Page 30 of The Overnight Guest

“There are two sleeping bags on the floor,” Butler explained. “The gym bag filled with clothes next to it. It was a sleepover.” The sheriff shook his head. “What the hell happened to the other girl?”

In the ambulance, paramedic Lowell Steubens was trying to distract Josie Doyle from the frenzy of activity just beyond them.

Lanky and long limbed, with basset hound brown eyes and an easy smile that put his injured charges at ease, thirty-nine-year-old Lowell had gone to elementary school with Lynne Doyle and remembered her as a shy, quiet girl but they hadn’t said more than a few words to each other in passing. Despite the small community, Lowell and Lynne ran in different circles.

“You look cold,” Lowell observed. “Let’s check you out quick and then I’ll get you a blanket.” Josie didn’t respond. She closed her eyes but couldn’t mute the deputies’ chatter, the click and buzz of their radios. Sounds so foreign to the farm.

The back of the ambulance smelled like a hospital room. Like rubbing alcohol.

There was the snap of latex gloves and Josie flinched.

The female paramedic gently brushed a stray lock of hair from Josie’s eyes.

“My name is Erin,” she said. “And this is my friend, Lowell. We’re going to check you out, and then once Sheriff Butler says we can leave, we’ll take you to the hospital so the docs can take a look at your arm. How about you let me look at your other one so I can take your blood pressure?” she asked.

Josie held up her right arm so the woman could wrap the blood pressure cuff around her biceps. Josie winced as the pressure in her arm built and then eased. “Did I hurt you?” Erin asked. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Josie said dully. “It doesn’t hurt. Just feels weird.”

There was a flurry of activity next to the house. Josie tried to sit up to see what was happening. Lowell eased her back down on the stretcher.

“Can you tell me what happened to your arm?” he asked. A bloody ragged notch had been taken out of the fleshy part of Josie’s tricep, and buckshot was embedded in the skin.

“We were playing on the trampoline and we heard the bangs. We went to see what was going on and someone came after us and we ran. I made it to the field but Becky didn’t. Then he shot me. Is Becky okay? Did you find her?”

Lowell and Erin exchanged a look. “I’m sure a deputy is going to talk to you soon,” Erin murmured. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”

“Do you know where my brother is?” Josie asked Lowell. “I couldn’t find him or Becky.”

“Try not to think about that now,” Lowell said soothingly. “I’m going to leave your arm for the doc to take a closer look at,” Lowell smiled encouragingly.

“This might sting a bit,” Lowell said, lightly swiping the soles of Josie’s feet with a with cold liquid. “It’s alcohol,” he explained. “To clean your cuts.” Josie winced at the burning sensation. “They aren’t too deep. We’ll clean them up and get you to the hospital where the real docs will check you out.”

“Can’t I stay with my grandpa?” Josie asked. “My arm really doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Lowell said. “We have to take you to the hospital, doctor’s orders.”

“I don’t want to go,” Josie said and tried to slip past Lowell.

“Whoa now,” he said, catching Josie around the waist. “Hold up there. You don’t want to get me in trouble, do you?”

Matthew, seeing the ruckus, came over to the ambulance. “Come on, Shoo,” he said. “You stay put now. Let them help you.”

Josie reluctantly sat back down. “You’re going to come with me, aren’t you?” she asked her grandfather.

Instead of answering, Matthew took her hand. “Listen,” he said. “The police will want to talk to you for a few minutes before they take you to the hospital. Do you think you can do that, Josie? It’s really important. We need to do all we can to help find your brother and friend.”

All Josie wanted to do was to forget. Forget the blood and her parents’ broken bodies and the terror of being chased into the field, but the images were seared into her brain. She would never be able to forget but she could try and help. She would hold on to every detail and tell them to the police, so whoever did this would be caught and so that her brother and Becky would come home to them.

In Burden, Becky’s mother, Margo Allen, had just started her shift at the grocery store and was pulling her green apron over her head and signing into her cash register when her first customer of the day approached her checkout lane. “How are you today, Bonnie?” Margo asked when Bonnie Mitchell laid her items on the counter.

“Oh, just fine,” Bonnie said. “Did you hear what happened west of town?” she leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper.

“No, what?” Margo asked as she handed Bonnie her receipt.

“Big to-do near the old bitternut. All kinds of police out there, and that must have been why I heard the ambulance scream down the street a little while ago.”

“Bitternut?” Margo repeated. “On Meadow Rue?” A brief flash of concern swept over her, but she quickly dismissed it. The Doyles lived on Meadow Rue. But they were supposed to leave for the fair in Des Moines a few hours ago. If something was wrong, surely she would have been contacted by now.

---