Riley stiffened beside her. “What?”
The doctor nodded. “Griff Payton’s father is Ross Payton—The Bluffs’ developer. Good man. I teamed up with him at the hospital’s charity golf tournament last fall. I doubt he’d like his son shooting off his mouth about that project before the city council’s even started the decision-making process.” He sighed. “I’ll give him a script for a few pills to hold him over until he finds a local orthopedist. Will you see that he gets a physician list along with his instructions?”
“Sure.” Kate watched the doctor leave and then glanced toward the closed door to Griff’s exam room. She was surprised by an unexpected wave of disappointment as she tossed Riley a grim smile. “Yeah, well, guess I’ll be moving in with you after all. No way I’m telling Rambo that some good-looking contractor’s building me a house—on top of the rubble of his clinic.”
“Trust me, I can’t see that happening. Jack Travis could have been commander at the Alamo. And there’s no way he’d—” Riley broke off as her text message tone sounded.
Kate watched her friend’s expression move from surprise to concern. “What’s going on?”
Riley stood. “Family has arrived for Jane Doe.”
* * *
“Are they sure it’s Stacy?” Mrs. Collins tore her gaze away from her daughter to look at Riley. “She’s so bruised and swollen. It makes it hard to tell. Could they be mistaken?”
“They’re sure.” Riley’s heart ached at the anguish in the woman’s gray eyes. She had dark hair like her daughter’s and remarkably similar features. She couldn’t be more than ten years older than Riley and likely hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours in the past few days. She and her husband had flown in from Seattle barely two hours ago and had already talked to the FBI, the police, the doctors . . .
Lord, help me with this.
“As the agents said, the dental records you provided were a match. Then today the DNA was another confirmation. Plus, you said something about the—”
“Tattoo of Tinker Bell.” Mrs. Collins’s voice broke as she grasped for her husband’s hand. She looked at her daughter’s chest, draped discreetly to reveal the ink image of the little fairy-tale pixie. “We’ve had so many horrible false alarms in the past two years. Hopes . . . scares. I didn’t want to do this again. But when I heard about the tattoo, I think I knew.”
Mrs. Collins closed her eyes, hesitating, and the pause was filled by the soft
click-whoosh
of the ventilator and the metallic ticking of medication pumps. “Stacy loved Tinker Bell,” she said finally. “We had the movie, and in that scene where Peter asks the children if they believe . . . tells them to clap their hands?” She smiled despite a fresh welling of tears. “She’d clap and clap and clap. Her little eyes were so full of hope.” She took a slow breath. “We argued about tattoos when she was fourteen, five years after her father left us. I said no. . . . I may have said, ‘Over my dead body.’ I was trying so hard to hold things together; she was rebelling. And it only got worse after her father was killed in a boating accident.” She brushed at her cheek. “They think the tattoo is recent?”
“Yes, very. Still healing.” Riley glanced toward the bed, wishing she hadn’t added the part about healing. There was no healing going on here. Her eyes skimmed the nameplate on the wall, recently changed to
Paulson, Stacy
. She knew she’d always think of this tragic girl as Jane.
“Stacy turned eighteen last fall.” Mr. Collins’s eyes mirrored his wife’s pain. “We’d had a few text messages telling us she was fine and to leave her alone. We didn’t believe it. There are such horror stories about young runaways being trapped into—” He stopped, tightened his arm around his wife. “The police said we couldn’t be sure about that, without proof.”
Like a fractured skull and a baby?
There was another long silence and Riley heard the faint strains of Brahms’s Lullaby in the distance.
“May we sit with Stacy for a while?” Mr. Collins asked.
Riley released the breath she’d been holding. “Of course. As long as you want. Take your time.”
She found chairs and Kleenex and coffee, encouraged them to touch Stacy, talk to her—and assured them that when they were ready, she’d accompany them to the NICU to see their tiny granddaughter.
Oh, Lord, please have mercy on this family . . .
