Chapter 13
Bob St. James was alive. Dove heard the rest from Kansas during the ten-minute drive to the small hospital, medical and trauma center at the edge of town. And again when the trauma doctor met her in the hallway outside the unit where her father lay unconscious.
He was alive, but barely. They let her in to see him, but only for a few minutes that first time, as they were still tending to him. Doing all she could to fill the small emergency-room cubicle with positive energy, she kissed him on both cheeks, told him she loved him and had good news for him.
She was sobbing when she pushed through the emergency room doors, to the quiet hallway beyond. Releasing the fear that could disrupt her ability to help Whaler pull through.
She dropped down to the first chair along the deserted wall, needing to be right there in case they wanted her. And to know the second her father was being moved to one of the eleven inpatient rooms in the facility so that she could be with him.
Closing her eyes she sat back, lotus position with her skirt secured around her, her head against the wall, and let the tears continue to fall through the cracks in her lids. Drawing on her inner strength in an attempt to have enough to share for as long as it took.
“He’s still alive,” Mitchell’s voice came to her, moving closer with each word, his tone as though he was telling her something new. By the time he’d finished the sentence, he was sitting down beside her.
For a second there, she considered keeping her eyes closed. Blocking him out. Putting up a shield against everyone. But something inside her refused to capitulate to the escapism.
Wiping her tears away, she took a deep breath.
Nodded. Then shuddered. “He’s in terrible shape, Mitchell.
Two days of most likely unintentional detoxing without medical assistance, which is stupefying enough by itself.
He has a pretty good lump on the side of his head.
A nasty gash in his side. They don’t know about broken bones, yet, though there’s nothing obvious there… ”
“And his vitals?” Mitchell’s question was firm. To the point.
“They’re stabilizing.”
“Good. That’s good, Dove. And what you need to be focusing on. If they can keep him stable, the rest will heal. And…” He paused, as he was second-guessing whatever he’d been about to say.
Dove looked over at him, met his gaze and held on. “What were you going to say?”
He shrugged. “Maybe the detoxing…is the good that comes out of this.”
Reaching over, Dove slid her hand inside of his, took hold of it and squeezed. He’d gotten her to the point she hadn’t been able to see.
The good that was coming.
Which maybe should have surprised her, him being who and what he was. But it didn’t. At all.
“I saw Kansas as she was leaving,” he said, not pulling his hand from hers.
“She said she and a member of her team found him just below a mountain hang outside of town. About half a mile from where they found his cap. She had his clothes in an evidence bag, had already asked Scott Montgomery, one of ABI’s forensic scientists at the office here in town, to get on them ASAP.
And was leaving here to go directly to him.
If we’re lucky, we might even get a viable fingerprint. ”
Heart lifting again, Dove looked over at Mitchell, thanking her lucky stars that they’d led her to him. And got the distinct impression that she needed to lighten up on him a little.
No more sex talk. Or anything else that made him uncomfortable. No challenging him to do better at anything.
The man was already pretty much the best anyone could be. Vastly different from her, but that was okay. To be celebrated, actually. He lived true to himself.
Life’s greatest challenge. At least according to her mother. And now…according to her own heart, as well.
Mitchell—just as he was—was exactly what she needed for this period in her life.
So thinking, she smiled at him and as unobtrusively as possible slid her hand from his.
Local police were providing protection for Whaler at the hospital.
Mitchell stayed with Dove until Whaler was moved to a room, and then, when she went to sit with her father, with the officer just outside the door, Mitchell left to head back to the marina.
To make certain that Wes was handling things.
And to be there in case of any problems that might develop.
The boat rental business was Brad Fletcher’s ultimate goal.
With Whaler out of commission, causing Dove to be by his side, Mitchell saw the window of opportunity for the shady businessman to move in.
So thinking, he made an executive decision, financed out of his own pocket as he wasn’t going to bother Dove with it, and had hidden security cameras installed at the docks.
And up by the office, too. The fact that he wasn’t, technically, an executive hired to watch out for the business yet was immaterial to him at that point.
