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The sheriff smiled. “That’s threatening an officer of the law.”
“I’ll show you a threat if you want to hear a threat,” Wake growled.
Before anything else could be said, a doctor finally came into the room. I’d been sitting alone with Wake for over an hour because the hospital I’d gone to was slam packed with people that’d come down for spring break, and wound up sick or hurt. It was a nuthouse.
“Sheriff,” the doctor said carefully. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I need to see my patient.”
“I’m the sheriff. You can speak to her in front of me,” the sheriff tried.
But it was the doctor, and not Wake, who said, “Actually, I can’t. Now leave.”
The sheriff sighed. “Cliff, Cliff, Cliff. How many times do I have to tell you that I’ll find it out one way or another?”
“Well, it won’t be this way,” Dr. Cliff snarled. “Now fucking leave.”
Color me surprised when the sheriff left without another word.
He did have a smug smile on his face, though. One that I knew Wake wanted to punch right off his mouth.
The doctor waited until we saw the sheriff leave not only the makeshift room I was in, but the busy area completely before he said, “I really fuckin’ hate that guy.”
“Fuckin’ same,” Wake growled, his eyes glaring holes through the door that the sheriff just escaped through.
Little did he know that Wake would’ve leveled his ass had he stayed very much longer.
“Your x-rays look good,” he said instead of dawdling for too long. “From what I can tell, it just looks severely bruised. I recommend ice, elevation, ibuprofen, and no weight bearing for at least the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours. After that, you can add weight as you wish. Just give it some grace. No running forty miles on it this Saturday.”
I laughed out loud at that. “Trust me. If I’m running, someone’s chasing me.”
His lips twitched, and he turned to Wake. “She can’t operate any heavy machinery with this medicine that’s in her system right now. That means she needs a ride home. Tomorrow after it wears off, she can operate the heavy machinery.”
Wake snorted. “She doesn’t operate heavy machinery, either.”
“Well then, she should be all set.” He smacked his thigh. “I’ll have a nurse in here to get y’all out of here as soon as possible. Fuckin’ spring breakers are driving me mad.”
With that, he was gone, and Wake was once again looking at me like I’d been murdered and resuscitated this afternoon.
“I’m fine,” I repeated for what had to be the fiftieth time since I’d been pulled out of my truck.
“You could’ve been badly injured.” He sighed. “Somethin’ needs to be done.”
“Something was done.”
We blinked, surprised to hear Sunny’s voice from so close to us.
Wake whirled, caught off guard that Sunny had snuck up on him.
It was coming from the other side of our curtain, the other makeshift room that was directly beside mine.
Wake ripped the curtain to the side, and there was Sunny, lying back on a gurney, his arms behind his head, with a woman standing beside him looking amused.
The woman was familiar.
And it was only when she opened her mouth to say, “Hello,” that I realized who it was.
Annalise Graydon.
I stiffened.
Wake, realizing that there was something amiss, moved closer to me.
“What’s going on?” I barked.
“Oh, boy,” Annalise said. “You better start talking, quick.”
Sunny sat up, swung his legs over the table, and looked at the two of us before saying, “Annalise Graydon has been running a sting operation with Homeland Security. I found out this afternoon that Sheriff Graydon is using his position as sheriff of Accident County to smooth the way for some illegal activities to occur. Such as some pedophile rings, some illegal gambling, and a few other things we’re not at liberty to discuss with you at this time. Needless to say, Annalise has been working with the authorities to get her brother a full life sentence in a prison cell.”
“He was taking my kids,” she said softly. “At first, I wasn’t aware of what was going on. He just asked questions about some of my kids, and I willingly gave up the answers, thinking he was just being a good sheriff. Following up with the community, things like that. Then they started disappearing, and I had to start asking hard questions. And in the end, I found that my brother was involved in their disappearance.”
“And Pedro?” I asked sharply. “What happened there?”
“What happened there was my fault.” Annalise grimaced. “I was trying to see if my brother was getting to him. He’d asked about Pedro, and I’d gotten worried that things were happening surrounding that sweet boy. I got overly pushy when I wanted to make sure that he was safe. And ended up scaring the crap out of him instead. I feel horrible.”
