Page 13 of The Deputy's Secret Double
He said something but she couldn’t hear him.
Then he dropped.
JJ’s reflexes had her across the road, over the wire fence and streaking across the distance between them with efficient speed. She was barely out of breath when she made it to the man’s side.
She had 9-1-1 up and ringing the moment she saw he was struggling.
He was covered in blood. From head to toe.
His eyes were closed. He didn’t move as JJ asked after him.
It was only after the dispatcher answered that JJ made another startling discovery.
It wasn’t just a man.
It was Josiah Teller.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lane Medical wasn’t that bad for a county place. It had serviced locals from Seven Roads nicely through the years and, since it was located closer to the town than the neighboring city, at any one time it housed people who Price knew. Staff, patients, visitors. He hadn’t ever visited the hospital without running into someone.
After coming in hot with Rose, he tried to avoid all of the above as he made his way up to the second floor while the deputy was snarled in the emergency room, waiting to talk to the attending doctor.
The surgery ward was an entirely different beast than the general population rooms downstairs. Everything was shining, bright and smelled like disinfectant. Even the resident behind the front desk at the mouth of the main hallway had a neater look to her that those battling in the ER below didn’t have the luxury to maintain.
This face was familiar and unavoidable.
Thankfully, that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.
“Deputy Price!”
Lily Ernest was one of those people that slightly skewed Price’s perception of time. She was the legendary medical examiner Doc Ernest’s eldest daughter, but Price still remembered her as a baby, as a kid and then as a teenager who was only a few years older than Winnie. Now? It bowled him over how adult she looked in scrubs. The image clashed with the memories of her toddling around her mother.
It made Price think of Winnie. He still paused on occasion by the growth chart he’d notched into the doorframe of her bedroom at home.
But, just as quickly as he thought of his daughter and how kids never kept, Price reminded himself that he wasn’t there for a social visit. He buttoned up his parental awe and gave Lily a polite but curt nod.
“Hey there, Lily. You doing okay?”
Lily tapped her name tag.
“It’s nice to be on rotation here, I won’t lie. Mom’s a bit disappointed I’m not in with her though.” She pointed down, meaning the morgue in the hospital’s basement. “One day she’ll realize I really have no plan to work below sea level.”
Her little laugh was kind.
It was also gone quickly. Her gaze dropped to where his badge would usually be, and she added a thought in a much lower voice.
“If you’re here to talk to a surgeon, our very best is currently in an emergency surgery. I’m not sure I can help with anything else.”
Lily knew she couldn’t openly talk about a patient, especially to the law without consent. That probably went double for someone not even in uniform. So, she’d given him what he wanted to know without saying it directly.
She was definitely her mother’s daughter.
“If I wanted to wait for the surgery to end, could I do that in the lobby?” Price jerked his thumb over his shoulder and down the hall to the surgery suite’s lobby. He’d only had to wait there twice in his Seven Roads life. If the Good Samaritan was still around, they would be there.
Lily nodded and confirmed his hope.
“Yes. There’s only one other person in there at the moment so it won’t be crowded.”