Chapter 13
“Every once in a while, I wish that torture were legal,” Gavin said stoically.
Skye smiled. As little time as they’d been working with Gavin, she knew that he would never go beneath the law. He wouldn’t torture anyone. But she could understand he was frustrated.
They had someone who could probably give them what they needed in order to find the children and the missing people.
But they could get nothing from him.
The interesting thing was he hadn’t asked for an attorney yet, though he had been read his rights more than once.
“For some reason, we’ve been big on quotes lately,” Zach said. “‘Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.’”
“And someone out there is practicing tyranny,” Gavin said. He chuckled softly. “We’re into quotes? These people are practicing a different quote. ‘When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.’”
“Thomas Jefferson,” Zach said. “Except that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation says the quote was never from him. But true or false, no real difference in a world where the Internet has given everyone the right to belief without facts. And then again, we, as human beings, have always believed what we want to believe.”
“True,” Gavin said with a sigh. “So, now—”
“We’re off to the hospital to talk to Cathy,” Skye reminded him.
“Okay, I’m with you,” Gavin said.
“We’ll take both cars,” Zach told him. “That way, we can divide and conquer, if need be.”
Minutes later, they were on the way to the hospital.
The officer on duty, watching over Cathy’s door, assured them that no one had been in her room except for her parents and the two friends who had been with her on the tour, Sheryl Dunn and Melinda Seymour.
Gavin told his officer he’d hang by the door; the officer should go grab a cup of coffee while he could.
The officer was happy to do so.
“I’ve already spoken with Cathy and her folks; I’ll wait here, not cloud the talk, mess up any mojo, and give that guy a break in the meantime!” Gavin said quietly as his officer walked away.
“Sounds good,” Zach said, and he and Skye walked into the room.
Mr. and Mrs. O’Hara, Cathy’s concerned parents, Joe and Marlene, were in the room with her, anxiously looking over their daughter.
Skye wondered if she was putting pressure on law enforcement resources by asking that Cathy be guarded—the teen’s parents might have been the best possible watchdogs themselves.
They were determined that they would be with her until they were able to take her home.
Cathy was awake, pale, and worried as she saw Skye and Zach chat with her parents, explaining that first, they wanted to make sure Cathy was doing well, and then, naturally, to find out if there was anything she could tell them about Nick Sandoval—and what he had told her.
“People—cops—have already been in here to speak with our daughter,” Mr. O’Hara told them. “But you are the two who saved her life! Cathy—”
“I’d be happy to tell you anything!” Cathy told them, sitting up on her bed, but leaning back against a pile of pillows. “As I told my parents, I swear—this might have even been good in an odd way—I will never, ever take drugs again!”
“Nick Sandoval supplied the pills, right?” Skye asked.
Cathy nodded solemnly. “Yeah, he told me that he could take us to a really cool party after the tour and that we just needed to be a little bit happy for it! But everybody thinks that I took too many. I didn’t.
Just a couple. And I guess … when the trolley kind of careened into the embankment, I felt sick!
But Nick took my arm, looked back at Sheryl and Melinda, and then just shook his head and told me it would be just the two of us, that we needed to get away before someone came for the trolley and got us all involved in something that would last all night.
But I … I could barely walk. And it was so dark, and I was so confused …
and finally … you helped me.” She glanced over at her parents.
“And I know how close I came to dying, and I’m really grateful to be alive.
I do want to live! So, thank you, thank you! ”
“Cathy, we’re just grateful to see you doing well,” Zach assured her.
“Before you caught up with us,” Cathy continued, “he kept telling me that we just had to go a little farther, and that I was going to wind up so happy. We weren’t just going to have a good time; we would learn ‘the way’ for the rest of our lives.
” She shook her head, glancing at her parents again.
“This has all been my fault! I’m a lucky kid.
My parents are super people. They taught me all about stranger danger, and the real downside of drugs, but …
Nick didn’t seem like a stranger, and it just sounded as if this party he was talking about was going to be amazing! ”
“But your friends didn’t want to come?” Skye asked.
Cathy sighed. “Sheryl has an older sister, who has had some trouble with drugs, and I know she just held on to the pill that Nick gave her, and I think Melinda was trying to make sure that she watched over her.” She hesitated, frowning.
