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He moves to the tent and shines his light on the flap. Another hairlike thread dangles from the zipper. “Two.”
He walks across the site and shines a light at the hidden trunk. “There’s one on the lock, to show if someone jangled it. I didn’t, so I only have two to repair. Well, two that I found.”
“I’ll keep looking.”
We don’t find more alerts. If there are others, Dalton says the miner will likely expect wildlife to trip some of them, so we’ve probably covered our tracks. If not? We’ll deal with “if not” later. For now, we know that we need to ramp up security at the jobsite. There’s definitely someone out here, and they are paranoid with good reason.
Strike that, there are definitelytwopeople here. We saw no sign of a canine in residence, and Storm would have let us know if she did. That means the miner is not the person with the tame wolf.
As we said, we knew better than to hope no one lived around here, even part-time. Still, we’d really hoped our empty land would be a little more empty.
Back in Haven’s Rock, we go straight to the clinic, where April is on the back porch, drinking coffee while standing at the railing.
“Thereisa chair,” I say, pointing at it. “Two, in fact.”
“The patient has internal bleeding,” she says. “I have operated and addressed the worst of it, but he is going to require a specialist, as I fear he has further injuries I am not qualified to assess.”
“Got it. I’ll tell Yolanda—”
“We have already contacted Émilie, who is sending a plane first thing in the morning to take him to a private hospital in Alberta.”
“Good.”
She doesn’t reply. She only turns her gaze to the forest again. I climb onto the back deck.
“I’m sorry, April,” I say. “I know this is… not ideal.”
“It is not.” She backs away from the railing. “However, it is significantly better than it was in Rockton. With Émilie’s assistance and her hospital, we no longer need to fight to have a resident flown to proper care. It will be no different than a remote facility.”
“Better,” I say. “Neither of us is a fan of private health, but in this case, it means top-notch care with no questions asked.”
“I don’t approve of private care, nor of the way Émilie’s family made their money”—they’re Big Pharma, with everything that implies for those who grew up around doctors—“but I approve of the way she is using her funds in this particular instance.”
I nod and say nothing. I know better than to push.
“This is my first patient in our new town,” she says finally; then she lets that hang there, as I wait for more. When no more comes, I realize that’s the entirety of it. That’s what’s bothering her.
“And you already need to turn his care over to someone else.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
I could say it’s not her fault she isn’t qualified to heal the first patient. It’s an extreme case, and there will be twenty more after Bruno that she won’t even need to consider sending elsewhere.
I could tell her that I feel the same way—my first “case” and I have one guy in critical condition, one woman missing, and a total stranger dead. I don’t say any of it because it will not help. Nothing will help except moving forward to more typical medical cases that restore her feeling of competence. We have that in common, and it has nothing to do with her autism and everything to do with our upbringing. We thrive on feeling competent… and we stumble—hard—when we don’t.
I give her a moment, to be sure there isn’t more she wants to say. When she doesn’t speak, I say, “I know you’ve had a long day already, and I can come back later, but I would like to discuss what you found regarding his injuries. For the investigation.”
She snaps back to herself, brisk and efficient and—I suspect—grateful for the distraction. “Of course. We should discuss that immediately, as it will impact your case. His injuries are consistent with a fall, as you suspected. However, that includes the blow to the back of his head. He was not struck and then injured himself falling to the ground. It would be impossible to do that degree of damage to his torso from a fall of a few feet, Casey.”
“That’s why you’re the doctor, and I’m the detective.”
“Well, you detected correctly in presuming a fall, though it would have been a substantial one. As for the fact he has injuries to both the front and back of his body, I believe that suggests he struck both in his fall.”
“He rolled on the descent. Fell from a height, struck his head and then struck his torso. Or vice versa.”
“No, it is most likely in that order, given the wrist injuries, though I doubt it matters for your purposes. The head and leg wounds are consistent with a sharp strike on something like rock. Dirt embedded in the wound supports that. When he landed, it was on his stomach, with injuries to his wrists and hands suggesting he was still conscious at that time. He hit something hard. Likely more rock.”
