34. Admissions
Chapter 34
Admissions
Reece had pulled the hard-backed chair as close to the hospital bed as it would go. His hand engulfed Neve’s, trapping it as if he would never let it go. He relished how small it was, how soft, and the fact that her skin was warm, alive. Given a choice, he would have been lying beside her, but he’d already been chased off the bed for simply sitting on the edge by a male nurse with a stick up his butt about rules. People were like that in cities.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she turned her head and smiled at him. “You’re still here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He hadn’t left her side since he’d first brought her to the hospital in Montrose. Another perk of being married to her: They couldn’t make him leave. “How are you feeling?”
She looked down at her casted arm and grimaced. “My arm hurts, and my fingers and toes feel like they’ve got freezer burn.”
“Because they do. But that’s normal, and it should go away. Meanwhile, there’s ibuprofen.”
“Not the good stuff? Not even for my arm?” She batted her eyelashes.
“I’m pretty sure they’ve given you the good stuff ,” he laughed.
“Well, it wore off.”
“I’m not the one you need to convince, Doc.”
As if on cue, the door opened, and a man in blue scrubs covered by a white lab coat strode in. “Mrs. Hunnicutt? How are you feeling?”
“That’s Doctor Hunnicutt,” Reece corrected. “She’s our town vet.”
Neve’s eyes darted to Reece, and he gave her an innocent shrug as he relinquished her hand. Yeah, he’d checked her in as Dr. Hunnicutt instead of Dr. Embry.
She recited her list of symptoms while the doctor examined her eyes, her digits, and prompted her with questions.
“Good thing your husband’s an EMT,” he remarked.
“Search and rescue,” she corrected. “Even better.” The look she sent Reece was filled with admiration so profound his chest ballooned.
The doctor gave Reece a head bob. “Had he not given your injuries the attention they needed, we might have been talking about surgery for the arm and a less pleasant outcome for your fingers and toes. The frostbite could have been worse if your husband hadn’t warmed up the affected areas immediately and in the proper way.”
She nodded. “I remember him bundling my hands and feet with warmers.”
Reece had layered them between cloths for the hour-and-a-half drive to Montrose; he’d also made her drink a thermos of hot tea. Mercifully, she’d slept for most of the drive.
The doctor went on to fill in blanks for her that Reece had already heard. She had a fractured humerus and a broken radius—impact from the crash, the doctor theorized—and she was lucky those broken bones were the worst of the damage. Ironically, the drug had made Neve’s muscles rag-doll-relaxed, so she’d survived the ejection from the vehicle—unlike Bunting. He went on to explain how the phenomenon was similar to a drunk driver walking away from an accident they caused while leaving fatalities in their wake .
The doctor made a few notes in his chart. “Well, I think you should be able to go home this afternoon, Dr. Hunnicutt.” He looked at Reece. “The ketamine appears to be completely out of her system, which was the last of my concerns. There may be residual effects, so I’ll give you a list of symptoms to watch for. You give me a call if you notice anything,” He handed Reece a card. “Otherwise, we’ll see you in a few weeks for a look at that arm.”
The moment he left the room, Neve gave Reece a blistering look. “You changed my last name?” He couldn’t tell if she was putting on an act or if she was truly annoyed.
“Seemed easier, and they didn’t fight me on staying with you that way.” He flashed her his most boyish grin.
“Who’s watching Pearl?”
“She’s making the rounds between her canine cousins’ houses, then she’ll hang with Grandma and Grandpa. She’s having a ball, and she’s earned it after helping me find you.”
“I never thought of pit bulls as trackers.”
“I don’t know that she’s a tracker -tracker, but she was single-minded in getting to you. Oh, and with her gone, Mr. Whiskers is enjoying some much-needed alone time. But don’t worry. Cade promised to stop by at least twice today to make sure he has food and water.”
“Kitties don’t need that much attention.”
“Maybe, but Cade needs his cat fix, so I’d call it a win-win.”
She turned her head and looked out the window at the late-morning sky, thoughts seeming to stream through her head until one caught. “I wonder what happened to him and where he belongs.”
“We’ll probably never figure out how he got injured, but we do know that he belongs with you or me.” He cocked his head. “I think it’s time you took him off your website.”
Her light brown brows knotted together. “You’re volunteering to be his forever home?” He nodded. “What about Vermont?”
“Who says a cat can’t move cross-country?”
“Oh. I guess that’s true.” She eased back against her pillows and shifted her eyes back toward the window. A faraway look clouded them.
“Neve, there’s something we need to talk—”
The door swung open. “Hey, hey, hey! How’s my favorite doc?” Shane strolled in, a grin stretching from ear to ear and a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand. In his other hand, he held a small bag that he lifted in Reece’s direction. “Hailey packed this with Neve’s stuff, like you asked.” Dropping the bag, Shane bent down and kissed Neve on the cheek. Unlike Reece’s disheveled appearance and ripe smell, Shane looked freshly showered and shaved—like he was going out on a date. “Glad to see the sparkle’s back in your eyes. How’re you feeling?”
