Exposure (21 page)

That was Tuesday. On Friday, Emma was back, by herself this time and hopping mad.

She charged into the station at a few minutes after three. Braking at Elvis' desk, she slapped both hands onto his desktop and leaned her weight on them, breathing rapidly. "I'd like to file a report," she said between her teeth. "Again." Then her temper, clearly on a very slim leash to begin with, slipped beyond her grasp entirely. She began to speak in rapid, fluid Cajun French, gesticulating wildly. She concluded with an emphatic, questioning "Oui? " and a furious thump of her fist against his desk.

Elvis looked up at her. "In English, Em."

She sank into the chair next to his desk. "They have spray-painted my car," she spit out. "Mon Dieu, such filthy, foul words, all over my beautiful car." Eyes narrowed and full of fury, she raised her head to look at Elvis. "It is a damn good thing my bebe cannot read beyond the few basic words, oui? Not too many cat, rat, sat, painted on the side of my Chevrolet."

Elvis came to his feet. "Someone spray-painted dirty words on your car?" he demanded with careful equanimity. God damn it to hell. He loved that car. Slicing the tires was one thing. That had been difficult enough to swallow—not to mention that Emma sure as hell hadn't been thrilled to find herself out of pocket the one-hundred-plus dollars it had taken to replace them. But defacing that beautiful paint job? "I want to see it."

Standing in the parking lot several minutes later, Emma endured the heat coming off the blacktop as she watched Elvis prowl around the car. He stooped here to get a closer look, stood back there for an all-over picture, and his facial cast grew tighter, showed less and less expression with each scrawled word he uncovered. Bah, he didn't fool her. That poker face wasn't a mystery to her anymore; she had learned to read him over the time she'd known him. Consequently, even though she would have sworn it was categorically impossible, his growing fury made hers decrease somewhat. "So, what is it that's makin' you the maddest, cher? " she finally inquired wryly. "The fact that the car's been sullied or that my reputation has?"

"When you first told me about it—I won't lie to you, Em—it was the car." Elvis rose from where he'd been squatting by the back fender and came over to look down at her. "Damn, this is such a fine car, and the idea that somebody wrote all over it . . . !" Turning to survey the damage, he slung his left arm over her shoulder and pulled her into his side. Absently he rubbed his hook up and down her arm. "But I don't like the tone of these words, doll," he admitted. "There appears to be more at work here than bored teenagers on a vandalizing spree."

"Oui, I'm none too pleased, myself. Particularly at the thought of my petite ange trying to sound out some of these words." GO HOME, YOU CUNT stared her in the face from the passenger door.

"It's going to cost you a fortune, I suppose, to have the car painted."

Emma shrugged. "I'll try to get it off with paint thinner first. If that fails I could paint it myself fairly inexpensively if I only had a spot to do it in. If I can't do something soon, though, cher, I'm goin' to have to buy myself a can of spray paint to block out the dirtiest words. My biggest fear right now is that someone will read them aloud in front of Gracie. Damn it, Elvis!" She felt herself getting angry all over again. Looking up into his calm face, she said flatly, "You'd better find the clown who's doin' this to me. Or I'm packin' my bebe up and leavin' town."

"I'll find him," he promised grimly.

The only problem was . . .

By Saturday he still didn't have any leads. And Sunday night, someone threw a rock through Emma's window.

It was that long twilight hour peculiar to the Pacific Northwest. The sun had gone down, the brilliance of the sunset had slowly faded—first to a washed-out shadow of its former glory, then to muted grays—and still the sky was only gradually dissolving into darkness.

Emma looked across the room at her daughter, who was lying on her stomach on the floor coloring in a coloring book. "C'mon, angel pie; time to get your jammies on."

"Ah, Maman." Gracie put her crayon down grudgingly and looked up at her mother. "Do I haffa?"

"Yes, you do. Come on, now."

"But I wanna make you a pitchoo."

Emma's fingers clenched around her daughter's pajamas. "Grace Melina, don't make me come over there to get you. It's time to get ready for bed, and that, my darling child, is the beginning and end of that. You can color me a picture tomorrow." Seeing the obstinate slant beginning to develop in Gracie's lower lip, she bit back an impatient sigh and said firmly, "Now, ma petite ange, you will put those crayons and your coloring book back where they belong and get your rear end over here. Pronto."

