Page 52 of The Psychic
Sloan froze for a moment. Caldwell loved being able to hoard and disseminate information at his whim. “What scene?”
“Name Erik Wetherly mean anything to you?”
Was there a smile in Caldwell’s voice?
“You said he was one of Melissa McNulty’s relationships,” Sloan answered tightly.
“Relationships? Hookups. Meaningless fucks, something like that.”
“What. Happened?” Sloan demanded.
“Did your psychic sweetie have a vision, or something?” he asked curiously.
“Get to the point, Caldwell.”
“Okay, okay. It looks like Mercer got himself a trip to Glen Gen after a fight with Wetherly. Brandy and your fiancée were there.” He paused for dramatic effect, but Sloan didn’t rise to bait. “Thought she woulda contacted you by now.”
Police scanners. Caldwell followed them religiously. “Where was the fight?”
“Wetherly’s house. Hey, when you talk to Madame Veronica, tell her to give me a call. I’ve got some information for her.”
“What information?”
“Family background shit. Nothing for you to be so tense about, bro. Go. Find out what’s happening with Mercer at the hospital. Talk to you later.”
As soon as Caldwell disconnected, Sloan texted Quick again. No immediate response. What the hell? He hit his Favorites key, which now listed Veronica Quick among the less than ten names he considered reliable friends. Caldwell’s name wasn’t on it. Neither was Mercer’s.
He punched in Ronnie’s number and waited with growing anxiety. What had happened?
No answer.
Not good.
Twisting the wheel, he headed for River Glen General Hospital.
Knight in shining armor bullshit, bro?
Evan Caldwell hadn’t actually said those words, but they echoed in Sloan’s head as if he had.
Keeping up with the speeding ambulance, Ronnie wheeled into Glen Gen’s parking lot bare moments behind it.
Brandy was practically out of the Escape before it had fully stopped.
Ronnie racewalked behind her as she waited on one foot and then the other for Clint’s gurney to be lifted out of the back of the ambulance and snapped up to waist height before being pushed through the double doors into the ER.
They were waved toward the front of the building by a security guard stationed inside, but Brandy spit out, “Brandy Mercer. I’m a nurse here and that’s my brother,” and strode on past him, Ronnie at her heels.
Clint was taken down a short hallway, past a large window where the ER staff worked amongst myriads of screens. The gurney was pushed into a small room and a nurse greeted Brandy politely, but requested that they stay outside until they assessed Clint’s condition.
Clint’s eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on …
until his gaze drifted toward Ronnie and his attention sharpened.
With effort, he said, “I followed her to that shed. You know already. Don’t even need the stuff out of my truck to prove I was there. You already know it …”
Brandy swept her gaze from Clint to stare hard at Ronnie, then back to Clint. “Don’t say anything more,” she warned him.
“She already knows.” His eyelids fluttered closed.
Brandy jumped forward, but the nurse, whose name tag read Kate Centauri , held up a hand and gently told her to go to the waiting room. Brandy really wanted to resist, but Ronnie put a hand on her back and guided her out. “Come on.”
“I have a right to be there,” Brandy sputtered, as she took a seat in one of the chairs near a shedding ficus tree.
“Do I have to tell you they want to make sure he’s okay?”
“I don’t have to listen to you.” Brandy glanced around the room where under the glare of fluorescent lights, knots of people were gathered, an elderly couple in medical masks, the balding man coughing and a twenty-something woman trying to keep two toddlers under control.
Ronnie said, “You should concentrate on what’s best for Clint.”
“Like you did?”
There was no arguing with her. Ronnie took her phone from her purse for all the good it would do.
She’d retrieved it from the bottom of Erik Wetherly’s stairwell, but she had discovered it wasn’t working when she’d tried to call Sloan, against Brandy’s wishes.
Though he would learn of the fight through his fellow River Glen officers, several of whom had taken their statements as Clint had been loaded into the ambulance, Ronnie needed to let him know what she’d learned about Clint.
Brandy had been too upset and worried about her brother to give Ronnie much more than a glare, then had forgotten some of her ire in the flurry of getting Clint to the hospital.
Now, however, she’d reverted to form and was angry. “Clint’s upset,” she said under her breath while the beleaguered mother of the preschoolers was trying to interest them in an age-old comic book lying open on the table. Brandy worried her hands together. “He loved Mel …”
Ronnie didn’t respond. She shut off her phone, hoping a cold boot would bring it back to life.
“He couldn’t hurt her. Maybe he followed her …
but he wouldn’t have gone after those guys if he didn’t think one of them killed her.
” Brandy shot to her feet to pace. To worry.
To send nervous glances to the closed double-doors behind which Clint was being attended to.
“They would let me in to see him if it wasn’t for the police,” she muttered. “I am his sister and a damned nurse.”
Well, maybe he could’ve killed her … it wouldn’t be the first time a killer went after further revenge …
Ronnie took a careful breath as the thought passed through her. Clint’s ghost rising from his body was still vivid in her memory.
They lapsed into a tense silence.
Fifteen minutes later, Brandy had stopped pacing but was still standing when she muttered, “Oh, shit …”
Ronnie followed her line of sight through the ER windows to the man walking across the parking lot under a now lighter sky, the gray clouds high and moving slowly overhead.
Sloan.
Brandy’s eyes blazed as they turned to Ronnie. Then they filled with sudden tears that spilled down her cheeks, and she sat down hard in one of the hard-cushioned ER chairs and covered her face with her hands.