Wiggling to a seated position, she gave him a warm smile that set Reece’s teeth on edge. “Not bad, considering. Are those for me? They’re beautiful.”
He thrust them at her like a proud kid. “Just like you. Picked ’em out special on my way here.”
Reece gave a mild snort. Shane made it sound as if he’d hand-selected each bloom when they both knew all he’d really done was stop at a grocery store and grab the first bouquet in a bucket.
“Thank you.” Neve cradled the bouquet in her arms and pointed toward Reece. “He’s filled me in a little bit, but there are huge chunks of the story missing.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here, then.” Shane’s grin broadened. Reece pondered hitting him over the head with the flowers until it occurred to him that Neve wouldn’t have any flowers then. Reece had been too busy getting her to the hospital and making sure they took good care of her to even consider flowers.
A nurse flitted in—a pretty one this time, not the growly guy—and relieved Neve of the bouquet. “I’ll get these in water for you so you can take them home. We’ll have you discharged in about an hour.” She took Neve’s vitals while Shane made himself comfortable in Reece’s chair.
Asshole .
After she left, Neve nearly pounced on Shane—figuratively speaking, or Reece would have had to kill him. “What have you found out, Shane? Was Dr. Bunting the one who stole my meds and wrecked my pharmacy? And why me ?”
Reece felt the tug to smooth away the hurt in her voice, but Shane got there first. He covered her good hand with his and squeezed it. “I’ll tell you what I can, but we still have a lot to unravel.” Shane acknowledged Reece with a side-eye and settled in. “Most of what we know comes from a journal and a slew of emails we found when we checked her computer. The bulk of those is between her and her family members. We’re interviewing those people now and uncovering more details about who she was and what might have driven her to do this. In the meantime, here are a few things we do know: She comes from a family of doctors, judges, and lawyers back east, and it sounds like there was a lot of pressure to outdo each other, whether it was in their academic or professional lives, the parents included. Sort of a dog-eat-dog mentality.”
Neve raised her gaze to Reece. “That lines up with the comments she made over the phone.”
Shane continued his narrative. “After vacationing in Colorado, she decided this was where she wanted to live and start up her practice. It looks like part of her reason was to escape the family, and she took a lot of heat for it. Among other digs, they called her choice of locale a ‘nothing town in the middle of nowhere’ and predicted she’d turn out to be as big a loser as the place she chose to settle. They gave her zero chance at success.”
“Wow. Nice family,” Reece chuffed.
Shane ignored the snark, his focus on Neve. “They might have had a point, if the expectation was instant success. You know how hard it is to make ends meet, and you’ve been at it much longer than she was. Plus, as a local, you have an advantage she didn’t.”
Neve did that wiggly thing with her mouth again, a sure sign her mind had leaped elsewhere, but didn’t interrupt.
“Some of the emails were between her and her banker, and they point to a mess of financial trouble—no surprise there. Her operation looked big and successful on the outside, but it was nothing but smoke and mirrors. The business was hemorrhaging money, and she couldn’t stop the bleeding. She also couldn’t ask her family for help because it would be admitting she’d failed. No bank would loan her money because she’d dummied up her financials and convinced a different lender she was in the black. When she missed payments, they realized they’d been duped and put the word out. That’s when she got creative.” Shane air-quoted the last word.
Neve cocked an eyebrow. “More creative than faking your financials?”
“Oh yeah.” Shane leaned back in the chair and crossed his ankle over his knee, finally letting Neve’s hand go. “She started billing clients for services she never performed. She overcharged for meds. She didn’t pay staff. And she became a thief. ”
Reece folded his arms over his chest and leaned against a wall. “I assume this is when she targeted Neve’s clinic.”
“Yep. The vendors she’d been using to get her meds cut her off for nonpayment. She was desperate. In her journal, she admits to hitting a few small pharmacies before Neve’s, like trial runs. This is about the time things got a little twisted.”
A little twisted? Reece held himself in check. “How so?” he asked instead.
“She wrote that she got a rush from breaking and entering, from getting away with stealing stuff.” Shane fastened his eyes on Neve. “She started hearing complaints from clients. I’m not sure of the details, but she did overhear a couple of folks mention driving farther out of their way to the Fall River Vet Clinic to have you take care of their pets. She was already on that slippery slope of sanity, and that really pissed her off. She seems to have shifted all her focus on you then, even complaining about you to family members, blaming her slow business on you. You were stealing her clients, spreading lies about her—”
“But I never did!” Neve cried.
