Chapter 20
The sound of a bed clicking in place woke Bridget. Where was she? She rubbed her eyes and then looked up to see a male CNA adjusting the blankets around Eliza’s chin.
Bridget sat up quickly. “What are you doing?”
“Just making sure our patient is comfortable.” He patted the girl’s hand gently.
“Don’t let the bandages scare you. The recovery nurse wanted me to let you know she’s doing well.
And the night watch ICU nurse will be in shortly.
She’s with another patient right now but should be in here in just a few minutes. ”
Bridget forced herself to relax. “Thank you.”
“No problem, ma’am. She’ll be fine. We take good care of our patients.”
She followed him to the door and noted Jon had fallen asleep.
Poor guy had to be tired, but she needed him to do his job and stay alert.
She needed to know that someone was watching out for their safety.
She checked her phone, but no one had texted with updates.
As far as she knew, Todd didn’t have a way to reach her, but surely someone would have let her know if anything had changed.
She nudged Jon on the shoulder, and the man jerked awake.
“What?” He bolted to his feet, then swayed. When he spotted her, his cheeks flushed with color. “I fell asleep?”
“You did.”
He ran a hand over his face. “My youngest has been sick, but that’s no excuse.” The man grimaced. “Let me run to the restroom, and I’ll stand the rest of the night. That’ll keep me up.”
“It’ll keep you upright anyway.”
He tilted his head to the side, then nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched him walk down the hall towards the bathroom, then reentered Eliza’s room.
The girl looked so still as she lay against the pillow, her head partially shaved and a large bandage covering part of her head.
Her breathing was steady, but Bridget noted the oxygen tubing.
She sank onto the recliner as she felt light-headed.
Please let me have made the right choice for her.
Dr. Lyons hadn’t left her with much room to navigate, but now that she saw the aftermath of the surgery, she felt sick to realize what she had allowed them to do to the girl.
“Alive after a surgery is better than the alternative.”
Bridget looked up at the quiet voice. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
The night nurse calmly wrote her name, Rainey, on the whiteboard. “I promise it’s not as bad as it looks. I’ve looked at her chart, and Eliza did well. You did the right thing.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” Bridget blew out a steady stream of air. “I’m not usually such a ninny, but I really hate hospitals, and I haven’t gotten to leave all day.”
“Has your head started pounding again?” The woman pulled a couple of tablets from her pocket. “The chart mentioned that I should check on your status, too, because you weren’t likely to complain or mention your own trauma from earlier today.”
“It’s minor compared to what she experienced.”
“I’ll repeat what you’ve probably heard a couple of times today. If you don’t put your own oxygen on first, you can’t help anyone else.”
For some reason, that image stuck as Bridget accepted the pills. “These are?”
“Tylenol. If you need something stronger, I can have the on-call doctor check on you.”
“I’m not sure I can afford that.” Bridget pulled her water bottle from her bag.
“Sounds like everything that occurred was on the job, so workman’s comp should cover it.”
“If only.” Bridget swallowed the pills and then watched as Rainey checked Eliza’s vitals. “When will she wake up?”
“That is up to Miss Eliza. My guess is that over the next couple of hours, she’ll slowly wake up.
She may fight it because she’s got the pain from hitting her head, and now the added pain from surgery.
It won’t be fun. We’ll keep a steady drip of pain relief flowing to help control that, but it still won’t be something she’ll run toward.
” She scanned the various machines and adjusted a sensor on Eliza’s chest. “Everything looks good for now, so I’m going to leave her alone and monitor as much as I can from the station. That will let both of you rest.”
Bridget edged the chair closer and took Eliza’s hand. She prayed over the girl as she sat there, hoping she knew she wasn’t alone.
Caleb met Todd back at the precinct.
Todd handed his partner a cup of bad coffee. “You didn’t have to come back.”
“I was not going to leave my partner to interview this man alone.” Caleb took the mug, sniffed it, and then made a face. “I’ll sleep when you sleep.”
“Are you sure you should have left Dani?”
“How long have you known us?”