Riley gave them her cell number. And made it to the chapel before her tears spilled over.
* * *
Jack pulled the H1 into the Alamo Grace parking space next to Riley’s Honda. She was still here. He could have confirmed that with a phone call or text message, but . . .
But I want to see her.
He amended his thought: he wanted to see how she reacted to seeing him after all that happened yesterday. It was curiosity more than anything else. And a polite hello seemed appropriate. So—
What’s that?
Jack squinted toward a trio of vans in the distance. TV vans? He hadn’t listened to the news since he’d gotten back from riding; he’d hosed off the bike and his car, showered, shaved, eaten a sandwich while he worked on his presentation for the city council. What was happening here? Gang shooting? Car accident? He’d stop by the ER, see if it was something there, offer to help. But he wasn’t going to wade through those reporters.
He’d barely punched in the first two numbers of the security code to the employee side door when the door opened inward.
“Oh . . . Jack.” Riley blinked in the sunlight.
He stepped back so she could exit. “I was just . . . coming in to see how Jane—”
“Stacy,” Riley interrupted, a pained expression flickering across her face. “Stacy Paulson. Her parents are here.” She glanced down, pulled her sunglasses from her purse.
“That explains the news vans.”
“Yes.” She slid the glasses into place. “Vultures.”
At least we agree on that.
Riley shook her head. “Our information officer is doing his best to keep reporters at bay, but the family will have to leave at some point. And apparently their hotel’s already received calls.”
“How are they handling things with their daughter?”
“Still pretty much in shock, but the doctors made it clear that she hasn’t responded to treatment and probably never will. The neurologist broached the subject of discontinuing life support measures, but—” Riley sighed—“they’ll need more time. The stepfather seems more focused on who could have done this and why. He was pressing the agents and detectives with questions. He’s angry.”
Jack nodded.
I understand that.
“The mother keeps looking for something to hang on to,” Riley continued. “She talked about Stacy being a tomboy when she was little—how she’s always bounced back, didn’t even let a broken collarbone from soccer slow her down. She showed me some old photos. And . . .” Riley’s voice choked. “She’s sure that Stacy’s new tattoo is a sign that her daughter still had hope. That she was clinging to her innocence, despite . . .” She shivered.
“Riley . . .” Jack took a step, then stopped, helpless to know what he should do. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been to be there for that family, offering help without convenient props like medicine or bandages or even a stethoscope. To give aid just by being there, listening to the family’s pain and fears. Riley had done that for Vesta, too, for the nursing staff . . .
and for me, last night. Even with all she’s been through herself.
“They’re Catholic,” Riley continued. “I contacted the priest on call. He went with us to see the baby—a grandchild they didn’t know they had, by a man they don’t know. Who could be . . .”
A pimp, a rapist . . . a murderer.
Jack’s stomach churned. He took a breath—and a risk. “Here,” he said, grasping hold of her hand. “Let’s get away from this place. Go for coffee or something.”
“I . . .” Riley hesitated and Jack realized that he was holding her injured hand, which meant she couldn’t feel him. But worse than that, he had a gut-level sense that she didn’t want to.
“C’mon,” he insisted, wanting more than anything to pull those sunglasses off and look into her eyes, tell her again that she was beautiful and so,
so
brave. Then take her in his arms and—
“No.” She slid her hand away. “I’m going home. I want to work out some things for staff support. This is going to be harder for them now. And . . . I need to be alone.”
“Okay, but . . . are we good?”
“We?”
“I . . .” Jack bit back a groan, suddenly grateful he couldn’t see her eyes. “I meant good for working the clinic. You’re coming in this week?”
“Tuesday.”
“Good.”
Can’t I find another blasted word?
“See you then.”
“Okay.”
Jack walked through the doors, watched them shut. He’d wait a few minutes until he was certain Riley had driven off, then climb back in his Hummer and get out of here.
“Are we good?”
