Nelia’s voice cracked. “I will.”
“Mr. O’Brien?” The doctor came in. “We’re ready.”
“Five more minutes?” he asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“I’ll be here when you’re done,” Nelia said.
The nurse injected something into his IV, shifted the bed he was on, and started rolling it out of the room, down the hall. .
“Wait!”
That sounded like Agent Elliott, whom he’d spoken to for more than an hour earlier.
The gurney stopped. A moment later, Tom heard, “Daddy.”
Claire.
Tom was fading as the drugs began to do their work.
“Daddy, oh God.”
“Claire. I’m. Okay.” He reached up, though the lights in the hall were beginning to fade.
Someone grabbed his hand. He felt moisture. Tears.
“Claire Beth, don’t cry.”
“I love you, Daddy. I’m sorry. I love you.”
He tried to speak but couldn’t. The light faded.
Claire watched the medical staff wheel her father down the hall and into surgery. “What happened? Why is this an emergency? Is he going to be okay?”
Nelia spoke. “The bullet shifted. He woke up and couldn’t walk this morning. It was lodged in the muscle near the spinal cord and has disrupted the nerves. I don’t know the medical jargon, but the more it shifts the more dangerous it becomes. There’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll be partially paralyzed, even after the bullet is removed.” Nelia looked both unsure of the situation and worried.
“You care about him?” Claire asked, tears in her eyes.
“I love him.”
Claire reached out and hugged Nelia. The woman wrapped her arms tight around her. “He’s going to be okay,” Claire said, as much for herself as for Nelia.
“Hello?” From behind Claire, Agent Elliott, Claire’s babysitter, spoke into her cell phone. Claire pulled apart from Nelia, both of them staring at the closed surgery doors.
Nelia asked Claire, “What happened to you?” She gestured to the hospital gowns Claire wore-one backward so she didn’t expose her ass for all to see.
“Long story. But I’m okay. Just tired.” The doctor had given her a shot to help counteract the effects of Rohypnol, even though the tests hadn’t come back yet. All Claire wanted to do was go home and sleep the rest of the night in her own bed, but she now had this FBI agent babysitting her.
“Where?” Agent Elliott sounded angry. Claire turned and watched her. Meg’s jaw was tight and she stared at the wall. “Mercy? Who’s with him?. . Okay. Good. And Lowe?” She closed her eyes and rested her fist against the wall. “Right. I’ll call Grant. I want Lowe’s business and residence gone over with a fine-tooth comb.” Agent Elliott straightened, all business again. “Talk to everyone who even stepped through that bar. And-really? Get him on a plane ASAP. Protective custody or whatever the U.S. Attorney’s office thinks we can do. Arrest him if we can. He might be the only one who knows what’s going on.”
“What happened?” Claire asked when Meg Elliott shut her phone.
Expression hard, she said, “Frank Lowe was killed twenty minutes ago. One of my agents was shot and is in critical condition at Mercy.”
Claire involuntarily sucked in her breath. “Mitch?” she whispered.
“Steve Donovan. He’s going into surgery. But the professor you scared away yesterday? We just intercepted him outside La Guardia Airport in New York. We’re transporting him back. He’ll be here in the morning. And that information stays here, got it? I don’t want it leaking out that we have a witness in custody.”
“Witness to what?”
Meg said, “Mitch thinks that Collier is the last person-now that Lowe’s dead-who knows exactly what happened fifteen years ago. I want him alive.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Claire hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until urgent voices in the hall woke her. She opened her heavy eyes when the door whooshed open.
A federal agent stepped in. She didn’t recognize him, but he had his badge and ID clipped to his belt.
“Ms. O’Brien, I’m Special Agent Cliff Warren. I’ll be stationed outside your door clearing guests until you’re discharged.”
“That’s not necessary-”
“Supervisory Special Agent Elliott thinks otherwise,” he said.
Elliott. Right. The blonde. Claire’s memory was fuzzy. “What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Oh two hundred hours.”
It was after midnight. She didn’t want to be here all night!
She swung her legs over the bed. “I need my clothes.”
“You’re not supposed to leave until the doctor okays it, then I’ll take you home.”
“Then call the doctor. I want to leave now.” She felt like shit, her head pounded, but she was thinking clearly. She couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, though thoughts and images popped in and out of her mind. The river. Mitch. Nelia.
Daddy.
Agent Warren was almost out the door. “Wait,” she said. “My dad.”
“He’s in surgery.”
“How long has it been?”
Warren checked his notepad. “Meg said he went in at about twenty hundred hours last night.”
“Six hours ago? Is that normal? Is something wrong?”
“I’ll call for the nurse. I can’t leave your door. Sit tight, I’ll get someone to answer your questions.”
When he left, Claire rose and paced the room. Her body felt beat up and bruised. The more she moved, the better she felt. She did some stretches, felt dizzy, and sat down on the edge of her bed until it passed.
Steve Donovan had been shot. Claire hadn’t liked him, mostly because he’d hounded her about her father, but she didn’t want him dead. And Frank Lowe-dammit. Wouldn’t the fact that someone had killed Frank Lowe at least give credence to her father’s claim of innocence?
Mitch believes him.
Claire wished that Mitch hadn’t told her about his own father, or why he’d lied to her. She particularly didn’t want to hear about how Mitch thought her father was innocent. How would she know if he lied to her again?
Agent Meg Elliott came into her room. “Cliff told me you were up. How are you feeling?”
“I want to go home.”
“I know. As soon as the doctor clears you, Cliff will take you home and stay with you until we figure out what’s going on.”
The agent was distracted and kept looking at her cell phone and typing messages to someone.
Claire asked, “How’s my father?”
Meg looked up with sympathy. “He’s still in surgery. So far, he’s holding his own.”
“I found out earlier that the coroner’s reports are missing. From fifteen years ago. I have a friend at the morgue who tracked down the pathologist who worked on the bodies. He left right after sentencing, and he has to have been the one to mess with the records. I know who he is, and-”
Meg held up a finger, typed another message, then said, “You’re going to have to leave this investigation to us, Ms. O’Brien.”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t care as much as I do about what happens to my father! With Frank Lowe dead, this might be the only way to prove someone else killed my mother. I have to follow up!”
“Someone tried to kill you tonight. Doesn’t that mean something to you?”
“Someone tried to kill Steve Donovan tonight. Do you think he’d just give up if he were physically able to investigate?”
“He’s a trained federal agent.”
“I’m a trained private investigator.”
“Who was interfering with a federal investigation.”
“It’s not a federal investigation, at least it wasn’t officially a federal investigation. I have to do something, Agent Elliott. I have to find those reports-or can’t you send someone?”
“I have no one to spare right now. We’ll get to it, Claire, but it’s not our first priority. Finding who shot Steve is my number one concern.”
“What about my dad? He’s facing death.”
“I’m not going to let him out of our custody until we know exactly what’s been going on these last couple days.”