C. Box - Free Fire

His stomach surged angrily, growled loud enough to hear. He stood and stretched, tried Lars’s cell phone number again and left yet another message, then went outside for some cold air.

He was surprised to see the only NPS cruiser in the parking lot was Demming’s. One of the attending rangers must have driven it down the canyon in the caravan and gone back with someone else. Joe walked up to the car, saw the blood-flecked driver’s door and winced.

It was unlocked. Joe opened the driver’s door and looked inside.Demming’s daypack, jacket, and lunch box were on the front seat and floor. The mike was cradled, the shotgun unbuckledfor quick access.

He shut the door and started back to the clinic when it hit him: Where was her laptop?

He turned and searched again, making sure it wasn’t under her seat, in the trunk, or under the jacket. He clearly rememberedseeing it that morning on the seat between them. It was possible one of the rangers in the caravan had taken it back for evidence, but very unlikely since on the surface a laptop has nothing to do with a roadside bushwhack. And if they took the computer as part of evidence gathering, why would they leave all her belongings in the unlocked car?

No, Joe thought. Somebody involved in the crime-or one of the crimes, there were so many-had taken the laptop. And whoever had it was likely the inside man in all that had happened,the man McCann feared as well.

Joe entered the lobby to find the emergency room doctor bent over the counter, scribbling on his clipboard. He looked up as Joe came in.

“I thought everyone was gone,” he said.

“It’s just me.”

“Are you the husband?”

“No,” Joe said, “just a friend. A colleague.” Joe tried to read something, anything, into the stoic expression the doctor showed.

There was an excruciating silence and Joe felt his fear build to a crescendo.

To his surprise, the doctor said, “It isn’t as bad as I’d thought.”

“Really?”

The doctor nodded. “There are two gunshot wounds, one of them serious. The bullet entered here”-he demonstrated by raisinghis left arm and reaching across his body with his right until his palm rested on the back of his ribs-“and angled up. There’s extensive organ damage and her left lung is collapsed. The slug itself is lodged in her sternum beneath her left breast. She’s lucky as hell it angled to the left instead of to the right, into her heart. But she’s starting to stabilize. Blood pressure is getting better, and her right lung is compensating for the damaged left lung, so she’s breathing almost normally. Based on what I can see, she has a very good chance to pull through.”

Joe almost asked the doctor to repeat himself, to make sure he’d heard right.

“But wasn’t she shot in the head?” Joe asked.

The doctor flashed a grim grin. “That’s what we thought. It sure looked like it when they brought her in, based on the blood in her hair and powder burns on her face. But once we got her cleaned up, we found out that the bullet creased the skull just above her right ear and never broke through the bone. It made a hell of a scratch and it bled a lot because of the location, but all she needed on her scalp were a dozen stitches. It was a fairly small-caliber weapon, thank God. The bullet was diverted by her skull. Up here, most of the gunshot wounds are from heavierweapons, hunting rifles and the like.”

Joe felt a rush of joy, smiled. “Her hard head saved her.”

“I guess you could say that.”

He breathed a long sigh of relief.

“I agree,” the doctor said. “I see no need to send her by chopper to Billings, really. She should go there for observation, of course, since we don’t have the greatest facilities here. We’re more like a MASH unit than a real hospital. I can ask the EMT driver to take her later today. But if I were a betting man, I’d bet on a recovery. Not to say she’ll ever be arresting bad guys again or wrestling bears, whatever park rangers do.”

“I should call her family,” Joe said, but suddenly had second thoughts.

The doctor nodded. “I’ll advise Ranger Ashby.”

Joe said, “I’d suggest you don’t do that.”

The doctor did a double take. “Excuse me?”

“I’d advise you to send her to the hospital in Billings as soon as possible. Call in the Life Flight helicopter so everybody knows she’s gone from here. They’ll assume she’s still in criticalcondition. That is, unless you want someone to come into this clinic and finish her off, I’d advise getting her out of here as fast as you can.”

The doctor tossed the clipboard aside and sat heavily in a visitor’s chair. “Explain,” he said flatly. “I’m listening, but I’ve only got a minute before I need to go back and check on her.”

Joe told the doctor why he was in Yellowstone, who he worked for, what had happened at Bechler and Biscuit Basin. The doctor nodded, listening, but also stealing quick glances as his wristwatch. “None of what you’ve told me gives me a reasonto withhold information.”

“Think about it,” Joe said. “You showed me where she was hit. In the back . Not straight on, where you’d assume the guy she pulled over would have shot her. No, she was shot by who she assumed was her backup. She was shot by a ranger, and probably someone she knew well enough to keep her back to. And whoever did it used a throw-down gun that can’t be traced. Cops think about things like that, believe me. Your average bad guy would have taken his gun with him and tried to get rid of it far away from the scene, or more likely just kept it with him.”

The doctor arched his eyebrows, as if not wanting to buy into Joe’s theory.

“Demming and I got too close to what’s going on up here,” Joe said. “Even though we’re not exactly sure what it is yet. I think one or more of the men in this room tonight pulled the trigger and followed her here. I don’t want him coming back, do you?”

The doctor shook his head, but in a way that indicated he wasn’t too sure.

“She had a laptop in her car,” Joe said. “There was informationon that laptop that might have implicated some people in the Bechler murders and the Cutler death. The laptop is gone. Somebody took it from her car tonight.”

After a few beats, the doctor said, “Do you know who it is?”

“I can’t be sure yet,” Joe said. “But I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Does he have only one good eye? Like maybe his vision is impaired just enough to miss a head shot by a few inches?”

“Bingo,” Joe said, impressed with the observation.

Their conversation had been so intense he hadn’t noticed the burring of the telephone in the receptionist’s office. She appearedat the counter holding the receiver and gestured with it toward Joe. “He says his name is Lars Demming. He wants to talk to you.”

“I’ve got to take this,” Joe said to the doctor.

“And I guess I need to call the chopper,” the doctor said, risingwearily. “But you better be right about all this. Can you promise me you’re right?”

Joe started to, then shrugged. “Nope. I’m pretty much guessing,as usual. But I’d rather have her in Billings than here, just in case. Wouldn’t you?”

The doctor sighed and shook his head, and went to call for the Life Flight helicopter.

Lars was drunk, shouting and crying. “I leave for one night and my wife gets shot! Shot! I’ll KILL the son of a bitch who did this, I swear to God!” Joe held the phone away from his ear and grimaced. “I’m out with my friends and forget to turn my phone on, and when I get back to the room I have twenty messages! Twenty! My kids crying, you calling. I feel like shit warmed over! Jesus, poor Judy, poor Judy, poor Judy, poor me, poor Erin, poor Jake. .”