Page 33 of The Hanging Dolls (Zoe Storm #1)

THIRTY-TWO

Scott cried out, sinking to the ground, his hands and face covered in blood. It was everywhere. Zoe’s screech rose above the noise of the crowd. And then chaos erupted. Someone screamed that there was a knife. Another one thought it was a gun.

People pushed and shoved, some trying to get away, others closing in.

It was a stampede. The officers at the entrance charged in, batons raised, trying to force the crowd back.

Zoe dropped to her knees beside Scott, his hand pressed to his bleeding face.

“Scott, the ambulance is on its way.” She was already on her phone. “You hang in there, okay?”

Zoe inhaled the scent of antiseptic and bleach.

Unlike most people, she loved hospitals.

She never saw it as a place of sickness and death; she saw it as a place where lives were saved.

She had witnessed too many deaths that could have been avoided.

Sitting on one of the steel chairs outside the ward, she stared at the blue curtain, behind which Scott was being treated.

A: You okay, Storm?

Z: Yeah, just waiting for the doctor to give me an update on Scott.

The blue curtain ripped open and one of the nurses popped her head out. “You can come in now, Agent Storm.”

Scott lay on the bed. A deep gash ran from his cheekbone down toward his jaw, the stitches neat but angry-looking. The skin around it red and swollen. The collar of his shirt was stained with dried blood.

“Wow. I’m going to call you Scott Scarface,” Zoe teased. Scott grimaced and crossed his arms. “Thanks. For saving my ass there. I would buy you a drink but…” She laughed while he glared at her. “Sorry. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”

“Clearly.”

“That was wild. What happened at the station.” She perched on a stool next to him. “I’m guessing that doesn’t really happen here?”

“Never. We weren’t ready. Terri told me she got an invite on Facebook to join some event happening at the police station but she didn’t think much of it until people started showing up with pitchforks.”

“A Facebook event?” Zoe had an idea. “I suppose it’s a small community…”

“What are you thinking?”

“Sometimes killers who are cuckoo, like this one, leave traces on social media. Like odd posts or pictures.”

His lips puckered in thought. “You think this killer might be posting weird poems or some shit?”

“It’s possible.”

“I’ll ask Terri to look into it.”

The curtains ripped open again and a lanky man with a long neck and clumps of white hair and wrinkled skin approached the bed, holding a clipboard. “Detective Cohen? I’m Dr. Vic Parsons. I saw the news. Welcome.”

“Can I leave?” he grumbled.

Dr. Parsons coughed. A smoker’s cough, Zoe noted. His eyes glazed over Scott’s stitches. “You can after you get your tetanus shot. As per your records, you haven’t had one in over twenty years. Do you have any other symptoms?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t like hospitals very much, do you?” the doctor said with a snicker.

“Nope.”

“I like hospitals,” Zoe said, and shook his hand. “Thank you for what you do. I’m Zoe Storm from the FBI.”

Dr. Parsons beamed at her. “It’s refreshing to meet someone who likes my place of work.

My grandkids think I work at a cemetery.

” He turned to Scott. “Your stitches will begin to dissolve in the next few days and be fully dissolved in weeks or months, worst-case scenario. The nurse told me that the cut wasn’t deep enough for us to worry about any bone damage so I’ll spare you X-rays and CT scans.

But if you experience any unusual symptoms at all, you come right back, understood? ”

“I will.” Scott started to get up and winced.

“You’ll be in pain. Just take extra strength Tylenol.” He looked at Zoe and winked. “Take care of this one.”

“Yes, sir.” She did a little salute. Dr. Parsons chuckled on his way out.

“How are you so chirpy after everything?” Scott accused her sharply. “Two girls are dead. One can go missing anytime. And people want to kill us .”

A jolt ran through her at his biting words, an angry reminder of how everything had been going wrong since she arrived in this town. “If I start letting my job impact me, then I’ll want to put a gun in my mouth. You have to learn to compartmentalize. You can’t take it this personally.”

“You have to take it personally when people are getting murdered. When children are getting murdered.” His eyes were blazing. With the scar running down his face, he looked even more threatening. “How does it not make you angry?”

She opened her mouth to pacify him but was distracted by an argument taking place on the other side of the curtain.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” a man said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Can’t you do a single thing right? Slipping in the bathroom like some idiot who doesn’t know how to use his own legs.”

An old man on a wheelchair flinched, his hands trembling slightly as they clutched the blanket. “I… I didn’t mean to?—”

“Didn’t mean to!” the young man yelled. “That’s what you always say, isn’t it? Didn’t mean to fall, didn’t mean to screw up, didn’t mean to ruin my goddamn day with your stupidity. Do you have any idea how sick I am of this? Of cleaning up your mess?”

The old man’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, but he kept his head down. “I’m sorry… I really am…”

“Sorry?” he sneered. “You’re sorry? Sorry doesn’t fix anything, Dad. Sorry doesn’t undo the hours I lost today because you can’t even stay upright in your own bathroom. You’re pathetic.”

Staff arrived and swiftly ushered the pair into a room. Zoe stared at the man who was bullying his elderly father. Scott’s words simmered inside her about how she could not be angry.

She was angry. The unfairness and injustice always got to her. She just had a different way of handling it.

The sound of Scott’s phone ringing drew her back to the present.

“Hey, Dr. Wesley,” he said, answering the phone with a sigh.

“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m on my way out now. Thanks.

What happened? Yeah, I remember… are you sure?

Okay…” His eyes were bulging when he disconnected.

“Remember the wire transfers to Logan Bennett’s account from that shell company—Global Holdings Inc. ?”

“Yeah.”

“The court order went through with the bank.” His smile was sly. “It is registered to Regina Warner.”