Page 111 of Paternal Instincts
All was quiet. The Davis and Walsh family storm seemed to have passed. When I checked the waiting room and found it empty, I frowned.
A familiar nurse caught me searching and stopped. “Imogen Davis was moved to the maternity floor about an hour ago if that’s who you’re looking for. The family followed her down.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Before she could wander off, I asked, “Is the baby okay?”
The nurse studied my face, but her expression was unreadable. Professional. “He’s stable, but preemies always have a tough go. We take it one day at a time and hope for the best.”
“Thank you.”
She continued her rounds, and I remained rooted to the spot, contemplating what to do. My place was at Bryn’s side. Even if I could get Imogen to admit she’d gone after Clementine in a jealous rage, there was no information to be had.
Imogen had not found her son, and I believed she’d threatened violence in exchange for answers. Clementine had not given her any and had suffered the consequences of a mother lion doing all she could to get her child back.
Feeling helpless and infuriatingly inept, I leaned against a nearby wall, too preoccupied with how the case was unfolding—or not unfolding—to do anything else. What were we missing? Where hadNixon gone? Where was Crowley being held? Flynn and Clementine? That explained a few things, but the full picture was still murky.
Something niggled in the back of my brain, and I shoved my hands into my pockets as though they might contain the answer. All I found was the wallet size photograph of Crowley I’d requested from the family. When working on a case with a missing child, I always kept their picture on hand. Crowley’s was the standard school photo taken at the beginning of the year.
It didn’t wrest free the troubling thought and wasn’t what I was looking for, but the burning inkling that I was close to a discovery didn’t leave me. I checked my back pockets for reasons I couldn’t explain, but they were empty, save for my wallet and credentials. Instinct made me search again, but I wasn’t wearing these jeans yesterday or on the day we’d started the case.
I squinted into the past, trying to see what I was missing. Barely registering the decision to move, my feet guided me to a nearby bank of elevators. I should have headed to the waiting room, greeted the family, or checked on Bryn, but I pressed the call button instead.
The emergency room bustled with activity, a constant flow of people coming and going with ailments of all kinds. I maneuvered through the crowd, searching for Clementine’s parents, but they weren’t there.
At the triage desk, the busy receptionist explained where I might find them. Clementine was out of surgery and in intensive care. She had survived her ordeal, but that was all the uncooperative woman behind the desk would tell me.
I took a different elevator to another floor, and after badgering my way to answers with another cranky hospital worker, I found Clementine’s parents sitting vigil beside her bed, watching their daughter sleep.
My phone buzzed before I could enter the room or make myself known, so I backed into the hallway and checked it.
Aslan: Where are you?
Quaid: ICU. Clementine’s out of surgery. Just checking in.
Aslan: Walk away from the case, Quaid. We have more important things going on.
Before I could type a response or explain that saving a child’s lifewasimportant, a woman’s emotion-drenched voice drew my attention. “Did you find the man?”
I glanced up from the device and found Clementine’s mother in the doorway. She bore a striking resemblance to her daughter, only wearier with age and stress.
“I’m sorry?”
“The man who attacked my daughter. Did you find him?”
I frowned, confused by the alternate version of what we believed had happened to Clementine. Were we wrong, or was this woman simply assuming her daughter had been attacked by a man?
“Is Clementine awake? Did she make a report?” I glanced along the hallway in both directions but knew before I checked that no officers were around to take a statement. It was highly unlikely they would question a girl fresh out of surgery.
The woman’s puzzlement matched my own, and she shook her head. “No… They only wheeled her down here twenty minutes ago. You’re the detective, right?”
“Yes, but… Ma’am, I’m working a missing child case, and we believe—”
“I know.” She seemed irritated with my stupidity, but I wasn’t following. “The man who took the child.Heattacked my daughter.”
Flynn attacked Clementine? Was it possible? I rearranged the pieces we’d put together and assembled them in a different order, but no. They didn’t fit the same. It didn’t make sense.
“How do you know who attacked your daughter? Did she tell you?”
The woman shook her head and glanced over her shoulder into the room where her husband remained by Clementine’s side. Stepping away from the door, the woman lowered her voice. “His wife fired her. She worked as their nanny. I can’t remember the gentleman’s name. Clementine said he was a decent fellow. Kind. Generous. It was him. He came and found us about fifteen minutes ago and claimed the same man who attacked Clementine was the one who took his son. He said the police knew and were investigating. He said you were on his tail.”
