“River rescue, swift-water rescue, first responder, wilderness first aid, a few others, all through the New River Rescue Center.” Her throat ached with the tears building behind her lids.
“Mighty young to be certified in all that.”
Stupid questions, stupid comments. They needed to be talking about where Joe might be on the river. But he was a cop, and Nell had never once known cops to be useful on an SAR. They just got in the way. “I’m twenty-one. I took all the courses this past winter and early spring.”
“With your new husband.”
Pain sliced through her. His tone said, Your new dead husband. She nodded as the tears took over and leaked down her face. “It’s where I first saw him.”
The memory was a stabbing shaft, bringing her skin to chill bumps. She had been on the bank of the Nantahala River, putting together a Z-drag system to save an “endangered” swimmer in the water, a certification instructor at her shoulder. She had glanced up at the water. At a boater shooting past. Looking right at her with his daredevil smile, his intense eyes, so blue they might have been lasers. The connection so immediate it took her breath away still. And he was gone, his boat downstream so fast she couldn’t follow. She had lost him. Until he showed up on the Pigeon River two weeks later. He’d been looking for her. And he’d found her. And now she had lost him again.
“Joseph Griffon Stevens.”
She nodded. I lost him. The breath she took ached, as if it tore its way through to her lungs.
“You took all those courses so you could start up a new business.” Nod. “A business that had to require a lot of up-front, start-up money.” Nod. “And where did all the up-front money come from?”
“Joe got a loan,” she whispered.
“A loan,” he said, his tone odd.
Nell opened her eyes, seeing a halo now around the cop, but if he was an angel, he was an angel of the devil. His tone was too guarded, suspicious and Nell didn’t know why. She blinked and he wavered in the watery mix. Tears leaking down her face burned fresh trails in chapped skin. Her head was thumping like a jackhammer.
The words clawing down her throat, she whispered, “If you think I did something to my husband, you are stark raving crazy. Now go away.” It wasn’t the best thing to say in a negotiation with a cop—and everything was a negotiation, when it came to cops—but she just didn’t care anymore.
The cop studied her, his gaze taking in her bruised and lacerated hands, her face, lingering on the bump in her hairline. “I’d like the letter back, please. Until the investigation is over with. Or they find your husband. I’ll give you a receipt for it.”
“No.”
His brows rose. It was real surprise on his face, not some kind of fake cop look. But Nell had been raised with PawPaw and with Mike. She knew her rights, and like her independent mountain forebearers, she had little regard for keepers of the law. Nell just wanted them to get the heck out of her way and let her do her job.
“I won’t sign a receipt. You get a subpoena,” she whispered, “you can have anything I have. Till then, no. Besides, I don’t have any letter.”
The cop slid his eyes to the door. “I’ll be damned. He took it, didn’t he?” When Nell didn’t reply, his mouth turned up on one side in a knowing half grin and he looked back at her. “We’ll be talking.”
“Whoopie.”
The cop laughed, a single harsh bark of sound, and left the room, letting the door close noiselessly behind him.
Nell stared at the ceiling, silent tears dripping onto the flat pillow beneath her head.
Orson Lennox checked the phone’s display. His dad. It was 5:00 a.m., but it was also his first day on the job with the Knoxville PD. The old man had known he would be up. “Yo. You still up, old man?”
“Cop hours,” Nolan said. “And I can still whip your butt.”
“No question about it. What’s up?” Orson said, tying his spit-shined black shoes.
“You run rivers. Could a tiny little female with a concussion run the South Fork of the Cumberland alone? After a lot of rain?”
“You always run a river alone, Pop, no matter how many people are with you. But—” He thought a moment, trying to balance thinking like a paddler against thinking like a cop. “With a concussion? Only if she was real determined or real stupid.”
“How ’bout if her husband went missing on the river and she was going for help.”
“Possible. Any chance she did him in and tried to make it look bad? That’d make her pretty determined. He have money?”
“Friggin’ loads. And it looks like he mighta beat her up first, so maybe she can plead self-defense. Thanks. And good luck today, okay?”
“Nine tenths preparation, one tenths timing,” Orson said, quoting his father. He heard Nolan laugh at hearing his own words about the existence of luck quoted back to him. The call ended. Orson closed the cell, wondering about a paddler and her dead husband on the South Fork of the Cumberland. It was a perfect place to commit a murder and make it look like an accident.
6
“I’m fine, Claire. Really. And I’m leaving,” Nell said as she pulled a second long-sleeved T-shirt over her head. One was white and the other matched her jeans. Her mother had color coordinated her wardrobe, which made Nell smile while hidden by the knit of the second shirt. She smoothed down her flyaway hair and checked the site of the IV, pressing on the bandage the nurse had applied after Nell pulled the tubing out. It had made a big, bloody mess. The nurse had tsked and said something about blood work indicating signs of dehydration.
Well, duh. You think?
Nell didn’t remember anyone taking blood, but she had several bruised needle marks in both of her elbows. None of them looked like they were going to bleed again. Her butt, however was sore on both sides. She had taken two antibiotic shots, one in each cheek. They hurt when she sat.
“You look like you got beat up by a trucker,” Claire said.
Not hit by a truck. That would have been too close to what had happened to her husband, Nell’s father. But beat up by a trucker, that was okay. Even though truckers everywhere would take issue with her comment.
Nell bent over and stepped into her jeans, watching her mother through the wisps of her short hair. “I’m alive. What I look like isn’t important. I’m going to the put-in. Mike will need someone to handle the radios.”
“You have a concussion.”
Nell bargained with a lie. “Once I get to water, where I can keep an eye on the SAR, I’ll put on lipstick.”
Claire hesitated, tapping her manicured fingers on the bedrail while Nell pulled on socks. Her mother bargained back. “And you’ll stay in the RV. And not go on the river. At all. Promise.”
“Off the river for twenty-four hours.” When Claire didn’t answer Nell said, “Take it or leave it. I’m twenty-one years old, so I can sign myself out of the hospital anyway. I know. I asked the nurse.”
“Deal.” Claire frowned at her. “You remind me more ’n more of my father, you know. More and more.”
“PawPaw’s good people, even if he is the biggest hillbilly in the state. So, thanks.” Nell slid on laceless running shoes. “He didn’t want to come?” she asked in a smaller voice.
“You know my daddy. He ain’t leaving his mountain, his house or his dogs. Or that still he claims he don’t have. But he sends his love.”