Halfway into our trip, Cole’s phone trilled its trademark briiiiiiing, and I reacted too late to stop the full-body shudder that worked through my limbs. Since the ringtone hadn’t been his choice, maybe I could sweet talk him into picking a new one. One that didn’t lodge my heart in my throat each time I heard it.
Each briiiiiiing landed in my ears like a hammer on an anvil, cracking open my façade.
Oblivious to my scheming, he answered with a gruff, “What now?” His grip creaked on the leather of my steering wheel. “I see.” He cut his gaze toward me. “We’re on our way.”
“Change of plans?” I toyed with my seatbelt to curb the urge to shake the information out of him.
“That was Miller. He showed up to relieve Thom and noticed Jane Doe’s got a nasty shiner and bruising down one side of her body.” A cold glint lit his eyes. “No one entered that room without an escort and a damn good reason for being there. Jane wasn’t left alone with any member of the hospital staff, and my people don’t leave their posts. Staff bathroom breaks are handled in Jane’s room, and food is sent up to them.”
“Could the injuries be self-inflicted?” I scraped my bottom lip with my teeth. “We don’t know why she was out in the swamp, and she hasn’t remained conscious long enough for a psych eval. We can’t afford to make any assumptions about her mental health without information to back up the supposition.”
“Just like that?” He couldn’t help but crane his neck at me. “You’re not going to implicate my crew?”
“Um, no offense, but if your crew bungles a protection gig by beating the crap out of your client, you deserve what’s coming. All that media attention? You don’t want that. No one wants that. Inviting it would make your crew stupid for being reckless, and that would make you an idiot for hiring them. You’re a lot of things, Cole, but dumb isn’t one of them.”
“High praise coming from you.”
“There’s also the fact that Dad hired you. Do you honestly think he would have done that if he hadn’t dug so deep into your background he could tell me at what age you potty trained? Hey, eyes on the road.” I rapped my knuckle on the windshield to get my point across. One near-death experience was one too many for me. “He would have called in favors to investigate your crew too. That’s not saying people can’t hide smudges on their records.” Cole’s disbelief at me asking him to wait for the cops at Hannigan’s told me any public records only scratched the surface of his operation. “More than that, Dad’s been a cop for a lot of years. His friends have been too. If he thinks you’re competent, and since you managed to part the man from his wallet, I’m saying he does, then I’m not wasting energy casting shade at your crew.”
His lips dipped at the corners. “You’re too trusting.”
“You are the first and probably last person to ever say that about me.” The list of people I allowed into my inner circle was short: Dad, Maggie, Rixton, Sherry. Not a whole lot of room for error in there.
“Records can be doctored. Files can be lost. Images can be manipulated.” Softer, he said, “People lie.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I couldn’t resist teasing him. “Haven’t you heard? Jails are full of honest criminals.”
“Why do you do it?” His thumbs traced the leather stitching. “What about the job appeals to you?”
Cole hadn’t outright mentioned my foundling status. He’d skirted it once or twice, and that was as near as I wanted him getting to my past, but I could tell him this.
“Dad is part of the reason. I admire him, always have. The job didn’t shape him into the man he is, but he fits the mold. I wanted to fit it too.” I wanted to belong, and the department had seemed like a big family to me that only required a piece of paper to join. I had earned my certification, but it wasn’t the golden ticket I had imagined it to be.
“And the other part?” He pressed like the answer mattered to him.
“The first emotion I can recall experiencing in my life was terror, and I’ve never stopped being afraid.” Of who I was, what I was, of learning the answers at last and then having to live with them. “I don’t let it dictate my life anymore, but it’s always there. The only thing that ever made it better was, again, my dad. When I had nightmares, I would climb on his lap. Even though I was too old for him to baby, he would rock me in his recliner until I fell asleep. He was always in uniform. He worked a lot of overtime back then to compensate for his instadaughter.” Never once had he uttered a complaint or made me feel like a burden, even one taken on gladly. “I came to associate feeling safe with the press of a cold metal shield beneath my cheek. The badge is a talisman. As long as I’m wearing it, I’m . . . okay. Safe.”
Cole’s knuckles whitened as his fingers clenched, but he didn’t speak.
I wasn’t sure what to say either. I didn’t open up to people easily, but Cole had a knack for prying answers out of me.
The tension lingered until I felt obligated to fill the silence.
“What about you? Most guys I know in security are either ex-cops or former military. Am I getting close?”
