His Badge, Her Baby...Their Family?
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Stella Bagwell
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Prologue
Detective Vincent Parcell eyed the smoldering heap lying at the bottom of the shallow ravine. Less than an hour ago the ash and debris had been a small car driven by a woman. Now the only thing resembling a vehicle was a crumpled black frame.
“It’s a miracle anyone survived that inferno,” Vince remarked to his partner, Evan Calhoun. “Are you sure the EMT reported her conscious when they left the scene?”
The two men stood together on the edge of the asphalt. Behind them, a fire truck and lighted barricades blocked all traffic from the eastbound side of the two-lane highway. A few feet down the incline from where they stood, a pair of firemen continued to douse a steady stream of water over the charred object. Yet even with the flames dead, puffs of smoke spiraled upward into the dark, desert sky and the stench of burning rubber lingered on the night air.
“That’s what the NHP officer reported,” Evan answered.
Vince shook his head. “Let’s hope she remains that way.”
Fifteen minutes ago, the two detectives had been working a downtown robbery in Carson City when their captain had ordered them to wrap up and drive out here to the edge of the city to investigate a flaming car crash.
Vince was still irked by the interruption. The Nevada Highway Patrol had already investigated the accident. He didn’t see much need for him and Evan to follow up. This wasn’t a case of vehicular homicide. It was a simple case of identifying the injured driver. As far as he was concerned, the sheriff’s office didn’t need to get involved. But it was Vince’s job to follow orders, not question them.
Vince said, “I’m trying to visualize how this scene played out. The first responding officer reported that when he arrived on the scene, the door on the driver’s side of the car was open. So the woman must have been thrown clear of the car when it hit the ravine. Or she miraculously managed to open the door and crawl out on her own.”
Evan pointed to a spot on the side of the highway, about ten feet from where the two of them were standing. “Supposedly she was discovered lying there. Between those clumps of sage and creosote bushes.”
Images of how the first initial seconds of the crash might have occurred and the sequences that followed flashed through Vince’s mind as he walked over to the area where the woman had been found. From the beam of his flashlight, he could see where her weight had flattened the dead vegetation. Blood from some type of wound was smeared at the base of a clump of buffalo grass, while a few drops had already dried to brown circles on the ground. Nearby a couple of fist-sized stones had been dislodged from the soil. Most likely from the movements of the paramedics when they’d loaded the victim onto a gurney, Vince figured.
Evan walked up behind him. “Not many skid marks on the asphalt,” he commented. “Whatever caused the car to leave the highway must have happened fast. Maybe a deer or coyote.”
“Maybe,” Vince reasoned. “Or a drunk driver swerved over the middle line and didn’t bother to stop when her car careened off the highway.” He started to turn back to his partner when the beam of his flashlight crossed something shiny caught on a low branch of sage. Squatting on his heels, Vince carefully plucked the item from the brush and rose to his feet.
“Hmm. Guess no one noticed this.” The murmured words were directed as much to himself as they were to Evan. He placed his find in the middle of his palm, and Evan centered the beam of his flashlight on a simple piece of jewelry.
“Looks like a fine silver chain with a small filigree cross,” Evan said. “Probably hundreds like it around town.”
Vince grimaced. “Other than her clothes, it might be the only thing we have to help identify her. And that is why we were called in on this case, isn’t it?”
Evan let out a weary breath, reminding Vince that both of them had been at it since just before dawn this morning. The day had been long and was on its way to being even longer.
“That’s what the captain said. All her ID went up in flames. Even the car tags are nothing but ash. Hopefully the VIN can be salvaged. But looks like it’s going to be a while before that mess of scrap metal is cool enough to be hauled to the lab.”
Vince glanced one more time at the silver cross in his palm before he slipped the item into his shirt pocket. Like Evan said, there were probably hundreds of women around here who owned the same necklace. In fact, he’d known someone in particular who’d worn one exactly like it. He’d given it to her as an Easter gift. But that had been years ago and a world away.
Vince rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “There’s nothing more we can do here,” he said flatly. “Let’s get over to the hospital and see if we can get some answers.”
Evan reached over and slapped his shoulder. “Cheer up, buddy. This won’t take long.”
The two men returned to a black SUV with Carson City, Nevada, sheriff’s emblems emblazoned on both front doors. Vince climbed beneath the wheel, while Evan buckled himself in the passenger seat.
As he made a sharp U-turn in the middle of the highway and headed toward the north side of town, Vince tried to shake off the strange premonition that had come over him the moment they’d walked up to the accident scene.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Evan. Maybe you ought to call the hospital before we make a trip over there. For all we know the driver might have already expired.”