Gracie blew out a disgusted breath and muttered something that Emma hadn't the slightest doubt was unflattering to her. She flipped the coloring book closed and pushed herself up. Dragging her feet, she walked as slowly as she dared to the wide window sill where her books and art supplies were stored. Petulantly, she tossed her box of crayons and the coloring book at it.

The window exploded inward.

It happened with such abruptness and was accompanied by such horrendous noise that at first what had caused it didn't register in Emma's mind. Then she saw the rock that was still rolling across the floor. Both she and Gracie had screamed, but when Emma's cry was cut short, Gracie continued to shriek, in outrage, in terror . . . and in pain.

She stood in the midst of the broken glass, her little body rigid, her hands fisted at her sides, her eyes wide with terror; screaming at the top of her lungs. There was blood all over her daughter's face and arms, and Emma's heart slammed up against her rib cage. "Oh, God!"

She raced across the expanse separating them, praying aloud in French and in English, ignoring the crunch of glass beneath her feet, and snatched her daughter up. Gracie's arms went around her neck and clung with desperate strength. "Hoot, hoot, hoot, Mommy," she screeched. "Hoot, hoot bad."

"I know it hurts, bebe." Tears rolled down Emma's cheeks. She tried to assess the damage, but Gracie's face was beneath her chin where she couldn't see it. "Let Maman see, angel pie. Let Mommy see."

"Hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot!"

Their door banged open, and starting violently, Emma barely bit back another scream. Clutching her child to her chest, she whirled to face this newest danger.

Elvis was crouched in the opening, both arms extended, his hook bracing his right wrist. In his right hand was a gun. His stance swung left, then right, then back to center. When he saw nothing that posed a threat, he slowly lowered his gun hand and straightened. "Em?" he demanded over the sound of Gracie's screams. "What the hell happened in here?" Then his focus narrowed and he absorbed the blood all over Gracie. "Sweet God Almighty."

"Help her, Elvis. She's hurt and I can't tell how bad." The last of Emma's control dissolved at the sight of him. She knew he would take command of the situation and the tears she'd had at least a modicum of control over now poured down her face in an unstoppable torrent. "Please, please . . . help her," she sobbed.

Gracie screamed her litany of pain.

Elvis crossed the room and pried the child out of Emma's arms. He cuddled her against his chest and bent his head to bring his mouth next to her ear so she could hear him over her screams. Crooning soothing sounds and words, he carried her over to the bed. "Shhh, shhhh, shhhh, shhhh, Gracie Girl. Shhh, now; hush." He laid her down on the bed, but her arms reached up to clutch at him.

"Hoot, hoot, hoot," she sobbed. "Hoot, hoot, bad."

"I know, Beans baby; I know." He forced her hands down to her sides, which caused her cries to escalate into near hysteria. She went rigid beneath his hold. "Let Elvis see, baby," he commanded firmly. He knew from experience that sympathy usually only added to the emotionalism and he forced all signs of it from his voice. "Hush. Stop that now. Let me see what I can do to make it stop hurting." His stomach clenched at the copious amounts of blood covering her face, matting her blond curls. "Be quiet now, Gracie, and let me take a look."

He looked up to tell Emma to turn up the light and saw the other boarders crowding in the doorway. "Someone call the station," he instructed crisply. "Tell George I need him over here, stat. And have them call Dr. Simms. Tell him to open up the clinic—we're bringing Gracie in. Em, bump up the light.

I can't see what we're dealing with here."

A few minutes later he had determined that while one of the cuts on Gracie's head would probably need closer attention, neither it or any of the others were life threatening. George arrived and was given his instructions, and Elvis escorted the two badly shaken females out of the building. He bundled Emma into the department Suburban and handed her Gracie. Climbing in the driver's side, he started up the car, flipped on the siren, and peeled away from the curb fronting the station.

The doctor was just unlocking the clinic doors when they pulled up. He greeted Elvis and introduced himself and his wife, the clinic nurse, to Emma. Then he tried to persuade her to relinquish Gracie to their care and remain with Elvis in the waiting room.

"Not in this lifetime," Emma said flatly.

"Look, Mrs. Sands . . ."

"I am not leaving my bebe and that is final," Emma snarled. "Now, please, let's proceed with this, oui? She's scared and she's in pain. I don't know how much blood she's lost, but Elvis said no major arteries were involved."

"Bring her in."

