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He watched a tremor wrack the girl. “I thought she was trying to help me. I told the police that someone came up behind me while I was on the phone with you and stabbed me with something. Almost immediately, I started feeling all woozy. I couldn’t stand up or—” She broke off and shuddered again.
Mason nodded toward the ambulance. He was ready to check on Lacey. From the corner of his eye, he saw Catelyn nod to him. He gave her a thumbs-up and climbed into the back of the ambulance with Bethany.
The EMT shot him a look and he saw the protest forming on the man’s lips. Mason flashed his badge and the EMT paused, shrugged and reached around him to shut the door. Bethany climbed onto the gurney and sat there while the EMT checked her vitals once more.
“I’m fine,” she assured them.
“It’s standard procedure, Bethany. Just let him check you over, all right?”
She lifted a shoulder and nodded. “Fine.”
His heart fluttered. How many times had he made that same gesture with that same shoulder? While she was occupied, he drank in her features noting the light reddish-blond hair, the blue eyes that matched his, the shape of her jaw.
He was in awe. And a deep sadness stole over him at what he’d missed. But a rock-hard determination soon replaced it. He vowed to make up for lost time. He wouldn’t live another day without being a part of Bethany’s life.
His phone sounded, jerking him out of his musings and he grabbed it in the middle of the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, this is Catelyn. Just wanted to let you know we found a name on a slip of paper in Janice’s purse. Billy Rose.”
The name set off bells in his mind, but he couldn’t place it. “Who’s that?”
“One of the more seedy shelter residents Janice bribed into keeping an eye out for Bethany. When he heard he was going to be charged with attempted murder, he had a lot to talk about.”
“So he’s the one that injected her. So Daniel didn’t lie about that.”
“Yep. He saw her at the phone booth, grabbed the drug Janice had supplied him with sometime earlier and went after Bethany. We found five hundred dollars in an old coat pocket he had stuffed up under his bunk.”
“That must have seemed like a fortune to him.” Mason blew out a sigh and said, “All right. Thanks for keeping me updated.”
He hung up and passed the information on to Bethany who bit her lip. “I don’t care about him. I want to know how my mom’s doing.”
So did he.
He dialed the hospital number from memory. He’d spent so much time there, he’d had no choice but to memorize the number.
Lacey, no doubt, had been taken in through Emergency. After being connected to several different sources, he finally landed on the right one. “Lacey Gibson.” Impatience ate at him, but he kept his cool. “She was brought in with a gunshot wound probably about twenty minutes ago.”
“She’s in surgery right now. That’s all the information I have.”
It was enough for now. “Thanks.”
He hung up and told Bethany, “She’s in surgery.”
Her eyes closed for a brief moment. “She saved my life.”
“I know.”
“That woman was going to kill me.”
“Yeah, she was.” He had no doubt, Janice had no intention of letting Bethany out of there alive. She’d been determined to make Lacey pay for having a child when hers had died. “Don’t dwell on that, okay? Think about all the good times we’re going to have catching up on fifteen missing years.”
“I’m kinda mad at her,” Bethany voiced in a low tone.
“Well, to be honest, I am, too, but I’ve gotten to know your mom all over again in the last few days and she made the decisions she made, and she had some valid reasons for doing so.” He took her hand and looked into her eyes.
“We can hold on to our anger and have a lot of miserable years ahead of us or we can let it go and start over.”
Bethany went quiet and just stared at him. Then a slow smile started at the corners of her lips and spread until her pale face glowed. “You still love her, don’t you?”