almost everyone else, he had quickly figured out that there was more to Lauren than anybody might have guessed. Over the years, her clinic had become a strong, vital thread in the community fabric.
They were all lucky to have her—and so was that young girl in the back of the ambulance.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Dale Richins asked, his wide, grizzled features concerned.
“We’re going to need a statement from you. The address of your sister’s house in Park City, any place you might have stopped between there and here. That kind of thing.”
“I can tell you where LouAnn lives. She’s on the edge of town, the only part the old-timers can afford anymore, with all the developers trying to buy everybody out. But I can tell you right now, I didn’t stop a single place after I left her house. Headed straight home. I don’t know if I even would have known that girl was back there if I hadn’t stopped to fix the flat. She would have likely froze to death.”
“You did the right thing, trying to help her.”
“What else was I supposed to do? Little thing like that.” He shook his head. “Just makes me sick, someone could hurt her and leave her to find her own way in the cold. Especially if she’s pregnant like the doc said. It’s got to be only eight or nine degrees out here. I can’t imagine how cold it was in the back of that drafty old camper shell while I was going sixty-five miles an hour on the interstate. It’s a wonder that little girl didn’t freeze solid before I found her.”
“Yeah, it was lucky you found her when you did.”
“Who do you figure might have done this to her?”
“I couldn’t guess right now until I have a chance to talk to her. I imagine she was probably looking for some way to escape when she stumbled onto your truck and camper shell. The lock’s broken, I see.”
“That old thing’s been busted since before you quit your fancy job in the city and came home. But yeah, that makes sense that she was looking for a way out.”
“So either she was injured somewhere near your sister’s house or she stumbled on your truck sometime after the beating. I’ll know better after I can interview her.”
Dale cleared his throat. “You let me know if she needs anything, won’t you? I can’t afford much, but I could help some with her doctor bills and whatnot.”
He couldn’t help being touched at the crusty old rancher’s obvious concern for his stowaway. Most of the time, Dale was hard-edged and irascible, cranky to everyone. Maybe Rosa reminded him of his three granddaughters or something.
“Thanks,” he answered. “That’s real decent of you.”
“Least I can do.”
“There’s Deputy Hendricks,” Daniel said as another department SUV approached. “She’ll take a statement from you with the particulars of your sister’s address and all, and then she can drive you home when you’re finished.”
“What the hell for? I can drive myself home.”
“I’m sorry, Dale, but we’re going to have to take your truck to the garage down at the station to see if we can find any evidence in the back. It’s standard procedure in cases like this.”
The rancher didn’t look too thrilled with that piece of information. “Don’t I have any kind of choice here?”
“You want us to do everything we can to find out who hurt that girl, don’t you?”
“I suppose…”
“You’ll have it back by morning, I promise.”
That didn’t seem to ease Dale’s sour look, but the rancher seemed to accept the inevitable.
“You heading to the hospital now?” he asked.
At Daniel’s nod, he pointed a gnarled finger at him. “You make sure R.J.’s daughter treats that girl right.”
Though he knew it was a foolish reflex, Daniel couldn’t help but stiffen at the renewed animosity in the rancher’s voice. How did Lauren deal with it, day after day? he wondered. Dale wasn’t the only old-timer around here who carried a grudge as wide and strong as the Weber River. She must face this kind of thing on a daily basis.
It pissed him off and made him want to shake the other man. Instead, he pasted on a calm smile. “Dale, if you weren’t so stubborn, you would admit Lauren is a fine doctor. She’ll take care of the girl. You can bet your ranch on it.”
The other man made a harrumphing kind of sound but didn’t comment as Teresa Hendricks approached. Daniel turned his attention from defending Lauren—something she would probably neither appreciate nor understand—and focused on the business at hand.
“Thanks for coming in on your first night off in a week,” he said to his deputy. “Sorry to do this to you.”
“Not a problem. Sounds like you had some excitement.”
He spent five minutes briefing her on the case, then suggested she drive the rancher home and take his statement there, where they both could be warm and dry.
“I’m going to follow the ambulance to the hospital and try to interview the vic,” he said. “If anything breaks here, you know how to reach me.”
The snow seemed to fall heavier and faster as he drove through Parley’s Canyon to the Salt Lake Valley. It was more crowded than he would have expected at eleven at night, until he remembered the film festival. This whole part of the state was insane when all the celebs were in town.
By the time he reached the University of Utah Medical Center, his shoulders ached with tension and he was definitely in need of a beer.
At the hospital, he went immediately to the emergency room and was directed down a hallway, where he quickly spotted Lauren talking to a man Daniel assumed was another doctor, at least judging by the stethoscope around his neck.
The guy was leaning down, and appeared to be hanging on every word Lauren said. He was blond and lean and as chiseled as those movie stars in their two-thousand-dollar ski jackets up the canyon, trying to see and be seen around town.
Daniel immediately hated him.
He took a step down the hallway and knew immediately when Lauren caught sight of him. She straightened abruptly and something flashed in her blue eyes, something murky and confusing. She quickly veiled her expression and it became a mask of stiff politeness.
Just once, he would love the chance to talk to her without the prickly shell she always seemed to whip out from somewhere and put on whenever he was near.
“Sheriff Galvez,” she greeted him, her delicate features solemn. “Have you met Kendall Fox? He’s the E.R. attending tonight. Kendall, this is Daniel Galvez.”
The doctor stuck out his hand and Daniel shook it, though he couldn’t escape the impression they were both circling around each other, sizing up the enemy like a couple of hound dogs sniffing after the same bone.
He didn’t miss the dismissal
