Fear Thy Neighbor (67)
The second X-ray tech was a young woman with deep blue eyes and short blonde hair. She was so tiny, she reminded Alison of Tinkerbell. “Sweetie, I’m going to cut your shirt away, then Susannah, your nurse, will clean your cuts. But first, let’s get a picture of what’s going on with this bone peeping out.”
“Susannah, go ahead and give her a little bit of morphine before taking an X-ray,” a man standing in the doorway said, then stepped inside. “I’m Dr. Grant.” He looked at her wristband before saying, “Alison.” He wasn’t very old, Alison thought, though he was bald, and in need of a shave. He wore the same blue scrubs as the nurse, plus a white jacket with the hospital’s name printed on it and his name beneath.
Her nurse took a clear bottle from a red drawer that reminded her of a toolbox. She inserted a needle in the top of the bottle, then injected the liquid into Alison’s IV. Seconds later, she was dizzy, like she was floating on a cloud. She smiled, not caring about anything.
“Feel better?” Dr. Grant asked.
She tried to nod, but her eyes felt so heavy, she couldn’t keep them open.
“Let’s get a picture, then get her upstairs. This girl is going to need surgery. Stat.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ali waited while Kit searched inside the bait shop. She didn’t hear anyone screaming, but the missing shovel scared her more than the scream, knowing what it could’ve been used for.
On edge, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Kit climb out of the window, his arms clutched against his chest. “There’s a laptop, and a really old cell phone,” he said, handing her the items while he crawled the rest of the way out. He closed the window behind him. “Someone’s definitely staying in the office. There’s all kinds of crap in there. Pillows, blankets, empty fast-food containers. And the power is off.”
As soon as he jumped off the air-conditioning unit, he took the computer and phone back. “Let’s get out of here.”
They ran as fast as they could, a repeat of their earlier jaunt. Reaching the curve on the beach, the bait shop out of eyesight, Ali plopped down on the sand, not caring that her shorts were soaking wet. Taking a few seconds to get her breathing under control, she waited while Kit opened the laptop. “There’s still plenty of battery,” he told her. “Check this—see if it’s charged.” He handed her the cell phone.
She fumbled with the buttons, and a small grayish-green screen came to life. “I guess it’s working.” She didn’t want Kit to know how little she knew about technology.
“What’s the last number dialed?” he asked as his keys flew across the laptop’s keyboard. Of course he types fast, she thought. He was a reporter.
“I don’t know how to search this. Sorry,” she admitted, once again feeling ignorant at her lack of knowledge.
“No worries. Let me see what I can find.” He took the phone and hit a few buttons before turning it off. “I don’t want to waste the battery. No clue where I can find a charger that’ll work on this antiquated piece of junk if I lose the battery power.”
“Let’s take it back to Val’s. We can search there for whatever it is you’re looking for. I’m not very good with technical stuff.”
“Good, because this stuff controls your life. All the social media and text messaging can drive you up the wall.”
Breathing a sigh of relief because he didn’t tease her, she said, “Yeah, nothing I can’t live without.” And she meant it. Working as a waitress, she saw how people never communicated without their phones. No one spoke at the table, but to try and take their attention away from their phones, she’d had to raise her voice many times just to take an order.
They hurried back to Val’s but didn’t run this time. Once inside, Kit took the laptop, sitting down at the bar. Ali took two Diet Cokes from Val’s plentiful supply.
“Thanks,” Kit said, yet continued typing faster than anyone she’d seen, never taking his eyes off the screen. “I was able to get past the security, and now I’m reading a doc. But none of this makes any sense to me.”
“What?”
“It’s all about . . .” He paused. “Blood. Guts from fish. Redfish, specifically. Used in ways they shouldn’t be.”
She stood beside him, looking at the screen. She read a couple paragraphs. “Who does this belong to?”
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t belong to John, or have anything to do with the bait shop. Whoever this belongs to has major problems.” He raked a hand through his hair.
Ali was alarmed, because she could see that Kit was, as well. Had they put themselves in jeopardy by taking this computer? Other than the breaking, entering, and stealing, what kind of crime could they be charged with, if it was discovered that they had this computer? Her thoughts raced. This island was unlike any place she’d been to in Florida. She remembered what Kimberly told her—she had said the island was a gem, because it hadn’t been discovered by the big corporations wanting to build condos, houses, that kind of thing. Maybe they were smarter than Kimberly thought.
“What can we do with this?” she asked. “The blood stuff you found.”
He sighed. “Take it to the police, but then we’d have to explain how we managed to get our hands on this.” He tapped the computer.