“I left my phone at the house, but my brother can call them. He’s right over there.”
“I know your brother.” The detective meets my eyes. “I was out on my own dock last night with my wife and kids. The lanterns made me think of you and your family. They do every year. It’s nice to see you all grown up, Charlie.”
From the parking lot, my aunt shouts, “Duncan, wrap it up. Charlie needs to see a doctor.”
Duncan Gilcrest.
Now I recognize the detective’s name. Officer Duncan Gilcrest was the first to respond to the call at Idlewood all those years ago. His name is in the police reports. He was the officer who’d started the job a week earlier, the one who waded into the lake and convinced Reid it was safe to return to shore.
Chapter Eleven
I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon sucking down oxygen in the emergency room and reading old magazines while wishing I hadn’t left my phone on my bedside table. Hadley stops by from working in the ER to check on me a few times. “Two more shifts, then I’m out of here for the next six weeks,” she says, adjusting the oxygen tube around my ears.
I wish Hadley weren’t leaving for Cairo. She’s a reliable ally when tensions rise at Idlewood. “Are you sure you want to miss the summer?” I ask.
“I’ll be back in July,” she says. “And what do you care? You’ll be at work in Boston on Tuesday. You know I can only take so much lake time. I get restless if I stay here more than a few days.”
She places an oximeter on my index finger. “Oxygen levels are low,” she says, “but better than they were. One of my colleagues will be by to suture up that head wound. She’ll assess when you can leave.”
“Do you charge by the minute?” I ask.
Hadley ruffles my hair. “Good health is priceless,” she says.
Tell that to my bank account. “Back at Burkehaven, you called that detective by his first name,” I say. “How do you know Duncan Gilcrest? He’s the same cop who—”
“I work in the ER,” Hadley says, cutting me off. “Even if it is part-time. I know all the cops in the area. All the detectives, too, and I pay close attention to handsome ones who rescue my nephews. By the way,Duncan would be a great interview for the podcast. His favorite topic is himself. Haven’t you seen him on TV? He pops up on those true-crime shows once in a while. Last I heard, he was shooting some pilot in New York. God knows what happened with that.”
The curtain slides open and Gilcrest appears. “The pilot didn’t get picked up,” he says.
“Too bad,” Hadley says. “And don’t eavesdrop. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“I’m checking on the patient,” Gilcrest says. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”
Hadley catches my eye.
“I can handle myself,” I say.
“If that changes, tell the nurse to come find me,” Hadley says. “And page me when you’re discharged. I sent your mother a text to let her know what happened and told her I’d drive you home.”
After Hadley leaves, Gilcrest asks, “How’s the head?”
“Throbbing,” I say. “Nothing worse.”
“Want to walk me through what happened again?”
I review the events of the morning. Each time I repeat myself, my memory seems to become clearer.
“The scene must have been overwhelming,” Gilcrest says. “There was the fire, and the boat, and you saw someone struggling to escape. And that’s when you were attacked. Am I getting the timeline right?”
“Just about.”
“Just about, or yes? The details matter.”
“That’s what I remember.”
“Fair enough. A head wound can play tricks with memory. Tell me about the attack.”
“I heard rustling, then saw a tree limb swinging toward me.”
