Page 133 of The Witch's Orchard
“Yeah, but… why?”
“I think she needs to lay it all at someone’s feet and, for whatever reason, yours are the feet she’s picked.”
I sigh. I think about fate and Max Andrews coming into Roxanne’s that morning. About him going to Susan and getting his cards read. About her telling him to find a warrior from another mountain, one who will understand. I think about Mandy and Tommy and that too-familiar muddy holler.
“Okay,” I say.
I pull my hair up and look around for an elastic to hold it. They’ve taken mine. I grunt. Shiloh pulls one from her wrist, holds it out to me. I really would marry this woman. If I ever felt so inclined to marry anyone. If I ever became a whole other person. There are good people in this town, I think. They deserve so much happiness after so much tragedy.
I take the elastic and finish my ponytail.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I’ll wait for you out front.”
“Okay.”
I follow AJ out of the room and through the hall.
“I’m surprised Jacobs is letting me talk to her,” I say.
“Sheriff Jacobs has put himself on suspension,” AJ says as we walk. “So, I’m kind of in charge at the moment.”
“Couldn’t think of a better man,” I say.
AJ snorts. Then he stops short, turns back toward me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“About what?”
“I wasn’t there in time. I’m sorry.”
He’d been the first to the scene, after Shiloh. He’d got my call, but it had been so garbled that he couldn’t understand any of it. Instead, it was Susan McKinney who’d finally reached him. She’d called from her satellite phone when she came to the top of the mountain to pick rose hips and saw Bob Ziegler lying motionless just beyond the open doorway in a pool of blood. She’d turned and run back into the forest to hide and wait for the cops.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“Please don’t be,” I say. “You’re not my keeper.”
“I know.”
“And this is just my job.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“Can I make it up to you?” he asks.
“I feel like you already know the answer to that.”
I wink at him, or try to. With my injuries and my aching body, I probably just look like I have something in my eye.
Still, he grins and brings a big hand up to squeeze my shoulder. Then, he turns back and leads me to another room and opens the door.
We pass the room where Bob Ziegler rests. I pause just outside it and see Rebecca Ziegler at his bedside, reading her Bible while he sleeps. Rebecca looks up and sees me and raises her hand in a little wave. I wave back.
I’d not believed it when I told him he would make it, but, thankfully, there are better doctors in this town than me.
