“Excuse me,” the newcomer offered. He kept his face on the control panel but offered a lackluster nod in their direction. Rose narrowed her eyes at him while James told him it was no problem.
That was when she saw the cast on his arm.
The rest of the details synced up.
Rose knew this person. At least enough to recognize him.
It was the reporter.
The man she had met the day of the explosion. Why had she never learned his name?
He didn’t make eye contact. Rose was grateful for it. The last thing she needed was to have to deal with the media at the moment. A member of the media who obviously had a distaste for her based on their last interaction.
James pushed her forward before the doors could close. Rose allowed it, eyes still narrowed. That botheredfeeling stayed as they walked away and down the hallway toward Damon’s room.
She had bigger fish to fry, after all. With Damon being awake they could hopefully get some answers and find a new direction to go in to find who had actually been pulling the strings.
But nothing had been that simple so far and that theme continued on.
Deputy Cameron wasn’t sitting outside.
No one from the department was.
Wynonna also wasn’t there. Not at the bench and not in front of the vending machines.
“The vending machines.”
Rose stopped. That piece that had been missing. That pebble in her shoe.
The dang vending machines.
James’s eyebrow rose.
“The day that man came in and attacked me in the bathroom… We couldn’t figure out how anyone even knew I was with you. We figured if anyone from our trusted circle told, it was an accident. Or maybe someone from the hospital saw us leaving together or someone saw us in the car. But therewasone person I know for sure who saw us together that day.”
She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the elevators.
“The reporter who was talking to me next to the vending machines,” she clarified. “The one you told me not to talk to again because you didn’t like him.”
Adrenaline surged within her. Along with a feeling of stupidity.
“The first time I met him was the morning beforethe explosion on the way to my car, then the next day here… He even called me an action hero. What ifhe’sthe third person?” Rose’s eyes widened as she turned back to James. A more sobering worry hit her. “And if he is, then where did he just come from?”
Rose didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she threw open Damon’s hospital room door.
The scene inside only confirmed her new theory.
“Oh my God, James, call for help!”
The missing Deputy Cameron was lying on the ground, blood pooling around him. The hospital bed next to him was empty. Rose, having learned her lesson over the last few attacks, did something she hadn’t yet done around James.
She pulled out her service weapon.
Then she was running back down the hallway.
“Sheriff’s deputy down in Room 214,” she yelled out to the nurses’ desk as they came up to it. Someone screamed at the sight of her gun but Rose yelled off the rest of her instructions. “Suspect just left. Shut the hospital down, now!”
Then Rose really kicked it into gear.
