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“Did you hear anything?” I asked. “Did you happen to see anyone or anything out of the ordinary when you came out here and found Isaac?”
“Anything aside from Isaac’s poor body on the ground, you mean?” She huffed out a short breath and dashed at her eyes. “No. I didn’t see anything. I only heard his voice as he called out. By the time I got out here to see what was going on, he was like this. Lifeless. Bleeding.” Her eyes focused on me again. Her expression was a mixture of anger and pain—understandable, since those were often the first two emotions a person went through after the initial shock and trauma of an emergency like this wore off. I’d never seen someone alternate so quickly between the two, though. “Just tell me he’s going to be okay. Please just tell me that much.”
It was a promise I couldn’t make.
Thankfully, the ambulance roared into the driveway before I was forced to say anything else, and the question was forgotten as the paramedics rushed out and took over.
“I want to go with them,” Nora said. “I want to ride with him to the hospital.”
“There isn’t room in the ambulance,” one of the paramedics said. “We need to get him stabilized. He’s lost a lot of blood. There could be swelling on his brain.”
Nora looked like she might faint. I made eye contact with Cole and nodded toward the front door of the house. “Let’s get her inside.” Then, to hopefully calm her nerves a little, I added, “We’ll check on Isaac as soon as we can. We won’t know anything until they get him to the hospital.”
Once we got her inside, Cole helped her to the sofa, and I went to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. From where I was standing at the sink, I could see there were still uncleared breakfast dishes on the table—two plates with scraps of bacon and eggs, two mostly empty glasses of orange juice, silverware and napkins.
But it was everything else on the table that really caught my attention.
I walked over, nearly forgetting about the glass of water in my hand. There was a map in the middle of the table that looked an awful lot like the one we’d seen in Isaac’s office downtown. There were handwritten notes scrawled on scraps of paper scattered over the rest of the table—numbers, coordinates, dollar amounts, dates. It was too much for me to make sense of in the moment, but it obviously had something to do with Isaac’s visit.
I didn’t have a warrant and wasn’t there to dig through Nora’s personal documents, but I still took out my phone and grabbed a quick photo of the map and the notes. It might not be admissible as evidence in a case, but it was still definitely worth looking into.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and hurried into the living room, where Cole was already taking Nora’s statement for our report. Good. That would hopefully have kept her from realizing how long I’d been in the kitchen.
“Got you some water,” I offered, handing her the glass.
“Thank you, sheriff.” She took a drink and then shook her head. “Can we possibly finish all of this later? I’ve already told you everything I know. Surely that’s enough for your report? I just want to get to the hospital. But… I think I might need to lie down for a bit first.”
Cole looked like he might argue, but I cut in before he had a chance to speak. “Of course. We understand how hard this must be for you. Mr. Bishop was here as your, ah… friend? Is that right?”
“Myfriend, yes,” she answered, her eyes narrowing. “Not that it’s anyone’s business.”
“No, of course not.” I motioned for Cole to follow me as I walked toward the door. “We’ll be going now, but feel free to contact us at the station if you think of anything we might be interested in. You know, any other details from this morning you feel you should mention.”
Her gaze moved from me to Cole, then past us to the edge of the dining table that was just barely visible from where she was sitting.
“No, that’s all,” she said, suddenly sounding distracted. “Please show yourselves out.”
I nodded and walked out the door with Cole right on my heels. From the corner of my eye, I could see Nora in the window watching us as we got back into the patrol car and pulled away.
“What the hell was that all about?” Cole asked as we drove off. He was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. “I wasn’t even finished taking her statement. There might have been something, some clue or—”
“There was,” I interrupted, fishing my phone from my pocket and flashing him a wry smile. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
“Oh, shit,” he murmured as he saw the picture I’d taken in Nora’s kitchen. “Oh,shit. So where are we going now?”
I quirked a brow as we turned back toward town. “Where do you think?”
* * *
We pulled up to the rear stairs behind Isaac’s office and parked the car. I turned off the engine and drummed my fingers against the steering wheel.
“We can’t just go in there,” Cole said, echoing the thoughts that had been going through my head for the past several minutes.
“Weshouldn’t,” I corrected him. “Not without probable cause. But… wedidtell him we’d be back to check on the official results of his water tests, didn’t we?”
Cole nodded.
“Now we’re back.” I shrugged. “We go in. We look for the test results. That’s all.”
