Coltrain nodded toward a cubicle where they were working on her. He knew better than to try to stop Boone. It would mean a brawl, where he could least afford one.
Boone walked into the cubicle and stopped dead. Everything seemed to go out of focus except for Keely’s left arm. They’d bared her to the waist, pulling the sheet only over one breast, leaving the left one and her shoulder bare while they pumped antivenin into her in an attempt to save her life. She was unconscious. Her arm was almost black, swollen out of recognition. But it wasn’t the swelling that Boone was fixated on. It was her shoulder. There were huge scars, which looked as if something with enormous teeth had taken a bite right out of her. The damage was staggering to look at. The pain she must have suffered—
He knew at once that his photographs had been faked, and later he was going to give somebody hell over that botched, so-called investigation. But right now, his whole focus was on this slip of a girl whom he’d misjudged, whom he’d almost killed with his outrage.
“What in hell happened to her?” Boone bit off.
“She was bitten…”
“Not the snakebite. That!” He pointed at her shoulder.
Coltrain wanted to tell him that he should ask Keely, but he knew it would do no good. “She jumped into a mountain lion pit at her father’s game park to save a seven-year-old boy who sneaked under the rail when nobody was looking.”
“Good God! And where was her father while all that was going down?” Boone demanded.
“Standing at the rail, watching,” Coltrain said with utter disdain.
“Damn him,” Boone said huskily.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
He held his breath as he looked at her. “Will she live?” he asked finally, having postponed the question as long as he could.
Coltrain looked at him. “I don’t know, Boone,” he said honestly. “The poison had a good bit of time to work before she was found…” He hesitated because of the torture in the other man’s eyes.
Boone moved past the technicians to the head of the bed where Keely was lying, so white and still. He brushed back her sweaty hair with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. He bent down to her ear.
“You have to live,” he whispered, his voice forcibly steady. “You have to live. This is my fault, but I can’t…live…if you don’t, Keely…” He had to stop because his voice was breaking. She was blurring in his eyes. He never cried. His composure was absolute. But he was losing it. His thumb brushed her pale lips as he drew in an audible breath. “I’ll kill that damned private detective,” he whispered.
Keely stirred, just a heartbeat’s movement, but he felt it. His forehead bent down to hers and his lips brushed against the pale, cold skin. “Don’t die. Please…”
“You have to let us work,” Coltrain said, catching the other man’s arm. It was as rigid as metal. “Come on, Boone. Do what’s best for her.”
Boone hesitated just long enough to take one last look at her.
“Pity about those scars,” one of the techs was saying.
“What scars?” Boone asked huskily.
Coltrain only smiled as he herded the rancher out of the cubicle and back out to the waiting room.
Winnie looked up as Boone was deposited in the waiting room. He paused, almost trembling with rage. He looked at his sister. “You call me if there’s any change, any at all,” he said heavily. “You hear?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “Where are you going?”
“To kill a private detective,” he said through his teeth. He’d added a few pithy adjectives to the sentence, which had Winnie’s eyebrows arching toward her hairline.
He was gone in a flash. She connected the photos he’d mentioned to Keely’s sudden departure and then to the private detective that Boone was going after. Clark walked in while she was mulling it over in her mind.
She turned to him. “Do we know any bail bondsmen?” she asked in an almost conversational tone.
* * *
KEELY HAD BEEN failing, but she rallied when they added the relayed antivenin to her drip catheter. She wasn’t conscious, but she was groaning. Coltrain kept her under while they worked to stabilize her vital signs.
It was very late when he came out into the waiting room, smiling.
“She’ll make it,” he told them wearily. “But she’ll be here for a few days.”
“Thank God,” they said almost in unison.
“We should send the boys out hunting rattlers,” Clark suggested.
“Boone’s already out after one of them, I’m afraid,” Winnie said. She smiled at Coltrain. “Thanks.”
“I like her, too,” he replied. He smiled. “You’d both better get some rest. I’ll have one of the nurses phone you if there’s any change.”
“Thanks,” Winnie said again.
“It’s why I’m a doctor,” Coltrain said, grinning as he left them.
Winnie tried to phone Boone, but he didn’t answer. She was about to try again when Sheriff Hayes Carson came into the room, his brown-streaked blond hair shining in the ceiling light. His dark eyes were turbulent.
“Have you been trying to reach your brother?” he asked Winnie. “Sorry, but they don’t allow cell phones in detention.”
Winnie groaned. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” Hayes replied. “Don’t worry about calling anybody. I went and bailed him out myself while I was off duty.” He put a hand to his ear. “I swear to God, the guards were writing down the words as he ripped them out. I’ve never heard such language in my life. At least the detective isn’t pressing assault charges, however…”
“He isn’t? Thank goodness,” Winnie exclaimed. “But why?”
“He ran for his life. His employers weren’t so fortunate.” He actually smiled. “Detective Rick Marquez and I have been doing a little sleuthing of our own, after office hours, and with a little help from some friends. It turns out,” he said in a low tone, wary of eavesdroppers, “that Boone’s girlfriend, Misty,
