Touch of Evil (2 page)

“Family member out there I can talk to? Patient’s father, maybe?” He remembered the man, a weathered rancher type with woolly white brows and a John Wayne-style swagger, who’d come in the last time Noah cut himself.

Ross recalled the warning in Justine’s dark eyes, her unspoken plea that he say nothing, do nothing to give away the fact that the two of them were intimate. The realization that he would never be anything to her but a dirty little secret had been what led to their unraveling, even more than her unwillingness to explain the newspaper’s allegations.

“He’s on his way, I’m told.” Carolyn looked desperate. “If you could…just offer a word on her condition. Deputy’s out there. Roger Savoy. He seems to speak for the rest, and he’s giving me all kinds of attitude.”

Ross glanced back toward his patient. “Why don’t you let them know we’re still waiting for the—”

Justine opened her eyes before speaking, her words so low Ross had to lean in to hear them. “You can tell that bastard Savoy—tell all of them they’re not getting rid of me this easy.”

Ross took her hand and squeezed it, smiling to hear her more coherent. Her contrariness was music to his ears. “I’ll let them know if that’s what you’d like. But first, can you tell me your name?”

“You know—Justine Truitt. And my head’s killing me.”

It was her maiden name, he remembered. He asked her to tell him the day of the week and the current president. She couldn’t recall the first and started out wrong on the latter, but corrected herself quickly before adding, “Come on, Ross. You have something in this place for a headache? And coffee—good Lord, do I need coffee.”

Stroking her hand with his thumb, he ignored his body’s surge of recognition, the relief of homecoming, and reminded himself she was a patient. “Do you know where you are?”

She looked up at him. “My home away from home, right?
County Regional. But I usually bring…” She stiffened. “Where’s Noah? Was there an accident? Was he with me in the—”

“He wasn’t with you when you were brought in. You were hurt on duty. Can you tell me what happened?”

Justine shook her head slightly, then squinched her eyes and groaned. “Stomach hurts.”

Debbie, who’d stepped back in the room at Carolyn’s bidding, grabbed a basin, but this time, Justine managed to regroup.

Still, Ross ordered an antinausea medication, as well as something for the pain. “You took quite a knock to the head. Do you remember any of it?”

“I was…driving out to Tanager Trail. I have to tell Mrs. LeJeune her son is…somebody has to let her know Caleb’s dead. I get in a wreck on the way there?”

Caleb LeJeune’s dead?
But Ross kept his focus on his patient.

“The EMTs said you were found outside your vehicle,” he said. “I think Charlie mentioned it was Dee LeJeune called it in.”

“Dee…Did I? Does she know? About her son? And the little ones, are they—”

“Right now you need to concentrate on feeling better. We’ll be checking you over and admitting you for observation. You were out cold for quite a while, so we need to watch for—”

“I have to get home right now. My sitter’ll be so pissed if I’m late. She has a really hot date…I think. Was that tonight?” Justine struggled to sit up.

Ross pressed a firm hand to her shoulder. Though she was six feet or close to it, she was in no shape to fight him. “You’re hurt, Justine, and still disoriented. You’re not going anywhere.”

Her nearly black eyes caught his gaze and held it, her expression
so intent it made him want to confess that even now, nearly three months after their affair had ended, he dreamed of Justine in vivid detail, reliving the silken glide of her long hair past his erection, the way her dark eyes watched him take her breast into his mouth. Reliving and regretting that he’d left her thinking he had had his fill of her. That he ever could.

“What do you care?” Her tone reminded him he’d been the one to end it. “What do you care if I leave?”

“I’m your doctor.” Ross picked up her chart and pretended to check his notes. Better that than seeing the accusation, the lingering pain in her face. “But even if I weren’t, I’d still—”

“Do you have any idea how tough it is to find qualified caregivers for a boy like Noah?”

He risked frowning at her, thinking she must break down criminals every day at work with that look of hers. “Do
you
have any idea how tough it is to find a qualified
parent
? Especially for a boy like Noah, should you, let’s say, end up a drooler if there’s a brain bleed I’ve missed.” He was still waiting for a Dallas radiologist to fax him an official verdict. “Or if you simply walk out of here and drop dead.”

Justine grimaced, splashes of color coming to her cheeks, reminding him of their final argument. But she needed a swift dose of reality, and a blunt delivery drove the risks home faster than a barrage of med-school jargon.

