River’s End

give Noah some time with Mike, don’t we? I’ll sit with you.” She sent Noah a quiet look, then still murmuring, led Maggie down the hall.
    Swamped with grief, Noah lowered his head to his hands. He hadn’t moved when Frank came through the double doors to the left and saw him. Saying nothing, Frank sat, laid an arm over Noah’s shoulders.
    “I don’t know what to do,” Noah said when he could speak again.
    “You’re doing it. You’re here.”
    “I want to hurt her. I’m going to find a way to make her pay for this.”
    “That’s not what you need to focus on now.”
    “You know she did this.” Noah straightened, stared at Frank with burning eyes. “
    You know she did.”
    “It’s very possible. She’ll be questioned as soon as they locate her, Noah.” He gripped Noah’s shoulder, cutting off the vicious stream of oaths. “She can’t be charged without evidence.”
    “She’ll dance. Goddamn it, Dad, you know she’ll dance around this. I’m not letting her get away with it.”
    “I don’t know that,” Frank said firmly. “Neither do you. But I am telling you, as your father and as a cop, to stay away from her. If you follow through on what you’re feeling right now, you’ll only make matters worse. Let her box herself in, Noah, so we can put her away.”
    If Mike died, Noah thought, they wouldn’t be able to put her away deep enough. He stayed at the hospital until dawn, then went to his parents’ house, collapsed facedown on his childhood bed and dropped into oblivion for four hours. When he’d showered off twenty-four hours of sweat and fatigue, he went into the kitchen.
    His mother was there, dressed in an ancient terry-cloth robe and breaking eggs into a bowl. Because love for her burst through him, he went to her, wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back against him.
    “Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”
    She managed a quiet laugh, lifting a hand up and around to pat his face. “I threw out the house rules this morning. Real eggs, real coffee all around. It’s going to be another long day.”
    “Yeah.” He looked over the top of her head, through the kitchen window into the yard beyond. “Remember when Mike and I tried to build that fort out back? We got all this scrap wood together and these rusted nails. Of course, he stepped on one and had to get a tetanus shot.”
    “Screamed bloody murder when he stepped on the nail. I thought he’d cut off an arm.” She let out a laughing sigh that ended perilously close to a sob. “I love that boy. And I’m ashamed that after I heard what happened, my first thought was thank God it wasn’t Noah. Oh, poor Maggie.”
    She eased away, picked up the bowl again and began briskly beating eggs. “We have to think positively. Think in healing white light. I’ve read a lot of books on it.”
    He had to smile a little. “I bet you have.”
    “We’re going to bring him out of this.” She got out a skillet, and the look she sent Noah was fierce and strong. “Believe it.”
    He wanted to, but every time he went into the tiny room in the hospital and saw Mike still and pale, his head swathed in bandages, his eyes sunk in shadowed bruises, his faith faltered.
    As morning swam toward afternoon, he paced the corridor while rage built inside him. He couldn’t let Caryn get away with what she’d done. He couldn’t do anything but hope and pray and stand at his friend’s bedside and talk nonsense just to block out the monotonous beep of machines.
    She’d wanted a shot at him, he thought. By Christ, he’d give it to her. He turned toward the elevator, strode toward it, with hate blooming black in his heart.
    “Noah?”
    “What?” Fists already clenched, he glanced at the brunette. She wore a lab coat over shirt and trousers, with a stethoscope in her pocket. “Are you one of Mike Elmo’s doctors?”
    “No. I—”
    “I know you,” he interrupted. “Don’t I?”
    “We met at the club—you and Mike, my friend and I. I’m Dory.”
    “Right.” He rubbed his tired eyes. The pretty brunette with the Southern drawl who stood up for him the night Caryn had come in. “You’re a doctor?”
    “Yes. Emergency medicine. I’m on my break and wanted to see how Mike was doing.”
    “They just keep saying no change.”
    “I’ll check on that in a minute. You look like you could use some air. Let’s take a walk.”
    “I was just heading out.”
    “Let’s take a walk,” she repeated. She’d seen