Page 40 of Maverick Detective Dad
“SAPD is still searching Jared’s apartment,” Noah continued. “Nothing’s turned up so far.”
That wasn’t a surprise. If Jared was the killer, he would have known he could become a suspect, and he probably wouldn’t have left anything incriminating for the cops to find.
Even though there were no windows in the exam room, she could hear the storm outside. It sounded as bad as predicted.
With her head clearing a little, Everly moved her legs off the side of the bed and glanced down. She was still wearing her own clothes, and she didn’t have on a hospital bracelet.
“The doctor wants to keep you overnight for observation,” Noah volunteered before she could ask. “It’d be a good idea if you did that.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished. “I don’t want to be a sitting duck here. There are too many entrances and exits in this place.”
Noah didn’t argue with that. Couldn’t. Even if they used every deputy in Silver Creek, it wouldn’t be enough to guard the entire building, not with the darkness and the storm.
“What kind of side effects will I have?” she asked, and Everly let Noah take hold of her arm when she stood. The wooziness hit her, but she stayed on her feet.
“Fatigue, light-headedness. You’ll need an exam, too.”
“An exam that can wait,” she insisted.
He opened his mouth as if to argue with that, but Everly gave him a look. One that reminded him if their situations were reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted to wait around for an exam either.
“Is someone available to ride with us to the ranch?” she asked.
Noah sighed, nodded and then took out his phone. “Hudson has already gone back to the ranch to help keep an eye on things there, but Grayson is in the waiting room. I’ll let him know you’re ready to leave.”
However, before he could text Grayson, his phone rang, and he scowled when he saw the name of the caller. “River,” Noah snarled. He answered it, and in the same motion, he had her sit on the edge of the bed.
Everly didn’t object. She was indeed experiencing that expected light-headedness, and she preferred to be able to focus on this call. Especially since River could have been the person who’d shot her with that tranquilizer dart.
“Where are you?” Noah demanded. “And by the way, I’m putting this call on Speaker.”
“I’m nowhere near Silver Creek,” was the man’s answer.
River’s evasiveness caused Noah’s scowl to deepen. “You told me to meet you at the sheriff’s office. Where were you when you asked me to do that?”
“I was driving there,” River said without hesitation. “I got there and waited just up the street. You didn’t come.”
“No, because someone tried to kill Everly,” Noah snapped. “What the hell do you know about that?”
There was no quick answer this time. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“But you know about it,” Noah argued.
“I heard about it after the fact. I saw the cruiser come barreling out of the parking lot of the sheriff’s office, and I figured there was trouble so I called a friend who keeps tabs on police scanners and such. He said something was going on at Everly’s house, that both the cops and an ambulance had been called. I didn’t think it’d be a good idea for me to hang around and find out what it was.”
Noah’s grip tightened on his phone. “Why should I believe that? You call and say you’re coming to Silver Creek, and minutes later, someone attacks Everly.”
“You should believe me because I’m telling the truth,” River practically shouted. “I didn’t have anything to do with an attack. Remember, someone blew up my porch. If I was the killer, why would I have done that?”
“Because you might have thought it would remove you as a suspect. It doesn’t,” Noah stated, and his voice was as hard as the muscles in his jaw. “It. Doesn’t,” he repeated. “Now, where are you?”
“I’m not sure. That’s the truth, too,” River snarled when Noah huffed. “The storm’s bad, and the road leading to my house was flooded. I tried to get to a friend’s place in San Antonio, but I ended up pulling onto a trail because it was too dangerous to drive.”
Everly could hear the rain. Thunder, too. But that didn’t mean River was on a trail somewhere. He could be in the parking lot of the hospital.
“I know you’ve got it in for me,” River went on. “You think I’m the vigilante killer, but there’s no proof whatsoever of that, and there never will be proof because I’m innocent.”
“If you’re innocent, then explain the weekly withdrawals for cash you’ve been making,” Noah fired back. “Did you use the money to hire someone to help you with the explosives?”
