The Taint by Patricia Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

like a doctor in those clothes,” he commented.
    “You look like a sheriff with that gun on your hip.” She continued walking, aware that he had stopped momentarily.
    “What does that mean?”
    “I am a doctor.”
    “I know that.”
    “Then why do you look at me like you expect me to skip off down the hall? Or play . . .” she hesitated, searching her memory, “. . . hopscotch.”
    They turned the corner into the south hall.
    “Did you play hopscotch? Somehow, I can’t imagine . . .”
    “I did. Eighteen years ago, when I was a child, which I’m not anymore.” She held the office door open for him to enter.
    She closed the door behind him. The office was dark, the only light coming from the lanterns in the courtyard. She passed him and turned on the desk light. The same aftershave.
    “Randy Cruz apparently wandered off sometime after midnight last night and hasn’t been home since,” Jon said.
    “The poor girl. No wonder she’s so scared.”
    “Earl said that he’d gone outside to investigate some noises, and I need to know what, if anything, she heard. From what direction.”
    Rachel sat on the desk, regarding him.
    “And?”
    “And, if there’s any reason he might want to disappear.”
    “Like what?”
    “Maybe they had a fight. Maybe he owed some money. I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Why do people run away?”
    She didn’t answer for a minute. “Sometimes they want someone to come after them.”
    After another minute he said: “Earl looked for him.”
    In spite of herself, Rachel laughed. “You are . . .” she began, and then left off.
    “Can I talk to her?”
    “Of course.” She looked at her watch. “She’s about ready to go into delivery. Want to watch?”
    “Uh . . .”
    “There’s a little observation room between the surgical suites.” She stood up. “You can even keep your gun on,” she said as she passed him on the way out.
    It was a very small observation room, claustrophobic, even, but luckily it was a quick delivery. He had seen babies born before, even delivered a few, as a police officer in L.A. But there was something different about watching Rachel. She was calm and very natural, and her face glowed when she held the baby boy up for the mother to see. A few minutes later, when the nurse wheeled the mother and infant out of the room, she took off her mask and smiled at him, thumbs up.
    “Tina,” Rachel said softly, “Sheriff Scott would like to ask you a few questions about your husband.”
    “Randy . . .” the girl’s eyelids were drooping.
    “Mrs. Cruz, I need to know everything you can remember about when Randy left last night.”
    “He doesn’t know . . . about the baby.”
    “That’s why I want to find him,” Jon said, “so I can tell him and he can come and see his son. But I need you to help me.”
    The girl nodded.
    “The sounds he heard, what did they sound like to you?”
    “I asked him, not to go.” It was a whine. “I was scared. It sounded like some big animal . . . was killing something in the trees.” She clutched Rachel’s hand. “A lot of noise, terrible noise. I didn’t want him to go out there.”
    “Did he take a gun?”
    A nod. “He . . . he said not to open the door until I heard him shoot twice . . . the signal.” Her face twisted. “When he didn’t come back by morning, I called momma.”
    “You didn’t hear anything else?”
    Tears began to run down her face. “No . . . it just . . . stopped.”
    Jon and Rachel exchanged a look, and he nodded.
    “All right, now, I want you to rest.”
    “You’ll find Randy?” Tina pleaded.
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Rachel wrote an order for a mild tranquilizer for Tina and noted that the infant was to be bottle-fed for the first day. She turned to Jon.
    “Now what?”
    “Now, I go out and look for Randy Cruz.”
    “It’s getting dark out.”
    He sighed. “It won’t be the first time I’ve stumbled through the forest in the dark.”
    “Jon . . .”