Didn’t matter to him whether he ever got paid. Nor was he worried that he was opening himself up to potential lawsuits if Dove or Whaler ever decided to come after him for the step he was taking.
Definitely a departure from any other choice he’d ever made—brushing aside potential blowback—but he did it anyway.
Because to leave St. James Boats vulnerable was much more of a risk. And just plain wrong in light of the threats, vandalism and assumed abduction that had all just taken place.
He hadn’t forgotten the neighbor’s call about someone suspected to have been watching Dove’s place, either.
Whoever was out to get Dove and her father had started out tamely enough. But was clearly escalating to dangerous proportions.
A thought that was brought home to Mitchell most clearly when Eli called him midafternoon to suggest that St. James Boats might want to consider getting security cameras installed ASAP.
It was nice validation of Mitchell’s decision to have already put that into motion. And good, too, as the least actively aggressive male in his family to be able to tell his older brother “Happening as we speak.”
“I’m impressed,” Eli said then, sounding tired, but with a note of older brother, egg-him-on punch, too. “It’s not like you to get so hands-on involved.”
And like the younger brother he was, he let Eli’s words rankle. “I’m always hands-on. My job just requires less in-your-face presence.”
“From what I hear, you’ve maybe got more than just your hands on this one.” There was no mistaking the quiet humor in that one.
Mitchell tensed, in spite of himself. “You haven’t learned by now not to believe everything you hear?”
“I believe Kansas. She tells me that Dove St. James answered your phone just after dawn. You were upstairs in the shower, she told Kansas. And then you came downstairs and took the call.”
Damn Kansas.
And… Dove had said that?
Making it sound like…
“We are not sleeping together,” he said, for the record, while a part of him noted that it was good to get the words out while they were still valid.
Because they most definitely were in question.
“After the break-in and her father’s disappearance, it didn’t seem prudent to have her in her small place alone.
She’s staying in my guest room. At the opposite end of the house from me, as you well know.
I’d left my phone in the kitchen when I’d headed back upstairs from making coffee.
She heard the phone ring and, seeing Kansas’s name, knowing it was about her father, she answered it. ”
“And you’re honestly going to tell me you haven’t noticed how hot she is?”
He refused to validate the question with an answer.
“I’m just giving you a hard time,” Eli said then, all notes of teasing gone from his voice. “Seriously, bro, you’re a Colton, doing what any of the rest of us would in the same situation. You think she’s going to be okay if Whaler doesn’t make it?”
He was doing all he could not to ask himself that question. “She won’t have much choice, will she?” he responded in the only way he knew how. Logically. And then asked, “Still nothing solid on Brad Fletcher?”
“Nothing we can pick him up for. Or even sufficient evidence to get a warrant for his phone records. Based on some of his known associations, it’s likely that he hired someone to trash Dove’s studio.
Probably has someone watching her house, too.
I know Kansas is looking at him seriously for Whaler’s assault.
Hope to God some prints show up on the clothes she brought in.
In the meantime, I figure him for putting pressure on Dove within the next several hours.
Fits the MO. The man is determined to take over Whaler’s business. ”
Mitchell had already come to the same conclusion. “I’ve told her not to answer if he calls. To leave any text messages and voice mails for me to deal with,” he said.
“Be extra diligent, Mitchell. This Fletcher guy…he doesn’t need the income from Whaler’s business.
He’s just a number one ass. It’s all about him.
Him getting what he wants. Anyone tries to tell him no or go against him, he makes them pay.
Including the three ex-wives in his past, from what I’ve heard. ”
The news tightened the muscles in Mitchell’s gut. And honed his thinking to getting back to Dove—and not letting her out of his sight if he could help it.
Maybe a bit drastic. But there, just the same.
There was an off note in Eli’s tone that got through to him, too. Enough so that before he ended the call he said, “You sound tired. Still nothing on the body that Hetty and Spence stumbled upon?”
“It’s worse than that,” Eli said, gaining Mitchell’s full attention. Worse than an unidentified young female corpse half buried with her left hand—bearing a flashy engagement ring—sticking out of the ground?