“My laptop. Maggie Haden was trying to sell it on eBay.”
Noah lowered his head. “Sugar, you need to focus on the bigger picture here. Didn’t you hear? J. D. Dickey’s death was declared a homicide.”
“Yes, I know. And you’re right. That’s the bigger picture. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but it always seems I end up with more questions than answers. Who do you think is behind it?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “There’s no shortage of suspects, thanks to J. D.’s list. But I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not going to stop worrying about you until this case is closed and the killer is behind bars.”
“Serenity’s a long way from here, Noah. You don’t need to worry about me. Down in Texas, I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Humor me,” Noah said. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Yes, okay.”
“And get a damned cell phone.”
Where had that come from? “You’re such a charmer,” Jordan whispered, following him back into the hospital room.
Her father was telling Nick and Laurant a funny story about one of his “shadows,” the name he’d given to the contingent of bodyguards who had been constantly at the judge’s side for the last few months. Jordan was happy to see her father laughing again. The lines in his face had diminished, and he looked as though a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
When Nick raised a question about the lapse in security at Nathan’s Bay, the judge downplayed it, praising the agents for their dedication and professionalism. He admitted, however, that he was glad to be rid of them.
The conversation was interrupted when Laurant’s doctor arrived on his evening rounds. Everyone in the room was glad to hear the doctor say how pleased he was with the results of the medication and the tests. Laurant’s contractions had stopped, and if all stayed calm through the night, she could go home as early as tomorrow morning. After promising to stop by their house tomorrow to help with Sam, Jordan left a few minutes before visiting hours were over.
Noah followed her into the hallway. From behind, he called out, “Wait for me. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I have to make a phone call that I’ve been putting off,” Jordan said, pulling out her cell phone. She held it up. “And as you can see, I already purchased a ‘damned cell phone.’”
Noah grinned. “Okay then. Go make your call, but wait for me downstairs, inside by the emergency room entrance.”
“Fine,” she agreed.
“Your father’s leaving soon. I’ll come down with him,” he said.
She stepped inside the elevator, then turned around. Noah watched as the doors closed between them.
OUTSIDE, PAUL PRUITT PATIENTLY WAITED FOR JORDAN. SLUMPED down behind the steering wheel, certain no one would notice him, he figured he’d found the perfect spot. His rental car was tucked neatly in between two sedans. He’d backed the car in to ensure he could quickly get away.
It wouldn’t be much longer. On the seat beside him, ready to fire, was the gun.
The entire day had been a waiting game. Most of the afternoon, he’d been parked down the street from Jordan’s apartment. Earlier he had identified her car parked in front of her building, so he’d known she was inside. His plan was to wait until she left the area, and then Pruitt would break into her apartment and get what he needed. He didn’t care how long it would take. He could wait one hour or twelve. Didn’t matter to him.
He’d carefully mapped out his strategy. Once he’d broken into her apartment, he’d pack up all the copies of MacKenna’s papers she had shipped from Serenity. He’d brought along a bunch of big cardboard boxes for just this purpose. After he had all the documents, he’d disappear, and any and all evidence implicating Paul Pruitt would be gone.
He had thought about tearing up her apartment so it would look like a simple break-in, but he’d realized how foolish that plan was. Why would a thief steal research papers?
Let Jordan wonder why they were taken. Without the copies, she’d never figure it out. And Pruitt could keep his nice new life.
Unfortunately, his plan got a little more complicated once Pruitt had actually gotten inside Jordan’s apartment. He had been walking across her living room when her phone rang. The answering machine quickly picked up. Jordan’s father was calling to tell her that he would meet her at St. James Hospital, and to remind her that Laurant’s room number was 538.
Good, he had thought. She was on her way to St. James Hospital. He didn’t know who this Laurant was and didn’t care. He planned to be long gone before Jordan returned home and discovered the theft.
It had been a piece of luck that Pruitt had noticed the notepad on the coffee table. Seeing what was written on it, he’d stopped cold. There, in the center of the page, pulsating like a neon beacon, were the numbers: 1284. And surrounding the numbers were a bunch of question marks.
She’d gotten too close. He tore the sheet of paper from the notepad, staring at it as his mind raced. Once again, everything had changed. But yet again, he knew what had to be done.
