Free Fire - C. J. Box [102]
Erin took over the phone. “You’re staying at the hospital, right? So you can come get us when we can see Mom?”
Joe immediately dismissed the idea of going back to his cabin. “I’m staying,” he said.
At two-forty-five in the morning, Joe sat on the couch staring blankly at a washed-out photo on the clinic wall of Old Faithful erupting, copies of Bugle, Fly Fisherman, and Field & Stream at his feet like discarded playing cards. He was miserablewith guilt and lack of sleep, and growing angrier by the half-hour as he thought it through. If he’d told Demming his suspicions about McCann’s request for protective custody and a transfer, maybe, just maybe, she would have approached the black SUV differently. Possibly, instead of pulling it over, she would have shown more caution and followed it to wherever it was going—which just may have been the Pagoda. Joe thought of Ashby and Layborn in the lobby of the clinic, Ashby upset and pinning the blame on Joe, Layborn furtive and suspicious, eyes darting around guiltily. He should have told her, he thought. By “protecting” her, he may have put her in greater danger. And was he protecting her, or himself? That was a tough question. She had shown nothing but loyalty to Joe, even though she wore the uniform of a park ranger. Had he shown her that same loyalty when he withheld information but acceptedher offer to download video from the entrance gates, thereby jeopardizing her job?
His stomach surged angrily, growled loud enough to hear. He stood and stretched, tried Lars’s cell phone number again and left yet another message, then went outside for some cold air.
He was surprised to see the only NPS cruiser in the parking lot was Demming’s. One of the attending rangers must have driven it down the canyon in the caravan and gone back with someone else. Joe walked up to the car, saw the blood-flecked driver’s door and winced.
It was unlocked. Joe opened the driver’s door and looked inside.Demming’s daypack, jacket, and lunch box were on the front seat and floor. The mike was cradled, the shotgun unbuckledfor quick access.
He shut the door and started back to the clinic when it hit him: Where was her laptop?
He turned and searched again, making sure it wasn’t under her seat, in the trunk, or under the jacket. He clearly rememberedseeing it that morning on the seat between them. It was possible one of the rangers in the caravan had taken it back for evidence, but very unlikely since on the surface a laptop has nothing to do with a roadside bushwhack. And if they took the computer as part of evidence gathering, why would they leave all her belongings in the unlocked car?
No, Joe thought. Somebody involved in the crime—or one of the crimes, there were so many—had taken the laptop. And whoever had it was likely the inside man in all that had happened,the man McCann feared as well.
Joe entered the lobby to find the emergency room doctor bent over the counter, scribbling on his clipboard. He looked up as Joe came in.
“I thought everyone was gone,” he said.
“It’s just me.”
“Are you the husband?”
“No,” Joe said, “just a friend. A colleague.” Joe tried to read something, anything, into the stoic expression the doctor showed.
There was an excruciating silence and Joe felt his fear build to a crescendo.
To his surprise, the doctor said, “It isn’t as bad as I’d thought.”
“Really?”
The doctor nodded. “There are two gunshot wounds, one of them serious. The bullet entered here”—he demonstrated by raisinghis left arm and reaching across his body with his right until his palm rested on the back of his ribs—“and angled up. There’s extensive organ damage and her left lung is collapsed. The slug itself is lodged in her sternum beneath her left breast. She’s lucky as hell it angled to the left instead of to the right, into her heart. But she’s starting to stabilize. Blood pressure is getting better, and her right lung is compensating for the damaged left lung, so she’s breathing almost normally. Based on what I can see, she has a very good chance to pull through.