“What about our guy Max at the hospital?” Gavin asked.
“Nothing yet. Which is also weird. Elliott said there’s no worker there named Max.”
“No Maxwell? Maximillian?”
“Apparently not. I’m tempted to ask Annie to work her magic and find him. I don’t think either detective would mind as long as he was located.”
“Good idea,” Gavin said. “Now, back to Brianne. If she shot herself, who shot the friend? Do we have an attempted murder-suicide here?”
Caden ran a hand over his cheek. “They’re not sure. The big hope is that Mrs. Nelson will wake up soon and tell us what really happened.”
“Us?” Asher asked.
Caden grimaced. “Okay, them. Sorry. Habit. I don’t mean to treat it like it’s my case, but I can’t help it.”
Gavin shook his head. “If they’re keeping you in the loop, then that’s a huge plus.”
“Tell me about it. They’re great and I let them know how much I appreciated it.”
Gavin’s phone pinged and he let out a slow breath. “Finally,” he murmured.
“What is it?”
“I have a friend who’s got a friend who got me some hospital security footage of the night Sarah was ill and wandering the halls.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Connections.” He tapped the screen on his phone and let the video play. The longer it played, the more he frowned.
“What is it?”
“It’s not showing anything.”
“Nothing?” Caden asked.
“Just a typical quiet hallway with nurses and doctors walking back and forth and going room to room.”
Asher set his drink on the counter. “What’s the time stamp?”
Caden looked over at Aden’s screen. “It’s the right day and time.”
“Is it the right floor?”
“I can’t see the room numbers, but wait. There’s Sarah. She looked out of her room, then turned and went back in. So, yeah, it’s the right floor.”
“Someone messed with the footage then,” Gavin said, eyes on the screen. “I was on that floor and I know what should be there.” He shook his head. “Something happened that night, and someone is desperate to cover it up. I don’t know who’s involved, but I suspect that Dr. Kilgore and the nurse, Donna, know what’s going on.”
“Then maybe someone should have another chat with them.”
Gavin shrugged. “Could try, I suppose, but unless you have something official you can bring them in on, I doubt they’ll talk. It looks like they simply want to erase any trace of Brianne Davis from their hospital.” He shook his head. “My mind is spinning, trying to make sense of everything. There’s a reason they’re denying Brianne’s existence. There’s a reason she killed herself. There’s a reason Dustin was doing great, then all of a sudden bottomed out and jumped off the roof. There’s a reason for all of it and it’s related to that VA hospital. The problem is, we’re missing too many pieces of the puzzle to connect everything.”
“So,” Caden said, “we keep looking for those missing pieces.”
Gavin nodded. “I think so.”
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Wednesday morning, Lewis sat across from his buddy Marshall again and sipped his coffee. They’d been chatting about not much of anything for the past fifteen minutes, but now, Marshall looked out the window, eyes narrowed, mind obviously not on their meeting.
“Everything all right?” Lewis asked.
Marshall blinked and nodded. “Sure.”
“So, what’s wrong?”
His friend sighed. “The funding for this project I’m working on is iffy. I’m waiting to hear back from a potential investor, but it’s not looking good.”
“Ouch. How much do you need?”
Marshall leaned forward. “We’re in the home stretch, Lewis. Another five million would help. Seven or more would go a long way, because we’re finally seeing some pretty amazing progress. Our test subjects are showing real promise, and I can see getting the product on the market within six months once we have approval. I would say two months after that, we’d recoup every penny invested.”
Lewis raised a brow. “That’s not just pocket change you’re talking about.”
“Trust me, I know.” He paused and took a sip of his coffee. “You know as well as I do, we’re a private company. We don’t have the big government backing, but we’re almost there. So very close. People believe in this project and have put their money where their mouth is.” His fingers flexed around his glass. “I can’t fail, Lewis, I won’t fail.”
“I hope not. I’ve got a lot invested in this myself. Even more so now that Dustin is gone. Just like you can’t fail, his death can’t be in vain.”
“Of course not.” Marshall blew out a slow breath and Lewis could feel the man’s passion in an almost tangible