Her father…yes, her father, Judge Buchanan, was at the hospital. A perfect opportunity. Paul had done enough research on Jordan Buchanan to know who her father was, and he had immediately recognized the name when he recently heard it on the news. It was impossible to miss. The media were saturating the airwaves with reports about the major court case verdict and the judge who had presided over it. The news reports also mentioned the death threats the judge had received. So if he timed it just right, Pruitt could make it look like Judge Buchanan was the target, not his daughter Jordan.
And here he sat, in an outside parking lot with a good view of the hospital doors. If luck were truly on his side, any minute now the judge would walk through those hospital doors with his daughter.
Suddenly, Paul sat up. Was that her? Yes…Jordan Buchanan was coming through the doors.
Pruitt reached for his gun, waiting for just the right moment.
STEPPING OUTSIDE THE EMERGENCY ROOM DOORS INTO THE PARK-ing garage, Jordan turned on her cell phone and called information for Jaffee’s phone number. Checking her watch and subtracting an hour, she was sure Jaffee would be at the restaurant.
Jordan knew the operator would connect the call for her, but she wanted to write down the number in case she had to call Jaffee back. She dug through her purse for a scrap of paper and a pen. Holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder, she waited, pen poised to hear the phone number. There were two benches, one on each side of a concrete pillar. Both were empty. She started toward the one farther away from the entrance. The bright fluorescent lights above the sliding glass doors bothered her eyes, and one of the tubes was flickering annoyingly and making a low buzzing sound.
As the operator recited Jaffee’s number, two orderlies walked out, loudly talking to an ambulance driver, so Jordan needed to ask the operator to repeat the number. She quickly wrote it down.
She settled on the bench as the call went through.
“Hello.” It was Angela on the other end. Jordan held her hand over her other ear to block out the background noise.
“Hello, Angela.”
“Jordan? Hey, Jordan! How are you doing? Jaffee’s sure going to be happy to hear from you. He’s really been fretting over Dora.”
“Is this a busy time at the restaurant? Should I call back?”
“We’re closed. We had bankers’ hours today. Jaffee made a triple-sized chocolate sheet cake and drove it over to Trumbo’s house in Bourbon. His wife, Suzanne, is having her monthly bridge club.”
“I’m sorry I missed Jaffee. Please tell him I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Oh, no, don’t wait till tomorrow. You can catch him over at the Trumbo house. Jaffee’s wife is one of the bridge players in the club, so Jaffee drives her to Bourbon and waits to bring her back home. It’s the same every month. He takes a big old chocolate sheet cake for Suzanne to serve and a bottle of Bailey’s Irish whiskey for Dave to lace his coffee with. Since he has to drive back home, Jaffee says he only drinks his coffee straight. No lacing for him. He’ll be sitting there in Dave Trumbo’s kitchen, so you can call him on the Trumbo’s house phone. I know he’d be upset if you didn’t call tonight.”
Jordan promised she’d call Jaffee right away. She tried to hang up, but Angela wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye.
“Did you hear? They say J. D. Dickey got murdered?”
“Yes, I heard that,” said Jordan.
“I can’t say I’m too sorry about it. Folks sure have been acting strange since we heard though. Usually when news this big hits this town, our restaurant gets jam-packed. Everyone wants to come in and jabber on about it…like they did after you found that professor man and Lloyd, remember? The restaurant drew real crowds then. But no one’s come in to talk about J. D. It’s like they’re all hiding in their houses.”
“I’m sure they must be frightened. Until an arrest is made…”
“I know what you’re saying. Until then, we’ve got some crazy murderer running around town, so of course everyone’s scared witless. Still, there’s something else going on.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Suddenly, no one looks me in the eye. It’s like they’re embarrassed or something. I was in the grocery story getting some more half-and-half for the restaurant and I saw Charlene doing her shopping. I went over to say hey to her—I know she saw me—but what does Charlene do? She leaves a cart full of groceries in the middle of the aisle and speed-walks out of the store. Her face was flaming red too. Then I hear from Mrs. Scott. A similar thing happened to her over at the hardware store—only with her it was Kyle Heffermint not looking her in the eye and hightailing it out of the store. I sure wish I knew what was going on.” Angela sighed.