“I’ve served,” he said cryptically. “The skills I learned are best suited to this line of work. I don’t have a calling. I don’t take comfort from the job. I have bills, and this pays them.”
Each time I asked about his work, I got the same answer. It was a sore spot for him, but I couldn’t imagine why that might be. He was a success from my point of view. But then again others might say the same about me.
We didn’t talk again until we reached the fourth floor. A hospital-issued security guard stood across from Miller, and the two men appeared deep in conversation. Thom exited Jane’s room as we approached and waved us over, ignoring the new guy who brought a radio to his lips.
Once inside, Thom crouched on the floor, craned his neck and sniffed the air.
I edged around him while he did whatever it was he was doing and approached the bed. Jane had one hell of a shiner, and her jaw was swollen. Dark bruises spread down the left side of her throat and vanished beneath her hospital gown. I tightened my jaw to keep from snapping demands for an explanation when it was obvious we had none.
“When did this happen?” I examined her for other signs of disturbance and found grit on her soles and on the sheets near the foot of her bed. “Do you see this?”
“I do.” Cole walked the floor, staring at the gray-flecked linoleum squares. “There’s some residue here too. It’s crunching under my boot.” He mirrored Thom’s position and swiped his finger in a line, then lifted them to examine. “Grit this small and pale makes me think sand. Thom, call Portia down here with a kit. I want samples of this and scrapings from the bottoms of her feet.”
“We should call the station and report this.” I left the cover folded above her ankles. “Either she’s sleepwalking or—Honestly? That’s all I’ve got. How else would she have grit on her feet?” I faced Thom. “Who found her? How was she discovered?”
“Miller heard a thud, went in to check on Jane and found her sprawled on the floor. He called me, and since I was in the lobby, I came right up to help secure the area while he reported the incident to the hospital’s chief security officer.”
“Thom,” Cole prompted, and the man stood and left.
“I wonder what’s up there.” I tilted my head back. “Looks like a standard drop ceiling. Those aren’t sturdy enough to hold substantial weight. No one could have crawled across it, climbed down and beat her with a sock full of quarters, then left the same way.” I smirked at him. “There goes my ninja theory.”
“Not many people think to look up,” he observed with approval.
I debated offering him a confidence, then decided it was in his nature to dig to the root of a problem, the same as it was in mine. He would have sought out articles about me before accepting Dad’s offer, and he would have seen most of the images that filled my scrapbook online. Leaving me no secrets worth keeping. Save the one.
“I have newspaper clippings of me sleeping in a hospital bed, curled up around a teddy bear one of the volunteers sewed. The angle meant it had to have been taken from above.” I scanned the ceiling one last time. “That picture meant enough for someone to belly crawl and violate a child’s privacy. People are more entitled now than they were a decade and a half ago, not less. I wouldn’t be surprised if we discovered similar images for Jane online snapped courtesy of a drone hovering at the window or a nurse wired for video.”
His firm lips mashed together. “That’s why you fought so hard against going to the hospital.”
“One of the reasons.” The other being Dad had hammered it into my head I had to avoid them at all costs. As peculiar as I was on the outside, I had quirks inside too. Ones my doctors had taken a keen interest in, ones Dad had refused to allow them to verify. “Mostly I hate hospitals.” Worried every time I walked into one I might be hauled down to some secret basement laboratory never to be seen again. “Doctors aren’t my favorite people either.”
Thom reappeared with Portia in tow before Cole pressed for more details, and relief swept through me.
“Hey, lady cop.” She carried a bag over her shoulder and dropped it on the floor with a thud. “Good to see you again.” She cozied up to me with an air of expectation. “So what have we got?”
“Good question.” I checked with Cole to make sure he was cool with me giving one of his people orders. He didn’t bat an eye. “Can you grab a sample off her feet and maybe one off the floor? Do we have a way to make discerning a pattern easier? I’d like to know if she got up under her own power and where she went.”
“There’s only one way out that’s not through that door,” Thom murmured, and we all glanced at the window.
“We’re three stories high. That window won’t open.” I crossed to it and hesitated with my hand above the thick black trim. “Can you dust this for prints? Hers are in the system now. We can check for a match.”
“Sleepwalkers have said and done many a bizarre thing.” Portia set to work, and we all stepped back to give her room. “I read about this one case where a guy dressed for work, drove himself to his law practice, then fell asleep behind his desk. A paralegal found him wearing a sundress and made up like a hooker the next morning. He blamed it on sharing a closet with his wife.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Except there were pictures of her, and she was a wee thing. No way was that dress hers. The makeup was too dark for her complexion too, but it worked for him. You ask me, the guy’s subconscious basically outed him as a crossdresser.”
