Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(15)
Gabe peered inside. The airbag had deployed, but one long slash left it hanging over the steering wheel in ribbons instead of simply deflated like it should’ve been. The seatbelt had been cut. Not hacked. The slices were too clean.
“It looks to me like a Good Samaritan might’ve come along and rescued whoever was driving this car.”
“Kelsey Stewart,” Gabe said, looking through the vehicle.
Good Samaritan, nothing. This looked like the work of someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Gabe didn’t know what to think anymore, but if she’d cut herself out of her own seatbelt like it looked like she might have done, where was she? She would’ve used that ruggedized cell phone by now to alert Mark or someone. Kelsey was smart like that.
She’d lived long enough with Alex. Hell, she carried a concealed weapon, probably a SIG if Gabe knew Alex’s first choice of handguns. He’d taught his wife to shoot. Why not how to carry a trusty blade, too?
Gabe growled at his jumping to conclusions. Maybe he had this all wrong. Maybe Kelsey was that Good Samaritan. Maybe she’d come across someone else in trouble and attempted to help. That would be like her.
Mud and silt from the river bottom mucked up the floor, but it was the windshield that caught his eye. The darned thing was still intact as if nothing had happened. A Saint Christopher’s medal dangled from the rearview mirror. The damned patron saint of travelers must’ve taken the day off.
The fact remained. Kelsey’s car was empty and battered.
“Then where is she?” Gabe asked out loud, scanning the river’s edge through the passenger-side windows. The only one standing on the edge of the muddy riverbank was Nurse Sullivan. Watching him. What did she want now? She looked away. Good. This is your fault as much as mine, damn it. We both should’ve been there when Kelsey needed us.
The tow truck driver shrugged, a heavy tow strap looped in his hand. “I only know I’m not pulling a car out of the river with a body in it today. That’s good enough for me. Hey. Ain’t your Mrs. Stewart the lady whose husband was gunned down a few days ago? They had his picture in the obits. Looked like a nice enough guy.”
“Yes,” Gabe said somberly. “Alex Stewart. He was my boss.”
“I was sure sorry to read that. His missus helped my daughter a while back when Crissy ran away from home and was living on the streets. Mrs. Stewart’s a real nice lady. Least, she was.”
“She is.” Gabe met the man’s apologetic eyes. Damn it. She is.
The awful thought that she might be hurt, lying somewhere in the mud, galled Gabe. There was no reason she should’ve been out here all by herself. Nurse Sullivan should’ve stayed with her. And I shouldn’t have let Alex die.
“Just thought you’d want to see this. Sometimes these guys”—The driver jerked his thumb back toward the deputy—“think they know what happened without even paying attention to little things, like this seat belt. Here.” He handed Gabe a set of keys. “You might as well take ’em. These guys won’t notice they’re gone. Heck, they ain’t even looked inside her car yet. Guess they’ve already decided what happened.”
The man was right. For now, the sheriff and his deputy stood with their backs to Gabe, talking with Zack and seemingly uninterested in the vehicle. Good enough. Zack was running interference, giving Gabe time to accumulate evidence before being forced from the scene.
He glanced at the jumble of keys the tow truck driver had handed him.
Didn’t it figure?
The heart-shaped, plastic-covered face of Alex Stewart smirked back at him.
Chapter Five
Not again.
The sensation of a five hundred pound weight on her chest squeezed the life out of Shelby. She scanned the river, on the verge of hyperventilating and running for cover. One glance back over her shoulder told her all she needed to know.
Agent Cartwright would rather she left and never came back. Both the guys were too busy to care what she thought—not that she expected them to. Not that she’d ever tell them.
It’s your fault. Again.
You should’ve known better.
What have you done?
The eternal voice of recrimination rang in her head with her words. Her guilt. Her shame. She used to love working in the pediatrics ward at the Northern Virginia Hospital Center. Children gravitated toward her, and she’d loved working there until...
You don’t give a child the wrong medication and not expect everything in your life to change.
And change it had.
Her throat closed in sympathetic response to what had happened less than a year ago. She could still see little Rudy gasping for air, gray from struggling to breathe while his lungs nearly shut down.
The hospital didn’t even have to fire her. She just quit. They’d wanted her to come back. It wasn’t her fault, none of it. Libby Houston had been her greatest advocate, but Shelby couldn’t take the chance ever again.
It might’ve been the pharmacist’s fault for sending the wrong medication to her floor, but she, the Certified Nursing Assistant on duty, put the mislabeled inhalant into Rudy’s lungs. She was the one who’d nearly killed him. Not Libby.
Everyone said it was an honest mistake, but the terror of watching a two-year-old asthma patient nearly suffocate at her hand resulted in an out-of-control need to micromanage everything and everyone in her care.