“My God, are you alright?”
“A little sore from the impact of the airbag, but that’s about it. They had me in a neck brace earlier, but that’s off now. They want to keep me overnight—no doubt to cover themselves legally. But at least I’m in a regular room now, getting restless. Where are you right now?”
“Halfway home from the clinic, with Gerry. You want me to do something?”
“Maybe Gerry could make a little detour and drop you off at the car rental place? The Outback may be out of commission for a while.”
After a brief exchange between the two women, Madeleine said, “Any particular kind of car you want me to get?”
“Doesn’t matter, so long as it has all-wheel drive.”
“Can I bring you anything tonight?”
“No point in that. But I’d like to get out of here tomorrow morning. Could you manage to come and get me without screwing up your work schedule?”
“I can be there by ten. Will that be okay with the hospital?”
“I don’t much care what’s okay with the hospital.”
“You’re positive you’re feeling well enough to come home?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I’m still annoyed at the attitude of the BCI investigator. And it took too damn long to get my phone back. I’ll tell you more about it in the morning.”
There was a brief but fraught silence. “Okay.”
“Love you.”
“Love you.”
He checked the time—5:01 p.m. A nurse hurried past the door of his room, pushing a wheeled stand of the sort used to suspend bags of intravenous fluids.
Swiping through his phone messages, he found the one he was sure would be there. It was left by Jack Hardwick at 2:27 p.m. He played it back.
“Hey, Sherlock, you said to meet you at two o’clock in the town square. It’s now half past. I’m standing here in a goddamn sleet storm. Where the fuck are you?”
Gurney returned the call, got Hardwick’s voicemail, and left him a quick summary of what happened. Swiping through his phone messages again, he could find none from the potential informant regarding his failure to appear.
He eased himself off the bed and made his way to the bathroom. A few minutes later, he gingerly lowered himself into one of the two chairs in his room. The seat back felt cold through the open back of his hospital gown. He tried turning his head from side to side and discovered that this was an exercise that would be better postponed. He shifted his chair so he could see through the room’s single window without moving his head.
Dusk had descended into darkness, and the parking lot floodlights had come on. Big snowflakes were floating past the window. He listened to the murmur of voices out at the nursing station, the bell-like
The ringing of his phone roused him from a dream that evaporated without a trace as he opened his eyes. The phone was on the edge of the bed. He just managed to reach it from his chair, his neck muscles rebelling at the effort. A glance at the screen told him it was Hardwick.
“Hello, Jack. Sorry about the Harbane inconvenience.”
“Damn near froze my balls off. But even if you came, it wouldn’t have mattered. Whoever you were supposed to meet never showed up. You found out yet who rammed you?”
“No. And the BCI guy who interviewed me was being weirdly cagey about it.”
“Who’d they put on it?”
It took Gurney a moment to recall the name. “Dale Magnussen. Do you know him?”
“Not personally, but I know the guy he reports to—one of the few people in that organization I got along with. What do you mean by ‘weirdly cagey’?”
“Like he knew something I didn’t, and he wanted to keep it that way.”
“Could just be an attitude. Lot of them fuckers have attitudes.”
Gurney almost laughed out loud. It was Hardwick’s authority-be-damned attitude that had ended his state police career.
“I got the impression he thought I knew who the other driver was. And he wanted to know how many guns I owned. Makes me wonder what the hell’s going on.”
“You suggesting in your subtle way that I should do your snooping for you?”
“Only if the peculiarity of the situation interests you.”
“Peculiarity is not a major motivator in my life. But if you—”
Gurney’s attention was distracted by a nurse’s voice in the hallway.
“This is his room. You can go right in.”
He looked over and saw Madeleine in the doorway.
“Jack, I have a visitor. I’ll get back to you.”
As Madeleine came closer to him, the concern in her eyes increased.
“You look . . . awful.”
“I thought you were coming tomorrow morning.”
“There’s no way I could sleep tonight without seeing you first.”
“Sorry if I alarmed you that much on the phone.”
“What alarmed me was how hard you were trying not to. You had that minimizing strain in your voice. It’s a sound I’ve gotten very familiar with. You always make little of the bad things that—”
He interrupted her. “I’m basically alright. Bit of a knock on the head, that’s all.”
