Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(66)

Isaac nodded. “Double A said they had to lift a beam off her.”

Badger tuned in at that and turned to Isaac. “What the f*ck happened, boss? Do we know?”

“The oven in the kitchen blew up. Beth is dead.”

Show sat back. “Fuck. Poor Ernie. Anybody check on him?” Ernie was Beth’s husband. He had a weak heart. They had six sons.

Isaac nodded. “Lilli’s with him. And we called their boys home. They’re on their way.”

“We lose anybody else?”

“No. There was not one guest there. Marv and Connie got hurt, and a couple men were hurt fighting it, but Tasha took care of all of them at the scene. Beth is the only one we lost, and Adrienne’s the only one hurt bad.”

Badger didn’t understand. “That makes no sense. The B&B is always full during the summer.”

Show answered. “Shannon’s been stressed, because a family reunion party had the whole place booked for a long weekend, starting today—or yesterday, I guess, now—and they canceled last minute. The place was gonna be empty for five days, unless somebody dropped in. I fought her all day trying to get her to calm down about it.”

Badger turned to Show, who was staring at Isaac. He turned to Isaac and could see that they were thinking what he was. “Somebody did this on purpose.”

Isaac took a deep breath. “Lookin’ that way. We got law on the town now. Seaver might have turned his back, but he eventually sent deputies in. Which is okay, because we’re gonna need the insurance to rebuild.

But we gotta lay low and make sure we know what we’re doing before we look to collect a debt if it’s owed. Let’s make sure this isn’t just some f*cked-up coincidence first.”

“You believe in coincidence like that, boss?”

“No, Badge. I do not.”

“You think Seaver has a part in it?” Though the thought had been there since they’d been pulled over and he couldn’t shake it, Badger couldn’t make it straight in his head, either.

Show answered him. “That’s a lot risk for a careful man like our Sheriff. He only f*cks us with the lights out.”

His eyes tracking as if he were reading signs in midair, Isaac nodded. “Agreed. I don’t see him doin’ it, unless we’re missing something. More likely somebody else. But who’d have the balls and the skill?”

No one had an answer, or even a guess. Isaac leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “If it’s not Seaver…I don’t see it being Santaveria—we’re behaving ourselves, far as he knows. Things have been looking up a little in town—and anyway, why would one of ours destroy the B&B? The town built it. And kill Beth? Hurt Adrienne? It doesn’t add up. We’re missing something.” He sighed. “I’ll go to Marie’s in a few hours, when it opens. See what people have to say. You two take care of yours here. I’ll keep you in the loop—you do the same.”

Before Show or Badger could respond, the doors to the surgical wing opened, and Adrienne’s surgeon came out. They stood and waited to hear his news.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN



The first thing Adrienne knew was pain. Dense and heavy, like powerful fingers digging deeply into her muscles, and at the same time spreading all along the surface like oily fire.

Her body felt completely invaded by pain—inside and outside, top and bottom, down her throat and over her skin. She tried to burrow back into the dark from which she’d risen, but the bright agony closed off that path, and the rest of her senses revived. She realized that she could hear, smell, taste, as well as feel.

She opened her eyes then, and she could see.

Badger was the first thing she saw. His face, close to hers, his exquisite eyes gleaming with love and worry. She blinked and focused. The lower half of his face was obscured by a mask.

“Babe. Hi.” His voice was muffled.

She tried to talk, but there was something down her throat, gagging her. She tried to lift her arms, but they would not come, and the pain charged up as she made the attempt.

“Easy, easy. I called the nurse. They’re helping you breathe. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, though. As her brain reassembled itself into some kind of working order, Adrienne knew that she was the very essence of not-okay.

She couldn’t speak, so she shook her head.

Badger leaned even closer and pulled the mask down to kiss her forehead. “I love you, Adrienne. We’re gonna be okay.”

She shook her head again.



oOo



It was two full days before they took her off the ventilator. Adrienne wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to describe the feeling of being conscious and invaded by that thing, a machine doing the most basic work of her body, robbing her of the power of breath. And speech. She’d felt curiously invisible and hyper-present at the same time. She was the focus of everything everybody who came into the room said or did, but very little of it was addressed to her. She lay in a bed while people talked around her, to her, reduced to slight nods and head-shakes, unable even to write, because her arms were not available for the exercise.

Her left hand, her dominant hand, was useless because her arm was trapped in an elaborate contraption, like a hybrid cast/brace. Her collarbone was broken. Her right hand was no more available, because it was splinted straight and wrapped in bandages—as was most of her right side. Second-and third-degree burns over almost twenty percent of her body. Everyone who came into the room with her was masked and swathed in papery yellow gowns.