Scene of the Crime Deadman's Bluff - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,70
she believed she felt for him was real.
It was time he cut his losses and run, head back to where he belonged and maybe with time he’d forget about Tamara and his time with her here in Amber Lake.
He’d been seated in the waiting room about an hour when the doctor came out. Dr. Kane took one look at him and frowned. “She’s doing fine, but you look like you need a little cleanup and maybe an ice pack or two.”
“I’m fine. Can I see her?”
“Not until you let me clean you up. One look at your ugly mug and Tamara might go into shock. Come on.” Dr. Kane gestured for Seth to follow him in through the emergency room doors.
Seth followed him to a small cubicle where he winced as Dr. Kane cleaned off his face with an antiseptic swab. “You’re already bruising on the side of your face. Are you dizzy? Feel sick to your stomach?”
“I’m fine. I just want to see Tamara.” He needed to see her, to assure himself that she was really okay.
“She’s being moved to a room for the night. Whatever drug she was given seems to have worn off but I’m keeping her for observation for a night. You know that cut on your chin could probably use a stitch or two.”
Seth couldn’t even remember how his chin had gotten wounded. The fight with Steven now seemed like a distant dream with fuzzy parts he didn’t care to remember. All that mattered was that Tamara was okay.
“I’m fine,” Seth said with a touch of impatience.
Dr. Kane stood from his little stool. “Okay, she’s in room 124.”
With that information Seth was out the door and hurrying down the hallway. He just needed to make sure she was all right. He now understood the need that had driven Sam the night he’d been standing across the street from the house...the need to assure himself that she really was okay, that the sand hadn’t swallowed her whole.
There were still unanswered questions. What had driven Steven to do what he’d done? What kind of drug had he used on the women and where had he kept them before taking them to the dunes? But Seth didn’t care about that. With Steven in custody, Tom and his team would soon find the answers to those questions.
Apparently Tamara had already had a shower for she looked clean and comfortable and was clad in a blue-flowered hospital gown. She smiled as he entered the semidark room. “My two-time hero. I have to admit I was starting to get worried out there on the dune. What took you so long?” Although her voice was light, her eyes held the darkness of that time when she’d been alone with Steven on the dunes.
“Oh, you know, I had to change my shirt and give myself a quick shave. Heroes have standards to uphold.”
“Looks like you shaved a little too close,” she replied. He sat in the chair next to her bed and she automatically reached out her hand for his.
He hesitated a moment before taking hers, but when her fingers curled around his, he felt the connection deep in his heart. “You scared me,” he finally said, speaking around the large lump that had formed in the back of his throat.
“I was scared for me,” she replied. “I was foolish. I opened the door to him. I just assumed he was there to visit with Samantha and Scooter and then he stuck me with a needle and I went down.”
“None of us suspected Steven. He wasn’t even on our radar. It was just dumb luck that I found you when I did.”
She finally let go of his hand and propped herself up higher in the bed. “How did you find me? What made you realize it was Steven?”
“The ostrich thing.” He explained to her how he’d figured it out and that he knew Steven would be someplace on the dunes to complete his job.
“It was his mother,” Tamara said. “He blamed his mother for not protecting him from his abusive father and he was burying her over and over again. When I was in his trunk and he was driving me to the dunes, all my memories came rushing back.”
He listened as she told him what she remembered of the night she’d spent in the animal pound and couldn’t imagine the horror of that time.
“I also thought of what has kept me from wanting to go home,” she said.