Round 56
ROUND FIFTY-SIX
OLLIE
“Doctor Douchebag? Please report to the nurse’s station as soon as possible.
” Eliza’s voice plays over the speaker system throughout the hospital.
Her playful snicker grating on my nerves because I’m stuck here, working the ER after a handful of bikers—the Lycra-wearing kind, not leather—slipped on the road coming into town and ate the asphalt.
I gnash my teeth and fake a smile, careful to control my expression while I clean my patient’s gravel-torn thigh.
“Doctor Douchebag?” she repeats. “To the nurse’s station, please. ”
“Would you excuse me for just a moment?” I roll my chair back and peel my gloves off. “Please.”
The cyclist snickers, his cheeks burning a bright red under the dried mud already hardening on his skin. “You must be Doctor Douchebag, huh? The wife giving you trouble?”
“Worse. My baby sister.” I stand up from my stool and drop my dirty gloves in the trash.
Passing the long line of men who could probably clean their own wounds and apply a Band-Aid, saving themselves the work of claiming on insurance, I move along the wide hall and away from the ER.
I dip my hands into my coat pockets, snagging my phone in my left hand and pulling it out to check the screen as I walk.
I have a missed call from Rose, but no message.
A missed call from Billy, and an accompanying voicemail.
Then I check my email and find half a dozen with his name attached.
Opening the one at the top, with the subject field William “Liam” Porter, I scan a coroner’s report with a fast sweep of my eyes and scowl as I enter the main ward to find my sister hovering by Janine’s desk.
“There you are!” She pushes away from the desk in an oversized sweater drowning her frame, but little denim shorts exposing her long, lean legs, and a pair of kick-his-ass boots I know for a damn fact belong to Raquel. “You have no time for me anymore, Oliver?”
“Kinda busy over here.” I walk straight past her, my shoulder brushing hers as I go, then I stop by the desk and rest my elbows on the high section, my eyes locked on the words ‘death occasioning from blunt force trauma’.
Confused, I scroll back to the top of the report and read his name again, just to make sure I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing.
Eliza turns and sidles up on my right, tilting her head to the side. “Why so grumpy?”
“Why so annoying?” I swipe out of the autopsy report and read Billy’s quickly typed message: Liam’s dead.
Has been since late November. Body was found at the bottom of a hiking trail.
Cops completely botched it, claiming misadventure.
Said he was dressed for hiking, looked like a hiker, and there was evidence of a fall.
Medical examiner identified death via blunt force trauma, but said he smacked his head during the fall, and that’s what did him in.
But get this: I called Raquel and sent over the pictures from the scene, and she did me a solid and ran them by her chief ME.
Chief ME said, and I quote, ‘coroner’s a brainless idiot.
Cops were negligent. I can see the actual imprint of a weapon on his skull—hammer, crowbar, tire iron, something like that.
Unless your vic fell while holding this instrument and landed on it, headfirst, you’ve got yourself a homicide.
Suggest you get a new medical examiner. And new cops.
In fact, you should bring in the Feds or something, because everyone who touched this in the past is dirty or completely inept. ’
At the top of my screen, a ribbon drops down to let me know I have another email in my inbox. But above that, where Wi-Fi and battery status sit, a small flag flashes white.
A flag I’ve never seen before.
“You’re seriously just gonna stand there and ignore me?
” Eliza huffs. “Jesus. I came to see how last night went with Rose and that fuckwit with the thin lips.” She pinches her lips in my peripheral vision, scowling until her brows jut forward.
“Ever watched those Netflix true crime specials? The well-to-do, white-collar, perfect husband who inadvertently killed his wife and swore he didn’t, always has thin lips. ”
“Shush.” I drag the top of my screen down and search for the flag notification. “Stop talking.”
“No, I’m serious! They should study it! Not all men with thin lips. But always a man with thin lips.”
“Rose turned her tracking app on.” My heart stutters and jerks, my thumb slamming down on the notification so fucking fast, I’m surprised when the screen doesn’t crack.
“She turned it on, Lize. She—” My phone buzzes with an incoming call, Billy’s name flashing on the screen and stealing my view of Rose moving… away.
Answering, I swing the phone to my ear. “Billy?”
“Rose isn’t at the house!” His tires scream against the asphalt, the engine roaring through the phone. “She wasn’t due to go out with Darcy till eleven. I was talking to her just before! But now she’s not at the house, and she’s in danger.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Fury pumps through my veins as I dart around Janine’s desk and yank the top drawer open.
I snatch out the keys to my truck and peel my coat off while I walk.
Then my walk turns to a run. My run turns to a fucking sprint along the hospital hall, dodging patients and skipping over a bucket half-filled with rainwater, because the roof leaks and the board doesn’t care enough to fix it.
I explode through the hospital doors and skid on the slippery concrete.
“Billy!? What the hell is going on? That email says Liam was murdered?!”
“What?” Eliza bursts through the hospital front doors and grabs on to my arm, her feet slipping and her breath racing. “Ollie!”
“Murdered! Darcy claims Liam lost his shit when Rose got engaged and took off. New medical examiner says differently. Liam’s body—unidentified at the time—was discovered in late November and handed off to an inept coroner.
The cops didn’t even try to formally identify him.
He was filed away as a John Doe until right fucking now, which is insane, considering his military record.
He should have been easy to identify. And get this— Fuck.
” He slams on the brakes and skids through town, revving the engine and peeling away from wherever the fuck he is.
“Rose’s parents’ death: same fucking coroner!
