The Search The Secrets of Crittenden Cou - By Shelley Shepard Gray Page 0,7

waved a hand. “It wasn’t a crime. Like I said, just an accident. There’s no investigating needed. Guess Frannie was talking with Beth Byler when it happened. Hey, do you know Beth? Her real name is Elizabeth, but I’m sure I don’t know anyone who calls her by that.” He drummed his fingers on the table again. “Maybe her mother?”

Mose’s rambling was going to send him over the edge. Luke stood up. “Which hospital?”

“Our only hospital, of course. Crittenden County Hospital. It’s on West Gum.” His face went slack as he caught sight of Luke’s determined expression. “You’re really going to go over there? Right this minute?”

Luke was already putting on his rain slicker. “I am. I’ve got to get over there as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

Luke didn’t know why. All he knew was that if Frannie Eicher was going into surgery, he didn’t want her to be alone.

“I just do.” While Mose continued to study him like he’d just presented him with another mystery, Luke turned and walked out the door.

Chapter 2

“Sure I knew that Frannie hoped Perry was the right man for her. But he wasn’t. Never would he have been good enough for Frannie.”

BETH BYLER

With her heart in her throat, Elizabeth Byler—Beth to her friends—watched the ambulance carry Frannie away. As the sirens blared and the bright blue and red lights flashed down Main Street, she stood on the front porch and prayed for both Frannie’s well-being and the emergency workers’ patience and abilities.

All of them would have to be at their best. Frannie was in a terrible way, for sure. Though the EMTs had checked her pulse and heartbeat and had started an IV drip, they had done little else.

Well, as far as Beth could tell.

After they’d very gingerly put Frannie on a stretcher, then carefully carried her to the ambulance, Beth asked why they hadn’t done more for Frannie’s hurt face.

“We can’t take a chance on making things worse, miss,” a burly man in a crisp white shirt explained. “We want to wait for the surgeons at the hospital.”

What he said made sense. But as she was standing off to the side while the EMTs efficiently packed up the ambulance, she heard them whisper. And with each technical word and warning, the knot in her stomach grew bigger.

She figured it wasn’t going to take a surgeon to determine that things with Frannie’s right eye were really bad. There was a good size cut on the outside of it and a whole lot of swelling, too.

After the siren’s blare faded, and she said goodbye to the few neighbors who had run up to see what was the matter, she went back inside Frannie’s little yellow bed-and-breakfast. When she closed the heavy oak door behind her, she sighed, strangely discomfited by the sudden silence. With Frannie, one never had to worry too much about things being quiet.

Frannie was a gregarious sort, to be sure. Pleasant to be around, ready with an easy smile and conversation. Perfect for the host of a B&B.

With some dismay, she was reminded of just how different Frannie’s manner was from her own. With children, she felt always easy and free, full of laughter.

With adults, though, she’d always been far more reserved.

“Well, you don’t need to be good at chatting with strangers to be good at cleaning,” Beth chided herself. In the midst of the commotion, she’d promised she’d hold down the fort until Frannie could come back. She was determined to keep her promise even though she didn’t have the first idea of what to do to keep things running.

A quick search located some kitchen gloves. After her hands were protected, she got to work picking up large pieces of glass, sweeping up shards, and wiping up the blood that seemed to have spattered everywhere.

Not wanting to risk the food, she threw all the mini quiches, cooked and uncooked, into the trash. Just thinking about making sixty pastry cups again made her exhausted.

“Well, there’s no hope for that,” she told herself reasonably as she put out more margarine to make a new batch. Of course, that brought forth a whole new nest of problems. She could cook just about anything . . . as long as she had a recipe.

Did Frannie even use a recipe book? From the time she and Frannie first met, her best friend had cooked well. Not once had Beth paid attention to how Frannie had known what to do. Beth had been as uninterested in Frannie’s recipes as