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Page 4 of Small Town Hero

A young orderly with a buzz cut and multiple tattoos on his forearms led Susannah through passage after passage, corridor after corridor of Northern Arizona Community Hospital until, finally, they stood before a thick metal door marked “Staff Only.”

Expecting to be left in the hallway, Susannah sucked in and released several deep breaths, trying to steady herself.

She had to see her sister, but she felt unprepared. Out of her depth.

Becky had been through some rocky times emotionally, but she’d never been institutionalized.

Susannah automatically looked away while the orderly punched in a series of numbers on a panel next to the door.

A loud clunk sounded, and the lock was disengaged.

“Here we go,” said the orderly, turning to Susannah. “Your sister”—he paused, pulled a small tablet out of a pocket of his scrubs, consulted it—“Rebecca Bennet? Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Susannah replied, anxious and eager, both at the same time. “She goes by Becky.”

The orderly ignored that tidbit of information. “This way. We’re heading for the patients’ lounge.”

Instead of following, Susannah managed to come alongside her escort, and out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his name tag.

Tanner Beaumont.

Doors lined the next corridor they passed through.

The silence was thick and strangely muffled.

She closed her eyes briefly and sent a silent prayer heavenward.

Keep Becky safe. Please.

“Mr. Beaumont?” she ventured, after another deep breath.

“Tanner,” the young man corrected pleasantly, waiting.

Susannah squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Is my sister safe here?”

Tanner smiled. “Absolutely,” he said.

Susannah wished she could be so confident. But maybe she would be, after she’d seen her sister with her own eyes, knew how she was being looked after.

The large, arched doorway leading into the lounge was graced on either side by healthy ficus trees in enormous pots, and the sounds coming from beyond the entrance were blessedly ordinary—classical music, played softly, quiet conversations, the occasional burst of laughter.

Entering the large space, Susannah saw patients everywhere.

Some were sipping tea or coffee at one of the long tables.

Some were snoozing peacefully in armchairs.

She swept the room, spotted Becky right away.

Her sister sat in a wheelchair beside a tall window, staring blankly into space, her blonde hair and fragile frame rimmed in sunlight. The sight of her made Susannah think of a lost angel.

Her heart pinched hard and then lodged itself in her throat. The backs of her eyes stung with tears she was determined not to shed until she was alone in her hotel room in Copper Ridge, where she’d dropped off her suitcases and settled Nico in for a rest.

Hopefully, he would behave himself in the interim.

No matter what, she couldn’t risk upsetting Becky by giving in to her own turbulent emotions, not when her sister was so vulnerable.

After a brief nod of thanks to Tanner, Susannah crossed the room, zigzagging her way between patients, chairs, smaller tables and wheelchairs, some inhabited, some empty.

Reaching Becky, she gently laid a hand on her sister’s bony shoulder. She was wearing a plain terry-cloth bathrobe over a green cotton hospital gown, and her usually lustrous hair was dull, pulled back into a ponytail at her nape.

“Becky,” Susannah whispered, barely able to wedge the words past the lump lingering in her throat. “It’s me, Susannah. I’m here, and I’ll stick around as long as you and Ellie need me.”

Becky’s pale blue eyes remained expressionless, fixed on something no one else could see.

Sternly renewing her resolution not to break down and sob, Susannah grabbed a nearby folding chair and set it directly in front of her shattered sister.

She sat down, and their knees were almost touching, but if Becky knew Susannah was there, she gave no indication of it.

In her mind, Susannah reviewed the little information she’d been able to gather, when she’d spoken to Becky’s attending physician over the phone.

She’d outlined Becky’s medical history as best she could, and Dr. Mowgat, a gentle and refined-sounding woman of obvious intelligence, had listened carefully.

After explaining that Becky had had problems with her mental health since her early teens, though none of them had required hospitalization—only counseling and medication—she’d asked Dr. Mowgat for her impressions.

The doctor had replied that “Ms. Bennet” had suffered a “nervous collapse” while at home. Her young daughter had become concerned by her condition and dialed 911.

Paramedics had hurried to the house, soon followed by several local police officers, and found Becky in an unresponsive state. They’d examined her and then brought her to the nearest hospital, Northern Arizona Community, which was halfway between Flagstaff and Copper Ridge.

After more examination and numerous medical tests, Becky had been admitted.

Now, sitting across from her sister, Susannah ached with sorrow. She and Becky were actually half sisters, with the same mother and different fathers, but they’d always been close.

