randy was another mistake.
Emily had posed as a nurse at the hospital to eavesdrop when Clay had visited Randy. He had discussed his concerns about “Kel”, worried about her being so sad and heartbroken. Said she needed someone to love her.
Randy had said she needed someone to love her, not that she had him loving her. Nothing about her being with him at all.
Emily clenched and released her fist. A scream tickled her throat as she remembered the conversation. Randy had talked about heartbroken Kelly. Heartbroken and sad from her damn divorce? Boo fucking hoo. The divorce was months ago and stupid-ass Kelly was still sad about it?
Emily snorted at the irony.
Recalcul
ating, she crouched lower behind the rocks in front of her at the sound of someone nearing.
There was clearly another man in Kelly’s life. Emily was positive this time. He had sat with precious heartbroken “Kel” on the moonlit beach. Hugged her. Teased her. He had even been staying the night at the townhouse with her.
Emily had watched him put his arm around her shoulder, heard him talking about having a baby. He had to be Forty-One. Had to be. No mistaking this time.
Kelly had moved on to the man in the suit. The man in the suit who was walking down the beach talking on his phone, oblivious to the stretched fish line Emily had tied between the rocks. Nothing left to chance this time. If he didn’t bust his head open from the fall, she’d finish him off. She’d have to beat him in a different manner than she had Randy. No sense in letting the cops figure out a pattern. Eric wouldn’t be smart enough to see a connection, but the older black guy, Fred, he might.
No one strolled the beach this far from town, the only visitors coming from the townhouse. The loner mechanic had already gone on his beach run in the morning. The ugly dog was preoccupied with the T-bone she had chucked in the backyard of the townhouse. Clay was off with his favorite bimbo. Kelly was reading a book.
Nothing could go wrong. Emily smiled with the delivery of justice she was going to serve Kelly. Finally, after so many mistakes, Kelly was going to learn her lesson.
***
Will’s knee killed him with every footfall, but after seeing Kelly cozy with the flat-tire man on the beach on his way home, he needed the run.
Pumping his legs on the beach in the dark, he couldn’t flush her from his thoughts. He debated whether he should lie to her and tell her he loved her and couldn’t live without her. He winced at the idea of lying to her. And she seemed a bit too sharp. She’d probably detect his lie a mile away.
Maybe he couldn’t live without her. Terrified at the notion, he ran harder to escape the grip she had on his mind. Deflated and incensed she was so stubborn and silly to push him out of her life, he dug his feet into the sand.
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