Page 95 of Justice Delayed

Something else had happened, but Brogan’s sluggish mind couldn’t form the questions to ask, not when he needed to have eyes on Melender. “I need to check on Melender.”

Livingston smiled. “I thought you might. Come on.”

Brogan managed to keep up with the other man as he wove his way through the crowded emergency department. Curtained beds fanned out in a ring around a central hub where medical personnel checked computers and snatched papers off a bank of printers.

On the opposite side of the room, Livingston stopped beside a closed curtain. “She’s in here.”

“Melender?” Brogan eased back the curtain to find an empty bed. Whirling around, he snapped, “Where is she?”

ChapterThirty-Seven

Melender dried her hands in the single-stall ER bathroom but avoided looking in the mirror. She didn’t need it to tell her she resembled something the cat had dragged home, one of Sudie’s favorite sayings. Fatigue pulled at her. She hadn’t felt this beaten down since the days after her conviction. Every step had been hard, every breath even harder. Only the continual loop of Sudie’s voice in her mind, quoting and singing Scripture, had gotten her through those dark days.

Now her quest for the truth threatened to drag her down again. She had never considered Jesse’s death might have been an accident and the coverup designed to keep Jillian and Ruby safe. But then Jared had tried to cash in on his little brother’s disappearance, and things had snowballed beyond Quentin’s control. Melender had no doubt her uncle was behind the coverup. Even as a teenager, she’d known his love for Ruby was like an all-consuming fire, gobbling up everything in its path and leaving only ashes in its wake. Everything that had happened to her and Brogan since Ruby had accosted her at the Kwikie Mart took on new meaning when viewed through the lens of Quentin struggling to keep Ruby from finding out the truth.

Maybe more answers would be forthcoming now that the police had heard the recording. She exited the bathroom, moving slowly as her body responded to new aches and pains, courtesy of the car accident. Wait a minute. Had the truck driver deliberately rammed Brogan’s SUV? Her recollections of the accident were fuzzy. Brogan’s memory might serve better to answer that question. A nurse had said he was in the ER as well with non-life-threatening injuries. Outside the bathroom to steady herself, Melender nearly lost her balance as someone brushed by.

“Watch—”

Someone put a hand on her shoulder and hissed, “Don’t say a word if you want to avoid a shootout in the ER.”

Her Don Quixote-quoting assailant was back. Melender stiffened as the man pressed the barrel of a gun into her back, his body pressed close to hers.

“We’re going to turn to the left and exit the ER through the stairway door. Do you see it?”

She turned her head in the direction he indicated and spotted the glowingExitsign, then nodded.

“Good.” He slide his arm around her waist from behind and hugged her closer, the gun boring into her side. “Let’s go.”

Melender kept her body facing forward but tried to look around the busy ER, hoping to spot Brogan or one of the detectives who had briefly talked to her about the accident. No one paid any attention to her or the man at her back. All too soon, she pushed open the stairway door.

The man maneuvered her through it into the deserted stairwell. He pocketed the gun and grabbed her by the elbow. “Keep moving.”

With his fingers digging into her arm, Melender went along with him as he tugged her down a short set of stairs and out a door that led to the hospital’s parking garage. Another few steps brought them to a black SUV with tinted windows.

The man unlocked the vehicle, twisted her arms behind her. and in one fluid movement, shoved her face down into the back seat. She had no time to protest or fight before plastic zip ties secured her arms, then her feet. The restraints brought memories of her arrest, and helplessness clawed at her like a hungry mountain lion.

“I’ll leave a gag off if you stay quiet. Will you be quiet?”

Melender nodded, her heart pounding. The man’s identity again tickled her memory. She’d seen him before the warning he’d delivered outside her work but couldn’t place him.

“One peep out of you and the gag goes in.” Don Quixote slammed the door. Within seconds, he’d settled into the driver’s seat and backed the SUV out of the parking space.

As the vehicle exited the parking lot, Melender closed her eyes and concentrated on slowing her heart rate.Lord, you are my refuge, you are my champion.Bits of Psalms she’d memorized in prison flitted through her mind, kicking the panic out as the peace of God filled her soul.

If she hoped to get out of this alive, she needed to have all her wits about her. Sudie singing the hymn “Everybody Will Be Happy Over There” echoed in her mind. Melender’s body relaxed against the seat as she sang the lyrics into the seat, careful to keep her voice low. “There’s a happy land of promise over in the great beyond, where the saved of earth shall soon the glory share. Where the souls of men shall enter and live on forever more. Everybody will be happy over there.”

* * *

Brogan rushedto the nurses station, where an older woman wearing bright green scrubs with dancing frogs tapped on a keyboard. “Do you know where Melender Harman is? She was in cubicle C.”

“And you are?” The nurse met his eyes.

“I’m a…” Brogan wasn’t sure what to call his relationship with Melender. “Friend.” Livingston came up beside Brogan.

“I’m sorry, I can only give that information to family members.” She turned her attention back to the computer.

“Ma’am, Detective Livingston, Fairfax County Police Department.” Livingston flipped open his badge to show the nurse. “Ms. Harman was in a suspicious car accident along with this gentleman.” The detective indicated Brogan. “I need to question her further about the incident.”

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