As we headed toward the ICU room’s door, the Johanssons stood to follow. We turned, and they halted inches behind us. “We need to talk to Jacob alone,” I said. “We can’t have him distracted.”
“But he’s so weak. We should be there to—” Reba started.
“We’ll be patient with him. We understand what he’s been through,” Max assured them. “But you two can’t come in. You need to stay out here.”
Reba looked at her husband and scowled. “Naomi warned us to watch you two,” she said, assessing me as if I might attack at any moment. “She said you in particular, Clara, shouldn’t be alone with Jacob.”
Naomi interfering again, I thought. What is she up to?
“Reba, Michael, we don’t know who did this or why,” I explained. “The person who committed these murders is still out there and may try again. We don’t know if Jacob will be in danger once he leaves the hospital. Max and I are concerned enough that I have officers watching over Jeremy. But we can’t protect them forever. So, we need to get this solved quickly, and Jacob is our best hope to put an end to it all. He’s the only survivor able to tell us what happened. You need to let us do our jobs.”
They looked at each other, unsure, but then Michael took his wife’s hand. “Reba, let’s sit here and wait. We can go in and visit with Jacob once they’re done.”
Reba appeared uncertain but followed her husband’s lead. Then she turned back toward us. “Jacob can’t talk yet, you know. You’ll have to communicate some other way.”
“Sure. We’ll write it down,” I said. Reba let loose a long sigh and shook her head again just as a nurse walked by and noticed us.
“Are you two going in there?” she asked. When I nodded, the nurse said, “Only five minutes. And don’t upset him.”
“We heard you’ll be releasing him as early as tomorrow. Is that right?” Max asked.
“If he’s eating soft foods and drinking okay,” she said. “We like to free up the beds, get people out of the hospital.”
“When will he be able to speak?” I asked.
The nurse shrugged. “It could be a day or two. There’s no way of telling.”
As the nurse ambled off, Max and I walked into the room. Some of the machines had been carted away, but a monitor flashed Jacob’s blood pressure and heart rate. He was sitting up, the head of the bed raised. The slit in his neck stitched up and bandaged, he was breathing normally, albeit with a nasal cannula delivering extra oxygen. When Max closed the door, Jacob turned toward us.
“Hello. Good to see that you’re awake and getting better,” Max said, and Jacob gave a twisted half-smile. “I’m with the sheriff’s department, Chief Deputy Max Anderson, and this is Alber Police Chief Clara Jefferies. We need to talk to you about what happened at the ranch Monday morning. Can you please tell us what you remember?”
His light blond hair disheveled, Jacob brought his hand without the IV up to his neck and shook his head, as if to say, “I can’t talk.”
Out of my bag, I pulled a notebook and pen. I opened to a blank page, placed it on the bed tray and then swiveled it in front of him. He smiled, ever so slightly, wincing as he picked up the pen. It appeared that even the smallest movements caused pain.
As we waited, Jacob, awkward and slow, wrote something down on the notebook, and then held it up: WHY ARE YOU HERE?
This time I tried. “As Max explained, we need to know what happened on Monday morning at your ranch.” Jacob looked confused, and I went on and said, “We need to know who attacked you.”
Jacob’s eyes narrowed, and he wrote something on the open page.
He turned it toward us. I’d had such hope, and when I read the six words on the blue-lined paper it came crashing down on me: IS THAT HOW I GOT HURT?
He doesn’t remember, I thought. But he must remember something.
“Okay, let’s rewind,” I said, hoping we could lead up to it and refresh his memory. “Sunday evening, do you remember Carl coming for dinner?”
A big man, Jacob filled the bed. A few days’ worth of stubble covered his chin, and he dropped the pen back on the tray, and then glanced, confused, at the two of us before scanning the room as if looking