“She ran away with him, didn’t she.” I made it a statement, not a question.

  “I think her parents had refused to allow her to see the guy. She ran away, got knocked up. Things got hairy financially, he got stressed and she got beat up a few times. From the look of her mama’s black eye, that’s about what Mari expected from a man. Poor kid. Now she’s got cops all over.”

  When Lynnie made a second face at her cold coffee, I got up, dumped the used grounds from the old stained coffeemaker on the corner cabinet, and added fresh water. “You don’t have to do that,” she said, but I heard the exhaustion in her voice. She was several years younger than I and in a lot better shape, playing tennis often and running in local marathons. But right now her eyes were tired, her shoulders had the it’s-been-a-bad-day slump, and her hair, which stood up in short tufts on a good day, hadn’t been combed in hours. She needed pampering and a calm ear more than she needed coffee, but I could give her all three.

  “And that cop,” she said from behind me.

  My hands stilled a moment before continuing, shutting the little lid of the coffeemaker.

  “He’ll make it,” she said, “but he’s gonna be stuck behind a desk for the rest of his career. They had to take out half of one lung.” I hit the button that turned on the heating element and heard the nearly instantaneous sizzle of water. “His wife is a real trooper, though. Got some paramedic training. She held up better than the cops around him. Started right in giving orders and limiting who could see him and when. Did you see her press conference?”

  I shook my head.

  “She was great. Good TV presence. Calm. Refused to answer questions. Just gave a quick report and asked for prayer. Not rattled, that one.” Lynnie was focused on the far wall when she smiled. “Now that you twisted my arm and got all the good gossip out of me and set me up for doing hard time, are you going to do your backlog of paperwork so you have an excuse to be here?”

  I blushed and Lynnie laughed as she rose to pour a fresh cup of coffee.

  “You can have the desk,” she said. “I hear the overhead speaker. We got a stroke code coming in.” Lynnie paused as she came around the desk and hugged me, one-armed, her coffee threatening to lap over the cup rim. “How’s your family?” When I looked at her in question, she said, “You know. With the…” she paused and looked away, as if realizing what she was asking. “With the little girl you found on your farm?”

  “Hanging in there,” I said. “It’s hard, though.”

  She nodded and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Lock up when you’re done.”

  “Thanks, Lynnie.”

  “OTR,” she said, which was Lynnie’s shorthand for “off the record.”

  “OTR,” I quoted back at her, and she left me in the office. Feeling guilty, I sat in the still-warm chair and did paperwork, catching up on files that had lain dormant for a week or so. Nursing had once been about patients. Now it was about documentation. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. When I left the ED over an hour later, I was feeling righteous and more than a little excited about dinner with Jim.

  He called when I was nearly there; not to cancel, as I feared, but to ask me to order for him. The wind picked up as I entered the restaurant, blowing my hair in a swirl and my skirt higher than I liked, and I was glad when the door closed me in.

  The Cock’s Feathers wasn’t fine dining, but it had great burgers and better fries—likely cooked in lard and full of trans fats, but totally delicious. I got a bucket of fried veggies to sustain my feelings of righteousness, knowing the fat content in them alone was a week’s worth of good eating down the drain. Not that there had been good eating in the last few days. Midnight pizza and wine. I’d be doing diet penance for a month.

  I took a booth in back, a nook I liked that would keep us screened from sight, and set the little red marker with our order number on the table edge. A corner TV was tuned to CNN with a breaking report, and I listened to the announcer update the world on the Amber Alert.

  The story of the serial kidnapper had become national news, with so-called specialists coming out of the woodwork, some telling parents how to protect children, survivalist-types recommending keeping guns loaded and ready, self-defense specialists showing personal defensive moves, and news celebs just stirring the already boiling waters. The announcer suggested that the FBI was ready to charge the man, Charles Wayne Smith, with kidnapping, and also implied that the Bureau had more information pointing to another suspect. I wondered how much of that was a way to get viewers to tune in more often, and how much of the conflicting “news” was inside-source reality.