The tapes were what was going on, Jordan knew. Charlene and the others on the list obviously weren’t yet sure if anyone else in town had heard about their transgressions. Oh, no doubt, they were in a panic now.
“That all sounds very strange,” Jordan said.
“That’s what I thought,” said Angela. “Now you hang up and call Jaffee…Oh, but before you do, I was just wondering…”
“Yes?”
“I was thinking about you and Noah, and how perfect you two look together, and I wondered if you’ve decided to stay with him.”
The question caught Jordan entirely off guard. “I…I don’t know.”
“Noah’s sure a catch. But then so are you, and don’t you forget it. Jaffee says he’s sure he’s seen your picture in one of those outdoor magazines.”
Was that supposed to be a compliment? An outdoor magazine? Had Jaffee thought she’d made the cover of Lumberjack Weekly?
Jordan laughed. “Are you sure Jaffee didn’t think he saw me in Glamour?”
She was teasing, but Angela was serious. “You’re the Ralph Lauren type, you know?”
“Thank you, but—”
Angela interrupted. “I’m just stating the truth. Just don’t make the same mistake I made, Jordan. Don’t wait eighteen years for any man. And if he doesn’t realize what he’s got right in front of him, he’s never going to know.”
With that as the final word, Angela finally hung up. Jordan found another blank scrap of paper in her purse and again called information. She thought about Angela’s comments while waiting for the operator to key in her request for Dave Trumbo’s phone number.
Behind her, the glass doors opened. A woman walked out carrying a basket of wilted flowers. Jordan looked around and spotted her father stepping out of the elevator at the end of the hall. Behind him was Noah.
“I have two listings for a Dave Trumbo,” the operator said. “A Dave Trumbo Motors at 9818 Frontage Road and a Dave Trumbo at 1284 Royal Street.”
“I want the home…Wait. Will you repeat that second address on Royal please? Did you say 1284?”
“Yes, 1284 Royal. That number is…”
Jordan was so stunned she dropped her phone in her lap. Dave “I’ll-make-you-a-deal” Trumbo lived at 1284 Royal.
Wait until Noah heard this! Jordan grabbed her phone and shoved it into her purse, then jumped to her feet. A car backfired, the sound huge and piercing. A nearby chunk of concrete from the pillar suddenly exploded. She instinctively pivoted to get away from the flying fragments. The car backfired again, and Jordan felt a tremendous jolt from behind. Tires screeched, and a car sped past her in a blur. She caught a glimpse of the driver out of the corner of her eye, just as her legs gave out.
Everything happened in slow motion: Noah pushing her father, running toward her, shouting, pulling his gun from his holster.
Jordan’s eyes closed as she slammed into the pavement.
Chapter Thirty-eight
THE HOSPITAL WAS IN LOCKDOWN. NO ONE WAS GETTING IN OR out until the all clear was sounded. Policemen blocked every entrance, and emergencies were temporarily being shuffled to other medical centers. The police also were doing a thorough search of the garage and a floor-by-floor search of the hospital to make certain there weren’t any other shooters hiding inside.
The attempted murder of a federal judge was big news, and there were television crews set up on all sides of the hospital. They were all competing to get an interview with anyone who might be able to tell them what had happened.
Judge Buchanan’s daughter was reported to be in critical condition. One reporter speculated—on the air no less—that if Jordan hadn’t been within seconds of emergency personnel, she would have bled to death.
That was something the Buchanan family didn’t need to hear. They were gathered in the surgical waiting room, talking in whispers and pacing while they waited for Jordan to emerge from surgery.
Two policemen stood guard outside the door and had made it perfectly clear that they weren’t going to let Judge Buchanan out of their sight until his bodyguards took over. Two of them were on their way to the hospital now.
Judge Buchanan had aged twenty years since he’d watched his daughter crumble to the ground. Noah had thrown him into a wall to get him out of the line of fire. The judge had heard him yell, “Down! Get Down!” as he raced toward Jordan. He’d never forget the look on Noah’s face when he’d knelt beside Jordan. He looked destroyed.
Jordan’s mother sat beside her husband, gripping his hand. Tears streaked down her face.