Blake nodded and began to search the house. Something bad had happened here, and he prayed he’d find Bea alive and well. The bedroom doors all stood open. The rooms were neat with the beds made. He made sure to check the main bedroom well, even under the bed. Nothing seemed out of place.
Her face pale, Paradise appeared in the doorway to the main bedroom. “Rod is sending someone out.”
“Good.” Blake moved toward the door to the connecting bathroom, which stood partially ajar. As he approached he saw a slipper-clad foot, and his gut clenched. “Get Drew, babe, and call for an ambulance.”Please be alive.He pushed the door the rest of the way open.
Bea lay on her side on the floor beside the shower.
She wore a pink terry bathrobe and one slipper. The other lay over by the toilet. Her curly salt-and-pepper hair still dripped water, and she faced away from him toward the back of the room.
Blood pooled under her head. A lot of blood.
A coppery stench mingled with that of gunpowder, and beveling circled the wound where a slug had entered her head.
He knelt and felt for her pulse. It was faint but there. He grabbed a hand towel from the sink and folded it up to press against the head wound, which was still pumping blood. “Bea, can you hear me?” She groaned and flung out one arm. “Don’t move. Help is coming.”
He feared it would be too late. Her skin was pale and clammy, and her erratic pulse was weak and thready. The blood loss was slowing, but he wasn’t convinced it was because of his attention. It might be because she was fading. “Hang on,” he whispered.Where was the ambulance? He prayed to hear the siren’s warble heading this way.
Drew appeared in the doorway with Paradise behind him. “Sis called the ambulance. What’s her condition?”
“Bad. Gunshot wound to the head. I don’t see an exit wound either, and she’s lost a lot of blood.”
Drew let him care for Bea while he examined the room. “Don’t touch anything if you can help it,” he told Paradise.
She nodded and knelt on Bea’s other side. “Bea, it’s Paradise. Hang on. Blake is taking care of you.”
Bea made a sound and tried to move her head.
“Don’t move,” Blake said. “I know it hurts, but try to stay still.”
A moan slipped out of Bea’s mouth. “Doris,” she whispered.
“Maybe she means Doris Martinez who lived next door to us,” Paradise said. “She’s on our list to talk to.”
“Doris,” Bea said again. Her lids fluttered and she sighed out a long breath.
Blake held his breath to see if she would take the next breath. He couldn’t find her pulse under his fingertips for several moments until it resumed its fluttery rhythm. Bea inhaled so softly he nearly missed it. She was still alive, but only barely.
Paradise stood close to Blake and leaned against him as they watched the ambulance tear off toward the hospital with lights flashing and siren blaring. It was lunchtime, but she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, and she doubted the men would either.
The ambulance turned the corner out of sight, and she blinked back tears. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
Blake’s embrace around her waist tightened. “She’s in bad shape, babe.”
Drew exited the house. “Rod says we can go. He may want us to come down to the station to go over our statements again, but we didn’t see an intruder.”
Paradise’s sense of urgency rose. “Someone tried to kill Bea—and they might have succeeded. What was she hiding from us? I think we should try talking to Doris Martinez. There has to be a reason Bea mentioned her.”
“Not necessarily,” Blake said. “When people are semiconscious, they don’t always make sense or have a reason for the things they say. But sure, I’m game to go see her. She’s just over in Pelican Harbor.”
They piled in the truck, and Paradise pulled up her phone’s Notes app to see what other lines of investigation they might pursue. “Doris is just one possible source of information. We haven’t talked to all of Mom’s coworkers yet, just Mr. Phillips and Greta Welch.”
Drew bent over his phone and started tapping. “I put in a request to get a copy of the files on Pamela’s and my father’s deaths. There might be something in them that will help us.”
“We haven’t talked to my dad’s employer or any of his coworkers either. Maybe he had a good friend at work he might have confided in. He returned unexpectedly that day, and it’s possible he told someone why.”
Drew lifted his head. “I read the case notes. One of his coworkers said Granger got a call from the sheriff. I think Gerald warned him to get home after Pamela died.”
If only she could remember more. Some memories had come back, but not all. And what she remembered felt covered in cobwebs. “Blake, your mom mentioned she knew Doris too. Jenna offered to be interrogated, but we haven’t followed up on that.”
