Page 34 of Chosen Path
“Her husband?”
“Yep. Travis Wolf.”
“Let’s hope the emergency contact is still alive and in town,” Molly said, crossing her fingers.
“Oh, she’s still alive. And she’s in your living room.”
Molly and Officer Booth both turned and stared at Hope. She stared back at them, not understanding. After a long pause, Bodhi’s words sank in.
“Me?” She squeaked, squeezing the pillow tighter.
“Hope,” Bodhi confirmed. “Molly, do you want me to run this file up to you?”
“No need. I trust your reading comprehension. Thanks.”
Molly removed her finger from the intercom button and plopped down next to Hope on the couch. Officer Booth removed a radio from the clip on her belt.
“Perth,” she said into the radio.
“I’m here. You done at the mortuary?”
“No. I’m still at Doc Hart’s. Something’s come up.”
“Jeez, Jenny, hurry it up, will you? It reeks of piss in here.”
Officer Booth’s face tightened. “Copy that, Perth. Crack a window or something and quit bellyaching.”
She turned off the radio and stowed it. Then she returned to Molly’s cozy seating arrangement and pulled the chair she’d been sitting in earlier closer to the couch. She sat and leaned forward, looking straight at Hope. Her expression was relaxed, and her hands dangled loosely over her knees. But Hope could sense the feline energy coursing just beneath her casual surface. The officer was a panther, ready to spring. Hope shrank back, pressing herself into the sofa.
“Well, this is a coincidence,” Officer Booth said in a perfectly neutral tone. Atooneutral tone.
Her voice made the hairs on the back of Hope’s neck stand up. “It’s a mistake. It’s got to be. Why would she list me as her emergency contact?” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush.
“Hey, Hope. Hope, look at me.”
Once again, Molly’s gentle voice reached in and pulled Hope out of her rising panic. She turned to the doctor.
“Good. Take a breath. Go on.”
Hope inhaled a long, slow belly breath.
“Let it out.”
She exhaled until her lungs were empty.
“Great. Didn’t you tell me that you felt protective of Corrine after Travis died?”
Before answering Molly’s question, Hope flicked her eyes toward Officer Booth, who met her gaze with one raised eyebrow and a skeptical twist of her lips.
Hope looked back at Molly. She cleared her throat. “I did say that. I mean, I did feel that way.”
“So this isn’t necessarily that odd. Did you do things to help her or take care of her? Like today, when you stopped by with cough syrup because you knew she wasn’t feeling well?”
Hope nodded her head rapidly. “Yeah. Just little things. I would shovel her walk when it snowed. I used to mow the lawn for her until she hired a kid from across the way to do it.”
“Anything else you did for her?” The police officer asked, relaxing visibly.
“Um, I would put aside new releases by her favorite authors when they came in. Oh, and I also picked up these apple cider donuts that she likes when I was at the farmer’s market. And for a while, she would come to my mom’s for Sunday dinner. Actually, she might have still been going up until my mom died. I don’t know.”
