Dust and Obey (14 page)

CHAPTER 24

We
reached the hospital, which was relatively small compared to most of the ones I’d been to—and, of course, the volunteer at the front desk told us that there was no one there by the name of Ginger Wagnor.

“Maybe Wagnor was her maiden name, not her legal name?” I said, leaning closer to the desk. “She was injured over on Bird’s Nest Island—?”

“Bird’s Nest Island?” she interrupted, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“It used to be call Cemetery Island,” Riley said.

Realization lit on the woman’s face. “Oh yes. You mean the woman who went off the cliff?”

I nodded. “Yes, she’s the one.”

She pursed her lips contemplatively for a moment. “Let me see what I can find out. But I heard she’s still not conscious, so I’m not sure how much visiting you’re going to get in.”

“I was hoping for better news.” I frowned, honestly disappointed. I wanted her to be okay, and not just because I wanted answers.

“There’s always hope.” She tapped something in the computer and then pulled out a card, jotted a number there, and handed it to us. “She’s in ICU. Maybe her family can give you an update.”

Family? Did that mean someone was here with her? Could we be that lucky?

Riley and I traveled down the hall, up the stairs, and found the ICU. A nurse disappeared inside just as we approached, so I grabbed the door, waited until the nurse vanished, and then slipped into the secure area. Moving quickly so we wouldn’t be spotted, we found Ginger’s room and ducked inside.

Ginger lay in the bed, with eyes closed and multiple tubes hooked up to her. The scent of rubbing alcohol or Lysol or some other universal hospital odor wafted up to me. The smell turned my stomach. I only had bad memories of hospitals—more and more of those bad memories as time went on.

I frowned as I gazed at Ginger. What had she gotten herself into? Why would someone feel so threatened by her that she’d been pushed to her death?

If I hadn’t found her when I did, she probably would be dead by now.

Out of curiosity, I glanced to a white board on the wall across from the bed. There at the top of the board was her real name: Ginger Lambert. I stored that information in the back of my mind.

I looked back at Riley, noticing that he’d been quiet since we stepped inside. He looked pale, almost sickly white, for that matter. Concern ricocheted through me.

Instinctively I reached for him, my heart lurching into my throat. “Are you okay?”

He nodded toward Ginger, still looking shell-shocked. “Is that what I looked like?”

I rubbed my lips together, everything making sense. I glanced at Ginger. She looked nearly dead. Nothing about her screamed alive, nothing but the steady beat of the heart monitor.

“You looked worse,” I whispered.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I’ve come far in the past nine months, Gabby.”

“Considering you were on death’s doorstep, I’d say definitely that you have.” At once, memories of his time in the hospital began hitting me as well. Those were some rough days. I never wanted to relive anything like that again. Never. Nor would I ever wish it on anyone. The waiting. The not knowing. The uncertainty.

We exchanged a look that only two people who had experienced so much grief together could understand.

“How about we locate Jim?” I said softly. “We’re not going to find out anything here.”

We casually left Ginger’s room, acting like we belonged there. No one even looked our way as their attention was drawn to another patient on the other side of the unit. Thank goodness.

As we emerged from the ICU and into the hallway, I walked a little closer to Riley, feeling some kind of nurturing need to comfort him. But that wasn’t my place. Despite that fact, I wanted nothing more than to pull him into my arms.

We wandered down a few doors and found a waiting area. Sitting there in one of the seats was Jim. He was reading a magazine and talking on the phone.

I had to remind myself that we were undercover because my first instinct was to start questioning him. To admit my research. To lay everything out.

“I’ve got to go,” he mumbled into the phone. He put it down and stood, extending his hand. “Riley. Gabby. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“We don’t live far away,” Riley said. “We wanted to come check on you and Ginger.”

Jim’s face squeezed with pain. “I appreciate that. There’s really been no change in her condition, though. She hasn’t awakened from her fall yet.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said, nudging my hips against the wall. “Have the doctors said anything else?”

He shook his head. “It’s all a guessing game right now. She has swelling on her brain. If that goes down, she could wake up and tell us what happened. If it doesn’t . . . ?”

“Do the police have any idea what happened?” I asked.

“If they do, they haven’t told me. One of the detectives came by here this morning to see if she was awake. He asked me if there was anyone she was having problems with. I told him no, not really. Besides, there were such a limited number of people on the island. We haven’t been there long enough to make enemies.”

I remembered my theory about Jim’s wife. I remembered the boat I’d seen the night she died. Was there any kind of connection there?

I mean, the man had a good point. There was really no one on the island who would want Ginger dead . . . except maybe him.

Was I staring at a cold-blooded killer?

I observed the man for a moment. His eyes were bloodshot. The wrinkles around his mouth and eyes were more pronounced than before. Even his hair—the little he had—seemed a bit grayer.

This had taken a toll on him. Or had almost killing Ginger taken its toll? I had to keep an open mind here.

“Is there anything we can do for you, Jim?” Riley asked.

The man shook his head. “No, not really. Now I just play the waiting game.”

“We’ll keep Ginger in our prayers,” Riley said.

