Unseen. Nancy Bush

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      Billy Mendes was lanky and bowlegged, as if he’d just gotten off the ranch. He walked with a kind of cowboy strut as well, though it wasn’t an affectation, more like a natural hip swing to get his bowed legs in line.

      He came inside the ER and shot a look at Lorraine, the battleaxe nurse with the dyed black hair and orange lips, before crossing the waiting room in a couple of big strides and walking up to Will.

      “You the guy lookin’ for me?” he asked. “From the sheriff’s department?”

      “Detective Will Tanninger,” Will acknowledged, and the two men shook hands. They moved toward a section of striped chairs near the window where no one else was sitting at the moment.

      Mendes kept standing, his hands shoved in his pockets. “You wanna know about the woman who staggered in on Saturday? The one that got out of the silver Camry? I thought the guy who dropped her off was gonna park and come inside and help her, but he never came back. He just drove off and then she just kinda walked from side to side, like she had no balance, y’know? Swaying, like. And then she makes it inside and just crumples to the floor. I came runnin’ from the ambulance.” He waved in the direction of the portico outside the ER. “We were just gettin’ ready to go, but there she was, and I got my ass chewed for that one.” He threw a dark look in Lorraine’s direction. “But hey, we had an accident victim right here. I thought we should help her first.”

      “It delayed you from making your call?”

      “Not much, it didn’t,” he asserted. “Thirty seconds? Lorraine started screamin’ and I helped the woman to lie down flat. She was out cold by then, but breathin’ okay. ER team grabbed her up and Pete and I took off to the accident on Highway 217. One of those nights where everybody smashes up their cars. Couple of fatalities.”

      “So, you saw a man drop her off in a silver Camry?”

      He nodded.

      “It was definitely a man?”

      “Yeah…” He started to sound uncertain.

      “Can you remember why you thought so?”

      Billy looked puzzled for a moment. “I guess ’cause he was drivin’ kinda fast. Not that girls can’t, too, but not so much in a hospital parking lot. He kinda screeched in and then she got out, and then he reached over and pulled the door shut and left. I thought it was weird he didn’t help her when I saw that she couldn’t walk so well. Maybe it was a chick. Since she didn’t even try to help her friend? But then I thought he or she or whoever was gonna park the car and come back. I don’t know.”

      “Could the driver have come back after you left in the ambulance?”

      “I suppose…you can check with Lorraine…” He grimaced, letting Will know exactly what he thought of that idea.

      “Was there any body damage to the Camry?”

      “Uh…I was lookin’ at the girl, and I just saw the car’s rear end, mostly. Don’t recall any passenger-side damage. Didn’t see the front.”

      Will grilled him some more and learned Gemma had arrived at the hospital in the early evening, just as it was getting dark. If she were the woman who’d run down Edward Letton, that would mean there had been a lot of hours in between the accident and her appearance at Laurelton General.

      There didn’t appear to be anything more to learn from Billy, so Will shook his hand and thanked him for the information, then he turned back to the exit. He was out the door and heading to his department vehicle, when he abruptly changed direction and returned to the hospital, making for the bank of elevators. What was it about Gemma LaPorte that kept him wanting to see her again? Was it just this investigation? The fact that she was an enigma that he couldn’t quit puzzling over? Was it that he both wanted her to be innocent of hit-and-run, and yet somehow hoped she was that avenger? Someone who wanted to rid the world of sick scum no matter what the cost?

      That was the kind of thinking that could get him fired, or worse, he knew. That kind of vigilante philosophy that the bad should be punished without benefit of a trial. That murder, in the name of good, was almost okay.

      He’d seen it a couple of times in his career. Law enforcement officers who, burned out and frustrated, took their job to that next level. Not waiting for the judicial system to pass its verdict. Deciding to wipe out the offender first and ask forgiveness later.

      Only there was no forgiveness. There was prosecution and jail time.

      But Will didn’t think he had burned out. He didn’t truly condone СКАЧАТЬ