Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
M aria screamed Harry’s name and raced toward him as chaos broke out all around her. The startled cattle were thundering away from the sound of the gunshot and directly toward them. The hands were running for their horses then racing to turn the panicked cattle. Then with a whoop, Trevor galloped by. Maria, still in motion, pointed in the direction from whence the shot had come, then fell to her knees beside Harry.
He was out cold. She looked toward the thundering cattle just as several riders managed to turn them. They’d need to turn them more, but she couldn’t move Harry. She decided to trust the men and change the things she could. She opened his shirt. Blood pulsed from a well in his shoulder. She rolled him up to see the exit wound directly behind it, shirt still in place, torn and soaked with blood and dirt. Maria swore, and she never swore. She grabbed the med kit from the saddlebag and got to work to stop the bleeding.
Hoofbeats approached. Four more horses galloped toward them. Willow pulled Sundance to a stop. “We heard a rifle shot! You okay?”
“I’m good. Harry’s not,” Maria said. “Trevor went after the shooter.”
“I’ll go—” Bubba began.
“It’s my job, Bubba. Stay and help here.” Willow sent a worried look at Harry, then clicked her cheek, and galloped away.
Bubba slid off his horse, looped the reins around the saddle horn, and knelt beside Harry. “What can I do?”
Maria had rinsed the exit wound with saline, then alcohol, and packed the wound on both sides to stop the bleeding. “I don’t know why he’s unconscious,” she said as she worked on the entry wound, doing all the same things.
“Hit his head,” Bubba said.
She looked up at him, and he nodded at a rock sticking out of the ground a few feet from Harry’s head. There was blood on it. She turned Harry’s head, ran her hand over it, and felt the swollen spot in the back. “We need to get him back to the house.”
She hadn’t been trampled, she realized, noticing the hands and cattle not far away. The longhorns were calmer and the hands were talking gently from their horses, between her and the cattle.
Bubba looked toward the direction Willow and Trevor had gone. “Holy…”
Maria rose and looked, too. In the distance, Trevor was chasing after a man on horseback up a slight rise, swinging his lasso. He threw it, and as they watched, the lasso landed around its quarry, and Trevor gave a mighty yank.
The guy came out of his saddle so hard, Maria and Bubba winced.
“Jeeze, Lord, did he kill him?” Bubba asked.
“Willow’s catching up, she’ll deal with it. Let’s get Harry back to the house.”
Jake, the foreman, hollered from horseback, “Ambulance’ll meet you at the main house.” He held up his phone.
“They should be there by the time we are,” Bubba said. He sent a worried look out toward where Willow had gone.
“She’ll be all right,” Maria said. “Willow can handle herself.”
“I know, I just… Sometimes I feel bad I didn’t join up like Uncle Garrett wanted me to.” He picked Harry up with care, started toward his horse just as a four-wheeler came rumbling up.
Aunt Chelsea whipped off her helmet and said, “Put him behind me, Bubba. Maria, sit behind him on the cargo rack to hold him on.”
Bubba set Harry upright on the ATV behind her, as instructed.
Maria climbed on behind Harry. She wrapped one arm around him and used the other to hang on.
They started off and she looked behind them. Willow was riding with her prisoner in front of her, his hands cuffed in front of him. Even Maria knew better than to cuff a prisoner in front like that, so she must have a reason. His head hung low. He might be unconscious.
Chelsea drove slow enough not to bounce her off, and then several of her aunts and uncles came riding toward them, thundering past.
“Don’t they know Willow got the guy?” Maria asked loudly enough so Chelsea could hear.
“They’ll make sure there aren’t others. Your dad’s on the way with deputies, too.” Maria looked behind them. Bubba was riding along not far back, watching over them, scanning all directions.
By the time they got back to the house, an ambulance was waiting, as the foreman had predicted. Uncle Garrett was talking to the EMTs. Then finally, Chelsea eased the machine to a stop. Maria held Harry to her while Chelsea got off, and then the medics took over. They moved Harry with extreme care from the ATV to a stretcher and into the back of their vehicle. One of the medics jumped in with Harry and began checking him over.
“I’ll follow you in,” Maria said as the rear door closed. “Better get another ambulance for the shooter, Uncle Garrett. Trevor roped him right off his horse and last I saw, he wasn’t lookin’ too good.”
“I’ll drive you,” Bubba said. “Somebody needs to keep you and Harry safe until Willow can send a deputy to stand guard. Wait here, I’ll get the truck.”
Harry was sitting in a little white chair, at a little white table. Both were made of metal in filigree swirls. He held an impossibly tiny china cup between his thumb and forefinger, and his mom poured tea from a matching miniature teapot.
He looked up from the thimble-sized cup to her face. She was beautiful. Her angel blond hair had never seen a stylist and her smile could light a dark room. He looked into her big blue eyes last of all.