Todd didn’t want to start counting how many years he’d known Caleb. “A while.”
“Right.” Caleb set the mug down and then crossed his arms as he glowered at Todd. “You might not know Dani as well, but would I have left if she needed me?”
“No.”
“Of course not. My priorities are in the right place. When I left, she was relaxing. She wanted some time to process, too.” He sighed. “Frankly, I think she needs a bit of room. I’d be in her space if I stayed home.”
That made sense in a convoluted way. “All right. So how do you think we should approach this?”
“Nope. This is your case.”
Todd appreciated the deference, but his brain had slowed down. He could try to power through, but they needed answers. “I seriously need the help. I’m running on fumes, and Eliza needs her family if she has any.”
“So do you want me to play the good cop, and you’re the bad cop?”
Todd growled. “That’s so Hollywood. Let’s see what he had on him when he was arrested. Maybe that will give us a line of questioning.”
“That could work.” Caleb headed toward the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“To get the evidence.”
Todd watched him go, then thought about what he knew.
This man had killed three people.
He knew it, but he couldn’t prove it.
What had the Brandenbergs discovered that someone didn’t want anyone to know?
That was the million-dollar question that had caused the man in custody to allegedly murder three of them.
That type of situation wasn’t typical in a place like Lincoln and certainly not in Wayne. Was it as simple as drugs?
With organized crime came other big crime problems.
Could the man in that room help them trace back to the root of the growing web of drugs and crime?
Todd started doodling on a sheet of paper.
He tried to remember what he’d learned from Sydney and her time in Tyler.
And what he’d picked up from Wayne. It was the thinnest of outlines like the filaments of a spiderweb.
Fragile yet somehow holding together. If Travis hadn’t called Todd over to find Eliza, Todd would have stayed clear of the mess, but that wouldn’t make it go away.
Maybe this was how he understood unique intersections.
Caleb set a box on the desk in front of him. “Here’s what we have. It isn’t much.”
“Let’s see what’s there.” Todd opened his top desk drawer and pulled on a pair of gloves.
Then he stood and spent five minutes carefully sifting through the contents with Caleb.
The end result wasn’t much. A wallet with ID, two credit cards, and a gas receipt.
A cell phone with one call in the log. “Get this to the forensics team. Maybe they can use it to backtrack to who hired him.”
Caleb nodded. “It’s probably another burner, but worth trying.” He stared at the box. “Wish there was more.”
Todd wrote down the number then entered it in the search bar on his computer. A name popped up. But it wasn’t one in Nebraska. He frowned and then opened another database and entered the name. “This isn’t a known criminal.”
“Looks like we have our starting question.” His phone rang, and he looked at the screen before accepting the call. “Westmont.”
“This is Agent Rathers with the FBI. You left a message last night.”
Todd quickly put the call on speaker. “Thanks for calling me back. I’m here with my partner Detective Caleb Jamison with LPD. We have a situation where we’ve arrested a man who has made two attempts on Eliza Brandenberg’s life in the last thirty-six hours.”
There was a pause. “You have Eliza.”
“Yes.” The man had keyed on that and not the man in custody?
“Is she under protective custody?”
“She’s in the hospital where she’s undergone surgery to relieve pressure on her brain.”
The man swore, then apologized. “We’ve been searching for her, but she’d essentially vanished.”
“I would too, if my parents were murdered in front of me.”
“You figured that out?”
“We’re pretty good at our jobs. Now we’re looking for her biological parents.”
“You’ve been active.” The man was silent a moment. “I can have her father there this afternoon. I can also send agents to take the man you have into federal custody. He’s wanted by us for the murder of her parents and brother.”
“Don’t you need more to make sure it’s the right guy?”
“If he was after Eliza, it is. Where are you?”
Todd gave him the information.
“I’ll have a team there within the hour.”
“All right.” Todd would let the attorneys and management handle who got the man. “What about Eliza?”
“Tell me where she is, and I’ll get marshals there immediately.”
“I think this guy’s the only one who was involved but will be glad for the help.” Whatever it took to ensure Eliza was protected.