  Minutes later, Jim followed the server down the narrow aisle. The term boyfriend bounced around in my brain as I watched him, weird feelings shifting within me. I didn’t need or want another man. I was totally fulfilled and happy in my single life, and I certainly didn’t need to be hurt again. But like my blushing I couldn’t suppress the little spurt of delight when his eyes met mine.

  Jim was right at six-feet-tall, lanky and trim, with brown hair and eyes. Together we looked like Mutt and Jeff, me coming to his shoulder, rounder than was fashionable and older.

  Jim sat. When the server left, hot grease sizzling on plates between us, he took my hand and kissed the back of it. My face, warmed when I saw him, heated to a blazing red. Jim laughed low but released my hand and sat back, sighing. “Man what a day. You blessed this yet? I’m starving.”

  I held his eyes, pleased that he remembered we asked a blessing in my house when we ate. Well, usually. Without lowering my head, I said, “Thank you, oh God, for this food. Bless it to our health. Amen.”

  Jim’s brows raised and I said, “Public blessings don’t have to draw attention, though when Aunt Moses prays, it’s long and loud with fulsome praise, no matter where she is. And she likes the entire restaurant to be involved.”

  “Preacher at heart?” he asked, shaking a paper napkin across his lap and taking a sip of his vanilla Coke, a Cock’s Feathers special.

  “Missionary at heart. Old-time Baptist. She wants everyone to know her Lord like she does.”

  “I was raised Lutheran. She going to try to convert me?” Eyes twinkling, Jim bit into his burger and moaned softly under his breath. “Missed lunch,” he reminded me through the mouthful of food.

  “Probably. When I was a kid it used to embarrass me, but I gave up trying to make her be PC years ago.” I took a bite of my burger and nearly moaned with him, but something about dual moaning from the hidden booth struck me as foolish, if not immoral, and I restrained myself.

  Jim ate with the silent rhythm of a working man who had missed a meal. Bite, chew, swallow, sip, repeat. I ate slower, finishing half of my burger and a third of the veggies to his whole meal, and passed the remaining fries and veggies to him when he still looked hungry. He ate it all and grinned unrepentantly at the mess of greasy napkins and ketchup. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not. But I am sorry about eating and forgetting my duties as a conversationalist. My mama would be appalled. She taught me better. So. How was your day?”

  “Not as exciting as yours, Mr. TV Action Star.”

  He made a little snorting noise through his nose and shook his head. “Local cops use those news choppers more than you would imagine, letting them coordinate chases, follow a suspect on the run. But they can be pains in the butt sometimes, too.”

  When he took a bite of fried squash, I broached a question that had been bothering me. “The little girl kidnapped last night, Sharon White. According to her Amber Alert picture, she was brunette, not blond. All the girls on the task-force wall were blond.”

  “We noticed.”

  “And?” I asked, my voice softer so the six business types squeezing into the next booth wouldn’t hear. The after-work banking and legal crowd were packing in, with the student population close behind. By six, there wouldn’t be a seat left in the place.

  “I can’t talk to you about that.”

  At his tone, I narrowed my eyes. “Can you tell me if you’ve ruled out my family?”

  “No. We haven’t. In fact, I have a few questions for you.”

  I felt heat start to rise, but this time it was an angry flush. I sat back stiffly and opened my handbag, “I paid for a meal with my interrogator? I don’t think so.” I slapped the receipt on the table. “Pay up and I’m out of here.”

  “No, no, no, Ashlee. No.” He was laughing and waving his hands in front of himself as if trying to wipe the last few seconds off the face of reality. “Okay. This is off the record, but here’s what I have. A few members of your family are still possible suspects, yes, because they have records. But they aren’t any higher on the list than anyone else. Smith, the guy in custody, is our prime suspect at this time. But some things don’t add up with him. I just want to ask a few questions about your family history, is all.”

  “Genealogy or individuals?”

  “Wicked Owens.”

