“Hey, man, hold up!” Leon stood on the brakes. The Chevy jerked to a halt. “What the hell? You tryin’ to kill yourself? Dios!”
“Get me out!” Jardine ordered, seeming not to care about the injuries he could have sustained if his seat belt had failed and he’d tumbled onto the pavement.
“I got him.” James was out of the back seat in an instant. He attempted to help Jardine inside.
Gus was having none of it. “Didn’t I tell you to leave me the fuck alone?” he snarled, his face pale. Holding his bleeding hand, blood covering the towel and smeared all over his shirt and jeans, he walked unsteadily through the sliding doors of the ER to announce, “I need help. Now.”
“You sure do. Let’s get it,” said a woman behind a wide, curved desk as she picked up a phone.
Within seconds, a male nurse in his late twenties wearing pale blue scrubs hustled to the desk. He was tall, but rangy, his brown hair clipped to stubble, his hawkish eyes intense.
“Let’s get you back here,” the nurse said to Gus, then to James, “If you can see to the paperwork . . .”
“He doesn’t know nothin’ about me!” Gus sputtered and sent a hateful look over his shoulder as if James had personally harmed him. “I’m gonna sue you, you fuckin’ bastard,” he said again, and a smattering of people in the waiting room looked up from what they were doing to watch. “Ya hear me?” Jardine was bellowing. “I’m gonna sue your ass! Count on it.” With his good hand, he jabbed a blood-stained finger at James as he was being herded through a wide door by the nurse.
James felt the gazes of the curious land on him. From a short couch, a thirtysomething man was trying to keep an energetic toddler entertained, but he kept glancing up at James, while a woman in her sixties in a nearby chair had her gaze fixed on both him and the information desk. Even the worried-looking elderly couple seated on linked chairs near a ficus tree looked up. They were huddled together while talking in hushed tones, the woman dabbing at her eyes, but their conversation had stopped as Gus began screaming out invectives.
Leon was hovering nearby. “You have a ride coming? Bobby?”
“Yeah. You can go back to work,” said James.
“Okay.” He gnawed on his lip. “But there’s something I think you should know.”
“What is it?”
Leon’s dark eyes shifted from one side to the other. “It’s about Gus. I saw him a little earlier, before he went to the saw and . . .” Leon rubbed a hand over his forehead as if he wasn’t certain he should continue.
“And—?” James said.
“And . . . I don’t know. I just caught a glimpse of his hand, but I think it was fucked up before he went to the saw.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that it didn’t look right. Like maybe it was swollen or bruised, so maybe he shouldn’t have been working, you know. Maybe he messed up because his grip was off . . . oh, qué carajo . . . what the fuck.”
“You think?” James asked.
“I don’t know, man, but it seems like now he’s trying to blame you.”
“Why?”
“You heard him. A lawsuit. Easy money.” Then, as if he’d said too much, Leon added, “I’d better go,” and took off for the sliding doors. James was tossing over what he’d said when he heard a quiet cough.
“Ooo-kay,” the woman behind the desk said, bringing his attention back to her. “Why don’t we get started? We can begin with his personal information. As much of it as you know. I’ll confirm with him later.” The ID tag hanging from a lanyard around her neck indicated she was Sharon Nader, but the picture on the badge was barely recognizable as she’d cut and changed her hair color from a medium brown to flaming red, gained at least thirty pounds, and added cat’s-eye glasses. “Have a seat.”
“He’s right about the fact that I don’t know a lot about him,” James admitted.
“How are you related?”
“I’m his boss. The accident happened in my shop.”
“Well, then, you can tell me whatever information you know. He’ll fill in the blanks.” She glanced up and added, “He seems pretty verbal.”
James nodded. “As I said, he works for me. At Cahill Industries. In the tiny house division.”
And that’s when it clicked. She finally looked up from her computer monitor enough to connect the dots. Her eyebrows quirked up over the rims of her glasses as she took in his lopsided haircut, the head stitches, and the claw marks still visible beneath his beard.
He wasn’t surprised. Everyone in town knew he was the last person to have seen Megan Travers in Riggs Crossing before she went missing, and he assumed all of the employees at Valley General had known he’d been a patient there recently as well.
“Okay, Mr. Cahill,” she said a little more coolly, her smile tighter. “Let’s start with his name.”
CHAPTER 31
The old nun who introduced herself as Sister Rosemarie was as much a sentry as a principal, Rivers thought when she introduced herself at St. Ignatius Elementary School in Marysville. Her expression was as severe as the coming storm. In a long navy skirt, matching cardigan over a white blouse, and sensible boots, she studied their IDs and badges with suspicious, icy eyes, then peered at each of them over the tops of half-glasses perched on a hawkish nose and held in place by a beaded chain that looped around her neck.
“Ms. Korpi is expecting you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“All right then. I’ll take you to her room. This way.” The end of a rosary dangled from one of the pockets in her voluminous skirt as she led them briskly past a statue of the saint for whom the school was named and then headed up