Shane reached over and patted her hand. “We know that, honey. This was all in her head, a way to make her feel justified for targeting you. In her own handwriting, where she admitted to trashing your clinic, she followed up her confession with, ‘Fair is fair.’ Bullshit like that. From there, her writing becomes even more unhinged. The rage amps up, and so do the delusions. Somewhere in her rantings, she decides it’s a great idea to ‘save the community’ by confronting you. I think ‘confronting’ turned into kidnapping.”
Neve’s mouth dropped open. “It wasn’t even her community.”
Shane leaned back once more. “Like I said, delusions fueled by lunacy.”
Reece pushed off the wall. “Did this journal say what she planned to do with Neve or what she hoped to gain by abducting her?”
Shane shook his head. “She never mentions abduction. Only that she planned to confront Neve and get her to confess.”
Reece seethed. “By injecting her with ketamine? Did she think it was fucking truth serum?”
“But the truth is I didn’t do any of those things!” Neve choked out. “What did she expect me to confess to ? ”
Shane traded a look with Reece that broadcast he was holding back. “I’m not sure, Neve. To sabotaging her, I guess. The journal and emails drop off and end the day before she put the grab on you.”
Neve’s expression was one of incredulity. “This is like a bad movie.”
Shane’s gaze softened. “I know, honey. But you’re here, in one piece, and I’m damn glad about that.” He rose from the chair. “I need to get going, and it sounds like you need to get ready to go home. Why don’t I check in with you in a few days?”
Neve stared out the window, her gaze a million miles away. “Sure.”
Reece leaned down and nuzzled her ear, whispering, “I’m going to walk Shane out. I’ll be right back, okay?”
Eyes blank, she nodded. Suddenly, those denim blues widened. “Shane, this may sound like a really weird question, but I have to ask. You said you know how hard it is for the clinic to make ends meet. Have you been depositing money into my bank account?”
Shane’s mouth swung open. “Have I been what ? Neve, I can barely deposit money into my own account.”
With a defeated look, she waved him off. “Never mind.” She seemed to remember herself, offering him a small smile. “Thank you for coming. And thank you for the flowers.”
“What the fuck was that all about?” he asked when Reece nudged him into the hallway. “She thinks I’m putting money into her bank account?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s above your pay grade. There was something in there you left out.”
Shane headed for the entrance, and Reece fell in beside him. “Just some other crap in Bunting’s writings. She was batshit crazy. She’d convinced herself Neve faked her own five-star reviews, then stalked Bunting’s nonexistent clients to lure them away. It unravels from there.
“She worked up a plan for this so-called confrontation—if you can call the crude map she sketched a plan.” When Reece cocked an eyebrow, Shane elaborated. “She had drawings of Neve’s clinic, the depot, Neve’s Tahoe, and her own Subie on there. There are some scratchings in the margins indicating that by hiding the Tahoe, and with Neve missing, people would assume the doc took off on her own. Even if they spotted the Tahoe behind the depot, it wouldn’t necessarily look out of place.”
“What was Bunting’s real motive? ”
Shane’s bootheels clicked on the polished floor. “We’ll probably never know for sure, but my gut tells me she wanted revenge—and yes, I get it, Neve didn’t do a damn thing to earn that revenge. But the woman was loco. She ranted about ‘doing away’ with her ‘competition’ so everyone in the area would be forced to use her clinic. She even pats herself on the back for her self-control, talking about how she refrained from doing more damage to Neve’s clinic.” Shane made a circling motion with his index finger beside his temple.
Reece opened the hospital door and held it for an older couple before he and Shane stepped outside. “And you’re sure she acted alone? There’s no boogeyman lurking out there ready to finish what Bunting started?”
“Ninety-nine percent sure, but we’ll keep investigating. Until she completely lost it, Bunting was very good at hiding her crazies. She didn’t want anyone in on her secret, and frankly, she didn’t need help.”
Reece agreed. “Neve has a vague recollection of getting two shots of the drug. She thinks the first syringe—the one Pearl found—held a smaller dose that caused disorientation and some loss of motor coordination but not enough to completely incapacitate her. Her legs might have been unstable, but she could still move under her own power. Bunting ordered her into the Tahoe, then the Subaru, before she produced a second syringe and stuck Neve with the dose that knocked her out.”
“Makes sense. She would never have been able to maneuver Neve in and out of the vehicles otherwise.”
Even though the ordeal was over, Neve was safe, and her would-be-kidnapper was dead, unease simmered in Reece’s gut. “Saying she was going to confront her is utter bullshit. What do you think Bunting truly had planned for her?”
Shane’s eyes darkened. “I’m not sure she knew herself. In her state of mind, who the hell knows what would have happened to Neve? They were heading toward Coal Bank Pass. Would she have pulled Neve out of the car and ‘confronted’ her there? Neve could have ended up more injured … or worse. I do know Bunting didn’t plan on going off the highway and killing herself at the bottom of Lost Horse Gulch. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and the impact threw her against the tree and killed her.”
