AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good,” Reese said with a self-satisfied smile. She sat up a little straighter and took the oxygen mask completely off.
A loud beeping noise had her thinking she’d made a wrong move. A nurse came rushing in.
“Don’t take that off unless you’ve been cleared,” the short nurse with a name tag that readAngelaordered. She couldn’t be more than five-two and her tone said she was not one to be messed with. Darren didn’t dare cross her, and based on the look on Reese’s face, she got the message, too.
“Yes, ma’am,” Reese said, replacing the mask. “I do think I’ve improved.”
“The doctor will be in soon. He’ll decide that. In the meantime, don’t mess with it again,” Angela scolded, wagging a finger at Reese.
Angela checked the machine and then rushed out of the room, almost running into a deputy. She fussed at him, too, until he backed up into the hallway.
“I’ll go see what he wants since you already gave a statement back at my house,” Darren said.
She nodded.
He smiled as he left the room.
He almost made a crack that Texas could replace its former slogan from Don’t Mess with Texas to Don’t Mess with Nurses.
“I can try to answer any questions you might have, Deputy Lyle,” Darren said as he read the deputy’s name tag. The man looked to be in his midforties. He was roughly six feet tall and could be described as sturdy.
Darren offered his hand and introduced himself. After a firm handshake, he continued, “What can I do for you?”
“I dropped by to say we’re opening up an investigation into Camree Lynn’s disappearance despite this being a cold case,” Deputy Lyle said. “I wanted to deliver the news myself.”
“I appreciate you coming all the way here,” Darren said.
“My place isn’t far and I’m on my way home,” he explained. Then he said, “I have a fifteen-year-old daughter. She’s a handful sometimes. My wife says it’s hormones and that it’ll calm down eventually but there are days when I doubt that’s possible.” His smile faded when he said, “We’re in the middle of a divorce and my wife noticed the Tandra St. Clair case on the news. She went digging around and found several cases around the state that had girls missing in the midst of a divorce who’d been classified as runaways.”
“I found three,” Darren admitted. He noticed the deputy used the wordwifeinstead ofsoon to be ex-wife. It made Darren think the divorce might not be his idea.
“She did, too,” Deputy Lyle said. “Anyway, it got her pretty worked up since we’ve been going through a rough patch like these other families. Our daughter is in a rebellious phase and my wife started overthinking, worrying. I guess she got me riled up, too. So I talked to my boss and he said I could reopen the case.”
“Reese will be relieved to hear the sheriff is actually taking this seriously,” Darren said. “The trail is cold, so it won’t be easy.”
“No,” Deputy Lyle said. “But these other cases aren’t as old, and we have something new to work with to bring to a joint task force. If they’re related and we have a serial killer on our hands, we have to do everything in our power to stop him.”
“I appreciate you stopping by to deliver the news,” Darren said.
“Local law enforcement has a lot to make up for after Sheriff Tanner’s arrest,” Deputy Lyle said.
The statement didn’t put Darren at ease with the current situation. “I better get back in.”
Deputy Lyle nodded, then shook hands and headed toward the elevator bank. Darren didn’t like being away from Reese for too long. He had a bad feeling that was probably nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
The door opened. The lights suddenly turned off, plunging the room into darkness. Reese opened her mouth to scream and then realized the oxygen mask would muffle the sound. She reached for the panic button and then remembered all she had to do was take off the mask.
As she jerked the thing off her face, she slammed her free hand into the machine next to her as she tried to scramble out of bed. Where was nurse Angela?
A hand gripped her arm as she opened her mouth to scream. An alarm sounded. The strong hand jerked her off the bed as she screamed.
Reese fisted her hands and threw punches, swinging at air. She kicked and finally connected. The male attacker grunted, and she thought it served him right. When she threw a second kick, he was smart enough to get out of the way.
He hauled her to her feet and then off the ground, so she unleashed a rampage of kicks. This time, he cursed under his breath and dropped her. Her feet hit the tile flooring too fast, too suddenly. She grasped for something to hold on to before she face-planted. Her elbow jabbed into something hard. Bone?
And then she heard whoever it was coming toward her. She readied herself for a fight, feeling around for anything she could use as a weapon.
