Page 88 of Valor

Jackie got out of the bed. “I’ll get out of this gown and get my uniform on. Count me in.”

“Thank you both,” Allen said over his shoulder as he headed for the nurse’s station.

The officer jogged down the hall. “We’ve got two cars on the way.”

“Great. I’m going to find security, so we have some information to give them when they arrive.” He looked at the nurses, who knew his question before he could voice it. They pointed down the hall to a sign on the wall. Security could be reached at the main registration downstairs. He avoided the elevator to save time and made it there in under a minute.

At the front desk, he quickly relayed his issue and that it was urgent. The front desk let him into the secure area where the hired officers watched some cameras. Allen knocked, seeing the men through the glass at the top of the door, surprising them.

One came over. “Can I help you?”

Allen again relayed what he needed.

“Interesting. We saw two doctors leave about ten minutes ago, but one was limping along slowly.”

“That’s them.” Heather shouldn’t even be walking. If he’d been down by her room, this wouldn’t have happened. She would still be there and safe. He couldn’t blame the officer for doing his job. Though he wished the man would’ve given Heather top priority.

Heather had briefly mentioned she’d been put second by another officer. Would this prove to her she was right? Had his choice to have someone else stand at her door and protect her ruined his chance to prove to her he could be trusted?

He watched the video of the two leaving the hospital. They switched the camera, following the progression of the two until they got into a car. He wrote down the make and model, then asked them to zoom in on the car. They did so, but it was too blurry to get a license plate number.

At least he knew which way they’d gone. Maybe they’d catch a break and see the car on traffic cameras. He met back up with Rod out in the hallway. “I have some information. Are the officers here yet?”

Technically, he was outside his jurisdiction, and he had to give them control of the case until they returned to Wall. “Yes, they just arrived. I saw them out by the registration desk. I asked them to wait there for you. Who was it?”

He wasn’t completely sure, but by the height, he suspected Micha had been the one to sneak in and take Heather. “Probably Micha, which means Eric is still out there trying to get this done. If he can’t do it legally, he’ll do it illegally. The Goddards can’t stand in his way. Did they have family we need to worry about?” They had to or there would be no reason for Eric to push the zoning change.

“Yes, two sons. Both of them live in Custer.”

Allen froze mid-step. “Did you say Custer? Heather was just telling me that the other major rose quartz mine is there. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“If that family was sitting on a pile of quartz, don’t you think they would have started trying to mine it?” Rod asked.

“I don’t know. Unless the sons knew about the mining operation and told their parents that they could be holding mineral rights that would make them rich. If they unknowingly contacted Eric to test it, that might have sparked his interest, since he lived there most of his life. Maybe some jealousy is involved too.”

Rod nodded as he pushed through the door to the lobby. “That’s a lot of guessing, but it gives us a place to start. I’ll call up the mines in Custer and ask about employees. If they have sons, it’s likely their last name is Goddard.”

“Great. Catch up with me if you find out anything.” He separated from Rod to go talk to the two officers waiting for him. “Thanks for coming.” He handed them a printout he’d gotten from the security team. “This is the car we’re looking for.”

One officer nodded. “We’ll add this information to the APB.”

The other officer motioned for Allen to follow him. “You can ride along with me. We’ll go out and look. That way when we hear anything over the radio, we can get right on it.”

He didn’t have a better idea. With a quick prayer, he followed Officer Grady to his car. The radio was active, even as they got in. Rapid City had a lot more going on than Wall. Allen had always liked the ebb and flow of police work in a small town. He liked knowing everyone and helping even when he wasn’t asked or paid. This was different from anything he usually did.

A message came over the radio with information on the escaping car. Headed toward Wall on I-90. “As long as you’re in my car, I can follow.” Grady glanced over at him.

“I caught a ride to Rapid, so you’d be doing me a favor. I need to catch these guys. If we get them, you’ll be able to clear a couple of murders from your roster too.”

“The mystery homicides from a few days ago?” He turned on his sirens and got off the busy street.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

Grady snorted. “That’s the only case we have no clues on, and it made all of us pretty angry that they dumped the bodies right in front of the station, like they were challenging us.”

That would make him furious too. He’d want to clear that case quicker than any other. People who have that kind of vendetta against the police would cause more trouble. “This is shaping up to be a massive case. I’ve even got the FBI involved.”

Grady whistled as he directed the car toward the interstate. “We didn’t see that coming. We kind of assumed by the nature of what we saw that this was targeted right at us. Especially because we discovered the two men were undercover cops.”

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