The Welcoming

closed her eyes and concentrated on clearing her mind. It was fairly obvious that she was in bed—but how the devil had she gotten there?
    She’d been walking the dog, she remembered, and Ludwig had found a tree beside the road irresistible. Then . . .
    “There was a car,” she said, opening her eyes again. “They must have been drunk or crazy. It seemed like they came right at me. If Ludwig hadn’t already been pulling me off the road, I—” She wasn’t quite ready to consider that. “I stumbled, I think. I don’t know.”
    “It doesn’t matter now,” Mae assured her. “We’ll figure it all out later.”
    After a brisk knock, the outside door opened. A short, spry little man with a shock of white hair hustled in. He carried a black bag and was wearing grubby overalls and muddy boots. Charity took one look, then closed her eyes again.
    “Go away, Dr. Mertens. I’m not feeling well.”
    “She never changes.” Mertens nodded to Roman, then walked over to examine his patient.
    Roman slipped quietly out into the sitting room. He needed a moment to pull himself together, to quiet the rage that was building now that he knew she would be all right. He had lost his parents, he had buried his best friend, but he had never, never felt the kind of panic he had experienced when he had seen Charity bleeding and unconscious beside the road.
    Taking out a cigarette, he went to the open window. He thought about the driver of the old, rusted Chevy that had run her down. Even as his rage cooled, Roman understood one thing with perfect clarity. It would be his pleasure to kill whoever had hurt her.
    “Excuse me.” Lori was standing in the hall doorway, wringing her hands. “The sheriff’s here. He wants to talk to you, so I brought him up.” She tugged at her apron and stared at the closed door on the other side of the room. “Charity?”
    “The doctor’s with her,” Roman said. “She’ll be fine.”
    Lori closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ll tell the others. Go on in, Sheriff.”
    Roman studied the paunchy man, who had obviously been called out of bed. His shirttail was only partially tucked into his pants, and he was sipping a cup of coffee as he came into the room.
    “You Roman DeWinter?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Sheriff Royce.” He sat, with a sigh, on the arm of Charity’s rose-colored Queen Anne chair. “What’s this about a hit-and-run?”
    “About twenty minutes ago somebody tried to run down Miss Ford.”
    Royce turned to stare at the closed door just the way Lori had done. “How is she?”
    “Banged up. She’s got a gash on her head and some bruises.”
    “Were you with her?” He pulled out a pad and a stubby pencil.
    “No. I was about a quarter mile away. The car swerved at me, then kept going. I heard Charity scream. When I got to her, she was unconscious.”
    “Don’t suppose you got a good look at the car?”
    “Dark blue Chevy. Sedan, ‘67, ‘68. Muffler was bad. Right front fender was rusted through. Washington plates Alpha Foxtrot Juliet 847.”
    Royce lifted both brows as he took down the description. “You got a good eye.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Good enough for you to guess if he ran you down on purpose?”
    “I don’t have to guess. He was aiming.”
    Without a flicker of an eye, Royce continued taking notes. He added a reminder to himself to do a routine check on Roman DeWinter. “He? Did you see the driver?”
    “No,” Roman said shortly. He was still cursing himself for that.
    “How long have you been on the island, Mr. De-Winter?”
    “Almost a week.”
    “A short time to make enemies.”
    “I don’t have any—here—that I know of.”
    “That makes your theory pretty strange.” Still scribbling, Royce glanced up. “There’s nobody on the island who knows Charity and has a thing against her. If what you’re saying’s true, we’d be talking attempted murder.”
    Roman pitched his cigarette out the window. “That’s just what we’re talking about. I want to know who owns that car.”
    “I’ll check it out.”
    “You already know.”
    Royce tapped his pad on his knee. “Yes, sir, you do have a good eye. I’ll say this. Maybe I do know somebody who owns a car that fits your description. If I do, I know that that person wouldn’t run over a rabbit on purpose, much less a woman. Then again, there’s no saying you have to own a car to drive it.”
    Mae opened the connecting door, and he glanced up. “Well, now,