Bent’s cell vibrated deep in his pocket. “Excuse me a moment.” With a triple homicide and the business with Vera’s sister Luna, he couldn’t afford to ignore a single call.Vera.“I have to get this.” He gestured to Martinez with his phone. “Give me a minute.”
The man nodded, and Bent stepped into the hall outside the office. “Hey.”
“Someone came in the house and attacked me. Erwin too.”
When he would have demanded more details, Vera tacked on, “I’m fine. It’s not a big deal. I didn’t want to bother you, but since Erwin was involved, I knew I had to.”
What the hell? Worry ignited in his gut. “I’ll be right there.”
Bent rushed upstairs and found Hastings. “I need you to continue with the interviews of the household staff. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Will do, Sheriff.”
He was out the door and on the road within the next minute. The idea that Vera was always the one the bad guys went after wasn’t lost on him. Most likely because she wasn’t one to play by the rules. She always stuck her neck out too far. Pushed the envelope. Took the bigger risk.
He had to get it through her head that his heart couldn’t take her continued indifference to her safety.
Lincoln Medical Center
Medical Center Boulevard, 1:00 p.m.
A serious concussion.
After hearing what happened, Bent wasn’t surprised Vera had a Grade 3 concussion. The attacker had used something—a baseball bat, Erwin believed—to wallop Vera in the back of the head.
Fury tightened his gut. Made him want to tear something apart. He’d sent Conover to the farm to search for anything the attacker may have left behind—prints, the baseball bat, any damned thing. Two other deputies had interviewed the neighbors. No one had seen anything. Not surprising since the area was one farm after the other with tens if not hundreds of acres between the houses. Not a single one of those neighbors had video doorbells. So that aspect was a bust, but he’d had to be sure. The deputies had done a thorough search around the house and yard and come up empty handed. The chances of finding any evidence were about nil.
“This is really bad timing,” Vera grumbled, drawing his full attention back to her as she gathered her things to leave the exam room. She stared at Bent in frustration. “It’s the last thing I need right now. I can’t drive for at least twenty-four hours. And only then if my symptoms have subsided. This sucks.”
Bent got exactly what she was saying. This was his fault, in her opinion. He shouldn’t have insisted that she and Erwin come to the ER and then she wouldn’t have the diagnosis along with the doctor’s instructions. Well tough. If she didn’t want him to take care of her, she shouldn’t have called him. Not that he would ever say as much. He was lucky she had called. Vera Mae Boyett had been known to ignore this sort of thing and to not call for help. He was grateful she had, because she had not been okay. He had taken one look at her and known she was hurt far worse than she would admit.
“It sucks, I know.” He doubted his understanding mattered or made her feel better, but he had to try. “I sent Conover and a couple of deputies over to your house.”
She shot him a look that said the idea was a colossal waste of time. “God, I hate this. There are way too many things I need to be doing.”
“You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “All you need is rest and a little time.”
The way she glared at him spoke loudly and clearly as to what she thought of that counsel.
“I’m going to the Wilton house with you to finish those interviews.” When he would have argued, she gave him the side-eye. “Don’t even go there.”
“Whatever you say.” He put on his hat and opened the door.
“I don’t know what you expected to find at my house. If the man wore a ski mask, he probably wore gloves.”
Bent had anticipated she would say as much. “Yeah, most likely. But it doesn’t hurt to check. Not all criminals are that smart.”
“Assuming it wasn’t Erwin,” Vera said in an aside, her tone nothing short of furious, as they exited the double doors into the lobby. “She barely had a scratch, as it turns out, and she was right behind me. She probably had some heavy object in her purse and swung it at me.”
The doctor confirmed Erwin had absorbed a blow to the forehead, but the injury wasn’t a concussion and only required a butterfly strip. Still, she claimed to have lost consciousness, which, in Bent’s opinion, was highly unlikely.
“You think she did this just to get a look at your notes?” Made the most sense, he supposed. He glanced down the corridor, spotted the woman in question waiting at the nurses’ station.
“You’re damn straight I think it’s a possibility. Especially after that load of irrelevant crap she used as an excuse for dropping by. She only wanted to see what I had found out. I wasn’t unconscious long enough for anything other than someone—most likely her—to shuffle through my stuff and toss things around. Ten minutes, maybe.” Vera wore a smile for the benefit of the woman now rushing across the lobby toward them, but her tone told Bent she was anything but glad to see her. “Just wait. You’ll see what I mean. The real question is, Why? Maybe she was working with Alicia. Or maybe she is our murderer, and she wanted us to believe it was Alicia.”
Bent grunted. “Maybe.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Erwin rested her hands against her cheeks in a show of dismay. “The nurse said you have a really bad concussion. This is just terrible.”