  I snatched the receipt off the table and walked out. Chadwick T. Owens—known in the family as Wicked Owens, a play on Chadwick that was more than appropriate—had been a troubled youth in Charlotte. In and out of gangs and involved in petty crime, he had been a resident of the juvenile justice system rather than the public school system until the age of fourteen, when he’d been accused of killing a man.

  Aunt Mosetta had hired a detective to clear his name. When the P.I. had been successful, Wicked had gone to work for the man to pay off his debt to the family matriarch. He’d been on the straight and narrow ever since, not that he’d had much choice against Aunt Mosetta and her plans for his life. Wicked Owens was a near legend in Chadwick lore. His mama had disappeared off the map for a time and when she’d reappeared, it was with a fatherless, troublemaking little boy in tow. Wicked was one of the lost ones brought back to the fold, his place on the genealogy map filled in, his problem-child personality properly corrected. Of course, there were dozens of places on the genealogy map still vacant.

  Wicked was in business on his own now. He ran Chadwick T. Owens Security Firm, and he was one of the best in the business. He was small and wiry, weighing not much more than Jasmine, a coffee-and-cream-skinned man with the green eyes of Aunt Mosetta’s branch of the Chadwicks. He’d helped me through a bad time or two when I’d needed security around the house and farm. I liked him. And he was family. Throwing a five-dollar bill at the waitress for tip, I slammed out the door and into the billowing wind.

  I had reached my truck when Jim caught up with me. “Ash.” He took my elbow and whirled me around, which made my mad-meter go through the roof.

  I slapped him before I thought about it, the sound ringing through the parking lot. “You can talk to my lawyer. Boyfriend, my ass.” I got in the cab, locked the door and took off so fast gravel slewed through the lot.

  He pulled up the Chadwick Web site and clicked on the photo file. A moment later, he was staring at her. Blond. Lovely. Ashlee Davenport. He raised a hand to the screen and traced the contours of her face. She was perfect. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t thought about it before. The mother figure. Of course…

  16

  I was halfway home before I calmed down enough to think about the consequences of striking a police officer. A federal cop. Can I be any more stupid? My phone rang, and when I saw Jim’s number, I considered not answering. Instead I flipped the phone open and said, “I’m sorry I slapped an FBI agent. Are you pressing charges?”

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “You gonna forgive me for being an ass?”

  All the tension drained out of me and I eased my foot off the accelerator. I was hitting eighty, moving with the northbound traffic but still traveling faster than I liked, and faster than my old Ford wanted to go.

  “Maybe,” I said. “If you know what you were an ass about and this isn’t just a ‘placate the little woman’ ploy.”

  “I invited you on a date, suggested a fast-food place instead of a restaurant more suited to your refined elegance, showed up late, somehow made you pay and questioned the integrity of your family, obviously someone you like.”

  He had it all down pat. Smart man. “Wicked Owens is a charming, kind man who got into trouble once a long time ago and has worked his backside off to remake himself. To make himself worthy of his Mama Moses and the trust she put in him. If he were white, fully white, he never would have appeared on your radar, would he?”

  “I’m not a racist, Ash. I’ve got white Chadwicks on my radar, too.”

  I wasn’t sure that was any better, but it seemed ornery to say so. I maneuvered around a slower-moving convertible with the top down. The driver had hair so tangled it would have to be buzzed to the scalp. “So why do you want to know about Wicked?”

  “He came to me today with some information. I want to know if he’s on the up and up.”

  Guilt snaked its way into me. I had just slapped a potential boyfriend and…oh crap. I had called him that. I had actually said, “Boyfriend, my ass.” Maybe if I just didn’t mention it…I took a slow breath. “Wicked is on the up and up. If he told you something, you can trust that it’s the truth as far as he knows.”

  “Good. Thank you. We’re going to charge Smith with statutory rape in about an hour. And we’re holding him pending charges on the other cases. But there are things that don’t add up, and the information Owens brought in is even more damning to our case.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I lost my temper and slapped you. I’ve never slapped a man before. Ever.”