“Are you saying her subconscious told her to beat the crap out of herself?” I studied the room again. “What would she have used? And what about the sand? There’s none between here and the parking lot. She had to have picked it up from this floor. Someone must have tracked it in.”
“We can’t test the soles of every person who’s been in here. For one thing, it would take forever. For another, most people wouldn’t agree to it considering we’re not cops, and they don’t have to play nice with us. Particularly when we’re attempting to nail someone for assault.” She flipped the cover over Jane’s feet when she finished. “What would it prove anyway?”
“You’re right.” I massaged my forehead, the right side of my head throbbing, and conceded the point. “I’m going at this from the wrong angle.”
But the only other option involved Jane letting herself out the door, one guarded by a White Horse guard, and I didn’t see that happening. The IV pole alone would make a stealthy escape impossible. Not to mention the fact she hadn’t been conscious long enough to form full sentences, let alone plan escape routes.
“Are you in pain?” Thom crowded me, our arms almost brushing, and canted his head. “Your scent is off.”
“Could you do me a favor and not smell me?” I was all too aware I hadn’t taken an actual bath this morning, just hit the hot spots with a washrag. I didn’t want a guy sniffing out things deodorant was meant to conceal. “Why don’t you give Cole a workup and tell me what he ate for breakfast?”
Thom set off to do just that when I caught his arm. “I was joking.” Mostly. “Just respect my personal bubble.” I held out my arms to my sides and turned a circle. “All of this is me space. It’s polite to keep outside someone else’s me space.”
“Me space,” he repeated and took a healthy step back.
“That’s perfect.” Maybe I ought to open Wild Child Boudreau’s Finishing School, cash in on my fame while teaching others as socially awkward as I once was the lessons in conformity hammered into me by the public school system. “Thanks.”
Commotion at the door resulted in an eruption of medical personnel flooding the room.
A tall man with slicked back pewter hair dressed in a white coat paled at the sight of Jane’s battered face. “I need to examine my patient and document her injuries.” Two nurses flanked him. “I have to ask you to leave.”
“Ms. Boudreau will stay in the room with Ms. Doe.” Cole ignored the man’s flushed cheeks. “Until we’re certain of the extent and cause of her injuries, my client would prefer Ms. Doe not be left alone with hospital personnel.”
The doctor’s face turned a mottled scarlet. “Are you implying misconduct on our part?”
“I’m just doing my job.” Cole spread his hands. “Same as you.”
“Who, may I ask, is your employer?” The man whipped out a pad with his name stamped in gold at the top and a fountain pen that cost more than most shoes I owned. “I would like to speak with him myself.”
“Sergeant Edward Boudreau.” Cole pulled one of Dad’s business cards from his pocket and passed it to the doctor. “Make sure you tell him how dinged up Jane is now compared to when she was entrusted into your care.”
Snatching the card, he made a show of slashing notes with his fancy nib in his specialty ink.
“I’ve got to meet with a potential client in twenty minutes,” Portia announced as she snapped her kit shut and joined us. “Do you want to keep this just in case, or should I take it?”
“I’ll drop it off at home,” Thom offered. “I’m headed that way to pick up supplies.”
“Works for me.” Portia saluted Cole then spun on her heel. “Guess I’ll catch you guys later.”
Thom prowled after her into the hall, leaving Cole and me to face down the syringe-slingers.
“I’ll wait outside.” His gaze raked over Jane, then swung his head toward me. “Right outside.”
“We’ll be fine.” I flicked my wrist. “I promise to give a full oral report on our way home.”
Cole grunted but shuffled into the hall, closing the door behind him. I crossed to Jane’s good side and stood watch while the doctor examined her. Her breathing hitched when his fingers grazed her ribs, and the instant he touched the band near her wrist, her eyes popped open, malice whirring in their depths.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled, her fingers curving into talons.
Having had my fair share of bad reactions after waking to find medical personnel huddling around me, I could hardly blame her for lashing out at them. It’s what I would have done—had done—in her shoes.
“It’s okay,” I soothed. “They’re just here to check out the bruising down your left side.”
Her head whipped toward me. “Luce?”
“Hey, you remembered.” I gripped the rail to keep me anchored. “Can you tell us what happened?”
“I don’t . . . ” Wrinkles gathered between her brows. “What happened?”
Where to start . . . “You were hurt.” I kept my voice calm. “You don’t remember?”