Not so close, Susannah reminded herself, that Becky had ever confided in her.

Whatever had happened, it had traumatized her terribly, that long ago summer of her thirteenth year. Susannah had been ten at the time.

Since then, Becky had remained unstable emotionally, and she’d endured cycles of depression so severe that she couldn’t get out of bed.

Eventually, she’d become seriously involved with a rowdy deadbeat named Roy Pendleton, and sweet little Ellie had been the product of that chaotic entanglement. As far as Susannah knew, the two had never married, and Becky still went by her maiden name, Bennet.

Much of Becky’s life was a mystery. She clearly loved her daughter, but she had few friends and, much of the time, she hadn’t been able to hold down a job for more than a month or two. She was a hard worker, but she tended to lapse into periods of all-consuming inertia.

They sat in silence for a long time.

Watching Becky, Susannah had to steel herself over and over again, to fight back torrents of tears.

She felt so damnably helpless , and, love her sister though she did, as desperate as she was to help her, a part of Susannah wanted to grab the woman by her thin shoulders and shake her, hard, yelling, What happened? Damn it, Becky, tell me what happened!

Of course that wasn’t an option.

So, finally, she took Becky’s limp, cool hands into her own, leaned in and said, very softly, “Let someone, anyone , help you. If you won’t recover for yourself, do it for Ellie.”

Becky’s light eyelashes fluttered then, and her chin wobbled.

Susannah held her breath, waiting.

“Ellie,” Becky said, in what amounted to a whisper. “Ellie.”

Before Susannah could respond, Tanner was back, standing beside Susannah’s chair, resting a hand briefly on her shoulder.

“Time’s up,” he said gently. “Ms. Bennet needs to rest.”

Susannah understood the protocol, knew it was all in the best interest of the patients. So, though she wasn’t ready to leave Becky, she nodded and rose to her feet.

Before walking away, she leaned down and kissed her sister on the top of her head. “Don’t worry about Ellie,” she told her quietly. “I’ve got this.”

Fifteen minutes later, she was in her rental car again, pointed in the direction of Copper Ridge, and though she’d looked forward to finally letting her guard down and sobbing until her eyes were raw, crying and driving didn’t mix.

So she took more deep breaths as she drove, and thought about the next step: picking Ellie up at the O’Ballivans’ place and taking her—where? To the small house she and Becky had been living in for the past six years? To her own hotel room in Copper Ridge?

She couldn’t decide.

So she simply kept driving.

The roads there in Arizona’s high country were winding and, unlike the southern parts of the state, thickly lined with scrub-brush and evergreen trees. Even more reason to concentrate.

She had just rounded a long, wide turn when it happened.

A saddled horse ran across the road, full-speed, reins dangling.

Susannah braked and looked around quickly. Where was the rider?

Carefully, her heart pounding, she pulled to the side of the road, unfastened her seat belt and climbed out to stand on the pavement.

The horse was slowing down, which was probably good, but there was still no sign of the rider. Surely there was a rider, since the animal was equipped with a saddle and bridle.

“Hello?” Susannah cried, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Is anyone there?”

She paused to listen then and, sure enough, a voice sounded from somewhere in the brush, on the left side of the road.

“I’m—here—”

Susannah plunged into the thicket of grass lining the ditch, slipping on the rocks and flailing for balance. “I’m coming,” she called out, moving into the woods.

She found the boy in a small clearing, sprawled on the ground. He was a kid, no older than fourteen or fifteen, with blond hair, and hazel eyes now squinched in pain.

Dropping to her knees beside him, Susannah fumbled in her jeans pocket for her phone, dialed 911.

A little breathless from all the dashing around, she did her best to convey the location and describe the boy’s condition.

First question from the dispatcher: “Is he breathing?”

“Yes,” Susannah replied, all but gasping the word. Then, addressing the boy, who was stirring slightly on the rocky ground, “Don’t move!”

“I have to catch my horse,” the kid protested.

He was bleeding from the back of his head, and one of his legs lay at an angle that made Susannah cringe inwardly. She shushed him and turned her attention back to the dispatcher. “I think he was thrown from a horse—yes—I’m sure he’s hurt.”

For the boy’s sake, she didn’t describe his condition.

“Paramedics on the way,” the dispatcher said, after Susannah had done her best to describe the location. “What kind of vehicle are you driving?”