‘I thought at first it was just a lover’s tiff but then . . . another man,’ Laurie whispers. ‘He . . .’
‘What other man? Did you see him? What did he look like?’
The anesthetist, oblivious to the importance of our conversation, starts to plunge the syringe into Laurie’s IV. ‘Stop!’ I yell, but too late.
‘Laurie?’ I shout. ‘Who was it? What happened?’ I shake her hard by the shoulders. ‘What did you see?’
Her eyelids flicker closed. ‘Another man. He . . . put . . . van.’
I glance at Nate. He pulls out his notebook and pencil. ‘Do you remember the van? Anything about it? Color? License plate?’
Laurie slumps unconscious on the pillow.
‘I’m sorry,’ interrupts Dr Warier, and I notice the orderlies waiting behind him. ‘We need to get her to the OR.’
‘Laurie? Laurie?’ I shout, but there’s no waking her up. The orderlies start wheeling her out of the cubicle. Shit. That might have been our only chance. What did she see? I turn to look at Nate, who looks just as frustrated as me.
As they wheel Laurie past I suddenly catch sight of something.
‘Wait!’ I say again, lunging towards them, grabbing the corner of the bed to stop it. The orderlies scowl at me but Nate sees what I’m seeing and holds up a hand to keep them at bay.
He takes Laurie’s elbow and gently turns it so we can see the inside of her forearm. There, scrawled in lipstick, is a series of numbers and letters.
‘What is that?’ a nurse asks, cocking her head to read it better.
‘The van’s license plate number.’
Chapter 51
I catch up to Nate in the parking lot as a stream of media vans and more cop cars come screaming through the entrance.
Nate ignores them and keeps jogging towards his car, beeping it open as he goes. I race around to the passenger side and get in before he can change his mind and though he gives me a black look he says nothing.
The radio buzzes urgently to life the moment we get on the highway. ‘Officer 212.’
Nate grabs for the receiver. ‘This is Officer 212. Go ahead.’
‘10-5, the van is registered to a Calvin Williams. White male, thirty-four years of age, few misdemeanors on record for petty theft and a couple of DUIs.’
‘Address?’ Nate asks.
‘3598 Lost Canyon Road.’
‘10-4.’
Nate hangs up the radio and steps on the gas.
‘That’s way out,’ I say. ‘It’s off the 33.’
‘Yeah,’ Nate says.
‘That’s the direction Laurie was driving,’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ Nate mutters, hunching over the wheel and pressing his foot even further to the floor. More cop cars go flying past us on the other side of the road, heading towards the hospital. I wonder what’s happened to Jonathan. Did I kill him? The thought is fleeting. I don’t care. But if we don’t find Hannah and Jonathan dies, I might never find her. I have to hope and pray they’re both still alive.
I grip the car door as we take the entrance ramp to the 101 and swerve in front of a twelve-wheeler before flying across two lanes of traffic. I want Nate to go faster but he’s already driving at one hundred ten.
‘Hannah must have figured out it was Jonathan,’ I mutter, trying to put all the pieces together. ‘She must have confronted him.’
But why? Why didn’t she tell me instead? Where would they take her? What are they planning on doing to her? What if they’ve already done it? They’re trying to silence her, like they tried with June. What if it’s already too late? What if she’s already dead and buried somewhere?
Bile rushes into my mouth and I gasp and scramble for the window, trying to open it.
‘You OK?’ Nate asks, his hand resting on my shoulder.
I shake my head, dizzy. Panic is making me hyperventilate. ‘Hurry up!’ I whisper. ‘Please.’
I clutch the seat as Nate presses his foot to the floor and weaves in and out of traffic, a look of determination on his face. Please God. I can’t stop praying. Please let her be OK. Please don’t let them hurt her. And Laurie, please let her be OK too.
I can’t believe that it was Jonathan. But of course it was staring me in the face the whole time. He’s the right height, the right build. He’s the man I slashed with the knife and smashed with the chopping board. He hid the injuries under his uniform and Sheriff’s hat, but even so, how could I not have seen it?
‘I told you it wasn’t Robert,’ I spit at Nate after a minute, unable to hold myself back.
Nate looks over at me. ‘I knew it wasn’t Robert,’ he says quietly.
I double-take at him, speechless. What the—
‘He was covering for Gene.’
I stare at him, my mouth falling open. He knew all along? Then . . . why? Why did he charge him and put him in jail?
‘The Oxnard Sheriff’s department had already ID’d Gene as a possible small-time dealer,’ he says, glancing quickly my way. ‘That’s what he was arrested for a year back, that time you came to get him from the county jail. Jonathan tried to pull him over on suspicion of possession, he’d been seen with one of Raul’s boys doing a deal on the street, and Gene led him on a three-mile car chase. By the time he was pulled over the drugs were no longer in the car. We figured he must have dumped the drugs out the window somewhere en route and then gone back for them later. We let him go because we thought we could keep him under surveillance, see if we could gather more evidence to charge him later for something bigger than a misdemeanor.’
It takes a while to sink in. The whole spiel Nate gave me about being able to get the charges dropped, the way he made it seem like a huge favor – it was all a lie. They already had a plan to let him go.
‘When they called me about the break-in at your place,’ he says to me, ‘I guessed it had something to do
