“He a doc, too?”
“He is. Over in North Carolina.”
“And you’re here. Didn’t want to stay under Daddy’s wing.”
“Very good,” Buck said. “You read it correctly.”
“So, what? You came here to this little dead end town to practice?”
“Not exactly. I work with a locum tenens outfit.”
Jessie took a sip. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s Latin,” Buck said. “Basically, I travel around covering practices temporarily. Mostly ER work. Here one of the physicians is out on maternity leave so I’m filling in for a couple of months until she returns.”
Jessie smiled. “Sort of a traveling salvation show.”
Buck laughed. Keep it light and friendly. “You might say.”
Jessie placed the cup on the table. He ran a finger around the rim. “I’ve got to say…what you did, operating on Dennie, that was impressive.”
“As was your help. You did good. Very good.”
Another smile. “Just glad I didn’t throw up.”
“You wouldn’t be the first med student that did.”
“Except I ain’t no student.”
Buck shrugged. “Could’ve fooled me. You did better than most.”
Jessie leaned back, stretched, extending his arms over his head. “Maybe I should go to medical school.”
“Maybe. But first you’ll have to learn to focus on the patient’s well-being and not your own.”
Jessie flashed a look. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means doctors don’t hang around and wait for patients to die. They do things to prevent that.”
“If he does, it’s on you, not me.”
Buck nodded. “You really believe that?”
“What the hell else should I believe?”
“Look, Jessie. You did a great job. You jumped right in, put aside all your fears and anxieties, and helped save Dennie. I couldn’t have done it without you. That’s the truth. But now? Taking it to the next step; getting Dennie where he needs to be? You’re blocking the road to that.”
“Not me. It’s Dalton’s call.”
“He’s gone. You’re in charge.”
“So what? You expect me to load up Dennie on my back and run him down the hill?”
“I’m sure there’re other cabins not far from here. Ones where the phones still work.”
Jessie glanced toward the window, the world beyond. “Like I said, that’s up to Dalton.”
“But he isn’t here.”
Then Buck heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine coming up the drive. The SUV swung past the windows and into the backyard.
“He is now.”
CHAPTER 38
After ending the call with Jason, Cain, Harper, and Cassie walked over to Spivey’s Coffee Shop to grab a cup before jumping in Jason’s face. The rain more a light shower than the earlier drizzle. Spivey’s was quiet, two people in line, a couple at one table, and at another near the window, a blond man in a stylish tan suit and yellow tie, newspaper open in front of him. Cain could only see half his profile but when he turned the page his full face came into view.
Cain did a double take, his gait faltering. Harper, too. They glanced at each other. She had also seen it. The unsettling resemblance to a man they’d crossed paths with many years ago. Not so much a crossing as an invasion. Of his home. By them.
It was nearly a year before the family was taken down by the FBI and Cain and Harper were hauled off to the orphanage. Cain had been eleven, Harper twelve. The scam, hatched and planned by Uncle Mo, had unfolded in two parts. First, the theft of a dozen cases of Girl Scout cookies from the residential home of the den mother, troop leader, whatever she had been called. Uncle Mo had discovered that she took in the shipments and then the girls would come by and collect boxes of mints and shortbreads and whatever before hitting the streets to make sales. While Harper stood in the front door, asking question after question about maybe joining the troop, Cain and Uncle Mo hauled the cases from the screened-in back porch to the van idling in the alley, Aunt Dixie behind the wheel.
Phase one complete.
Then the sales scam, as Uncle Mo called it, rolled into motion. After purchasing an old Girl Scout uniform, complete with badges, from a discount store, Harper dressed for her part. Innocently selling cookies at the front door while Cain came through the back and feasted on the spoils. Jewelry, cash, whatever he could quickly find and carry away. The third town and thirteenth home they had visited was where the man lived. The one whose doppelgänger sat in Spivey’s Coffee Shop. Harper had seen him face to face, Cain in a framed picture in his master bedroom. While Harper performed her routine, acting all flustered, confused, bordering on tears because she didn’t “know how to do this,” the man and his wife comforted her, and bought a dozen boxes.
After a bird-call whistle from Aunt Dixie, Cain ascended a rose trellis to the second floor and entered the bedroom through an open French door. Ten minutes later he descended with four watches, including two gold Rolexes, a pocket full of rings and necklaces, one with a nice emerald, another a string of pearls, and over eight hundred dollars from the man’s wallet. That’s where the photo was. Above the dresser. The man and his wife smiling at him as he folded the cash into his back pocket.
“Cassie,” the man said, folding his newspaper.
“Simon.”
“Anything new?”
“You mean in the last hour?”
The man shrugged.
“This is Simon Greene,” Cassie said. “Our local big-shot barrister.” She nodded toward Cain and Harper. “Bobby Cain and Harper McCoy.”
Simon stood. They shook hands. Even close up, the resemblance was uncanny.
“You must be the investigators who’re looking for Dr. Buckner,” Greene said.
“We are,” Harper said.
“I take it you haven’t found him yet.”
“We’re working on it.”
Greene gave a quick nod, then said to Cassie, “Anything new on the Finley murders?”
“Not much.”
He examined her. “There is but you’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Probably not. It being an ongoing investigation and all.” Cassie shrugged. “Call it killer-victim privilege.”
“She can be difficult,” Greene said, glancing at Cain. “In case you haven’t figured that out
