Amy said, “We need your family contact information. You live with your parents?”

  “With my dad. He’s Elroy Littlejohn, too. Senior.” He gave the phone number, mumbling. I jotted it down on the gurney sheet, noting that Willie Mae wrote it on the paperwork, her pen following and documenting every move we made. A plainclothes cop entered the room and stood to the side, watching and listening.

  “How old are you, Elroy?” someone asked.

  “Twenty.”

  “You know what happened tonight?”

  Willie Mae took the kid’s clothing, shoes, laptop and watch, documenting the personal effects for which she accepted responsibility.

  “I was getting off from work. I was crossing the street.” Recounting the event brought some color back in his cheeks.

  “Where do you work, Elroy?” Fred asked, assessing the patient’s mental state and orientation.

  “The museum.”

  “The State Museum? On Gervais Street?” Christopher asked.

  “Yeah. Anyway, this car came around the corner. Cruising. You know? Ahhh!” Elroy shouted as Christopher probed in a circle around the dressing over the entrance wound on his right side.

  “Easy, Elroy,” I said as I looked for an additional IV site. “I know what that feels like. I was actually shot once, and I was probed the same way. It’ll be over in a sec.”

  Christopher probed harder. Elroy took a swing at him and cursed.

  “You were shot?” Christopher asked without looking my way as he stepped out of Elroy’s range, his voice level.

  The cop stepped closer, watching. I didn’t know if it was because of the topic of conversation or to get a better view, but either way I didn’t like it. I settled for a simple “Yeah. Small caliber. Upper leg. Not much damage.”

  “Let me see the entrance,” Christopher said.

  I started, until I realized that he meant on Elroy, not me. I stepped away as the crew levered Elroy’s stretcher up to a thirty-degree angle. Elroy cursed again, this time a racial slur aimed at Amy, who ignored it. Christopher stepped back in and pulled away the gauze on Elroy’s right front side, getting a good look at the entrance wound. It was big enough to put a thumb into. He took the time to palpate the area, which resulted in even more cursing. The doctor slid the dressing back in place and ordered a broad-spectrum antibiotic. He directed Amy to turn up the fluids going through the IV.

  “The museum closes at five,” the cop said, his tone as even as the team’s.

  “Yeah,” Elroy gasped as the bed went back flat. His face, which was greasy with shock and pain, took on a bit of color. Suddenly he wanted to talk. A lot. Shock has that effect on some people.

  “We had an event. An exhibit of Middle Eastern antique rugs and prayer shawls. About fifty people were in the museum when the train tanker went over. And when a car wreck jammed up traffic, we were all stuck in there. But the museum has a good air-filtration system, you know? So the air was okay to breathe. So we just all, like, stayed. And us part-timers, we’re still setting up a new exhibit that’s opening on Friday.”

  “The Grecian statuary and urn thing,” Fred said. “Saw it advertised on TV.”

  “Right. So we just kept working. Got finished about eight. Oh, God, I hurt.”

  “Blood pressure now?” the doctor asked, interrupting the flow of chatter.

  “One-thirty over seventy-seven.”

  “Better,” Christopher said as he studied the readout showing Elroy’s heart rhythm. He punched a button and ran a paper strip, handed it to Willie Mae for the chart. He looked up at me. “Give him five of morphine. Up his O2 to four. I need to get a look at the exit wound.” Which meant moving the bandage that had stopped the worst of the bleeding, which would likely cause new bleeding and more pain. But the doc needed to assess the damage. We all understood that, we just didn’t like it. “Get another line started and check the blood supply.”

  “We’re down to two units, and the other guy needs it,” Amy said.

  “Let’s get an H& H and type and screen.”

  I glanced down to see blood splattered all over Christopher’s Italian shoes. When he noticed, he’d have a conniption. I just hoped he didn’t slap Elroy. The mental picture made me smile and when Christopher noticed, I pointed innocently to a vein. “Got one.”

  The cop held up a hand to stop me from giving Elroy pain meds. “Thirty seconds?” he asked. Because he asked nicely, I nodded and stepped back, but looked pointedly at the clock, timing him. To Elroy, he said, “You were heading east, toward the capitol from the museum. On foot, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the car came around the corner.” Elroy nodded. “What make?”

