Page 21 of Operation: Discovery

“I know.” More random facts from her crime dramas flickered like an old movie in her mind.

“Unless you want to wear your scrubs to supper, why don’t you change? I’ll call and we can go to town. After we drive by and you see that they’re doing their job, we can go to Ahab’s. They have the best supper options in town aside from Victoria.”

“Unless he says we can help.” Dee stood and headed for the door, already thinking about what she could change into. “I’ll need to let Rebecca know that I’m going to be gone. If she isn’t okay with that, then I won’t be able to be gone that long.”

“Agreed. She comes first.” Brendon picked up the receiver on his phone and started punching buttons. “Let me know what she says.”

Dee rushed across the hall and quickly knocked on Rebecca’s door. She said a quick prayer that her only patient would want to eat in the cafeteria tonight and wouldn’t need her help. She was there to help Rebecca, but the chance to talk to Brendon would be short. Rebecca wouldn’t need her help for long. Rebecca was young and in reasonably good health. She would soon be able to do whatever she needed to in her chair without Dee’s assistance, meaning she had to take any opportunity to be with Brendon that she could.

Rebecca called her inside and Dee opened the door. Rebecca was still on her sofa, but now had a crossword puzzle book in her lap. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. I was thinking of curling up here on the sofa and taking a nap. All that work with Sam this morning has made me tired.” She yawned. “Actually, could you ask Victoria to bring a tray to my room? I don’t even feel like going to the dining room tonight.”

Dee gave her a nod of agreement. She had to agree that Rebecca looked very tired. “Of course. Can I get anything for you before I go? Would you like a glass of ice water on the table here by the sofa?”

Rebecca grinned. “I didn’t think of it, but that would be great. Thank you.”

Dee went to the little refrigerator Lacy had moved into the room for Rebecca and pulled out a bottle of water. “Let me go to the kitchen and get a glass of ice. I’ll let Victoria know your needs while I’m there. I’ll be right back.”

Rebecca slowly put the puzzle book down, fluffed her pillow, pulled her legs up, and then lowered herself down on the couch. A minute later, Dee returned with the glass of ice and Rebecca was already breathing deeply. She had to have been exhausted. At least Dee could go with Brendon guiltfree to see what she could find at the scene of the blood drive that morning. Maybe she’d even find clues as to how someone planted a bomb in Brendon’s car.

She checked her watch. Only a few hours to until the sunset. Even though she’d faced danger during the light of day, the darkness added a dimension to the case she didn’t want to face.

Hopefully, even if they stopped for supper, they’d be home before dark.

ChapterNine

Dee’s car was a lot more comfortable than Brendon had expected. He often had to deal with trucks at Wayside where he had to practically climb in using pull straps or physical strength. That, or the cars were tiny and difficult to get into and load his chair. Choosing the right vehicle had been a long process the first time, and now he’d either have to look for the same make and model again or start over.

“What did Officer Blake say?” Dee tapped the steering wheel to the beat of the song on the radio, one he’d never heard before. She listened to classic country music while he usually didn’t listen to anything, at least not on purpose.

“He said he may still be there when we arrive. He was closing the scene and would be locking up the doors to the town hall shortly.”

His back pressed slightly into the seat as the car sped up. He held in a laugh. Dee was both very much the same woman he’d known before and completely different at the same time. He should’ve guessed as much, people changed as they aged. Judging by the conversation they’d just had in his office, she was still somewhat determined once she had an idea in her head. But now, it was tempered with knowledge, not just exuberance. Would that make the difference if they tried to start over?

“So, all we can do is look in the parking lot and through the windows if the officers are gone.” She sighed, sounding slightly discouraged by the news.

“And let’s hope that Officer Blake didn’t send anyone to watch the building hoping to catch a criminal returning to the scene for what they left behind. We could find ourselves arrested.”

The tapping on the steering wheel slowed. “Why would someone ever return to the scene? Do people really do that?”

He shrugged, then thought better of it since she was driving. “Some do, according to Nixon. They might be thinking they could get back some of their expensive equipment.”

“I hadn’t thought of the fact that the beds and everything they had there would be expensive. They’d only really outfitted the one room, but the gurney and all the medications, the surgical equipment … Those aren’t things that someone off the street could get their hands on.”

He’d thought so too, but he’d already looked online. Other than the medication, all the equipment could be ordered from a big retailer. “Actually, the type of ambulance stretcher they used for Adam could be ordered online for between a thousand and three thousand dollars. Not cheap, but possible.”

“But the drugs,” she countered. “That would have to be ordered by a medical professional, and not just a medical professional. I certainly can’t get ketamine. A hospital or even a veterinary clinic would have to order it. They’d have to know the right dosage, too. Too much and it could kill the child.”

He hated to point out that if these were human traffickers, they didn’t care if the boy died. These children were literally a crop for them to harvest, of no consequence at all. “I have a feeling they didn’t care. If they were doing what I suspect they were, the child wasn’t coming out of this alive anyway.”

Dee bit her lip, making it dark. “How would they have explained it to the parents?”

That part, he wasn’t sure. “With as quickly as they disappeared at the first sign of distress, they had a plan in place. They would’ve disappeared the moment they had what they wanted.”

“And no one would’ve known. Police would’ve come to find terrified parents, drugged teens, and a dead body.” She let out a long breath. “I thank God you came with me. I come from a small town where little blood drives put on by the Red Cross are common. The signs are usually handmade. I might have taken a pause when the nurse came out in full surgical dress for drawing blood, but some nurses are extremely careful.” A rare frown drew down the sides of her face. “I thought I was pretty good at reading a situation until today.”

“Don’t get down on yourself. This whole scene was meant to trick people. This was meant to be a place where parents would be separated from their children for individual procedures, leaving the parents to feel like it would be natural for their children to be in another room. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Dee pulled the car into town and parked in the street outside the lot where they’d parked earlier. The crime scene tape was already down other than on the front door and there was no one in the lot nor parked down the street. “Looks like we could take a look if we want.”

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