Emma held Gracie's hand and spoke to her with sympathetic firmness while the doctor and his wife picked small shards of glass out of her arms, face, and skull, then cleaned up dozens of tiny cuts.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Dr. Simms assured them both. "Facial lacerations in particular tend to bleed a lot because the veins are so close to the surface." He pinched together the edges of a small gash on Gracie's forehead. "I'm going to put three or four stitches in this just to insure a finer scar." He smiled down at Gracie. "Can't have a pretty little girl like you with a big old scar on her face, now can we?"

"Shewiff Elbis has a scaw on him's face. Is from a 'splosion." Her eyes darted to Emma's. "Our window 'sploded, didn't it, Mommy? Did I bweak it with my cwayons?"

"No, angel pie. A rock broke it. And the explosion that scarred Sheriff Elvis was quite a bit different from the way our window broke."

"And your scar will be a lot smaller," the doctor interjected. "I promise it won't be a big old ugly one like Sheriff Donnelly's." He expunged air from a hypodermic of topical anesthetic. "This is going to sting just a little, Gracie." To his wife he ordered, "Hold her head still," and to Emma he explained, "this is to numb the area so I can stitch it up."

"Elbis is not ugly!" Gracie said indignantly. "Him's the hamsonest— Owie! Hoot, hoot, hoot, Mommy."

Emma gripped both her daughter's arms and laid the weight of her upper body over Gracie's torso to keep her from jerking. The discomfort of the injection after Gracie believed the pain to be all through threatened to shove her daughter to the edge of a full-blown case of hysteria. "Hold still, Grace Melina," Emma commanded sternly. "Hush. I know it stung, but can you still feel the hurt?"

"Oui, Maman! Hoot, hoot . . ."

"Gracie, can you really? Or do you just remember the pain?'"

"Weally, I can. Oh!" The tension keeping her so stiff gradually relaxed. "It's bettoo now."

"You're probably going to feel a little tug," the doctor informed her and began to stitch her up. Emma related a silly story to her daughter to take her mind off what was being done to her. She kept her gaze firmly on Gracie's eyes to avoid seeing the needle pierce her child's flesh. "So," the doctor continued genially, "you think our good sheriff is handsome, do you?"

"Yes," Gracie agreed emphatically. "Hamson. You don't say him's ugly."

"Actually, I didn't. I said the scar was— Well, never mind. I won't say he's ugly."

"Bettoo not."

Dr. Simms tied off the last suture. "Annnd—that does it! You can sit up now. I think this calls for a sucker, Mrs. Sands, don't you? Gracie was a very brave girl."

When the door to the surgery opened, Elvis tossed aside the magazine he'd been trying to read and surged to his feet. "How is she? She okay?" He studied Gracie closely when Emma carried her out. Most of the blood had been cleaned away, and despite the three black stitches that bristled from her forehead, to his heartfelt relief she looked a hundred percent better. "Gracie girl?" He walked over to stand close, hovering over mother and child. "You okay, baby?"

"I have a suckoo, Elbis! Look!" She yanked it from her mouth and held it aloft for his admiration. "It's a wed one! And look!" She put her hand in her overalls' pocket and pulled out two more. "A gwape one and a wootbeer!" She launched herself from Emma's arms into Elvis'. Emma's arms fell leadenly to her sides.

Elvis secured his prosthesis beneath Gracie's rump and wrapped his free arm around Emma's shoulders. "Come on," he said gruffly. "I'll take you home." He turned them toward the door, but then paused when he caught sight of Dr. and Mrs. Simms watching them from the surgery doorway. "Thanks for opening up, Doc. What do we owe you?" He let loose of Emma long enough to dig for his wallet, but Dr. Simms waved him off.

"Mrs. Sands made arrangements to come in and pay her bill tomorrow," he retorted.

Elvis nodded and his arm went back around Emma. She leaned her head wearily against his shoulder.

"In that case," Elvis said, "I'm gonna say good night and take these ladies home."

"Yes, good night." Farewells were murmured all around.

The moment the door clicked shut behind the threesome the doctor turned to his wife. "Well," he said with an amused smile. "I think it's safe to say the relationship between those three is a fairly serious one; wouldn't you agree?"

His wife smiled wearily. "I certainly wouldn't want to be in the shoes of whoever hurt that little girl when Elvis Donnelly finds out," she agreed.