Sunset Beach(120)

Brice nodded reluctantly. “Stay here, okay? I’ll see what I can do.”

When he’d gone, Drue slumped back down on the examining table. She’d almost dozed off when the curtain parted again.

Brice stepped inside the cubicle and tossed her a set of green surgical scrubs. He set a pair of purple plastic Crocs on the table beside them.

“Okay, you’re sprung.”

“Sweet. Turn around, will you?”

He did as she asked and she quickly discarded the cut-offs and the hospital gown and dressed in the scrubs, which were two sizes too big.

“All done,” she announced. “Let’s go.”

“Take my arm,” he said gruffly, as they moved down the hallway toward the exit. The Crocs squeaked loudly on the linoleum tile with every step she took.

“Where’d you get the clothes and shoes?” she asked, as the automatic doors slid open.

“Money talks,” he said. He steered her gently toward the Mercedes, which was parked under the emergency room portico, with the flashers blinking. As they approached, a hospital security guard who’d been lounging nearby stepped closer.

“All set?” he asked.

Brice reached out and shook the guard’s hands, obviously passing him some currency.

“All set, thanks.”





56


“Hey, you guys.” They turned to see Jonah Kelleher emerge from the shadows at the edge of the portico. He was still dressed for the date that Drue had forgotten about, although his necktie was long gone and his blue dress shirt was stained and wrinkled.

“Jonah!” Drue exclaimed. “I thought Dad sent you home.”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t just leave, not knowing if you’d be okay.”

She touched his arm. “That’s so sweet. I’m good. Thanks to you and Corey.”

His dark blue eyes took in her bedraggled appearance, skunk hair, oversize scrubs and all. “You don’t look so hot.”

“Flatterer.”

Jonah nodded at Brice. “It’s pretty late. If you want, I can take her home. I mean, we did have a date tonight.”

“You did?” Brice looked at Drue. “Really?”

“Really,” Drue replied. “But we’re not going home. We’re going after the guy who did this to me.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a long story, and I don’t have the energy to tell it twice,” she said. “You might as well hear it at the same time as Dad.”

Brice opened the back door of the Mercedes with a flourish. “Get in, son.”

As soon as everybody was in the car, Drue turned to her father and put out her hand. “I need your phone.”

He handed it over without comment. She gazed down at it and swore softly. “I don’t have Rae’s cell number. It’s on my phone, which I don’t have.”

Jonah snaked his hand over the headrests. “Here. I brought it with me.”

She turned around and flashed him a grateful smile, then scrolled through the recent calls on her phone until she found the detective’s number, grimacing when she noticed the time.

“She’s gonna kill me for calling her at one-thirty in the morning.”



* * *



Drue put the phone on loudspeaker. Rae Hernandez’s voice sounded distinctly pissy. “What?”

“Rae?” Drue said meekly. “I’m sorry, but this really is urgent. I’m just leaving the emergency room with my dad. Ben Fentress tried to kill me earlier tonight.”

“Wait. Who? Is this connected to the Jazmin Mayes thing?”

“Yes, it’s all about Jazmin. Ben works with me, at the law firm, on the Justice Line, but he also does some of the firm’s IT work. He somehow saw the security videos from the hotel and figured out what was going on. He tracked Neesa down and somehow, he put it all together. I think he must have gone to the hotel’s insurance company and shared what he knew, for a payoff.”

“Okay…” Hernandez’s voice trailed off. “You’ve lost me now.”

“Ben was my friend. I confided in him that I thought there was something shady about the way my dad’s law firm handled the case.” Her face flushed with embarrassment. “I even told him that at first, I thought my dad had taken a payoff.”

Drue shot her father an apologetic look. “Ben knew I was looking into Gulf Vista. I even called him Friday night to tell him I was going over there and needed a wingman. He didn’t answer his phone, so I left him a message. And then, after we got the goods on Neesa today, I mean yesterday, I called him again, to tell him about the arrest.”

She took a deep breath. “I told him Neesa mentioned that she’d talked to ‘some dude.’ I just assumed it was Jimmy Zee, our investigator. The next thing I know, he was standing on my doorstep, with a kale smoothie, pumping me for all the details.”

“You say he tried to kill you?” Hernandez said. “With kale?”

“He apparently spiked the smoothie with Oxy, spiked with fentanyl.”

“I’m still confused,” the detective said. “Why would he try to kill you?”

“For the money,” Drue said. “He wanted to keep me from telling my dad that I suspected somebody at the law firm had taken a bribe. I thought it was Jimmy Zee. Turns out it must have been Ben.”