good.”
“I can’t...”
“Yes,” she said, catching Sarah’s eye in the rearview mirror. “You must.”
Sarah had worked with Juanita for the three months she’d been at the clinic, and the woman had always been quiet, even tempered. The iron in her voice was new, or perhaps Sarah had not taken the time to recognize it before.
“Okay,” she finally said. “We’ll escape after dark.” As they sped out of town toward Juanita’s house, Sarah prayed darkness would come quickly.
It was nearly four when they arrived with their ailing patient at a small brick building with a crooked front door and a corrugated metal roof. Jett figured it had been a little café at one time, but now the windows were shuttered and the front step sagged. Like the town itself, it seemed to be sinking under the crushing weight of the poverty all around it.
He climbed from the truck and tried to stretch out some of the stiffness in his back, but the pain from his bruised body put an end to that. You’re not an eighteen-year-old kid anymore, he thought. There’s a price to be paid now for putting your body on the line. Didn’t matter. He’d pay it anyway, regardless of the consequences. He’d never hesitated to take the savage blows intended for his mother.
Why don’t you hit me? he’d taunted his father countless times when dear old Dad had come home stinking of whiskey. Leave her alone, he’d shouted, like a lion tamer luring a beast with an offering of fresh meat. He shook the thought away, wondering if he’d ever be able to rid himself of those memories.
A one-eared dog trotted up, sniffing the group as they unloaded Young from the truck, offering a tentative yip. Another hungry soul, scrounging anywhere for anything. Jett stooped to give the bony head a pat. “Sorry I don’t have any food for you, boy.”
The dog wagged its tail anyway as Juanita hurried to open the door. “Inside, quickly,” she said.
The interior was molten, warmer even than the air outside. Immediately they were bathed in sweat. Jett and Sarah carried Young inside and laid his stretcher on a long wooden table. Sarah loosened his straps, and he moaned. His eyes flickered open, but he was clearly out of it, forehead lined with pain and eyes sunken, skin waxy.
“He needs IV fluids,” Sarah said, rummaging in her bag.
Juanita nodded. “While you administer them, I will go get us some food and water.”
“Want me to go with you?” Jett said. “What if Beretta’s men followed us?”
Juanita flashed a quick smile. “Then I will be quick, and on the lookout like Detective Sarah.”
Sarah laughed, a sound that was at odds with their dire circumstances, like the peal of cheerful music in a dungeon. “I left my magnifying glass back in Coronado. Right now, I’m Nurse Sarah.”
“Probably a more helpful occupation for the circumstances.” Juanita frowned at the patient and sped out the door, closing it behind her.
Jett watched Sarah fuss over Young. “So how exactly are you going to be both a nurse and a detective?”
Her attention was fixed on her work. “I’ve decided to give up nursing after this mission and help full-time with the detective agency.”
That surprised him. She’d always been passionate about her occupation. “Yeah? Why did you decide on that?”
“Because I guess I’ve had enough of death,” she said.
The expression, that sadness in her voice, made him want to fold her in his arms. The experience of losing her father had changed her, taking some of the brilliance away from her smile. But, hey, he thought uncharitably, she had her God. Wasn’t He supposed to protect people like her? Still, it grieved him that she should be touched by tragedy of that magnitude. Some people deserved the bitter stuff that life dished out to them. Sarah did not.
As he puzzled over what to say, he made himself useful by holding the plastic tubing and handing Sarah the materials as she gloved up, applied the tourniquet, disinfected Young’s arm with a small wipe and started the IV. He held up the bag of fluids as she released the tourniquet. A nail protruding from the wall served as a good place to hang it. Jett envied the liquid being pumped into Young. His own mouth was so dry he could hardly manage a swallow.
As she snapped off her gloves, she talked soothingly to Young, stroking his hand and wiping his brow with a clean cloth. Her patter was meant to be comforting, he supposed, but for Jett, it brought back too many memories, too many consoling platitudes that were intended to encourage him after the vehicle accident that left him with a serious head injury.
“Can I pray for you?” Sarah asked her patient.
Pray? The word made Jett bristle inside. She was living in a fantasy world, praying to a God who didn’t listen or just didn’t care, a fact he’d thought she would have learned after her accident. Either way, it sickened him. Let’s pray for your recovery, the hospital chaplain had said to Jett a year ago. Ask God to take away your pain. He’d done neither, and what was more, He’d taken away Jett’s career, the only light in Jett’s life.
God wasn’t some fairy-tale father who granted wishes. He created humans and left them to drown in their own misery, which wasn’t any better than Jett’s worthless earthly parent, currently serving time in prison. How could a smart girl like Sarah not see that for herself? He felt her gaze on him, and he looked away.
As Young’s eyelids fluttered open again, he moaned, whispering something.
She bent closer to hear, her dark blond hair brushing the table. Young grasped her wrist, his mouth moving sporadically before he got the words out. “You’re a detective?” he croaked.
“I’ve got a detective license,” she said. “But don’t worry. Right now, I’m your nurse. You’re going to get some fluids, which will help you feel more comfortable, and we’ll get you to a proper hospital.”
“You’ve got to go find her,” he murmured.
She shot Jett a look, and he moved closer. “What did you say, Mr. Young?”
He squeezed her wrist as a spasm of pain crossed his face and he struggled to sit up against Sarah’s restraining hands.
“Find who?” Jett said.
Young’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and he collapsed back on the table.
Sarah checked his pulse and breathing. “He’s hanging on by a thread. If we don’t get him to a doctor soon, he’s not going to make it.” She pushed the sweat-soaked hair from his face and fanned him with a notepad from her bag. “What do you think he means by ‘go find her’?”
Jett shrugged. “You’re the detective. Your family’s making quite a name for themselves in the investigation business.”
“Marco’s been filling you in?”
“He told me your sister recently cracked a case in Cobalt Cove.”
She