Why had he asked such a stupid thing? Hadn’t he already decided that they were far too different from each other to even consider a relationship? Did he think that because last night he’d risked spewing out those painful things about Abby, it would lead to something more? Only a fool would think that. Riley Hale was a trained chaplain. That’s why she’d listened to him. And the only reason there had been so much caring in her eyes. It was her job. The kisses happened because they were both upset, hurting. A mistake she regretted, obviously.
“We?”
Jack flinched at Riley’s response to his heart-level question. It had pretty much said it all: he was an idiot for coming here.
One more thing they were in agreement about.
18
“Bandy?” Riley tapped at the clinic’s back door. It was only a little after nine, but she felt certain he’d be up. Making sandwiches, no doubt.
She’d dropped the Mercedes off at Vesta’s, leaving the keys and saying only a quick hello because the social worker was there. Then she walked to the clinic, wanting to have a peek at the schedule for tomorrow and see if Jack was working. If he was, Riley was going to ask one of the other nurses to trade shifts with her. Seeing Jack at the hospital yesterday had felt confusing and awkward. It would be best if she simply stayed away from him.
“C’mon in, Riley!”
She headed toward the kitchen, sniffing what smelled more like cake than sandwiches. Then she stopped in the doorway, staring in amazement. “What . . . ?”
“Howdy!”
Bandy was loading mini cupcakes into a Tupperware carrier while dressed in full clown gear: stars and stripes shirt, rainbow suspenders, and baggy, patched pants. “You’re just in time.” He grinned, red lips rimmed in white, black freckles dotting his cheeks, and a battered red cowboy hat pulled over a neon-blue wig. “I could use a hand with the sprinkles. I’m down to my last bottle, and it’s gonna require a surgeon’s touch not to spill most of them on the floor. These old paws are more suited to hoeing a garden than baking. I usually ask Doc Travis to help, but he was anxious to hit the road for—”
Riley raised a palm. “Let me guess. Rappelling from the top of the HemisFair tower? Juggling swords?” She glanced at a jar on the sink. “Uh . . . maybe smearing himself with peanut butter and lying down on an anthill?”
Bandy chuckled. “No ma’am. Much scarier than any of that.” He handed her the confetti-colored sprinkles. “He’s down at the Sunshine Center. Totin’ a guitar. And right about now I’ll bet stage fright’s rearin’ its ugly head as he’s trying to remember the words of the ‘Good Morning’ song. While fourteen little faces watch every move.”
“Sunshine Center?” Riley shook the last of the sprinkles onto the cupcakes while Bandy tucked the others into another carrier.
“Down in Midtown. It’s a program to help kids who’ve been victims of crime. Either themselves or a family member.” His painted lips pressed together. “Those little souls could use some sunshine. We go down there every other Monday and do what we can.” Bandy shook his head. “When Doc first got the idea of helpin’ out, he told me he thought maybe he’d volunteer to do something medical. I asked him, ‘You think pokin’ a stick in a kid’s mouth and asking him to say
ah
is going to spread sunshine?’ I told him what those kids needed was a serious reminder of how to laugh. Hobo and I did that for years and we still have the gear. It took some convincing, but we finally talked Doc into it.”
“So . . .” Riley struggled to get her mind around the impossible image. “Jack plays the guitar?”
“Well, he’s no Brad Paisley. Don’t tell him I said that. But you’d be surprised.” His brows, smeared with greasepaint, lifted. “Come along and see.”
“Oh no, I . . .” Riley shook her head, still having a hard time imagining any of this. “I walked here from a friend’s house, and my neighbor’s planning to pick me up.”
“Tell her I’ll drive you home. Our gig at the center is only for an hour or so. Started at nine. I’m late. I ran out of cream cheese for the frosting—Doc says it has to have some protein. He took Hobo and went ahead; that mutt loves to ride in the Hummer.” Bandy handed Riley the last of the cupcakes to pack. “Anyway, I could use your help to get these there.” He tilted his head, the blue wig shifting. “Fourteen little faces . . .”