When Clare glanced back at him, he was looking straight at her. Even from across the room, she could see the summer-sky blue of his eyes glinting beneath his glasses. Her face heated up as he continued to look at her, his thin lips quirking into something like a smile. She pasted a pleasant expression on her face and gave him a small wave. He glanced next to her, frowned, and then looked back at her. He pointed and mouthed something. What? She shrugged. He pointed again, more emphatically. She raised her eyebrows and jerked a thumb toward Paul Foubert, who was absorbed in whatever the nurse was saying. Russ nodded.
“I think Russ Van Alstyne wants to speak with you,” she said.
“Hmm? The chief? Where? I didn’t know he was at this meeting.”
“He wasn’t. Wednesday’s his regular patrol night. He’s just come in.”
“You know his schedule?” Paul looked at her, bemused.
“I’m good with schedules. Natural gift. Go on.”
Paul rose with a groan. “Probably one of the Alzheimer’s patients wandered off again.”
Clare resisted the urge to follow the nursing home director, although she was unable to keep herself from swiveling around to see what was happening. Russ looked serious. Grim. Washed-out beneath the fluorescent lights, despite his tan. He removed his steel-rimmed glasses when Paul reached him, then took hold of the larger man’s shoulder, drawing him close. A thread of unease coiled through Clare’s stomach, then tightened sickeningly as Paul abruptly twisted away from Russ and sagged against the wall.
By the time Russ caught her eye again, she was out of her chair and excusing herself as she made her way down the crowded aisle. He urgently jerked his head in a summons. Paul was leaning on the town-hall bulletin board, his face turned toward a pink paper announcing summer dump hours, his huge fists clenched and shaking.
“What is it?” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”
“Emil,” Paul said. “Attacked.”
She looked up at Russ. “I don’t think I’ve met Emil before.”
He put his glasses on. “Emil Dvorak. Our medical examiner.” His thin lips flattened. “A friend of mine. He was found a while ago on Route One Twenty-one. Looks like his car hit something and went off the road.” Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “He was attacked. Beaten bad. He’s in the Glens Falls Hospital right now.” He tilted his head toward Paul. “Emil is Paul’s, um, friend.”
“Dear God.” Clare pressed her hand against Paul’s shoulder, then moved closer, draping her other arm across his back. “Oh, Paul, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She had known Paul lived with someone, but he had never mentioned anyone by name in their conversations at the nursing home. She looked at Russ. “We came to the meeting together. I’ll take him to the hospital.”
“I can get there. I’m okay,” Paul said in a reedy voice, an oddly small sound coming from such a big man. Clare’s heart ached. He straightened up and looked around as if he had never seen the town hall before.
“No. Clare’s right. You shouldn’t try to drive, Paul.” Russ ran his hand through his shaggy brown hair. “I have to stop at the station.” He looked down at Clare. “Can you find the Glens Falls Hospital?” She nodded. “Okay, I’ll meet you there.”
Russ held the door open for them as Clare steered Paul out of the meeting room. Despite the hot air rolling off the street below, she shivered as she caught Russ’s last, whispered direction: “Hurry.”
Chapter Three
The whirling red lights of Russ’s squad car made a strobe effect with the blazing blue ambulance lights as he pulled into the emergency bay at the Glens Falls Hospital. He parked in the spot marked RESERVED FOR POLICE and left the relative cool of his cruiser for the oppressive weight of an impending thunderstorm. He strode across the blacktop and was almost to the ER’s doors when they hissed open and Clare tumbled out, hair flying away from her knot, her face drawn so that her high cheekbones and sharp nose stood out in stark relief. Her mouth opened when she saw him.
“It’s you. Thank heavens.” She grabbed the sleeve of his uniform and dragged him away from the doors. “It’s bad. They’re prepping Dr. Dvorak for a life flight to Albany.”
“Jesum. They couldn’t transfer him by ambulance?”
“No. Brain trauma. I couldn’t understand half of what the doctor was saying to Paul, but from what I gathered, every minute counts. It was awful in there, Russ. They weren’t going to let Paul go in the helicopter because he wasn’t a spouse or a blood relative. What a stupid, bureaucratic waste of time….” She pulled a hank of hair off her neck, twisted it viciously, and shoved it back into her knot. “Paul is just…well, you can imagine. Oh, I got so mad. I told them if he couldn’t go in their helicopter I would rent one and fly him myself. Jackasses.”
Russ grinned in spite of himself. “Can you afford to rent a helicopter?”
“No.” She looked up at him and grinned back. “But I think they were so taken aback at the idea of the flying priest that it inspired them to come up with another solution. Turns out Paul and Emil have medical power of attorney for each other, and we got a copy faxed over from the Washington County Hospital.” She glanced back at the ER’s doors. “I’ve got to go get the car. He’s going to be ready to transport in just a minute, and I’m driving Paul. They land the helo at the West Glens Falls fire station’s parking lot, and I haven’t the faintest idea where that is. If I don’t follow the ambulance, I’ll get lost for sure.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “You will come, won’t you?”
He had a bizarre urge to take her hand in both of his and kiss it. He squelched the notion, nodding instead. “Yeah. Absolutely. You get your car and I’ll follow you.” She flashed him another smile and jogged off toward the parking lot, her long black skirt flapping around her ankles. How the hell did she manage to be so damn pleasant and open and normal, when he felt like a seventeen-year-old around her? Ever since he had crossed that line last December, he had pretty much avoided her, on the theory that his feelings must be middle-aged idiocy and absence would make the heart grow indifferent. It hadn’t worked that he could tell. Spotting her in the park, running into her at the IGA, or even driving past the rectory made his chest squeeze and the back of his throat ache. Maybe this would be better, to go on as friends, ignoring that other thing. Hell, maybe if he acted normal, he’d come to feel normal, too.
A blast of noise and movement swung his attention back to the entrance to the ER. Two EMTs, a doctor, and a nurse were moving a gurney in a carefully controlled frenzy through the bay, heading toward the open doors of the waiting ambulance. Between the bodies surrounding him, Russ could catch glimpses of Emil’s face. He winced. Christ. “Careful! Keep those lines clear!” the doctor said, levering himself into the ambulance as the EMTs maneuvered Emil, strapped to a spine board, from the gurney to the ambulance bed. The nurse passed over the IV bag she was holding above her head and scrambled up into her seat.