She said, “What are you so afraid of?” and she poured his cup until it was overflowing and wetting his hand.
He jolted awake, then thought it was another layer of the dream. He was still gazing into beautiful eyes. But these were velvety brown and full of emotion. Maria’s eyes.
His senses were coming online one by one. He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but what emerged was, “ Ow. ”
“Oh!” Maria jabbed a bedside button, making him aware he was in a hospital. Okay, that explained the pain.
“What happened?” he managed.
She leaned closer, laid her hand on his cheek. “You’re okay. The bullet went right through. Only hit flesh.”
“Bullet?” As the fog cleared, he remembered. There’d been an injured cow, and Maria had literally put the animal’s flesh back together. She was amazing. He looked at her more closely. She still wore the same clothes. Damn, it felt good, her being there.
More pieces floated into place. They’d been by the horses. There’d been a gunshot and a sledge hammer had hit him in the shoulder. He couldn’t have said which had come first. He lowered his head to try to look at his shoulder, from whence his pain seemed to radiate. It was covered in bandages
“You hit a rock when you went down,” Maria said. “Knocked you out cold. They did a procedure on the gunshot wound, just to give it a good cleanin’, remove damaged tissue, that sort of thing. It’s gon’ be sore.”
“What about you? Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Coward shot once and ran. Tried to, anyway. Here.”
She filled a glass from a pitcher, then elevated his bed so he could sip from a straw. He nodded when he was up far enough, drinking like he’d been lost in the desert.
She was okay. He didn’t see any signs otherwise and accepted it with deep relief. His last thought before he’d fallen was that the shooter could walk right up and shoot Maria if he wanted to.
“Trevor went after the guy,” Maria said. “Willow right behind him, and Bubba stayed to help you. Trevor’s the one who got him, though. Roped him right off his horse. Busted his clavicle.”
“They got the shooter?”
“Yep, he’s in a room down the hall with two Texas Rangers guarding the door. No ID on him and he’s not talking, other than to demand a phone call and a lawyer. But they’ll find out who he is by morning, Willow thinks.”
“You have any theories?”
She met his eyes and held them. “I haven’t had time to process any of this. I’ve just been scared you were fixin’ to die.” Tears welled in her brown eyes.
“Hey, no. I’m not gonna die.” He pulled her in for a one-armed hug and got lost in the smell of her hair. She had the most amazing hair. He wanted wrap her in his arms, maybe pull her into bed beside him and the covers over their heads.
She was in danger, though. He was putting her and her whole family in danger just by being near them. He clasped her hand. “I don’t think I’d better go back to the ranch with you,” he said.
“I knew you’d say that,” she replied. He could hear the argument in her voice before she even spoke it.
A nurse came in. “You’re awake! Wonderful. The doctor’s still here.” Then to Maria, “We’ll need to check him out, ’kay?”
“Yeah, got you, of course.” Maria glanced back at Harry. She was smiling, but there was a tear on her cheek. Relieved he was okay? Sad he’d mentioned leaving the ranch? He didn’t even know where to go. Home, maybe.
The thought of being 3,000 miles away from Maria hurt more than the bullet hole. She was almost through the door when he finally blurted, “Don’t go home yet, okay?”
She looked back at him, surprised, and then she pushed the heel of her hand across her cheek and said, “Okay.”
The “Family Waiting Area” was an alcove off one side of the unit, just past the patient rooms, which were arranged on three sides of the nurse’s desk. Maria had a good view from there. The hallway-facing wall was glass. The rest, just a square room with chairs, three vending machines, and a TV. She lingered in the doorway while a medical team examined Harry. She was barely able to keep her eyes from the hospital room three doors to the left where two Texas Rangers stood outside the door. The man who’d shot Harry was in that room. She wanted to storm in there and give him an ass whooping he wouldn’t soon forget.
Willow came up the hall with a tall, handsome man and a brown-haired girl in her mamma’s pencil skirt and blazer, who introduced herself as “Special Agent Agnes Hofstadler, FBI.” Her glasses were the biggest part of her heart-shaped face.
“Detective Connor Wynn, down from the New York State Police,” the man said. He was as tall as a Texan, and bore a thick head of dark-brown hair, and Irish-green eyes that twinkled when he smiled.
Maria said, “Maria Brand Monroe,” automatically invoking the power of her family name when faced with anyone who intimidated her. But these two showed no sign of recognizing it.
“We were hoping to talk to Mr. Hyde,” Agent Hofstadler said. She was pretty, Maria realized, but hiding it. Probably wise in her line of work.
“He just woke up a few minutes ago,” Maria told them. “But then everyone rushed in to check him over. I imagine you can talk to him after they get done.”
From further up the hall, a voice was raised. “I’m his lawyer, and I insist you let me in!”
