Special Forces Father - By Mallory Kane Page 0,67
child had been in the hands of a man who committed murder for money. She moved to the couch and draped her arm across Max’s legs in a protective gesture, trying to shove the image of the kidnapper with that gun in his hand out of her brain.
After about forty minutes, the sheriff came in, and nodded for Lucas and the sergeant to follow him into his office. He closed the door.
Kate couldn’t hear anymore, and despite the coffee, she could barely keep her eyes open, so she decided to catch a nap while she was waiting. She laid her head back against the couch cushions and dozed.
“Dr. Chalmet?” a voice said.
Kate cringed as she opened her eyes. For a split second her drowsy brain told her that it was the kidnapper talking to her, before she woke up enough to remember that she was in a room at the Sheriff’s Department of St. John the Baptist Parish.
She looked up. It was a man in a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was youngish, maybe late thirties, but had the look of a chronically tired suburban dad. “Dr. Chalmet? I’m Detective Adrian Darrow. I need to ask you some questions.” He gestured to the wooden table, where a couple fast-food bags and a small recorder sat. “I got a chicken biscuit, a sausage biscuit and some French toast sticks. Plus some milk and orange juice. I hope that’s okay.”
“Thank you,” Kate said, glancing at Max. “I think Max is going to sleep for another couple hours—he’s exhausted. But the sausage biscuit and the orange juice sound great.”
He pushed the bags toward her.
“What time is it, anyway?” Kate asked.
“About a quarter to nine,” he said.
“Wow. It was just after sunrise when we got here,” she said, then took a bite of the sandwich. “Good,” she mumbled, chewing. Once she’d swallowed, she asked, “Is there any information about Travis Delancey? He was shot. They took him to the hospital that’s close to here, I think.”
“I don’t know,” Darrow said. “I’ll get somebody to check. But first, I need to ask you some questions.” He turned on the recorder. Kate spent the next two hours reliving all the fear and anxiety of the past five days as she answered his questions.
* * *
“I DON’T CARE who I have to see, how sore I’m going to be or how many forms I have to sign if I leave now. Do you understand?” Travis groused. “It’s after noon. I’ve been here since before dawn and I am leaving—with or without discharge orders.”
The nurse opened her mouth, closed it, opened it one more time, then whirled on her heel and left the room.
Travis turned and looked at his brother Lucas. “Don’t just stand there. Help me.”
Lucas laughed. “That dead-calm look you gave the nurse. Is that some supersecret, classified U.S. throat-paralyzing glare?”
Travis gave a half shrug and kicked the sheet off his right leg. He wiggled it sideways until his foot was hanging off the bed. Then he braced his hands on the guardrails of the bed and lifted his butt and twisted to the right. When he lowered himself back down, he groaned.
Lucas laughed some more.
“Luke, I swear I’ll come up off this bed and beat you into next week.”
“No, you won’t,” Lucas said. “You can’t even stand up. I can’t believe a bullet to the butt cheek is all it took to ground you.”
“Shut up and help me get up. I need to see Kate and my son.”
Lucas’s grin faded. “Okay. I know. But while you’re dressing, we need to talk.”
Travis had known this was coming from the moment he’d first seen his brother in Dawson’s warehouse.
“A Dr. Gingosian called Mom and Dad.”
Lucas’s words almost knocked Travis flat in the bed. Packed into that one sentence were five years of surprises. “I figured he’d call eventually. Where’s doctor-patient confidentiality when you need it?”
“Maybe the Hippocratic oath takes precedence. He told them what happened to you and said you might need psychiatric care.”
Travis set his jaw and blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t. What I need is to see that Kate and Max are all right.”
“You need to go see the folks.”
“This, from you?” Travis responded. “First, you’re calling ’em Mom and Dad. Seems like the last time I heard you call him Dad was—let me think—oh, yeah. Never! He was always that bastard or if you were feeling sentimental, the old man. And what’s up with you being back here? When