  “I don’t know. Older. White. Four doors. That’s all I saw. But it was moving real slow. And then this dude, a black guy, leaned out the window and started shooting. And people went down everywhere. I dropped behind a car. My hands were all bloody.” He looked at his hands. Blood had dried into the crevices and under his nails. “And I knew I was hit.”

  I eased past the cop and administered the morphine. The cop could talk later.

  About twenty seconds after the plunger was completely depressed, Elroy sighed. “Thanks. Thanks, man.” He gripped Christopher’s crisp sleeve in his bloody hand and squeezed, taking in the doctor’s name badge. “Hey, you’re one of the patrons, right? At the museum? I saw your name on the listing. That’s my job, updating the listing. You’re one of the platinum-level donors. You’re rich as shit, aren’t you?”

  Someone smothered a laugh and Christopher slid his arm away, grimacing at the long smear of blood on his lab coat. “You relax. We’ll talk later.” The doc looked down at his expensive shoes and I thought he’d join Elroy in the curse festival but he just sighed. To me, Christopher jerked his head and stepped back, indicating that it was time to turn the patient. Again.

  Four of us lifted the sheets beneath Elroy and rotated him onto his side. Elroy flailed and cursed, but with less precision in both aim and vocabulary.

  The doc raised the bed with the foot pedal until Elroy was at his waist, pulled on fresh gloves and bent over the patient. With steady fingers, he peeled back the bandage revealing a two-fist-sized wound. A jelly-like clot covered the interior of the hole, and Christopher pursed his lips. “See who’s on call for urology.” Elroy’s kidney was possibly compromised. “And get a BMP and a PT and PTT,” he said, adding lab tests to check for blood clotting and chemistries. “While you’re at it, see if we have a vascular surgeon available.”

  He pressed the gauze back into place and reattached the tape holding it. As the rest of us lowered Elroy back to the bed, Amy labeled vials of blood, set them in the lab’s pneumatic tube and pressed the button. They were gone with a whoosh of air.

  I went for the call sheet, but set it aside when Dr. Peterson walked in. He was with one of the urology groups. “You want this one?” I asked, putting a chart in his hands. “Hasn’t had a CT yet, but it might be a kidney. Might also be some vascular problems.”

  “Why not? It’s only my anniversary,” he said.

  “Ouch,” I said. “Remember to order roses.”

  “I did it on the way in, but they won’t be delivered until tomorrow,” he said, sighing. He waved to another surgeon and bent over the patient a moment before indicating that he, too, needed to see the wounds. Once again we moved Elroy, who was now having breakthrough pain. His word choice was pretty ugly, and Peterson ordered additional meds to take the edge off. And to shut him up, but no one mentioned that part. “Let’s get him to radiology stat and I’ll take him to OR,” Peterson said. “When or if you get a vascular guy to call in, forward the call to me, okay?”

  It was over. The ED was empty, silent, and it was time for the paperwork and the cleanup. Housekeeping was beeped and two short, stocky women arrived with mop buckets and orange-scented cleansers. Lynnie and I started on the documentation. Lynnie, who had worked her usual double shift, was exhausted, shoulders slumping, chewing her lower lip, her expression distracted and worn. I took most of the documentation while she took a break.

  Several times I noticed her staring at me. She seemed about to speak, but never did. I had wondered about the “small debt problem” she had referred to. Finally, I asked, “Lynnie, do you need money? I could make you a loan.”

  Instantly, Lynnie burned a bright red that gave my own blushes a run for their money. She laughed, the sound almost nervous but relieved. “You’re a good friend. Not just now. But if you’re really making an offer, I may hit you up later.”

  I had money from Jack’s estate, and I assured her that a loan would not be a problem. I had helped a few co-workers in the past. She patted my shoulder in thanks, heaved a sigh that sounded very tired and took the last chart.

  I wondered about the blond girl found beneath the monument to South Carolina’s Confederate dead. What had happened to her? It was hard being on the outside, kept on the sidelines.

