Page 64 of Kick the Candle (Knight Games 2)
I needed to talk to Rick. As angry and confused as I was about his involvement in Gary's turning, he was the only one who could help me figure out a plan for dealing with this. Why did Julius think I had the Book of Flesh and Bone? I had no idea where the book was. But maybe Rick did. I needed answers.
One other question, was the nightmare that had emerged from my patient's body out for good or could it infect someone else in the hospital? If the answer was in the Book of Light, I hadn't made it that far with populating my phone app. Until I knew for sure, I had to be careful to keep my witchy senses tuned in. The nightmare could be anywhere and look like anyone.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and returned to the nurse's station. The paramedic who had brought the woman in was still hanging around, filling out paperwork at the desk.
I eyed his nametag. "Hey, Eric."
"Hey. Grateful, nice to see you again."
"Just wondering if the attendant at Fuel Up said anything about the guy who'd dropped that patient off? She died. Can't help but wonder why he waited so long to call for help."
He tore the first page off the form he was filling out and slipped it in the appropriate slot on the desk. "Yeah, he was still there when me and my partner arrived but we must've scared him. He took off when he saw the lights."
"What did he look like?"
"Couldn't say. He was wearing a parka with the hood up."
"And you didn't think that was suspicious?"
"Actually, no. It's fifteen below out there today. Everyone should be wearing a hood."
"Red Grove Lake is in the middle of the woods; he didn't just trip over her in the street. I wonder if he had something to do with it." I narrowed my eyes.
"He told the attendant he went out for a walk and found her on the bank of the lake."
My breath caught in my throat. As far as I knew, there was only one house occupied in the area, only one owner who could have gone for a walk behind it. Rick. He had to be the one who found her. An icy ripple climbed my backbone and made my scalp tingle. He must have sensed the nightmare inside the woman. Rick didn't own a phone. Maybe he used the attendant to call 911 thinking I was her best bet for survival? But if so, why not drive her to the hospital? I didn't usually work trauma. I could have easily missed her.
Then again, maybe I wasn't meant to find her. What if Rick had been the one to drown her? An overzealous battle with the nightmare might have resulted in the woman's fate, and this was the way he covered it up. He'd covered up Gary. It was possible. My head spun with unanswered questions.
Eric said goodbye and headed for the exit to resume his shift. Mine was over. It was time for me to clock out and pay a visit to the caretaker.
* * * * *
Some things you just come to take for granted: the sun rising in the morning, taxes due on April fifteenth, dandelions in the lawn in summer. I had come to expect Rick's door to open for me any time that I should walk up to it, day or night. But tonight I waited in front of his stone cottage, even resorted to knocking on the door, to no avail. Furthermore, our connection had gone dead. Either he was far away, or he was blocking me.
"Why don't you try the door?" Poe said, landing with an inordinate amount of flapping above me. The cross beams of the porch roof housed dozens of wind chimes, and the disruption of the air by his large black wings sent the closest ones into a fit of musical clinking.
"How did you get out?" I asked. Christ I was moody, but the strange woman's death weighed heavily on my mind.
"Attic window. I performed the most fabulous rendition of Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Even rolled through the air as the glass shattered around me." With a snap of his hooked beak, he slurped a wolf spider from the side of the house.
"You broke my window?" I fisted my hands on my hips and peered at him through narrowed eyes. "I just got that window fixed like a month ago!"
"You left a predatory bird in the attic for fourteen hours?" he sing-songed back at me in a mimicked version of my voice. "Relax. I only broke one small pane. You can seal it with magic tonight and fix it tomorrow."
"Yeah, right. With all of my advanced window fixing skills! Damn it, Poe. I really didn't need this tonight."
He cawed in my face. "Really? Well, you know what I need? To eat every four-to-six hours. You'd know that if you'd taken the time to learn anything about ravens. And it's not like you left me a lot of options. Your pantry is a joke."
I huffed, feeling like my head might explode. When it was clear Poe didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse for his crime against my house, I rolled my eyes and reached for the doorknob. Not surprisingly, it swung open. Rick never locked his door; he didn't need to. I strode into the sparsely decorated living room. "Rick?" I called, but there was no way he was home. If he had been, I'd be naked and draped over the couch by now. I was at a loss.
Poe circled the small living room, then disappeared through the bedroom door, returning almost immediately. "He's not here."
"I'd surmised that much. Did you see anything strange tonight, Poe?"
"Strange how? One of the field mice I ate gave me heartburn but otherwise, no."
I gave him a quick rundown of what happened in the ER. He raised the muscle over his left eye that might count as an eyebrow. "You know, it had to be Rick. Who else would find her out here? Plus, there's this." He pointed his beak toward the linoleum kitchen floor.
