Bob squinted across Beacon at the Common, all dappled shade on a sunny summer morning. It’d be another hot day. “Did you find Abigail and just not want to wake me?”
“No. Sorry.”
The guy had no sense of irony. Bob turned back to him. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”
Yarborough rubbed the back of his neck. He was a cool, controlled type, but right now, he looked miserable. “Fiona refused police protection this morning and cleared out of her mother’s house. She’s over eighteen. We can’t force her.”
“I can. Where is she?”
Yarborough didn’t answer.
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?”
“ATF wants to put her under surveillance.”
“My daughter?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“They think she could have seen something here yesterday morning and she just doesn’t realize it.”
“Big difference between protection and surveillance,” Bob said, stony. “The feds don’t call the shots when it comes to my family. Where’s Fi now?”
“I don’t know. In my opinion-” Yarborough abandoned his thought. “Never mind.”
Bob glared at him. “In your opinion, what?”
Yarborough sighed and looked out at the Common. “I got the feeling when we interviewed her that she’s holding back.”
“What do you mean, holding back? Holding back what?”
The younger detective didn’t flinch at Bob’s tone. “I don’t know. Lucas thought so, too.” Like Bob wouldn’t kill him if Lucas agreed. “We think she’s got something on her mind, but she’s not sure it’s relevant. She’s afraid of getting someone into trouble or wasting our time.”
Bob didn’t respond as he considered what Yarborough was saying.
Yarborough rubbed the side of his mouth with one finger. “I’m not criticizing her.”
“Yeah. It’s okay. I’m not armed. Not yet.” Bob fished out his cell phone and tried Fiona’s number, but he got her voice mail. He left a message and tried texting her. “I hate these damn buttons. My fingers are too big. I can’t see the screen.” He messed up and had to start over. “Fi’s fast, but little Jayne-she’s a whiz. Her teacher has the students leave their cell phones in a box when they come to class. Eleven years old, and they all have cell phones. Where’s the money coming from? When I was a kid, we had one phone in the house. It was a big deal when the first family on the street got an extension.”
“It’s called progress, Lieutenant,” Yarborough said.
“It’s called kids texting their friends spelling words and the capital of Wisconsin. Or don’t kids take tests anymore?” Bob managed to type in “call me” and hit some other damn button to send the thing. “I’m going to the hospital to visit Scoop. Ten to one Fiona’s there. Any update on his condition?”
Yarborough was expressionless. “He’s alive.” He looked at Bob in the uncompromising way he had. “I’ll drive you over there.”
No way of talking him out of it. Bob gestured to the uniformed officers. “Tell them to go to work.”
“Lieutenant-”
“Never mind. I’ll do it.”
Yarborough raised a hand, stopping him. He walked over to the cruiser, said a few words, then rejoined Bob. “Let’s go,” he said tightly.
“So, if someone jumps out of the bushes with a gun and tries to shoot me, you’re diving in front of the bullet?”
“I’m shooting the bastard first. You’re on PTSD watch, you know.”
“Posttraumatic stress disorder doesn’t happen in a day. It’s normal to have the yips right after a crisis.”
“The yips, Lieutenant?”
“Sleeplessness, flashbacks, startle response. Not that I have any of that. I told you, I slept like a baby-”
“Bob. Stop, okay? I know.”
He grinned at the younger detective. “Is that the first time you’ve called me by my first name? Honest, Yarborough, we might make a human being out of you yet.”
Yarborough clamped his mouth shut, a muscle working in his jaw as he got out his keys and walked to his car. He unlocked the passenger door. “I keep wondering where Abigail spent the night.”
“No point going down that road.”
“She’s good, but…” Yarborough yanked open the door and stood to one side for Bob to get in. “It’s okay. I checked for bombs already.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine, Yarborough.”
“Always aim to please the boss.”
Bob got rid of him when they arrived at the hospital. There were enough cops there for him to get a ride to BPD headquarters if he needed one, and Yarborough was clearly itching to do something besides escort him around town.
And Bob was right. He found his eldest daughter shivering in the corridor outside Scoop’s hospital room. Scoop had been moved out of ICU to a regular room, another positive sign. It wasn’t the air-conditioning that had Fiona shivering. If anything, the temperature was on the warm side. She was on edge. Bob wasn’t thrilled with her for refusing police protection, but he melted when he saw her. Uniformed officers were posted outside Scoop’s room and drifting past her while she mustered courage to go in and see him.
Scoop’s family was there. His colleagues from internal affairs. Bob wasn’t going to embarrass Fiona-or himself-by treating her like a two-year-old, but she had to go back under police protection. Just because she was over eighteen didn’t mean she didn’t have to listen to his common sense advice.
She tried to smile. “This is worse than any performance anxiety I’ve experienced,” she said, her arms crossed tight on her chest. “Performing is nothing compared to facing a man who nearly died saving your life.”
“Scoop won’t look at it that way,” Bob said.
“I don’t care how he looks at it. It’s what happened.”
“I know, Fi.”
A white-coated doctor who didn’t look much older than Fiona came out of Scoop’s room. “You can go in now,” she said. “He’s awake.”
Fiona nodded without speaking.
The doctor headed for the nurses’ station. When his daughter still didn’t move, Bob said, “Scoop will want to see you and know you’re okay.”
She blinked back tears. “He saved my life,” she said again.
Bob had talked to Theresa last night, and she’d told him Fi had been repeating those words ever since they’d left his burned-up house.
“Maybe you saved his life, too. If you hadn’t been there, he might have gone for the porch and Abigail when the bomb went off. Instead he grabbed you and dived for cover.” Bob nodded to the doorway. “Go on in, Fi. Just talk to him a few minutes.”
She nodded, and Bob gritted his teeth as he watched his daughter enter the small room and walk up to one side of Scoop’s bed. Scoop was on his side, bandaged, bruised, stuck with IVs. He had his own clicker for pain medication.
“Hey, Scoop,” Fiona said, her voice clear and strong now. “How’re you feeling? Don’t talk if it hurts.”
“I’m getting there. You?”
Standing just outside in the hall, Bob could barely hear him.
“Just some bumps and bruises,” Fiona said. “I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
Bob knew that Tom Yarborough and Lucas Jones would have asked her not to mention Abigail to anyone, even to Scoop, not just to keep him from worrying about her but to maintain tight control over the investigation.
“I just wanted to say hi and thank you,” she added, her voice a little less strong.
“Don’t thank me, Fi. I should have spotted the bomb.” Scoop sounded weak, drugged, but lucid. “Before it went off. You got a detail on you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Fiona.”
Bob grinned to himself. Good for you, Scoop, he thought.
“I said no.” She was defensive now. “I don’t want a protective detail. I don’t need one. The bomb wasn’t meant for me.”
“Abigail,” Scoop said.
Bad move, Bob thought. She should have lied and told him she had a protective detail. Even drugged and fighting pain, Scoop would have his cop instincts. As an internal affairs detective, he was used to penetrating lies told by men and women trained to see through them. He was the best in the department at detecting any type of lie.