When Evan failed to reply, Vince glanced over to the see his partner glowering at him.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Evan barked the question. “Even if she has expired, we’ll still need to follow up. Especially if she dies as a Jane Doe. You know that.”
What was the matter with him? Vince asked himself. At the age of thirty-three, he’d worked in law enforcement for twelve years, and during that time he’d never shunned any sort of assignment. No matter how trivial or important, he wanted to make sure the job was done and done right.
“Yeah, I know it. I’m just not keen on going to the hospital. Every time we walk through those doors, I get the urge to throw up.”
Evan said, “Nothing strange about that. You nearly died after the Christmas Eve shooting. And you spent weeks afterward in Tahoe General recuperating from your wounds. The place probably brings all that hell back to you. To be honest, it brings it all back to me, too. But the best way to deal with a bad memory is to face it head-on. At least, that’s what Granddad Bart always says. And he ought to know. He’s had plenty of bad memories to face,” Evan added flatly.
Bart Calhoun just happened to be the patriarch of the wealthy ranching family that owned and operated the Silver Horn Ranch north of Carson City. Evan’s other grandfather, Tuck Reeves, had been a sheriff in Storey County for more than twenty years.
As for Vince, his grandfathers had already passed on, along with his father, Parry Parcell. Vince had only been fourteen years old when his father had been shot and killed while serving on the Reno police force.
No, Vince thought, he and his partner had totally different backgrounds, but the moment the two of them had been paired together, they’d fit like hot coffee on a snowy morning. For several years now they’d been the best of friends on and off duty. And because they were, the two men didn’t hold back on expressing their thoughts or opinions to each other.
“Sorry, Evan. I don’t stop to think of the hell you went through that night. If you hadn’t pulled me away from the gunfire, you’d have a different partner sitting here with you tonight.”
“Shut up, Vince.” Evan slid down in the seat and pulled the brim of his cowboy hat over his eyes. “We’re not going to talk about that night anymore. Hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you.” They might keep quiet about that night, Vince thought, but that wasn’t going to make either of them forget it.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Vince parked in a slot allotted for hospital visitors and reached for two denim jackets lying on the backseat. Although it was nearing the first of July, the night could still get cool in the high desert, and the inside of the hospital always felt like stepping into the Arctic Circle.
As the two men headed toward the emergency entrance, Evan said, “It’ll be our luck they’ve filled her with pain meds and she won’t be lucid enough to tell us anything.”
Vince grunted. “From the looks of that wreck, she’s going to need more than something for pain.”
After a frustrating wait in the ER, a nurse finally supplied them with the room number of the unidentified crash victim. During the elevator ride up to the internal medicine floor, Vince tried to block out the memory of the searing pain from the bullets plowing into his side and abdomen.
By the time the EMTs had reached him that night and delivered him to this very hospital, Vince had lost consciousness. It wasn’t until days later that he’d eventually woken to the reality of what had happened when he and Evan had gone to arrest a murder suspect.
“Vince? You look green around the gills. Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and have some coffee?” Evan suggested as the two of them stepped off the elevator. “I can handle this.”
Casting him a droll look, Vince said, “That day-old sandwich I got off your desk for lunch is the reason my gills are green. Let’s just get this job over with.”
“All right, be a tough guy.” Evan gestured to the room number guide posted on the wall in front of the elevator. “This way.”
His partner took off in a long stride down the left wing and Vince followed. For early in the evening, the corridor was rather empty. They walked past a nurse carrying a tray of medicine and a janitor mopping a section of the tiled floor. Other than those two, the hallway was eerily quiet.
“You can hear a pin drop on this floor,” Vince said in a hushed voice. “All the patients must have been shipped down to the morgue.”
“Or they heard two detectives were coming and they all got the hell out of here,” Evan joked, then pointed to a closed door on their right. “Here it is.”
Evan rapped lightly on the door before the two of them stepped inside. Except for a strip of light over the head of the bed, the room was dark. As they moved farther into the room, Vince could see the slender shape of the patient beneath the light bedcover. She was lying on her side, facing the wall, making it impossible to see anything except a long curtain of honey-blond hair spilling over the white pillowcase.
When Evan’s elbow suddenly dug into his rib cage, Vince glanced over to see his partner motioning for him to take the initiative.
After a glare that promised he’d deal with him later, Vince walked up to the head of the bed.
With his gaze fixed on the wavy blond tresses, he cleared his throat. “Ma’am? Sorry about the interruption. I’m Detective Parcell and this is my partner, Evan Calhoun. We’re with the Carson City Sheriff’s Department. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”
Long moments passed before she finally stirred, then with a faint groan, she rolled in his direction.
Vince took one look at her face and the shock of what he was seeing propelled him backward, very nearly causing him to stumble smack into Evan.
