“Buck said he only wanted to talk to me, so I don’t want you just hanging around with nothing to do.”
McGaven nodded. “You going to be okay?”
Katie chuckled. “Of course.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I’m more worried about Buck. Someone who goes to the length to be off the grid might have other reasons forit besides what happened to him in the Marines. Maybe he’s trying to hide from someone?”
He looked at his partner. “That’s worth looking into.”
“I’ll try to find out when I visit him,” she said. Turning her attention back to the boring coffee shop video, she finally saw a man who might fit their suspect. “Wait.”
McGaven looked at her screen and moved next to her. “Is that the man in black?”
“I’m not sure.” Katie slowed the video, moved it forward, and then rewound it. It showed a man of average height, clearly all dressed in black. He seemed to turn his head to avoid getting in view of the video camera, though at one point he showed his profile for a couple of seconds. He appeared average, nothing stood out about his facial features, and it seemed he was somewhere between mid-thirties and forties.
“He seems to fit the descriptions.” McGaven took a closer look at the frozen image on the screen as Katie enlarged it. “Can’t see if he’s wearing cowboy boots.”
“Look at how he moves. He’s obviously aware of the camera. He makes sure his face isn’t fully seen.” She stopped the video at the best possible angle to identify the man in black. “That could be the man the barista was talking about. We need to go back to the jewelry store and see if the woman behind the counter recognizes him.”
“I’ll leave that to you.”
“Aw, she said she liked tall men.” Katie laughed. “I’m going to send some images to John and see if he can clean up the graininess of them.”
“Good idea.”
Katie printed out two copies of the frozen image, so she could bring them with her to the hospital to get Buck’s reaction. She glanced at her watch.
McGaven noticed. “Go get some answers. I’ll keep working on the family genealogy to find other living members.”
THIRTY
Thursday 1845 hours
Katie drove to the hospital and pondered the image of the man in black at the coffee shop and how everything fit together. They were getting close to connecting the dots—her intuition nagged at her and she couldn’t ignore it anymore. What was she missing? She rehearsed in her mind the best way to proceed with Buck. He obviously trusted her and today he had even looked out for her by having her back. She would use that sense of duty to try to pry information from him.
There was a crack of thunder and lightning struck across the sky. A light rain was now hitting the windshield as Katie turned on the wipers. It wasn’t unusual to have a rainstorm come through at this time of year, making it feel as if it were washing away the old and refreshing the new.
She quickly found a parking spot and hurried inside the hospital. It was quite different than it had been earlier, with only a few people moving around.
Katie stopped at a nurse’s station near the ICU. “Excuseme, I’m Detective Scott here to see a Buck—or rather, Raymond Young.”
The polite nurse scrolled through the computer and said, “Yes, he’s been moved to the third floor, room three twenty-four.”
“Thank you.”
Katie found the nearest elevator and pressed floor three. As she waited, the elevator hummed. She thought it was a good sign they had moved him from the ICU emergency area to another floor.
She stepped out and walked down the hallway. There were only two nurses moving about, entering rooms and checking patients. The familiar anxious feelings surfaced. She didn’t know why her symptoms from past post-traumatic stress were trying to get hold of her right then. But that was the way it worked sometimes. Slowing her pace, she took a few slow breaths and tried to calm her nerves.
She found room 324 and pushed open the door. It was dim with only a low-wattage light on. In the hospital bed was a man, propped up with his eyes closed. At first Katie didn’t think she had the right room, but moving closer she saw the man was indeed Buck. They had shaved his beard and he wore a hospital gown. It pained her to see the burn scars down his neck and up his arms. He appeared thin and not the fierce-looking ex-Marine who took down a knife-wielding man in the forest.
He was hooked up for hydration and what seemed to be some kind of painkiller or sedative. There were bandages sticking out from his hospital gown. The constant beep of the machine tracking his blood pressure and heartbeat was almost a comforting sound.
Katie took two steps back and wondered if she should wait until the morning to talk with him. As she contemplated what to do, she could feel tingling in her arms and legs as perspirationtrickled down her neck. It was odd that she was experiencing this now in a quiet hospital room.
She was just about to turn around, when Buck spoke. “Detective?”
