MacCallumfollowed them into the corridor, but as they turned right toward the X-ray room, he took the other direction. A few seconds later he entered the waiting room where the Tanners and theHarrises were waiting. In the far corner he also recognized ChuckLaConner.
"Is he all right?" Sharon asked anxiously.
MacCallumglanced once more at ChuckLaConner, then turned his attention to Sharon. "All things considered, I'd say he doesn't look too bad." He detailed the stitching and bandaging he'd already done, summarizing Mark's injuries in the most reassuring way he could. "Of course," he went on, "I'll want him to stay the night, just so I can keep an eye on him. He's in X-ray right now, and we'll know a lot more after we see the results of those." Raising his voice, to be absolutely certain that ChuckLaConner would hear what he said next, he added, "Frankly, considering what happened to him, he's in pretty good shape."
Sharon's eyes clouded. "Considering what happened?" she repeated. "What does that mean?"
"Considering it was JeffLaConner he ran up against,"MacCallum said heavily. "The last boy who came in here wasn't so lucky."
"Now wait a minute," ChuckLaConner interrupted, rising to his feet and taking a step toward the doctor. "Everybody knows what happened to the Ramirez kid wasn't Jeff's fault."
The color drained from Sharon's face, and her eyes shifted quickly betweenLaConner and her husband. "Rick Ramirez?" she asked, her voice hollow. "The boy who's in a coma?"
MacCallumnodded briefly.
Sharon's legs suddenly felt weak, but she refused to allow herself to drop back onto the sofa. Even angrier now, she turned to Blake. "I thought you told me the Ramirez boy was an accident victim," she said, a note of uncertainty in her voice, as if she were trying to put something together in her mind.
"He was-" Blake began, butMacCallum interrupted.
"He may have been," he corrected.
ChuckLaConner's eyes were blazing now. Before he could say anything, however, Sharon Tanner whirled on him, furious. "Is that what you want us to say happened to Mark, too?" she demanded. "That Jeff accidentally beat him up? And what about your wife?" she added, her voice bitter. "Was that an accident too?"
Blake stared at his own wife in bewilderment. "His wife?" he echoed. "Honey, what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about JeffLaConner," Sharon said, her voice harsh with anger. "Mark's not the only person he beat up, you know." She turned again, her eyes fixing on ChuckLaConner once more. "Or are you going to claim that was an accident, too?" she demanded.
LaConnerseemed to pull back. "He didn't mean it," he said, but his voice was defensive. "He was upset that night. It was the night he and Linda broke up-"
"He hurt me that night, too."
Though she'd uttered the words softly, almost apologetically, Linda Harris, who had been sitting quietly between her father and her brother, suddenly had the attention of everyone in the room.
"Hehurtyou?"Jerry Harris asked. "Honey, you never said anything."
"I-I guess I just didn't think it was very important," Linda replied, her voice trembling. "I mean, he didn't really hurt me. He was just real mad, and he started shaking me. But… well, when I yelled at him, he stopped."
"And you never told us?" Elaine asked. "Darling, it must have been awful for you!"
"I guess I just didn't want to get him in trouble. He got sick that night, and afterward he seemed… well, he seemed okay, I guess."
"Well, he's in trouble now," Sharon Tanner stated. "I don't suppose I'm going to make myself very popular in Silverdale, what with Jeff's being a big football hero and all that," she said, making no attempt to mask the sarcasm in her voice. "But even if none of the rest of you will do anything about it, I intend to make as much trouble for JeffLaConner as I can." She turned to Blake. "We're going to press charges against him," she said. "It sounds to me like Jeff thinks he can do anything he wants as long as he's the star of the team. Charlotte as much as told me so herself, the day after he slammed her against a wall." She turned back to Chuck now, her eyes challenging. "Thatiswhat happened, isn't it, Mr.LaConner?"
LaConnerhesitated, then nodded.
"Then that's it," Sharon said quietly. "It sounds to me like Jeff needs to be locked up for a while, and allowed to think things over."
"And that's what's going to happen to him, honey," Blake reminded her. "As soon as the cops find him."
"Will it?" Sharon asked. "Or will he just be given a little slap on the wrist and sent out on the football field to try to kill someone else?"
Her words silenced everyone in the waiting room. When Karen Akers appeared a few moments later to tellMacCallum that the X rays were finished and Mark was back in his room, no one had yet spoken another word. But as Blake rose to follow Sharon down the hall to their son's room, Jerry Harris put a hand on his arm and Blake paused for a moment. His eyes met Jerry's, and he could almost read his boss's mind.
"I know," he said, his voice tired. "If Mark were in any kind of shape, this wouldn't have happened. He might not have been able to beat Jeff, but he at least could have defended himself." He'd been thinking about his conversation with Jerry almost from the moment he'd seen Mark lying helpless on the lawn an hour ago. Now his mind was all but made up.
JeffLaConner crouched behind a large boulder. He had run blindly at first, racing from the darkness of one backyard to the next, pausing only briefly to cast a wary glance into the streets before dashing across to take shelter once again in the comforting shadows of the darkened houses.
He'd come to the edge of the town, then moved along the riverbank until he reached the footbridge. It was the wailing of the ambulance siren that finally made up his mind, and he'd hurried across the bridge and started up the path into the hills.
He was having no trouble seeing, even though the moon was no more than a quarter full, and he moved easily, fatigue from the fight he only dimly remembered dissipating as he loped along the trail. At last he'd come to the boulder, and with an almost animal instinct, crouched low against it, his back pressed close to the stone. There he'd waited, and watched.
For a long time nothing happened, and then he'd seen a police car moving through the streets, disappearing toward the county hospital a half mile out of town. After a while the patrol car had come back, stopping briefly in a darkened parking lot. Then it began moving again, and a moment later another car joined it.
He was certain he knew where they were going, and was not surprised when they came to a stop on the now nearly deserted block where the fight had occurred.
They were hunting for him.
He shrank closer to the boulder.
Wes Jenkins arrived at the scene of the fight only a few minutes after DickKennally. With him in the car were Joe Rankin, and in the screened-off back section of the black and white station wagon, Mitzi, the large police dog whose primary function had turned out to be keeping the night sergeant company during his normally boring shift. Tonight, though, Mitzi seemed to sense that something was happening, and as she leaped from the back of the station wagon, she barked eagerly.
Frank Kramer, Roy's father, was already there, having walked the three blocks from his house after Wes Jenkins had called him.
"Roy says he took off that way," Kramer said as the men gathered around him. He pointed across the street, and Wes Jenkins squatted down to snap a heavy leather lead to the collar around Mitzi's neck.