  We were nearly caught up with paperwork when the EMS speaker blared. Two units were coming in with victims from a multi-vehicle accident on I-77—the source of most of our accident patients. Lynnie sighed again, and I thought she might cry. Before my mind could override my mouth, I volunteered to finish the third shift.

  There are a few good reasons to work third shift. Money is one. Good company is another. We ordered in pizza at 11:00 p.m. and actually had time to eat it before it got too cold, as the night quieted again after midnight. We played a few hands of rummy, until word came in that someone from administration was in the building and looking to cook up trouble. Until we got the all clear, we dawdled over charts, trying to look busy.

  But the best part of tonight’s graveyard shift was when Jim came in about 3:00 a.m., after the admin chief had left.

  Jim looked like something the cat dragged in—or the dogs dug up, but that analogy hurt too much to use. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn at the shootout, the same muddy shoes, and he needed a shower, though I was far too kind to say so. He had a heavy five o’clock shadow. But hey, he brought me a rose.

  I’m sure I blushed like a debutante when he whipped the flower out from behind his back, and I counted five wolf whistles from my teammates. Jim fixed it for me by saying, “I screwed up. I beat up a Moonie and stole this for you as an apology.”

  Everyone laughed and my blush faded as I took the tightly curled bud. “You didn’t really. Did you?”

  “No. I didn’t beat anyone up. Unless you think that’s really sexy. Then I beat him to a pulp.”

  I resisted a smile at his teasing and said primly, “No. It’s not sexy.” I pulled the water reservoir off the stem and set the flower in my foam cup. “Thank you.”

  “That would go over better if you were looking at me.”

  I met his eyes. “Thank you.” My blush flamed higher.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So. Are you going to tell me everything?”

  “You mean in spite of my boss’s prohibition? Hell, yeah. Can you take a break?”

  I waved at Amy, grabbed my rose and cup, and led the way to the nurses’ lounge. When the door closed on us, Jim leaned down and kissed me. It was a chaste kiss, but it was enough to make me want more. I remembered the Charleston invitation and my belly did a little flip-flop.

  Jim walked to the machines and bought two Cokes, one diet, one high octane, popped both tops and passed me the diet. He knew what I liked, which was really nice. I set the rose to the side where I would remember to take it home. Jim’s eyes measured me as we drank. I measured him right back.

  “You heard about the girl at the Confederate Monument,” he said, making it a statement instead of the question it might have been.

  “Yes. Saw her, briefly. Beat all to heck. She wasn’t left at a graveyard.” I kept my eyes on him, too. The staring contest was doing strange things to me.

  “No. She wasn’t.”

  “But the Confederate Monument is sacred to a lot of locals,” I said.

  “Yeah. Our thinking, too. He had dyed her hair blond.”

  I nodded slowly. “I saw blond hair beyond the sandbagging.”

  “We think it’s him,” Jim said. “We think he left her there because he got stopped by the chlorine leak.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “Why do you say, ‘And?’”

  “I’m older and wiser than you. I know things.” Several years older. Which bothered me a lot.

  “Like what?” he asked, his eyes going all twinkly on me. I was pretty sure I had never met a man with twinkly eyes before, but Jim had ’em. That part of me that wanted to do belly-flops was reacting with acrobatic delight.

  I looked away. Which cost me points in the staring contest, but I couldn’t help it. I grinned to show I lost with good grace. “Like the fact that you have a tell.”

  “A tell? Like in poker?”

  “Yep.” In professional poker, a tell was a player’s dead giveaway of a good or bad hand. It sometimes took another professional poker player to interpret. “Your mouth does a little quiver on the left side,” I said.

  “I’ll have to work on that.” He kissed me again and my acrobatic insides went for the gold.

  “And,” I reminded him, my lips moving beneath his, “I said ‘And.’ So what else?”

  He eased back so our lips just brushed when he spoke. “And we discovered a folded piece of paper inside her shirt, over her heart. It was a poem. On handmade, homemade paper.”

  The tickle made me smile. “Anyone can make handmade paper,” I said.

  “Yeah, we found that out. His is from a kit sold for three years over the Internet, at Michaels and at half a dozen other chain stores across the nation. The company made a blue million of them.”