“I appreciate it.”

As we took a step away, he called to us again.

“You drove all the way up here just to check on Ginger?”

I nodded. “We did. We know how hard this must be on you.”

“And you found Ginger without any problems once you got here?” He swallowed hard, his poker face nonexistent.

“Of course. We said we knew you from Bird’s Nest Island, and she immediately knew who we were talking about.”

A subtle relief washed over his features. He was still trying to keep his little affair a secret. I found it interesting that in the midst of worrying about whether she’d live or die he was attempting to protect his reputation. Had he told the police the truth about Ginger?

It made me not like him as much. Not that I liked him a ton in the first place.

I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.

“Why do you ask?” I tried to keep my voice innocent, but I wasn’t sure if I’d succeeded or not.

“Someone stopped by earlier and asked for Ginger, but the nurse had trouble locating her. I was just wondering if the hospital had corrected their computer records yet.”

I shrugged, realizing the ease by which he’d just lied to me. “I guess they have.”

With a final wave, Riley and I exited the waiting area.

I was leaving with even more questions than I came with, though.

***

“That was interesting,” Riley said when we got back in the van.

“Wasn’t it?” I asked, cranking the engine. Today’s weather was tepid, so I rolled down my window and let the fresh air waft through the van as we sat in the parking lot. “I just can’t figure out what that man is thinking.”

“He looked like he was grieving.”

“But was he grieving over her condition or the fact that he didn’t finish the job?” I hated to ask the question, but someone had to.

“That’s a good point.”

“If he’s the type of man Farrah described to me then he probably uses his so-called business trips as an excuse for weekend rendezvous.” Before I went anywhere, I had to get something off my mind. I grabbed some paper and a pen from my glove compartment, careful not to touch Riley in the process. Then I made my list of suspects and possible indications of guilt.

Atticus:               strange text, Anna’s scarf

Jim:                             argued with Anna, married to someone else

Brad:                             wife was going to leave him

Steve:                             anger issues, appeared moments after Ginger almost died

Farrah:               former doctor who knows RX

Blaine:               in Onancock

Jill:                            kill her husband’s mistress?

I stared at the list and sighed.

“What’s that?” Riley peered over my shoulder.

“I’m trying to sort out my thoughts. There are just too many people with either motive, means, or opportunity. I don’t know if I’ve ever had so many potential suspects in an investigation, and none of them are really, truly standing out.”

“Are you leaning toward anyone?”

“Maybe Jim. But my opinion is changing every hour, I think. I need a solid lead.” I pointed to the last name on my list. “I’m also really curious about Jill Wagnor. Her husband was cheating on her. Maybe she wanted to put an end to the affair.”

“But why would Jill Wagnor kill Anna . . . unless Anna happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The idea hit me like lightning. It was my best theory yet.

“You mean that Jim’s wife thought that Anna was actually Ginger and killed her by mistake?”

“Yep, that’s it in a nutshell.” I shrugged. “It’s just a theory—and a complicated one at that. But if you look at Ginger and Anna’s photos, they’re similar. They were approximately the same size; they both had brown hair; and it was dark outside.”

He bounced his head back and forth in thought. “It’s an interesting one. I’m not sure how we would prove that.”

I pressed my lips together a moment. “Me neither. Then there’s Rae Gray. Is she somehow mixed up in this also? And there are my missing pearls. There are just so many angles here that I’m going crazy.”

“It doesn’t make sense. The pieces don’t easily fit together.”

Riley and I made a pretty good team, I realized. But I couldn’t let myself get too attached here. There was too much water under the bridge, too much history between us.

I cranked the engine. “Let’s swing by the sheriff’s office. I want to ask a few questions.”

“Whatever you say, Boss.”

Boss? That was a new one.

And I kind of liked it.

CHAPTER 25

After
I located the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office using the map app on my phone, we pulled up to a small building. The good news was that I didn’t see or sense anyone following me from the hospital to the sheriff’s office. Maybe my paranoia had been working overtime earlier.

Inside, I asked the woman at the desk if I could speak with someone about the attempted homicide at Bird’s Nest Island. While at the hospital, I’d pulled a jacket on over my Grayson Technologies polo. But here at the police station I thought it might serve me well to proudly display my employer’s name. We were well-known in the law enforcement community, and I’d take whatever advantages I could get because I knew cops didn’t easily trust outsiders—and they shouldn’t.

A moment later, Riley and I were ushered back to speak with a detective. It was the same man I’d seen on the island on Saturday night—Detective Hanson. He sat at a cluttered desk, boasted a stained shirt, and had a jelly donut bleeding all over a napkin in front of him.

Recognition flashed in his eyes when he saw me. He wiped his hands and pointed to two seats in front of him. “Mr. and Mrs. St. Thomas. Have a seat.”

I glanced at Riley, suddenly uncomfortable. I had to come clean about what we were really doing on the island and who we really were.

“Detective, before we start, there’s something I need to tell you. My name is actually Gabby St. Claire and this is Riley Thomas. We’re not married.”