“And while he offered the pills, I don’t think that Nick ever wanted them to come, and maybe they thought that he wanted me especially, or …
honestly, I think he intended that they not go all along. ”
Skye glanced at Zach. “Sheryl’s sister has had trouble with drug addiction? I’m sure it’s in the records from the events last night, but has her sister been in any rehabs? Has Sheryl seen her sister lately?” she asked.
“Um, I don’t think so. Her sister is twenty-three years old and has been coming and going for years, but …
Sheryl’s parents are good people and love her to pieces; they’re always trying to help her, so I’m assuming they’re expecting her home soon.
I’m sorry, but does that have any, um, relationship to this, to what happened to me? ” Cathy asked.
“We don’t know, but thank you,” Zach said honestly. He handed her a card and added a second one for her parents. “If you guys think of anything—”
“Wait!” Marlene O’Hara said. She looked confused and concerned. “I’m not really sure that I know the relevance, either, but I can call Loretta Dunn and find out if she’s seen Bella—that’s Sheryl’s sister—lately.”
“Sure, that would be great,” Skye said. “And if you don’t mind, can you find out where she was going to rehab?”
“Of course,” Marlene O’Hara assured them.
She put through her call. Everyone else in the room watched her. They could hear a nervous voice on the other end talking before Mrs. O’Hara could talk.
Marlene O’Hara sweetly tried to calm down the woman on the other end of the line, assuring her Cathy was doing well and then asking about Sheryl and then Sheryl’s older sister, Bella.
Marlene O’Hara listened, and then tried to assure the woman on the other end of the line that everything would be all right.
She didn’t look so confident herself when she ended the call, then looked at Skye and Zach.
Marlene shook her head. “Bella was supposed to have come home last night. They spoke to the rehab, but found out that Bella had lied to them. She’d checked herself out more than a week ago.”
“Oh, no!” Cathy moaned.
“Apparently, Bella is an adult, and she has the right to check herself out. She was in there for help, not because she had been court ordered,” Joe O’Hara said. “She could be fine; she could be trying to make it on her own, or … Well, addicts—she could be off doing drugs again.”
“No, I really don’t think so,” Cathy said. “Dad, we’re all friends with that family. You know Bella, and she’s not a bad person.”
“Honey, sadly, lots of good people fall prey to addiction,” Mr. O’Hara said gently.
“Not Bella!” Cathy insisted. “If she said that she was coming home, she meant to do so! Maybe she meant to surprise her parents, coming early, and got swept up, instead, by the monster doing all this!”
Maybe indeed! Skye thought.
“Please don’t fret. We’ll put Bella Dunn on our list of missing people,” Zach promised, “and we’ll do everything we possibly can to find her.”
“Thank you!” Cathy whispered.
“And thank you, Mrs. O’Hara, you’ve given us information that may help save Bella, and give us other answers as well,” Skye said.
“Right. Again. Thank you! We’ll do everything that we can to find Bella,” Zach said. “And get to the bottom of it all.”
Cathy spoke from the bed. “Please, please, do! She’s had trouble, but she’s not bad, I swear it!
She just gets depressed, and so she tries to take stuff to cheer herself up.
She’s so talented, a super singer with a beautiful voice.
She gets jobs easily enough, but she never feels that she’s good enough.
She did need help, and … oh! Now I’m worried about Sheryl! ”
“Cathy, don’t worry, thanks to you and your family, we’re on it,” Zach said solemnly. “And thank you. Thank you so much for your help and feel better.”
“I’m better already,” Cathy told them. “I’m alive!”
They smiled at her, nodded another silent thanks to Joe and Marlene O’Hara, and headed out of the room.
The officer on guard duty had returned. He and Gavin were speaking softly, casually, Skye thought, and they broke off as Skye and Zach emerged, ready to move back into business.
But apparently, while Gavin had seemed to be friendly with the young officer on duty, he didn’t want to talk in front of others.
“All right then,” Gavin said. “Time for us to head out. Thanks, Trevor.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant! My giant coffee is great!”
The man nodded at Skye and Zach, and then they and Gavin managed to head for the elevator and exit the hospital.
“You don’t trust that man on duty—but we’re leaving him to watch over a young girl?” Zach asked.
Gavin shook his head. “I trust Trevor completely. Good cop. I just don’t know who he might talk to and …”
“And,” Skye finished, “you don’t want to admit it, but you’re worried that someone in your department might be involved.”
Gavin looked completely uncomfortable. And miserable.