They all turned toward the prisoner’s room to see a short man with hair as thick and brown as a televangelist’s and black-framed glasses, yelling at the Rangers.
“I’ve got it,” said Detective Wynn, and headed that way to help them out. He looked at the lawyer’s ID then nodded at the cops to let him in.
The doctor and two nurses exited Harry’s room, and Maria said, “Let me go see if he’s up to this, first, okay?” she said.
“He has no choice but to be up to it,” said Agent Hofstadler.
“Just give me a minute.” Maria went back into Harry’s room, glancing down the hall where the irritated, jockey-sized lawyer emerged from the shooter’s room and stomped, as if furious, toward the elevator.
“That was fast,” Willow muttered to the agent and the detective.
“Hey,” said Harry.
Maria went the rest of the way in, meeting his eyes with an encouraging smile. He was sitting up, his legs dangling over the side of the bed. “I need my phone. Lily and Dad have probably been trying to get hold of me. How long has it been? Can you get my clothes?”
She nodded, didn’t answer the questions, and went to the closet. She knew the room better than he did, having been in it for nearly twenty-four hours.
“There’s an FBI agent and a New York detective here,” she said, handing him the stack. He frowned at the clothes, which were his, but not what he’d been wearing. “I asked Aunt Chelsea to bring them in for you. I hope you don’t mind she went through your stuff. She took back the ones you were wearin’. The shirt will have to be thrown out, but that’s up to you.”
“I don’t mind her going through my stuff. I just want to get out of here.”
She slammed her eyes closed when he said that, so he wouldn’t see the hurt. He saw it anyway, and rose from the bed, setting the clothes aside. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Maria, you could have been shot out there, today,” he said.
Yesterday, she thought, and knew she had to tell him. “They’re not after me, they’re after you.”
“But you were in the line of fire. Again. You were nearly mowed down by a feed truck yesterday.” Day before yesterday, she thought. “The longer I stay near you, the more danger you’re in.” She caught his gaze, wondering if he cared as much as the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes suggested. He looked away. “All of you. Your whole family.”
He set his belongings on the bed, pulled on the clean jockey shorts and jeans underneath the hospital gown. He undid the snaps on the the sleeves to get it off around his IV tubing, but then looked askance at the T-shirt, probably realizing he could not put it on over the IV in his arm. So, he stood there in jeans and socks, shirtless.
He glanced at Maria as if for help, but she didn’t meet his eyes, because she was looking at his chest, and didn’t feel an ounce of shame about it. She moved closer, put her hands on his chest and pushed until he sat on the edge of the bed again. Then she took hold of his hand, turned his arm and looked at the IV.
“I could take this out for you, but I think we should wait for the nurse. And she’ll probably be back before Agent Agnes and Detective Hotty finish questioning you.”
“Detective Hotty?”
“Dare I hope you’re jealous?” She didn’t give him time to reply, and said, “Good. But you don’t need to be. I only have eyes for you, Harry. Now wrap a blanket around your shoulders or something. How do you expect anyone to think straight, when you walk around like that?”
He smiled at her and reached for his discarded hospital gown.
Maria turned and called through the open door, “You can come in.”
Willow, Agent Hofstadler, and Detective Wynn entered the room and formed a half circle around the foot of Harry’s bed.
Harry had put his hospital gown back on, sleeves snapped over his shoulders, and was sitting upright just like before, only this time the legs hanging over the side of the bed wore jeans and the feet, a pair of his own socks.
They introduced themselves, and Harry said, “Has anyone heard from my sister?”
“Can you tell them what happened, Harry?” Willow asked.
“We went to tend to an injured cow. Somebody shot me. Listen, I called my sister. She didn’t answer. I texted her; she hadn’t replied.”
“It was one gunshot,” Maria said. “From about a hundred yards away, near the road. North Brand, that is. He fled on horseback.”
“And your cousin went after him?” Agent Hofstadler asked.
“Cousins, plural. But Trevor’s the one who caught him.”
“And how did the suspect wind up with a broken collar bone?” The short agent pushed her big glasses up higher on her nose, directing her question at Harry.
“I was unconscious at the time,” Harry said.
“I didn’t see that part,” Maria said.
“Huh.” The agent looked at her companion. He looked back, raised his eyebrows and shrugged, a whaddya-gonna-do sort of gesture. Agnes rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Harry. “How many people know you’re staying with the Brands?”
Harry lowered his head. “The whole town,” he said.
“Locals saw them together when he got hit by the truck,” Willow said. “Everyone else saw the video of it. Dang, was it the same shoulder, Harry?”
“It was,” he said.
Willow sighed and shook her head in a show of sympathy. “No question the hit and run was deliberate,” she went on. “We found the truck abandoned off a side road in the middle of nowhere. It’d been stolen three towns over.”
