“My mind is always open,” he said, slightly offended. “Twenty-four/seven.” When I offered him my best glare of doubt, he waffled. “Okay, six/five, at the least. What’s up?”
I leaned into him. “I think, and this is a big think, Nathan Yost is doing what he does. He’s trying to control Teresa by controlling her environment.” I put my arm on Ubie’s, begging for an ounce of faith. “I think he’s trying to kill Teresa’s sister, Monica.”
Uncle Bob frowned, looked back toward the crowd before refocusing on me. “That could be hard to prove.”
After releasing the breath I’d been holding, I fought the urge to hug his neck. Displays of affection made him uncomfortable, which was exactly why I utilized them as often as I did. But I wanted him on my side on this.
“I have a plan, but we’re going to have to work fast,” I said as Dr. Nathan Yost hurried up the trail, still in his lab coat.
Angel was behind him, caught sight of me, offered a salute, then disappeared, his job apparently done. I could hardly blame him. He was a teenager, after all. Keeping confined to one place too long was tantamount to torture.
I glanced back at Yost. While the practiced look on his face was one of utter relief, the emotion in his heart was not happiness, nor was it disappointment, as might have been expected had he been responsible for the cave-in. It wasn’t anger or resentment or fear. It was … a whole lot of nothing. No emotion that I could feel whatsoever. At least until he caught sight of Luther and Monica. Then emotion reared within him. And it was most decidedly resentment in the worst way possible. I realized in that instant how he saw them. As enemies. Barriers. Obstacles he had to get past.
Still, if my suspicions were right, Teresa did all this to leave him, which put her in mortal danger. The statement he’d made to Yolanda Pope all those years ago when they were in college rose to the surface of my dirt-covered brain. One stick is all it will take. “She’s not out of the woods yet,” I said to Uncle Bob. “Keep someone on her.”
“Absolutely.” He eyed the doctor with that hard gaze of his I knew and loved so well. Unless it was directed at me.
“Oh, and I need you to gather a few things and meet me at the hospital, including a bottle of flavored sparkling water.”
He glanced back at me. “You doin’ healthy now?”
I grunted. “Not likely. When all this is said and done, I’m heading straight for Margaritaville.”
* * *
Since it took me over an hour to get back to Albuquerque, a little over half that to shower and change into clean clothes, then another forty-five minutes for Uncle Bob to get a warrant to search the Yosts’ house, I had to call Agent Carson and give her the bad news. It took me longer to figure out how to prove the doctor’s guilt than the thirty minutes we’d originally agreed upon, but considering travel time and the fact that cleanliness was next to godliness, she said we were still good. Which, whew.
Teresa Yost’s leg didn’t require surgery. They’d set it and wheeled her to a private room when she suddenly needed more tests, thanks to Uncle Bob and his wily ways with the women. Namely a nurse who looked at Ubie like he was a sugary morsel dipped in chocolate.
A couple of cops posing as orderlies wheeled Teresa into a labor and delivery room that contained some very interesting equipment. It made me only slightly less comfortable than that time I got to sit in an actual electric chair. You know, for giggles. As the men left, I stepped inside with a nod and closed the door. The lights had been turned low, and Teresa lay on the gurney half asleep as a result. She’d been covered in pale blue hospital gowns, and her leg, which had been propped up by pillows, had a temporary brace on it until the swelling went down enough for a cast.
“Teresa?” I said, inching toward her.
She blinked her eyes open and drew her brows together.
“I’m Charlotte Davidson. You might remember me from the mine?”
Her eyes registered recognition. “Yes. You found me.”
I nodded and stepped closer. “I’m not sure how much you can recall. I’m a private investigator. Luther and Monica hired me. Kind of.”
She smiled sleepily at the mention of their names.
I needed to hurry. Yost would know there was no reason for Teresa to be in a delivery room unless she was seriously holding out on him. Thankfully, he had rounds to make.
“We don’t have much time, Teresa, so I’m going to sum up what I know happened and what I think happened and see where we stand. Is that okay?”
Her mouth thinned with worry, but she nodded.
“First, I know you sabotaged the mine.” When she looked away without arguing, I continued. “You used the ATV and the winch to loosen the beams along the shaft. But I don’t think you meant to be in it when it collapsed.”
“I forgot to leave my cell phone,” she said weakly, embarrassment wafting off her. “I went back in to leave it with my stuff so they’d think I was still in there.”
“And that’s when it collapsed.”
With a hesitant nod, she confirmed what the miner had said. “The mines are so deep, they’d stop looking eventually.”
“But before you did all this, you took out a life insurance policy on yourself for your sister, so she could get medical help.”
She turned an astonished expression on me.
“Somehow,” I continued, “you found out about Nathan’s first wife. You found out he killed her when she tried to leave him.”
Her expression didn’t waver.
“He smothers you. Tries to control every aspect of your life.”
A hint of shame flitted across her face.
“And you wonder how it could have come to this. How it could have gone so far.”
“Yes,” she whispered, the shame evident in her crinkled chin.
“Teresa, your husband is very good at what he does. He’s a practiced surgeon in both the physical and the emotional realms. He knew what he was doing. He knew how to control you. That you wouldn’t tell your brother what was going on, because you were afraid of what Luther would do.”
A soft gasp echoed in the room, confirming everything I’d just said.
“Why should your brother have to pay for your mistakes, right? He would have hurt Nathan. Possibly killed him and then paid the price for the rest of his life.”