Page 22 of Lone Star Witness

Stephanie had yet another glance at the photo after she shot him an annoyed look. “Yes. Now, who is he?”

“A person of interest,” Slade settled for saying. “When and why was he visiting the colonel?”

“I have no idea why,” she said on a huff. “And as for when…” She turned to Julian for the answer.

But Julian’s response was vague. “A couple of weeks ago, maybe.”

“How soon did that man in the photo visit the colonel before he ended up at Patriot’s Retreat?” Marise pressed.

Julian and Stephanie exchanged glances. “Around the same time, I think,” Stephanie said.

Again, not super certain, but Slade figured the timing was spot on. And that meant Sonny wasn’t just a gun hired for clean-up. He could have been in on what happened to set all of this into motion.

Whatever this was.

It was possible Julian and Stephanie had just lied about Sonny visiting the colonel. The dipshit could have been there to see the two of them.

Stephanie’s phone rang, and she stepped aside to take it. Rather than stand around with the poster boy of fashion, Slade turned to the San Antonio cop that Stephanie had been talking to when they arrived, and he motioned for Marise to follow him while he headed that way.

“Wait a minute,” Stephanie protested, holding her hand over her phone. “Don’t you dare walk away until you tell me where my husband is.”

Slade and Marise ignored her and went to the cop. According to his nametag, he was Officer Mike Lopez.

“Slade McKenna,” he said, shaking hands with the cop. “And this is Marise Brennan. She’s in charge of the facility where Colonel Rosa is a resident. We’re interested in finding out what happened to him.”

Lopez nodded. “I’m interested in that, too, and like I told his wife, I don’t know where he is. A nurse came in and took him in a wheelchair to radiology. The nurse said I couldn’t go in there, so I waited in the hall. About ten minutes later, the nurse came out and asked where Rosa was.”

Slade took a moment to process that. “Who’s the nurse?”

“Mindy Callahan,” the cop quickly provided, “and I’ve already done a background run on her, and she’s solid. She’s worked here for five years, no complaints registered against her.”

That didn’t mean Sonny hadn’t gotten to her. Sonny could have threatened her with something to force her to help him.

“There are three ways in and out of radiology,” Lopez went on, “and one of them does lead to an outside exit. The nurses are checking all the rooms and possible hiding places here inside the building, and before Mrs. Rosa intercepted me, I was about to head to the parking lot to canvas for any witnesses.”

“Do that,” Slade insisted. “But first tell me if the colonel had access to a phone and was he wearing street clothes or a hospital dressing gown.”

“He had a phone,” the cop verified. “And he was wearing a gown, but it’s possible he had his other clothes tucked underneath. The pants and shirt he was wearing when he was admitted weren’t in his room.”

So, this was likely planned.

But who had done the planning? And why?

Just as Lopez stepped away to head out to the parking lot, Slade’s phone dinged with a text from Ruby, and he saw that it was the attachment for the hospital security cams.

“Check and make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’m working on getting more footage,” Ruby had explained. “There are no other exterior cameras for the hospital so I’m reaching out to local businesses.”

Since Slade didn’t want to view this with Stephanie and Julian nearby, he glanced around, spotted a small chapel, and Marise and he went there. Thankfully, it was empty and had a door. He shut it and then moved them to the far side of the room so he could keep watch in case someone barged in.

Marise sat next to him on one of the pews, and Slade loaded the feed from the front and back exits and the parking lot. Ruby had already narrowed down the footage of the timeframe when the colonel had disappeared.

And Slade immediately saw the problem.

Along with what Lopez had said about the exits for radiology, there were other ways in and out of the hospital itself, ones that led directly to the parking lot and the street, but the cameras basically covered about half of those possible angles. Slade focused on the camera feed that he did have, and he watched as someone left the hospital and went to their vehicle.

Not Rosa.

This man was much bulkier, and it definitely wasn’t Sonny either.

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