C3 CHAPTER THREE

. The least I can do for all the times you watch Kinley. Have fun in Jamaica! You deserve it.

Bobby loves to play with her.

Rossi hurried back to his truck, thinking about how Kinley and Bobby, almost the exact same age, were a bit of trouble together. He grinned, remembering the text with the smashed mud pies against their house last week. Though he hadn’t been smiling when he had to help clean it up.

Suddenly, a flash of red registered in the corner of his eye. Stopping, he turned and saw what looked like someone on the ground at the edges of the tree line by his property. Who would be out here at six thirty in the morning? And who would be on his property?

He jogged toward the person, who looked like a woman. “Hey!” he called out, but as he got closer, he saw she wasn’t hiding. She was just lying there, maybe asleep—then he saw the blood.

“What do you mean, she was just lying on the field in the north forty?” Tory asked, yanking on the gurney and pulling the woman into the hospital with the help of another ER worker.

Rossi had acted on instinct, picking her up, rushing her to his truck, and taking off for the hospital twenty minutes away. On the way, he’d called Troy, because of course he would call his brother, the doctor. He’d told Troy to be ready to intercept them at the ER. Ross could have called 911, but that would have been a waste of time.

After that, he’d called Katy and asked her to go to his house and get Kinley. Kinley wouldn’t freak out if he wasn’t home to get her, because she was used to being alone a lot, but he was thankful Kathy could go pick her up.

Rossi hovered next to the gurney, feeling somehow responsible. The woman was alive—he’d felt a pulse—but there was so much blood on her head. He’d found himself praying all the way to the hospital. “I went to check the sprinkler pipe, and I caught a flash of red,” he explained. “When I got closer, I found her like this.”

Tory swore and pushed the gurney into the ER. “You know the cops will be coming. You’re going to have to miss the drama camp today.”

Now Ross swore. It was true.

“Stay there. I’ll be back.” Troy disappeared behind some doors in the ER.

Ross turned back to the waiting room. Reluctantly, he whipped out his phone and called Theresa Smart, the other acting teacher at the high school. She was constantly hitting on him, so he didn’t like calling her.

“Ross,” she answered, a bit out of breath. “I’ve been running. Sorry, I’m a bit breathy.”

He explained the situation and asked if she would cover for him at the camp.

“If I recall,” she said, a hint of irritation in her tone, “you made it clear you didn’t need a partner to put on this camp. You didn’t want a partner.”

“Theresa.” He swallowed back his own annoyance. She was right: she had offered to help, and he’d told her very adamantly that he didn’t need her. “Please.”

She sighed. “I don’t usually give up any of my summer days. We’ve talked about this.”

“I know.”

“But I will on one condition.”

Relief washed through him. “Thank you.”

“You’re going to owe me a date for this.”

“We’ll work something out. Thanks again.”

He hung up as she continued talking, but he didn’t feel bad. The woman would take her pound of flesh, and he would worry about that later. Now he had to focus on the police.

He pressed the number for his friend the police chief, George Harper.

“What’s up, Charm?” George asked, using Ross’s last name. Old football habits died hard in a small town.

“George, I have a situation . . .”

It was an excruciating three hours later when George finally showed up and brought a detective with him.

Tory emerged out of the ER doors right as George showed up, announcing, “She’s stable, but she took a hard hit. I don’t know when she’ll wake. From the tests I’m running and the specialist out of Rapid City I’m consulting, it looks like a coma.” He grunted and turned to Ross. “So you just found her?”

George exhaled. “Yes, please tell us how this woman got there.”

Ross threw up his hands, frustrated. All he’d been able to do for the past three hours was pace with worry about the redhead he’d brought in and remember the last time he’d been in this ER, with his wife, Brook. “I told both of you. I was checking the sprinkler this morning on the north forty, and I saw her there on the ground. I—” His voice caught, and he said more quietly, “I was worried she was dead, to tell you the truth, with all that blood on her head.”

“Head injuries bleed a lot,” Tory said, nodding.

George frowned. “Was there anything on her that identifies her?”

Rossi hadn’t searched her; he’d just gotten here as fast as possible. “I don’t know.”

Tory shrugged. “The nurses found a can of pepper spray.” He tugged it from his pocket and handed it to George.

Should have taken it off her person with gloves,” George said.

Tory scowled. “Been kinda busy running tests and talking with brain specialists.”

George nodded, turning the can over. “Can we see her?”

“Yes,Yes! if you come with me.”

George inspected the can of pepper spray. It didn’t have any writing on it. “After we see the woman,” he then said to Rossi, “can we go back to your place and check it out?