“Point taken, Doctor…” she said after a pause. “And you—how are you doing? I heard about…”

She patted the hospital gown she had been dressed in, just above her left breast, concern in her expression. But there was caution there, too, the wariness of a woman who’d been burned.

“I’m fine now,” he answered easily. “Got your card. Thanks.”

“I wanted to…You left town.” She avoided his eyes.

Uncomfortable, he changed the subject. “Tell me the year again.”

Her face flushed. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t think we should…Is there another doctor on duty?”

“Not right now, unless you want me to call someone in.” When she hesitated, he added, “Come on, Justine. We can be professional about this…or would you rather have the nurses wondering what the problem could be?”

Guilt needled him for using her desire for privacy against her. But he couldn’t stand the thought of passing her off to anyone less experienced with trauma.
Mine,
something in him whispered, something that refused to recognize he’d given up his right to claim her.

“All right, Dr. Bollinger,” Justine said, and allowed him to complete her neurological assessment. Encouraged by the results, he felt the warm tide of relief spread through him.

“Mind if I go talk to your deputies before they give the triage nurse a breakdown?” he asked her.

“Sure,” she said, “as long as you bring me back some coffee.”

“No coffee,” he told her. “You’re not getting anything besides clear liquids till tomorrow.”

Ignoring her protest, he excused himself, walking down the hall to speak to those gathered in the waiting room. Not the whole department, as he’d been dreading, but a staunch half dozen, all men in uniform, several of whom Ross knew.

They were engrossed in conversation, something about the county budget crisis, but when someone spotted Ross, all six men rose as one, watching him expectantly. Aside from one anxious-looking rookie, the other faces had gone expressionless, a mask required by their chosen profession.

It reminded Ross of the curtain he brought down on his own emotions when delivering grim news. He allowed himself the hint of a smile to assure them this wasn’t one of those times. “Deputy Savoy?”

A man in his mid-fifties eased forward, his full head of dark hair salted at the temples and his blue-eyed gaze as sharp as the creases in his khaki uniform shirt. A couple of inches shy of Ross’s six-four, and slimmer, save for the small paunch at his waist, he extended his right hand and shook Ross’s with an aggressively firm grip.

“
Chief
Deputy Roger Savoy,” he introduced himself. “I want to thank you, Dr. Bollinger, for seeing to the little lady for us.”

Ross could imagine how well “little lady” went over with Justine. No wonder she’d reacted as she had to Savoy’s name.

Unable to contain himself, the youngest man, Calvin Whittaker, pressed forward, reminding Ross of a retriever with his earnest brown eyes and golden hair. “How’s the sheriff, Doctor? Did she wake up? Is she hurt bad?”

Savoy shot his subordinate a warning look, but Ross amended his plan and spoke to the whole group instead of to the veteran deputy alone. “She’s hurting some, but she’s alert and oriented. We’ll need to keep her overnight as a precaution.”

“She going to be all right, Ross?” asked Larry Crane, an old friend who’d grown into the worst comb-over in East Texas. As soon as the question was out, he faded to the back of the group, proving that some things hadn’t changed since high school.

Ross smiled. “She specifically asked me to tell you all you’re not getting rid of her quite yet.”

Calvin grinned, but Ross couldn’t help noticing looks flickering among the others. Glances that hinted at discomfort, or even disappointment. Part of that made sense to Ross, considering the heated competition to fill the remainder of the late sheriff’s term. Still, he would have expected the deputies to circle the wagons around Justine, now that she’d been injured. “Will she be off the job long?” Savoy asked.

Something in his voice made Ross suspect the deputy was
mentally reclaiming his brief role as acting sheriff. Ross suspected, too, that Justine would crawl on hands and knees back to her office to cut his reign short.

“That’s entirely dependent on how she feels,” Ross said. “But I wouldn’t count her out if I were you.”

Savoy’s expression soured. “I’ll need to see her. Gotta question her about what happened. For our investigation.”

“She’s going to be groggy,” Ross warned, feeling unaccountably protective. “And she may not have much to offer about the events leading up to the attack. Retrograde amnesia’s common with head injuries. Sometimes it’s temporary, but other times the memory’s lost forever.”

More eye contact among the deputies, something passing among them that zinged a warning up Ross’s backbone. But the internal friction within the sheriff’s department wasn’t his worry, only Justine’s well-being.

