Page 75 of Head Room

“No, it’s not.Though it does involve another investigation.”

I hit the high points of Colonel Crawford’s assignment and how the manuscript of a historical romance figured into it.

“You think there might be clues in the manuscript,” she said at the end.

“Think?No.Hope desperately?Yes.Count on?No.I know this is a long shot and—”

“Send it to me.”

“I didn’t even get to the begging part.And there’s a good chance there’s nothing—”

“No need to beg and I understand it might be no help to you.But that’s part of investigating — at least it is for my fictional characters.Send the manuscript.”

“It’s only partial and—”

“I’ll let you know what I think after I’ve read it.”

“I have another question.”Unusual for me, I stalled between that statement and the question.

“Yes?”

“When I started reading it, I felt...guilty.Like I shouldn’t be looking at it.”

“That’s natural.At least for empathetic people, which you are.A book like that is personal.”

And she didn’t even know about Irene only starting to write when she received a fatal diagnosis.

“No need to be guilty, as long as you treat it and the author gently.It’s not a finished product.Don’t criticize it like it is.It’s like a baby chick.You have to handle it gently or you can crush its bones, grind them right up with the downy new feathers.Gotta—”

Okay,thatimage would keep me from criticizing.

“—go now, someone’s waiting for me.”

“Wait.How are you?How are the Outer Banks?And Sheila?Is she doing well?”

“Outer Banks suit me.Sheila’s well.Like you, she’s having interesting times.Have to go now.Send me that manuscript.”

She clicked off.

Leaving me with spidey senses firing off like rockets about her great-niece.

I watched the end of KWMT’s newscast, got ready for bed myself, then settled in with Irene’s story.

****

The door burst open, the afternoon sun silhouetting Dr.Gilliam’s burly frame against the opening.

“By God, I heard it, but I didn’t believe it.You’re a bunch of heathens, treating a young woman this way!”

“We were discussing what is to be done for her, Dr.Gilliam,” said Captain Reigert.

“Any Christian with a particle of sense would bring her to a doctor,” roared the post surgeon.

Men scrambled to get out of his way as he marched across the room, but Ransom noticed, as he rose more slowly to make room for the doctor, that Maggie Gregson neither looked up nor flinched.Yet he knew she could hear, he’d seen the proof of it.

Standing in front of her, the doctor moderated his roar to a mere rumble.

“We’ll get salve and ointment for those poor hands of yours, that’s one thing that’ll be done for you, my girl, Ernest Gilliam promises you that.”