“Any idea what caused her to crash?”
“She swerved, maybe to avoid wildlife, which is pretty fucking ironic.”
“How so? ”
“She charged people for fixing up their pets without fixing them up. She causes Neve bodily harm. But then she goes off the road to avoid hitting an animal and winds up killing herself.” Shane shook his head. “I’ll never understand people.”
“How can you when they’re fucking insane?”
“True that.” Shane raised his fist for a bump, then grasped Reece’s shoulder. “Dude, how long you been up? You need to get some sleep. Are you safe to drive Neve home?”
“Yeah. I can make it.”
“If not, I’m happy to take her with me.” The dumb fuck waggled his eyebrows. “So what’s up with you two? Still planning on getting an annulment or divorce or whatever the hell you were talking about before?”
Reece gave him a pointed look. “Why?”
“I just wanted to get a lay of the land so I can date her when your ass finally leaves town. Neve’s not only damn pretty, but she’s tough as nails, and that’s a very sexy look on a woman.” With a stupid grin on his stupid face, Shane whacked Reece’s chest. “You’ll let me know, right? When you leave, I mean.”
Reece bristled. “Fuck you.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he guffawed before pivoting on his heel and striding away.
Grumbling a curse, Reece hurried back to Neve’s hospital room, where he found her on the edge of the bed, fighting with her gown. Her bare back was to him. “What are you doing?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Changing so I can go home. Don’t look so shocked. It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”
“No, but I could have been the male nurse. He hasn’t seen it before.”
“Are you so sure about that? He’s a nurse. Now stop gawking and help me out of this thing.”
A choked sort of noise escaped him. “But you’re naked under there.”
“Yes, I know. What’s the problem?”
“I …” Get ideas I shouldn’t, and given that you’re hurt … “Nothing. No problem.” He sprinted for the bag and plopped it beside Neve. “Let’s get your street clothes out before we strip you down.”
A moment later, he was hooking her bra and letting out a snicker. “This is different. Putting your bra on instead of taking it off. ”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” she giggled. The happy sound struck a warm chord deep in his chest, and in that moment he knew she was going to be all right. He planted a soft kiss on her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
Excitement and the lack of sleep caught up with him on the drive back to Fall River. Maybe it was time to get a few conversations out of the way and keep himself awake at the same time.
“You’ve had a tough month, and the last few days have been especially rough. How are you doing with processing it all?”
She propped her elbow on the window frame and leaned her head against it. “It feels like I was in the middle of a bad movie, and my mind’s not ready to admit it happened yet.” She turned toward him. “Except the part where the hero rescues the girl.”
“Not sure how much credit you can give the rescuer,” he snorted. “Hero” didn’t sound right, so he didn’t repeat it. “Especially when the girl did all the work to get herself rescued. Using the tailpipe to hit the rock? Genius. Although”—he dragged out the word—“you did go against my advice when you left the scene.”
“I didn’t want to die there.” An honest, simple statement, and his heart lurched in his chest. Her head swiveled toward him. “As for the pipe, I didn’t think my voice would hold out if I kept yelling. The dark timber seemed to absorb it.”
“It muffles everything for sure. Makes it hard for a sound-sweep search.”
“What’s that?”
“Like it sounds. I call out or whistle or make some kind of noise and wait and listen for a response. You heard me and responded, and the metal sound traveled. Like I said, genius. I wish all my rescues were as smart as you.” He caught himself. “When I was actually rescuing people, that is.” A lament he couldn’t hold back threaded itself through his words.
She placed a delicate hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. For coming to get me. I know I didn’t show it, but I was overwhelmed with joy when I realized it was you and that you were actually there. I knew then that I was finally safe.”
His chest expanded, with what, he wasn’t sure, and a knot of emotion wedged in his throat. He picked up her hand and kissed it, fighting for control over his voice. “I had to find you. I had no choice. I was going abso-fucking-lutely nuts. Ask Shane.” Or not. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of her talking to Shane anymore.
A wistful smile curved her kissable mouth. “I do believe I’ve come down with a serious case of Reece Rescue Syndrome.”
Pleasure, with a sprinkle of self-consciousness, made him chortle.
A few beats of silence passed. Her tone struck a tentative note when she next spoke. “Back in the woods, when you found me …”
His eyebrow lifted expectantly.
“You said you loved me,” she continued. “What does that mean?”
He looked from the road to her. “The words are pretty simple. You need me to spell them out for you?” Maybe if he did, she’d say them back and soothe his longing to hear them from her mouth.
As he turned his attention back to the quiet highway, she slumped against the window. “What I’m trying to understand is whether a future for us is anywhere on your radar, where we’re both together in the same town.”
“About that. You and I need to talk.”