And no one mentioned the second set of skid marks on the road that night.
Tire tracks matched those of an Audi A1. Guess who drives one of those?”
“But he…” I turn on my heels and sprint into the rain, across the parking lot, and around an unused ambulance. “He’s driving a BMW, Billy!”
“He’s renting a BMW. He owns a fucking A1. Dammit!” He skids to a long stop. “His car isn’t at Camille’s.”
“No, shit.” Rain dribbles through my hair and onto my face, blurring my vision as I slam against the side of my truck and unlock the doors.
I swing the driver’s side open and jump in, the whole vehicle rocking on its chassis.
Jamming the key into the ignition, I turn the engine over and press my foot to the gas pedal.
“Rose turned her phone tracking on, Billy.” I whip the phone away from my ear and set him on speaker, then I swipe across to the tracker and damn near wheeze.
“She’s just gone past picnic point. Headed toward Barlespy.
” I drop the phone into my lap as Eliza wrenches my passenger door open and climbs in, then I shove the gear into first and tear out of the parking lot.
“Are you seriously saying Darcy killed Liam?”
Eliza gasps.
“And Rose’s parents?”
“I’m saying it’s worth a fuckin’ discussion.
Rose’s boss swears Rose and Liam were only ever friends.
Liam was buddies with Seth, so it was a brotherly guard of honor thing, according to Kaitlin.
Also, when I mentioned Rose leaving at the start of this year, she said that wasn’t correct.
She said Rose took off in November! Just days after Liam.
She said Rose came in on her last shift and said her goodbyes.
She was tense and upset about Liam leaving, looking over her shoulder all day long, and in the end, she cut out two hours early—with Kaitlin’s approval—because Darcy had a habit of swinging by unannounced.
She didn’t go missing. She left. Where is she now? ”
“Shit.” I look down and try to unlock my dark screen, but my wheels skid on the tar, the rain making the road a million times more slippery. “Fuck!”
“Here.” Eliza snatches my phone and unlocks the screen, her breath racing and her long blonde locks sticking to the side of her face. “She’s still moving. Headed toward Barlespy.”
“Eliza’s there?” Billy switches his sirens on, the sound ricocheting not only through the line but in real time, too. Because this town just isn’t that fucking big. “Why’s Eliza there?”
“Right place at the right time.” Eliza minimizes the tracker screen and jumps to my emails. “What else did you find out, Billy? Are we really sure about this? Or are we gonna scare the shit out of Rose when we come in hot?”
“I’m pretty fuckin’ sure! The cops aren’t particularly chatty when I call, but I got the case notes from the second therapist. Doctor Pratlin.
The first page includes a handwritten note that said Rose was adamant Darcy was not to know she was attending there.
That Doctor Mara—her first therapist—was a friend of Darcy’s mother, and too many times in the past, patient confidentiality had been violated, and her personal information was used against her by either Darcy or his mother.
Doctor Pratlin was aware from the outset that Rose was a victim of domestic violence, and so he acted accordingly, and assured her constantly that their sessions would always remain private.
They both acknowledged such information would not be shared except with Rose’s express permission or with a court order.
The final entry is dated November twenty-sixth last year.
The day before Rose left. She said Darcy had asked her to marry him again. He was pressuring her for a yes.”
“What?” Eliza explodes. “She’s not engaged?”
“Not according to these notes! He’d been asking her for years, had been caught messing with her birth control on more than a couple of occasions—but brushed it off as silly or accidental—and grew significantly more insistent in October.
Coincidentally, or not, Darcy’s parents had just celebrated their forty-year anniversary in October, too.
Darcy wanted kids and wedding bells, but Rose consistently stated she was not ready for all that.
She told Pratlin she needed to escape her relationship, but was fearful of how he’d react, so instead of planning a breakup and risking his temper, she planned her escape and documented the whole thing via Pratlin.
Liam was supposed to supply Rose with fake IDs and bank accounts, which would help her get far from Darcy and allow her to start her new life, but the day before he was meant to deliver them, he went missing.
Rose suspected Darcy was behind it, and though Darcy spun a story about Liam’s jealousy and how he probably ditched town to punish her, she knew that was a lie.
She didn’t have proof Darcy hurt Liam—she didn’t actually know where Liam was—but she knew things had escalated and it was time for her to go. ”
“Pratlin was never contacted by Darcy,” Eliza reads from the report on my phone, her hand shaking and her cheeks glowing pale white.
“Means that connection remained private, as Rose had hoped. And though Pratlin worried about Rose, they’d already said their goodbyes, and he’d wished her the best. He made a note that she might turn up dead one day…
or she’d stay living under the radar with her new identities.
Either way, he wasn’t likely to get closure on the matter, but he kept her session notes secure and hoped for the best. Receiving a court order today confirmed Pratlin’s worst fears, but because he was prepared, it was a fast and simple process to send everything over.
” Trembling, Eliza brings wide, horrified eyes across to mine.
“Oh my God, Ollie. Even with a TBI, her instincts screamed at her to stay hidden. She knew she was in danger.”
“Where is she, Eliza?” Billy screeches onto the road behind us, his sedan sliding across the wet tar in my rearview mirror.
Any other time, if a cop has their lights and sirens on behind me, I’d pull off to the side and let them go. But not today. Not this fucking time.
I swipe the moisture from my face and push the truck as fast as it can go, fanging it out of town and across the railroad tracks. “Eliza?”
“They’re still moving. But they’re not driving as fast as us.”