“One, two, three, four, five—”
For a second, the woman’s eyes opened, and Kacey nearly gasped as the resemblance to herself was almost uncanny.
“Doctor!”
Anita’s voice pierced her brain, and she realized she’d stumbled on the count.
“That’s fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,” Anita prompted, and Kacey caught up just as the doors to the ICU flew open again, three nurses and two doctors streaming in, the crash cart rolling toward the bed.
“Get these people out of here!” a strong male voice ordered, and from the corner of her eye Kacey watched as Anita shooed the detectives and Trace O’Halleran through the doors. “I’ll take over now,” the same voice said, and she glanced up to see Dr. Wes Lewis walk quickly to the bed, waiting for her to hit thirty before stepping in as she withdrew her hands and a nurse sidled the crash cart to the patient. Lewis began giving orders to the staff as easily as he had as a quarterback in college. Big, black, and usually affable, he was all business today, but Kacey felt it was too late. She’d sensed it, that recognition that a patient was slipping away. Whether it was conscious or not, there came a point where the body was done.
“It’s when St. Peter comes a-callin’,” her grandmother, Ada, had whispered into her ear as she, crying miserably, watched as her favorite old horse, lying in the straw of his stall, shuddered his last breath.
Her grandfather had glanced at his wife, as if to disagree, but the look she’d sent him had silenced whatever he’d wanted to say.
“St. Peter needs horses?” Kacey, at nine, had asked. Her throat had been so thick, she’d barely been able to get the words out.
“Course he does,” Grannie had insisted, hugging her so close that the smells of the barn — the acrid odor of urine, the dust in the hay, and the warm, heavy scent of horses — had faded to the background. All Kacey had been able to smell was the sweet scent of the wild roses in her grandmother’s favorite perfume. “Course he does.”
And now, Kacey thought, as the patient was being treated, the defibrillator standing at the ready, St. Peter seemed to be needing and “callin’ for” Jocelyn Wallis.
CHAPTER 9
Dr. Lambert’s expression said it all, Trace thought.
Her jaw was set, her lips were thin, her eyes somber as she walked down the short hallway to the area where he and the two cops were waiting. It had been only half an hour since they’d been banished from the ICU, but obviously things hadn’t gone well.
“Jocelyn Wallis didn’t make it,” she informed both of the cops, who had been in and out of the waiting area, talking on cell phones, checking their watches, speaking in low tones, and sipping the weak, free coffee from paper cups. They’d questioned him further about his relationship with the teacher, and he’d told them about the last time they’d gotten together, that Jocelyn had wanted him to spend the night.
Going over to her place had been a mistake.
One that he hadn’t made again.
He’d been taken in by her good looks, quick smile and, if truth be told, a sexual need that hadn’t been fulfilled in a long while. But he hadn’t allowed himself to be seduced more than once, if that counted for anything.
Chivalrous, he wasn’t. And he’d seen that unspoken accusation in the shorter detective’s, Alvarez’s, eyes as she’d taken notes.
Now he shoved his hands through his hair as Kacey went on.
“She was just too compromised, too many internal injuries and head trauma. Dr. Lewis, who was the admitting doctor, will be out in a few minutes. He can answer any questions for you.” She glanced at Trace, then walked quickly toward the elevators.
“Stick around,” Pescoli advised him, as if she sensed he was about to try and leave. “We’ve got some more questions.”
“About Jocelyn?” he asked but sensed there was something deeper.
Pescoli nodded as Alvarez eyed him with more than a grain of suspicion.
Trace got the message. “You think that this wasn’t an accident?” he asked, feeling a new rising sense of anger. “And you think I know something about it?”
Pescoli shook her head. “We didn’t say that.”
“But you implied it.”
Alvarez stepped in. “We’re just looking into all the possible scenarios. For all we know, she slipped and fell over the railing. That’s certainly likely. But we’re trying to be thorough.” She offered him a smile that didn’t exactly light up her face, a smile that said without words, “Don’t worry. This is just a formality,” but his innate sense of self-preservation counteracted her forced affability. There was something more going on here; these women were part of the homicide investigation team.
Trace said, “I’ve got a sick kid and a ranch to look after. I’ve told you just about everything I know about Jocelyn Wallis, but if you have more questions, you can call me.”
He thought they might try to stop him, but at that time a big black man in a lab coat swept out of the ICU and caught the cops’ attention.
Good.
Trace made his way to the bank of elevators and felt a jab of disappointment that Kacey was already gone. Not that it mattered, he told himself as he stepped into the next car, where a male attendant was holding on to the hand-grips of a wheelchair where a woman in a cast was seated. Trace sidestepped the outstretched, casted leg and waited as the doors whispered shut.
It was weird to think that Jocelyn was dead. He’d seen her less than three months ago, when she’d asked him over and they’d made another stab at it, or at least she had. He hadn’t been interested but had wanted to smooth things over. The evening had ended with her asking him to spend the night. He had been tempted but had known that going to bed with her would be a bad idea. At that point, when he’d said he’d better leave, that getting involved wouldn’t be a good idea, primarily because of Eli, she’d become instantly furious. White hot and pissed as hell.
The elevator stopped with a jolt, and the doors swept open in the main lobby. Trace waited for the patient in the wheelchair to be pushed out of the car, then headed toward the lobby doors at the front of the hospital.
Outside, it was snowing again, the wind bitter and harsh, the promise of December heavy on its breath. Turning his collar against the cold, he dashed across the emergency lane to his truck. He was yanking open the door when he caught a glimpse of a gray coat from the corner of his eye.
“Mr. O’Halleran?”
He recognized the doctor’s voice before he turned and caught sight of her avoiding iced-over puddles, flakes of snow catching in the wisps of auburn hair that had escaped the hood of her coat.
“Trace,” he said.
Already her face was red with the cold. “I just wanted to ask how Eli’s doing.”
“Better, I think,” he said, leaning on the open door to his truck. “I indulged him with movies and soda last night.”
She managed a smile. “Just what I prescribed.” She shifted from one booted foot to the other and cocked her head toward the hospital. “I’m. . I’m sorry about Jocelyn.” She seemed sincere, her green eyes clouded. “That was rough.”
He felt the muscles in the back of his neck tighten, and he nodded. “Eli’s gonna take it hard.”
“Will you call the sister you mentioned?”
“I’ll let the cops find her. Jocelyn and I weren’t even really friends. The only reason I’m involved in this is that someone from the school called me and asked if I knew where she was. I got curious. Since I knew where she
