Her voice trailed away. She continued staring blankly out the windshield at the rain. Her hands, right at two o’clock, left at eleven, gripped the wheel tightly as though she were still driving. Lou took an umbrella from the rear floor and climbed out of the car. His left knee was stiff, and had probably taken a hit, but it was not nearly sore enough to keep him from tomorrow’s sparring session at the Stick and Move Gym. He took in several sharp breaths of chilly night air and tested the rest of his limbs. Nothing. Next, he made a quick circle around the Volvo. The damage appeared minimal. He waved to a driver who had slowed down, signaling that everything was okay. Then he climbed back into the car.
Whatever had possessed Carolyn seemed to be resolving. Her eyes were no longer glazed. Her hands had relaxed.
“Carolyn, the car should be okay to drive, but this time if it’s alright with you, I’ll do the driving.”
“That would be fine,” she said, still somewhat vaguely.
Lou patted her on the shoulder. “Everything is going to be okay.”
“Lou, what did I do?”
“Look, you experienced a major trauma back in the hospital. You weren’t thinking clearly. That’s all. It happens in extreme stress situations. A person just does something … something irrational. We see it in the ER all the time.”
He felt a flash of embarrassment at what might be construed as a reference to Carolyn’s husband.
“I was so worried about those taillights,” she said again as Lou gently separated her hands from the steering wheel. “What’s going to happen to me now?”
Before he could answer, a siren blared behind them, and then whined down into silence. The flash of blue strobe lights danced erratically inside the Volvo’s interior. Lou glanced in the side-view mirror to see a plus-sized police officer exit his vehicle and snap open an umbrella. The policeman sauntered over to the driver’s side of the car and shone a powerful flashlight beam through the rain-spattered window onto Carolyn’s face.
“Oh, goodness,” Carolyn said, gripping the wheel once again.
Lou set a cautioning hand on her arm. “Roll down your window and let me do the talking,” he whispered. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”
Carolyn did as he asked.
The officer, umbrella keeping them both dry, bent at the waist and poked his head inside the car. “Anybody hurt?” he asked. He spoke with a modest Southern drawl. His eyes, which Lou read as showing no threat, scanned the two of them with concern.
Carolyn immediately became more animated. “Oh, Gilbert. Thank goodness it’s you,” she said, talking without taking a breath. “This was all my fault. I … I was chasing down a car in front of us that had one broken taillight. I got so worried they were going to cause an accident, that I ended up having one myself.”
Lou gripped Carolyn’s arm. She nodded and stopped. He climbed out of the car, opened his umbrella, and still slightly favoring his leg, walked around to the officer. “Officer, my name is Lou Welcome. I’m an ER doc from Eisenhower Memorial, and a friend of Carolyn’s and … um … of John’s.”
“Gilbert Stone. Chief of police of Kings Ridge.” Stone took his hand and, maintaining steady eye contact, squeezed it with near bone-crushing force.
Cap Duncan, Lou’s mentor and owner of the Stick and Move, had once told him that any statement of superiority or control a man wanted to make should begin with the handshake. Lou wondered now if the husky lawman was trying to do just that. He gave thought to matching or besting the man’s grip, but set the notion aside in his dumb-moves file.
Stone shone his flashlight on Lou’s face, momentarily blinding him. “You sure you’re all right, son?” he asked.
“We’re both fine. Thanks.”
“Given what you do and where you do it, I’m inclined to trust you in that regard.”
“I appreciate that.”
Stone inspected the front end of the Volvo and what remained of the sign, and let out a high-pitched whistle, not so different from the sound his cruiser’s siren had made. Beneath the lawman’s wool-lined bomber jacket, Lou saw a tan shirt with a silver metal star pinned to the breast pocket, and a perfectly knotted black tie.
“Guess we got real lucky here,” Stone said, hoisting up his dark brown pants over an ample belly. “You say you’re a friend of Mrs. Meacham?”
“I am-was-friends with her husband as well.”
Stone’s thin lips folded into a crease that vanished inside his mouth. “Any ideas why he did what he did?”
“Well, no, except to say I can’t imagine him doing it.”
“But he did.”
“Yes, he did,” Lou echoed grimly.
He considered sharing details, right then and there, about the bizarre happenings in the ICU at DeLand Regional, and how they dovetailed with Carolyn Meacham’s odd behavior, but decided this wasn’t the time or place.
“It’s been a hell of a day.” Stone sighed, his eyes locked on Lou’s.
“Tough day, indeed,” Lou answered.
“You sure you’re in no need of medical attention, son?”
“No, thank you. I’m all right.”
Stone just nodded. “Okay. Like I said, I trust you. Now, then, you have something you want to tell me about the accident?” Stone continued his hard stare.
“This accident is all my fault,” Lou said. “I never should have let her drive. She’s in no condition, given what happened today, but she absolutely insisted. Said it would be best if she had something to focus on. I’d really hate to see her in trouble with the law after what she’s just been through.”
Stone’s grin was impenetrable. “So you’re saying it didn’t happen quite the way she said it did?”
By then, the two men had connected.
“What if I told you the wheels lost grip? Rain-slicked roads and all,” Lou said.
“Well, I’d be inclined to believe you. My doctor was Carl Franklin, one of the best we ever had. At the moment, I am having some mighty harsh feelings toward the man who killed him. But that doesn’t translate to the man’s wife. I didn’t know the Meachams that well, on account they haven’t lived in Kings Ridge very long. But what I did know of them, I had nothing against-even John’s history of trouble with the medical board a few years back.”
Lou tensed. This was no hayseed sheriff. For however many years he had been the man in Kings Ridge, Gilbert Stone was not merely rattling about the town, procuring coffee and doughnuts. He was in charge of it. He also hadn’t hesitated to mention Meacham’s history to what should have been, until now, a total stranger. Either Stone was indiscreet to a fault, or somewhere in the course of gathering information about his fiefdom, Dr. Lou Welcome’s name had bopped across his desk.
Lou warned himself to stay sharp.
“I wish I could explain why John did what he did,” he said.
“Me and you both, son,” Stone replied. “It sure don’t make no sense.”
“I’m glad you understand my concern for Carolyn.”
“Oh, I do, I surely do.”
“So just a ticket, then?”
Stone put his campaign hat back on. “Like I said, I’m sure Carolyn’s been through hell today. Let’s make sure her car drives fine, and I’ll send her off with a warning to be more careful on these slippery roads.”
“Wonderful.”
Stone hesitated a beat, then locked on to Lou’s eyes once again. “And I’m going to send you off with a warning as well,” he said.
“Me?”
“If you know something about my town, or the people in it such as Carolyn and John Meacham, or anyone on the staff of our hospital, and you choose to keep that information hidden from me, you won’t find me to be so easygoing.”