“We’re gonna need to see those files,” Agent Hofstadler said.
“I don’t think they want me dead, though,” Harry said.
“What makes you think that?” the agent asked. “Given that they just shot at you, I mean.” It was impossible to tell if she was being sarcastic with her deadpan delivery.
“Solomon’s death wasn’t deliberate,” Harry replied. “Everyone thinks all this is Robert, but even if it was, I know him. He would never have hurt Solomon. And he wouldn’t hurt Carrie, either.”
“But the guy who tried to shoot you, the guy in that room down the hall, isn’t Robert,” Maria said.
Harry’s face didn’t seem to register that. Maybe couldn’t. He was clinging to hope. He looked around the room, and his gaze stopped then widened on the white board, which had that day’s date in marker across the top.
“I’ve been here a whole day? Did Lily ever call back? Where’s my phone?”
“I have it, I have it.” Maria returned to the closet, took out a large plastic bag, and from it, removed his phone and his wallet. When she handed him the phone, he tapped his messages open, and searched. “She never texted back. I texted her yesterday, and she never replied. Lily never ignores a text. Not from me.”
“I know,” Maria said. “And I knew you’d contacted her. I told Willow yesterday. She had Ithaca PD send people to check on her last night,” Maria said.
Harry looked at her. “And?” She hesitated and he said, “Maria?”
Agent Hofstadler said, “Your sister wasn’t in her apartment. Her car and her handbag were missing, all of which suggest she left of her own volition. Her phone is apparently offline. We’re searching for her, watching her bank transactions, and monitoring her phone pings.”
“What about my father?” His words were nearly a croak.
“Your dad’s fine,” Willow said. “There’s excellent security at his apartment complex and officers are checking in periodically, just in case. But there’s no indication either of them are in danger.”
“Except that my sister has vanished,” he returned.
The PA system crackled, then “Code blue, five west,” just as a herd of staff, some pushing equipment, stampeded past the open door toward the prisoner’s room.
The three cops lunged out of Harry’s room, Maria and Harry right behind them. Harry was still in jeans and a hospital gown, rolling his IV pole with him. Staff had flooded into the suspect’s room as the Rangers, looked on.
“No,” Willow said, moving that way.
“What the hell happened?” Agent Hofstadler demanded.
People were pumping the shooter’s chest in between electric jolts, but nothing was working. Harry was still in the doorway of his own room, but he’d found his shoes. He shoved his phone and wallet into his pockets, and he was holding his shirt in his hand.
The commotion stopped. The people left the shooter’s room, exited slowly, shaking their lowered heads. Dead. The shooter was dead.
“That lawyer,” Maria said softly. “He did something to him.”
Willow nodded. “He sure didn’t die from a busted clavicle.”
Harry whispered, “I have to find my sister. I have to go home and check on my father. I have to?—”
Maria closed her hand around his. “We will.”
Harrison had been discharged and was dressed in his own clothes by the time Willow, the Rangers, the FBI agent, and the NYSP detective had been ready to move the body of the shooter from the room where he’d died.
Willow, who didn’t want the body out of her sight and who kept muttering “right under our noses” over and over to no one in particular, glanced back at him. “I have Uncle Garrett workin’ on the fastest way to get you home to Ithaca to check on your family, Harry,” she said. “Follow me. I don’t want you out of my sight, either.”
So Harrison, Maria, Agent Hofstadler, and Detective Wynn followed the dead man on a stretcher with a sheet over his face, into an elevator. They rode two levels down then exited into a dim concrete corridor. The solid metal door, gray and unmarked, led into the morgue. At least he thought it was the morgue. It was a small, cool room lined with medical equipment, and a single “corpse-drawer” in one wall. Just one.
He was terrified for his sister.
“Only one?” Maria asked, nodding at the drawer in the wall. Her voice trembled a little. She was not comfortable so close to a dead body.
“Even that barely ever gets used,” the attendant said. He was a scrawny, sandy-haired young man whose jaw was the biggest part of his whole head. “Small town. The dead go straight to the funeral home most of the time.”
“Well, this guy won’t need it long,” Agent Hofstadler said. “I’m shipping him to the nearest forensics lab, soon as I can arrange it. We just need to preserve evidence until then.”
The attendant nodded and took hold of the drawer’s handle to pull it open, saying, “I can’t remember the last time we—” And then he stopped in mid-sentence, because the drawer was not empty. There was already a body in it, zipped into a body bag.
“Well, that’s not right,” the attendant said. “How could…?” He pulled the drawer the rest of the way open. Willow had to move the gurney with the dead shooter on it, to make room for the drawer to open all the way.
“Who is this? There’s not supposed to be a body here. Where’s the paperwork? Who the hell…” The attendant asked no one, as he unzipped the body bag and folded it open.
“Holy God,” Harry said. “That’s Robert!”