“She’s worried about her son,” he said.

Larry Crane said, “Sheriff won’t need to worry about Noah. My wife Marianne’s on her way to the house. She’ll stay the night and take him with her to school tomorrow morning.”

“I’m sure Sheriff Wofford will appreciate that.” Ross remembered Larry’s wife from school, too, a shy, pretty redhead. Remembered, too, some asshole joking that hooking up with the geek the jocks called “Ichabod” had been the first step toward her career goal of teaching special education.

Ross focused on Savoy. “I need to get to my next patient, but I can walk you back to see the sheriff.”

Savoy nodded and followed.

“Have any idea who hurt her?” Ross asked, angered by the thought of what had happened. And sickened by what
could
have happened had she been struck in a slightly different spot or with a little more force.

Though he’d half expected his question to be brushed off,
Savoy said, “Sheriff’s department’s none too popular along Tanager Trail. Lotta those boys get hauled in pretty regular. The women and kids, too. Black, white—they’re all living on the edge there. I could tell you stories.”

“I’ve seen them,” Ross said, thinking of the broken bones, knife wounds, and overdoses he’d treated…along with sickening cases of neglect that he’d reported. Though Tanager Trail and neighborhoods like it comprised only a small fraction of an overwhelmingly middle-class community, the poor made up a disproportionate percentage of the emergency department’s patient load.

“Or who knows?” Savoy added a few yards short of the curtained area where Justine was resting. “It could’ve been Dee LeJeune herself.”

The deputy’s voice dropped as he went on to say, “Maybe she took the news hard about Caleb. Strung himself up, that boy did, down near the state land at the south end of Bone Lake. Hung himself just like his buddies.”

Ross stared a question. What the hell had he missed during the time he’d spent recovering in Houston?

“You didn’t hear, Doc?” he asked. “We’re having ourselves a rash of suicides. And all three of ’em friends, too. Hart Tyson, Jake Willets, and now Caleb.”

“Hart? And Jake, too?” Ross asked, shock freezing the air in his lungs. “You’re saying Jake Willets is dead, too?”

Jake had been upset about his diagnosis, Ross remembered, but as for suicidal…He thought back to the last shift he’d completed before all hell had broken loose in his own body. Jake had been furious, defiant, but a hell of a long way from giving up that night.

“It’s true,” Savoy said, clearly warming to his role as bearer of bad news. “Fisherman spotted him three weeks back. We figure he was broken up about his buddy Hart. Jake hiked all the way out to the same damned tree to toss his rope. A shame, it was, another young man dying like that.”

Ross felt his bones go leaden, felt the weight of weariness tug at him. Or the weight of knowledge, maybe, the sickening certainty that Jake Willets hadn’t hanged himself. He
couldn’t
have, not even if his rage had burned off to leave him smothered in the fine ash of despair.

It was on the tip of Ross’s tongue to say so, but there was something off-putting about Roger Savoy’s manner, something that made Ross leery, though he couldn’t put his finger on what troubled him. Besides, Ross wanted to review Willets’s chart to make certain he was remembering correctly. And he wanted most of all to speak to Laney Thibodeaux, Jake’s girlfriend.

And Ross’s own cousin, the youngest daughter of his mother’s twin. A dazzling firecracker of a twenty-two-year-old, in love for the first time.

So why hadn’t he been told about her boyfriend’s death? Why hadn’t Laney called, as she had called him over so many lesser heartaches in the past? Fatherless since the age of three, she’d long since latched onto Ross as a handy substitute.

And over the years, Ross had come to enjoy a role he’d first resisted. Had come to love her as he might someday love a daughter of his own.

Debbie appeared in the hallway and waved a chart for his attention, then whispered, “Another frequent flier. Wants drugs.”

Before Ross could excuse himself, Savoy said, “Those dead boys had themselves a zydeco band. You ever hear tell of ’em?”

Ross nodded, but before he could explain about Laney, Savoy was talking again.

“I’m not much for running the joints myself, more of a family man. But I understand they drew a good crowd when they played weekends at the Tin Roof.” Disdain tinged Savoy’s voice at the mention of the latter, a rough-edged dance hall west of Dogwood. “Hear they’ve been traveling all over
the state lately. Got themselves invited to some big festival in Austin.”