The white around Jane’s eyes grew more pronounced as her gaze tagged each person in the room.
“Ms. Boudreau,” the doctor chastised. “You’re upsetting the patient.”
Faster than I could snap at him, Jane’s eyes rolled back in her head, and her spine bowed as a seizure gripped her. The nurses swarmed, shoving me aside until my back hit the wall, where I stood until they stabilized her before sliding out the door to join Cole in the hall.
“How is she?” he asked without missing a beat.
“Stable.” I massaged my temples, pressure throbbing beneath my fingertips, the headaches so much worse since the accident. “I pushed her too hard.”
“You’re trying to help,” was all he managed in response.
But deep down, I worried he saw what I was beginning to understand too. That Jane might start associating me with the vultures if she kept waking to find me hovering the second her eyes opened. Had she truly slept through my previous visit? Or had she faked sleep to avoid the avalanche of questions she sensed would snow her under if I caught her awake?
Our stealthy escape was ruined when I kicked over a foam cup, and clear liquid fizzled across the tiles. Miller, noticing the mess, waved us on behind his back and continued to argue with the same security guard. With him stationed at the door and the medical staff inside the room, they could hold down the fort without us.
My phone chimed on the ride down to the lobby. I checked the screen and groaned.
“Rixton says two of the homeowners from the Marsh Landing subdivision have reported ‘monster alligator’ sightings. The PD is blaming the news coverage for the paranoia. They have no plans to investigate but will pass on the information to MDWFP.” I scrolled down further. “One homeowner claims they have proof. Bloody footprints on their driveway.”
“Trophy hunters might have flushed out a gator.” His thoughts echoed mine. “That would account for it being so far from the swamp. As for the blood, a bullet might have grazed it.”
The subdivision was a long walk from the swamp, and a good distance from the nearest marshy area too. Gators were territorial. Only the introduction of a larger predator would send one scrabbling for cover in a subdivision. For the first time since rescuing Jane Doe, I recalled the bizarre rise in the water level that had rocked our small boat. The super gator we saw wasn’t large enough to cause that displacement. Were there two of them? More? The beast we saw had to come from somewhere, right? Gators laid clutches of twenty to fifty eggs. Did that mean we ought to expect eighteen to forty-eight more complaints?
“Have you heard an update from the MDWFP about the super gator?” I made a grab for my keys in the parking lot. No surprise, I came up empty. Prying them out of Cole’s fist would require a chisel and hammer. “I doubt the department checks back with them. It’s not our jurisdiction.”
“I’ll have Thom make the call.” He loaded me in my Bronco, hopped in beside me and rested his arm along the back of my seat. “You’ll just sneak out to look at those prints if I don’t take you, won’t you?”
“Yep.”
“I can’t talk you into going home and napping?”
“Nope.”
“Why are you interested?” His voice dropped an octave. “Do you think it’s connected to the Claremont case?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, as my stomach dropped into my toes. “I hope not.”
One gruesome angle remained that no one had explored. Gators, as a rule, weren’t man killers. They didn’t waddle up sidewalks, pick out tasty morsels, then drag them back to their swampy lairs. They were ambush predators, preferring to ID potential quarry while submerged, leaving only their eyes and nostrils above the waterline. Plus, the distance was too great from the school to any decent hiding place. At the time the Claremont girl vanished, kids were loading buses and car riders were waiting on their parents to pull around the loop. A student or faculty member would have heard her screams, would have witnessed the attack. There would have been blood. Lots of it. Smears. Drag marks. Something. But Angel Claremont had vanished into thin air when help had been one cry away.
Still, these sightings meant we had to give credence to the grisly possibility that these super gators might be to blame.
“Did you see what Thom hit last night?” There was more than one way to bloody an animal. “I heard it was a deer, but did you see it?”
His pause lasted longer than a simple yes or no required. “No.”
“Is it possible he clipped a super gator? They’re cathemeral, both diurnal and nocturnal.” Location, location, location. Too many coincidences in a confined space. We were missing something. “We were in the right area.”
“Anything is possible,” he agreed with reluctance, and I got the strangest feeling he was holding back on me. “I can have Thom swing by the subdivision with the kit. He can’t have gone too far.” His sigh heralded defeat. “We can take samples and document the scene before it’s disturbed.”
“Let’s cross our fingers the PD was the only phone call the homeowners made.” I relaxed as he shifted into drive. “The last thing we need is a local hoping to cash in their fifteen minutes of fame.”