Page 12 of Her Dying Secret

Gretchen raised a brow. “Cats are smarter than most people, Dougherty.”

“If you say so,” he muttered.

“What kind?” asked Josie.

“Are you serious with this?” he replied.

Josie and Gretchen stared at him intently. He gave a heavy sigh. “I didn’t ask.” When neither of them responded, he added, “I can try to find out.”

“It’s fine,” Josie said, flashing him a quick grin. “We’ll ask Summers.”

“She should remember her cat,” Gretchen added, drawing a confused look from Dougherty.

TEN

Once Dougherty left, Josie and Gretchen walked down the hall to Curtain 12, which had been left partially open. Mira Summers lay on the gurney, now clothed in a hospital gown, her eyes closed. Her arms were still wrapped in gauze although it was considerably looser than it had been in the ambulance. Under the stark fluorescent lights of the hospital, she looked deathly pale, her freckles more pronounced. The angry bruise across her forehead looked even darker than when Josie had seen her in the back of the ambulance. Beside her, a portable monitor tracked her vital signs. On the other side, a bag of fluids hung, slowly dripping into the IV in her hand. Her eyes fluttered open as Gretchen pulled the curtain all the way around the track, giving them some privacy.

“Mira Summers?” Josie asked softly.

She lifted a hand, shading her eyes. “Who is it?”

Josie and Gretchen introduced themselves, offering credentials. She glanced blankly at them from under her arm. “The police?”

“Yes,” Josie said. “We’d like to ask you some questions, if you’re up to it. If not, we can come back another time.”

She squinted at them. “About the accident.”

“Yes,” Gretchen said. “What do you remember about it?”

Next to the bed, the monitor beeped, indicating that Mira’s heart rate had increased. Josie waited for a nurse to come in but none did. Mira covered her eyes with her arm now. Both Sawyer and Dr. Nashat had said she was sensitive to light due to the concussion, yet no one had dimmed the lights in her treatment area. “Not much. I just remember waking up in my car, this big bag in my face—the airbag. Then this man was there asking me if I was okay. He was on the other side of the car. I think there was someone else there, too. In my car.”

Josie noticed that in addition to the blinding overhead light, there was a smaller one on the wall over the gurney. “That’s right. There was a woman in your passenger’s seat. You don’t remember her?”

Mira shifted her arm so it wasn’t putting pressure on her forehead but kept her eyes covered. “No. I don’t even know who she is or how she got there. I was alone in my car when I left the stables.”

Gretchen’s notepad was in her hands. She flipped a page and grabbed the pen behind her ear. “What stables?”

“Tranquil Trails. I ride there every Sunday. Horseback riding. I’m in their therapeutic riding program, um, for my anxiety. I finished up, got into my car, and the next thing I know, there’s an airbag in my face and…” Her chest rose and fell rapidly. On the monitor, her respiration count was high. “Do you know what happened to me? Where that woman came from?”

Josie found the light switches along the wall and flipped them until the overhead light was off and the one on the wall was on. “We’re working to figure that out,” she told Mira. “See if this is better. I turned the overhead light off. Miss Summers, you have wounds on your forearms. Do you remember how you got those?”

Mira slowly lowered her arm. Fresh blood bloomed in irregular patterns through the gauze. She blinked several times. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I told you. I got into my car to leave the stables and the next thing I know, I wake up in a wreck. My head hurts and my arms—” She lifted the other one, staring at the gauze. “They feel like they’re on fire.”

“You’ve been stabbed multiple times,” Gretchen said. “Is there anything at all you can tell us about your attacker?”

Mira slowly shook her head. Her eyes narrowed against the light, although she did look more comfortable.

“Could it have been someone from Tranquil Trails?” Josie asked.

Her pulse shot up again, sounding another alarm. Still, no nurse arrived. “No. No. The people there are so nice, and Rebecca and Jon would never do anything like that. They’re good people. They help me.”

Josie said, “Are Rebecca and Jon the owners?”

Mira nodded. Her pulse was still racing.

“What about one of the other clients?” asked Gretchen. “Is it possible that someone else who was there today attacked you?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

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