  “Maybe it’s because it’s been a few years since you had a boyfriend. It likely made you feel a bit on edge.”

  I closed my eyes and cursed silently under my breath. But only for a moment. I was still going seventy.

  “It’s been a while since I had a girlfriend,” he continued, and his voice dropped lower, a register that made my toes curl. “So to make up for being an ass, when this case is over I’d like to invite you to Charleston. There’s a restaurant there that might make up for burgers and fries. Date?”

  It took two tries, but I got it out. “Date.”

  “I gotta go now. Watch me on TV in an hour.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  The phone made a series of little clicking noises before I flipped it shut. Dang. I had a boyfriend. And he was taking me to Charleston. Oh crap. Overnight? Had I just agreed to sleep with my boyfriend? A titter burbled through my frozen lips.

  I thought, not for the first time, about Jack. Losing him, a man I had trusted and loved so totally, and discovering that he had not been the man I’d thought him to be, had to have affected me on all sorts of levels. Had to.

  Jim had been gently but persistently trying to move our relationship to another level. And I had been digging in my heels, not so gently. Did I want to trust another man? Did I want to move beyond what had to be scars of grief and betrayal? Could I? And if so, was Jim the one to make that happen?

  Some small flame warmed within me. Charleston…

  I pulled off the interstate and passed Trash Pile Curve, crossing the bridge over Magnet Hole Creek—a creek where cars, guns, safes and other stolen things were reputed to be tossed by the county’s less-than-savory crowd and where locals sometimes went fishing—with a large magnet and a hundred-pound test line, hoping for treasure. It was a beautiful evening and I figured I could work in the barn for a while with Elwyn. The trainer and I hadn’t worked together in days, and I needed to see which horses would be ready to foal in a month so I could set my work schedule accordingly.

  As I pulled in to the drive, the phone rang again. It was the number to the ED. Before I could say hello, Lynnie Bee said, “How fast can you get here? We got a train wreck in the middle of town. Chlorine spilled, a major evacuation, with inhalation injuries. So far everything is heading to Richland and Baptist, but we’re on standby for a code 515.”

  515 was a disaster code. This day was never going to end.

  “On my way. Let me tell Jas what’s happening and grab some clothes. I’ll be there in thirty.”

  “Make it twenty,” she said. The phone clicked off. So much for manners in the new electronic world. I pressed the accelerator, raced down the drive and slewed to a stop. Running inside and back out, I carried white jogging shoes under one arm and a uniform under the other, still wrinkled from the dryer. I had forgotten to take it out.

  Jas followed me to the porch railing. “Paz is coming over for dinner, bringing something Aunt Pearl made. We’re going to study together.”

  “Lock the door. Call Pearl when Topaz is ready to come home and have her call you when she gets home safe. Set the alarm.”

  “Why? WIS says the cops are gonna charge that man in Columbia for the kidnapping,” Jas said, leaning against the railing.

  “Something stinks about the case.” I closed the door, started the SUV and rolled down the window. “Jim said so.”

  “Cool. CSI Carolina.”

  “Lock the door,” I said, sounding stern.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I spun the wheel and gunned the motor, heading back down the road to the hospital.

  It was organized chaos in the ED. The Majors department was structured like a doughnut with the nurses’ station, a mini-pharmacy, a swinging X-ray arm, pneumatic chutes to the lab, phones, the desks and various other necessities in the center and with a wide hallway all round. The patient cubicles, each closed off with doors or curtains, were in a ring beyond that. It was a standard design for Emergency Departments now.

  Lynnie was administering meds to a woman in a room dedicated to cardiac patients. She looked up at me, saw I was still in street clothes and said succinctly, “Change.” I headed to the nurses’ lounge, listening with half an ear to the overhead speaker. In the Majors, the speaker system tied the ED team in with the ambulance staff, allowing paramedics on scene to speak to doctors without the MDs having to leave patients already in their care. Everyone could hear everything. And everything was a mess.