“Do you know who he is?”
“I’ve never seen him before. He wasn’t one of our regulars.”
“Do you know which direction he went?”
She shook her head, gulped in more air, then swiped at her eyes, smearing the kohl a little.
“Where is Nate now?”
“He’s at the house, talking to the other girls. I went to get Doctor Ben before I told Nate what happened.”
“You did good, Corianna.”
“It wasn’t enough.” Whatever calmness she managed to achieve disappeared and she dissolved into tears again. “What if…what if Josie…” She wasn’t able to finish the sentence.
“Doctor Ben is with her, right?”
She nodded and pulled in a shuddering breath. “Oh, I forgot. His wife, Lucy, is coming to watch your daughter. She had to get dressed. I’m sorry.”
A quick knock sounded on the backdoor a few minutes later and Lucy walked into the kitchen. “I’ll stay with Corianna and Avery. You go. I’m sure Nate is waiting.”
Devlin left the house at a run, stopping briefly to pick up Challenger from the stable behind the Marshal’s Office, then rode out to Josie’s parlor house at the edge of town.
He walked into chaos. Josie’s girls were in various stages of tears, sobbing, barely coherent. Except one, who looked angry enough to spit nails. Lily, the unofficial protector of the group, had Nate backed into a corner, her voice raised in distress as he tried to take notes, writing as quickly as he could in his little notebook.
“The marshal is here!” One of the girls cried out.
Nate turned to look at him, then pointed up the staircase. Without a word, he took the stairs two at a time and stopped in the hallway. Through an open bedroom door he saw Doctor Ben Hart, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
His gaze drifted to the woman on the bed. Josie wasn’t moving. Her bloody gown was bunched at her sides, as if Ben had had to use scissors to cut her clothes away, and blood-soaked cotton pads were strewn on the floor around him.
Bile rose in his throat. It wasn’t the sight of so much blood that had him swallowing hard—it was the knowledge of what it meant. He’d seen belly wounds before, from both gunshot and knives. What he saw didn’t bode well.
His focus shifted from her belly to her chest. He didn’t see it rise, but that could just be his eyes playing tricks on him. Still, he had hope…until his gaze moved to the woman’s face. He’d met Josie several times in the course of his official marshal duties and liked her very much.
“How is she?”
Ben Hart turned toward him and shook his head. Devlin didn’t know if that meant her wounds were so bad she wouldn’t survive…or if she was dead. He didn’t ask, but then, he didn’t need to as the doctor pulled the stethoscope from his ears,wrapped it around his neck and slowly brought the blanket up to cover her.
Anger flared in him. This shouldn’t happen in his town. Hell, this shouldn’t happen in any town. Ever.
He went downstairs to find Nate now questioning Valentina, Lily behind her with her hand resting on the woman’s shoulder. It wasn’t going well.
“Did he give his name?”
She shook her head as fresh tears consumed her.
“What did he look like, Val?” Nate asked, his voice gentle.
“Mean,” Valentina responded, which wasn’t helpful at all. Her eye, which was all red, was beginning to swell and close. Her lip had been split and trickled blood. He could see the marks on her arms where he assumed the man had grabbed her.
“Dark hair or light?” Nate persisted, but it was obvious he was becoming frustrated.
“Dark.”
“Tall or short?”
She looked at him as she pulled her ripped wrapper closer around her body as if to protect herself, her eye, the one not swollen, shiny with tears and looking glazed from shock. Devlin didn’t think she would be able to answer any more questions or even give a decent description.
