Page 140 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
I was going to have him checked for a concussion regardless as soon as we got back to Prescott.
Nell was sitting in the back of a cruiser. Her handcuffed wrists were in front of her face as she pressed a white gauze pad to her forehead.
“Can I see her?” I asked Jess.
He hesitated.
“Please. I just need to ask why.”
“It’s not protocol and this isn’t my crew.” He blew out a loud breath. “Tell them you’re a doctor and that you want to check that cut on her head before the ambulance gets here. Better hurry.”
“Okay.” I peeled Coby away again. “Hang with Jess for just a minute, okay, buddy?” He resisted but I transferred him to Jess anyway before walking to the back of the cruiser.
I nodded to the deputies, told them I was a doctor, and was waved on. I crouched down low in front of the open door at the back of the cruiser.
Nell dropped her arms, the gauze pad coming down too. The cut on her head—likely from hitting the steering wheel—would need about seven
stitches but it had already started to clot.
Her face was pale and splotchy. Her hair, which had always been so sleek and straight, was a frizzy mess. She looked heartbroken. She looked nothing like the beauty my dad had married or the woman I’d grown up with.
“Why, Nell? Why did you take Coby?”
“Hunter.” She reached for me with her handcuffed wrists. “I can do better this time. I can do a better job with Everett. I just need some time and you’ll see. He’ll see. I can be better.”
“Nell, that’s Coby. My son.”
She shook her head frantically, the clip in her hair now falling out completely. “I just need to try again. Everett will love me. I’ll make him love me and he’ll be okay.”
“Nell—” I stopped myself. Nothing I said would matter.
Nell’s sanity was gone. Something had happened in the last year that had completely cracked her mind. All the anger I’d had for her evaporated. In its place a deep pity settled, pity beyond any I’d ever had for another human being.
“Okay, Nell,” I said gently.
Her frantic nodding stopped as a tear slipped down her cheek.
“You go with these nice men, okay? They’ll get your cut all fixed up.”
“But then I can try again?” she asked. “I can try again with Everett?”
I smiled and patted her knee.
Then I stood and nodded at the deputies, walking right back to claim Coby from Jess’s embrace.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s go home and get Mommy.”
Hunter
“Is that all, sir?”
I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
The man nodded back, then closed one of the big doors on the moving truck, waving good-bye as he climbed up into his driver’s seat.
When it pulled away from the curb, I was left standing, staring at an empty house. All of its belongings were now on their way to storage. All of the things of my father’s and mother’s that I wanted to keep had been boxed and loaded into the back of my truck. All of the loose ends were now tied tight.
It had been two and a half weeks since Nell had kidnapped Coby. Two and a half weeks since I’d left Prescott. Two and a half weeks of working my ass off to close the book on my previous life.