  I eased back a few inches, still so close he was out of focus. I needed reading glasses. “What did you learn from the girl?”

  “Nothing. She was diagnosed with a concussion. Last thing she remembers is winning a soccer game.”

  “And that’s why you still have my family under the scope as suspects?”

  “Nah. We have the Chadwicks under the scope because every single time we found a grave, it was either a Chadwick grave or there was a Chadwick connection.”

  I went still.

  Jim stepped back a bit and we focused on each other. “The first girl was found in a grave plot for the Shirleys, but one woman’s maiden name was Chadwick.”

  I digested that and something clicked inside me. I recalled the uncomfortable sensation of knowing something and not knowing what it was. At the first task-force meeting I had seen photos of a graveyard, stones standing upright nearby, and a name. Shirley.

  “We have some Shirleys in the family, in the genealogy records,” I said. My heart seemed to slide deep into my bowels. “And tonight? What about the girl tonight?”

  “It’s been suggested,” Jim said, “that a lot of Chadwicks fought for the Confederates.”

  I nodded. “They did. Almost as many fought for the North. The war divided the white side of the family. That was before my ancestor married his half-black cousin and turned us into spotted sheep.”

  “Several of your male relatives are being brought in for questioning.”

  The sofa in the nurses’ lounge was ratty, a leftover, springless, holey piece of discomfort. I sat on it anyway. My legs had turned to water. What could I say now? Some Chadwick might be involved. Some Chadwick might be killing little girls.

  “I have to ask you something.” His voice sounded even more tired. “Do you or any of the Chadwicks have any enemies?”

  I put it together quickly. It didn’t have to be one of us. It could be someone who hated us. All of a sudden the Chadwicks were victims instead of perverts, kidnappers and killers. I smiled at him in relief.

  “Thought you’d like that,” he said.

  “Jack had scads of enemies, but most are behind bars or dead.” Including the one I had killed, but I didn’t say that. “Finding this out just tripled your suspect list, didn’t it?”

  “You have no idea. We have to go back and interview all your family. Again. With a different slant, looking for who might want to target them. I’ll be tied up in this for a while, Ash. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” I looked at him again. “Get the person doing this. And make sure he can’t do it again. Ever.”

  Jim nodded. “Thanks.” He knocked back the rest of his Coke and left, tossing the empty can into the garbage on the way out. I still sat on the dimpled cushion, holding a warm drink and staring at a rosebud. And wondering what in heck I would tell Nana.

  He watched as she left the hospital. She was perfect. So perfect for his daughter. Ashlee Davenport tucked her blond hair behind her ear as she fished for her car keys in the dawn light. She was softly rounded with generous curves and the strong morals a mother should have. She slapped men with wandering hands, he remembered. She would make a perfect replacement for Mnem, his long-dead wife.

  He didn’t know what he would do with the other one, however. Women always seemed to become complications that had to be dealt with.

  18

  Thursday

  I was home by 8:00 a.m., every bone in my body aching. Hungry dogs met me at the door of the SUV, and I dumped a bag of food into their bowls, not worried about the amount they each should get. I was just too tired to care. Inside, I relocked the doors and stuck my head in the rec room. Music played at a decent volume as Jasmine and Topaz snoozed on the couch. It looked as if they had fallen asleep studying. They raised their heads when I rapped on the wall. “Don’t be late to class.”

  They grumbled and yawned, but at least they were awake. I waved and went back to the kitchen, where I tore a head of lettuce into a salad bowl and added raw veggies. Along with a glass of wine, I carried it upstairs. For someone who had once hated baths, eating in the tub was becoming a habit. And a glass of wine for breakfast sounded just dandy.

  As I soaked, I watched the news on a little five-inch TV. Additional charges had been filed against the man who had abducted Mari. Statutory rape charges had been added to the federal kidnapping charge, along with a host of lesser charges. But no corollaries had been drawn by law enforcement between Smith and the girl found at the foot of the Confederate Monument or the Ballerina Doll murders. The press was speculating wildly, but most commentators seemed to think the three cases were unrelated. Others thought a copycat killer was on the loose.