“Silly Heath.No one keeps diaries anymore.Too easy to read.”My thoughts swam for a long, pleasant moments before I refocused on his harried, tired face.“What’s happening now?Why are you here?Did I do something bad?”
He sighed, heavy and tired.“Pamela Sommers is missing.She’s not at the inn and no one had eyes on her after the call came in about the fire at Witte House last night.She seized the moment and ran for it, from the looks of things.”
“She had a flight scheduled for this morning.”
“There’s a team in LA that’ll keep an eye out for her but it’s not likely she got on it.”
“What about Gwendolyn?”
“In holding.She’ll be released on a huge bond later today, ordered not to leave the state.”
“And Nate?”
He shook his head.“He’s free and clear.He had nothing to do with any of this.At least not as far as we can tell.It’s early days yet.”
A soft knock fell on the door, followed by the bustle of a tech entering with a wheelchair.“Mr.Murphy, time for that CT scan for the ol’ brain pan.Sorry, Heath, I gotta take your friend here for a bit.”
“It’s fine, Sylvie.Damien, I’ll talk to you later.”
I just nodded, my headache throbbing in time with my pulse.
Chapter 18
Ben was efficient,sharp as a tack, and freaked out.He said he was fine but I could tell he wasn’t as copacetic as he pretended.Pacing at the foot of my hospital bed, he made calls and sent texts so quickly I was pretty sure I was hallucinating until the nurse told me they’d cut off my supply of the good stuff hours before.She shooed him out of the room when she couldn’t get a good blood pressure read for me, only letting him back in once my vitals were checked and I did one of the breathing tube thingies to show I wasn’t being stoic about my ability to breathe after inhaling smoke.
“Contractors are coming out this afternoon to assess the damage,” he said tersely.“They can’t do anything until the entire place is signed off by the arson team but Heath said that shouldn’t take long.It’s fairly cut and dry, given the confession and your own witness statement.”
“Well.Silver lining.”
He shot me a quick, sour glare.“I need to go out and meet them in about an hour.”
“I’ll be fine.Not like I can go anywhere—between you and Heath, you’ve got the staff here keeping me on lockdown.”
“Because I know you’ll try to get up and leave, or ask to use the phone or borrow someone’s laptop and—”
“And,” I said, stifling another yawn.My millionth of the day.“I’m not in any shape to do anything.I’m getting surgery in the morning,” I added, pointing to my broken arm, in need of a plate now thanks to Gwendolyn’s tender mercies.“And someone took my clothes.As laissez-faire as I am about nudity sometimes, walking bare-butt down the streets of Malm’s Corner isn’t exactly high on my list of good times to be had.Especially in this weather.”