His eyes narrowed as he laced his hands across his midsection and leaned back to observe us. “Go on.”

“We were hired to go undercover and investigate the death of Anna Thorn.”

His lips twitched like he was amused. “So you’re trained P.I.s?”

I shook my head, my gut indicating that this talk wouldn’t go well. “No, we’re not. I actually work for Grayson Technologies, and I previously worked for the Virginia medical examiner. I’ve got a few cases under my belt.”

He nodded like he didn’t care. I might as well have told him about an obscure friend who’d just gotten a scholarship or something else inconsequential to him.

“Anna Thorn’s death was a suicide,” he said.

“Her husband believes it wasn’t,” Riley said.

“The evidence is contrary to that. She left a note.”

“She left two.” I explained what I’d found.

Detective Hanson shifted in his seat and narrowed his eyes. “Sounds like another suicide note to me.”

“Why would someone leave two suicide notes?” I asked. “And why leave one in a kayak? That’s what doesn’t make sense.”

“Lots of things that people do don’t make sense.” The detective let out a slow sigh. “Now, what else can I do for you, Ms. St. Claire? I’m assuming you didn’t come all the way here just to tell me these things.”

I reminded myself to remain professional. “I know you’re not allowed to talk about an active investigation, but I believe Anna’s murder and the attempted murder of Ginger may be connected.”

Detective Hanson pressed his lips together, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “All the evidence shows that Ginger accidentally fell. That island has a history of tragedy. Apparently, the tradition is continuing. That place is dangerous. I think the retreat center should be shut down, but what can I say? It’s a free country. People can decide for themselves.”

Heat climbed in me. He’d easily discounted what I had to say, and I didn’t appreciate it. Why wasn’t he listening? How could I get his attention? “But I saw someone out there with her.”

“You
think
you saw someone. It was dark, Ms. St. Claire. We searched for footprints or any other evidence to prove what you said. We found none. It’s only your word against the evidence.”

My hackles were rising and quickly. “But I know what I saw. Besides, you and your guys weren’t following protocol.”

Riley put his hand on my forearm. He must have sensed my rising anger.

“Everyone at the retreat is accounted for,” the detective said, still unaffected and bored.

“Unless someone is lying.”

“Too bad you don’t have that other note. Why were you keeping it yourself instead of turning it in to the police? Why didn’t you bring it to me immediately?” Something glimmered in the man’s eyes. Was he trying to get me riled up?

“I was going to but, as I said earlier, I had no means of getting in touch with the police while on the island. I was hoping to dry it out and then drop it by. But someone stole it, just like he stole my pearl necklace right out of my drawer.”

“Let’s talk about that again. Why would someone steal it?”

I shrugged, biting back my sharp retorts. “Maybe there was a clue there. Maybe someone knew it made him look guilty.”

“Maybe. But what I’m hearing is that you tampered with evidence.” He raised his eyebrows, challenging me.

I let out a verbal grunt of frustration. My anger had risen and was about to spill over. It was never a pretty sight. I drew in a deep breath. “I wanted to dry it out. I wanted to tamper with it, but I didn’t.”

“This is all very interesting, Ms. St. Claire. But I don’t think it means anything.”

I leaned toward him, my voice tight—almost as tight as my muscles, which were wound up and ready to spring. “You’re wrong, Detective. Something is going on, and I implore you to keep investigating.”

He let out another sigh. “Ms. St. Claire, you really should leave these investigations to the professionals. You’re looking for something that’s not there. Remember, those who can’t, teach.”

My emotions finally exploded. “You’re not seeing something that’s staring right at you.” I stared him down, not even trying to hide the challenge in my gaze. “Did you even know that Ginger’s last name isn’t Wagnor?”

“As a matter of fact, Jim told us all about it.”

“You can’t see how compelling that tidbit is?”

“This meeting is over.” The detective stood and pointed toward the door.

I locked my jaw in place. So much for this shirt gaining me more respect. No, the detective thought I was a joke.

“Let’s go, Gabby.” Riley put his hand on my elbow and kept it there until we reached the van.

I was fuming inside. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shake the detective.

But I could do none of those things.

I remained quiet as I got into the van. As I pulled on my seatbelt. As I cranked the engine.

“Listen, there’s a seafood restaurant a few miles from here,” Riley said. “What do you say we grab a bite to eat?”

I nodded, not in the mood to argue anymore. “Sure, that sounds good. Then we can head back.”

“I never realized you faced that kind of adversity, Gabby,” Riley said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter what I do or accomplish, I just feel like I’m always an outsider.” I raised my hand before he felt sorry for me. “I mean, I get it. You can’t have just anyone come in and tell you how to run an investigation. But I just feel so invisible.”

“You have this new job. Maybe that tide is turning.”

“Maybe.”

But deep inside, I didn’t know if that was the case at all. Especially as I remembered the detective’s words: Those who can’t, teach.

Before I could dwell on that any longer, I reached toward the center console to look at my list of suspects again. That’s when I realized it was gone.

I exchanged a glance with Riley. Neither of us had taken it.

So who had?