A Matter of Circumstance by M J Marlow (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

let them look into her shooting. “Can we call someone for you?” “No,” Victoria shook her head and wished she hadn’t as stars danced in front of her eyes. “I’m fine.” She felt the tears on her cheeks and wiped them away in frustration. “Did they at least catch the man who shot me?” “You saw him?” Martin perked up. This was something that hadn’t come out in the investigation into her shooting. Not one of the witnesses had seen the shooter. “He was wearing a blue bandana over his face any time he let me see,” Victoria replied. “The woman he asked to watch me was letting me go, but he was going to keep me. She had a gun and they fought over it. The first two shots went wide. The third one hit me.” She looked at her friend in confusion. “I think he shot her,” she looked to Martin for confirmation. He nodded and she was angry and sad. “He didn’t need do that. He told my father he was going to let me go.” “You now better than to believe that, Victoria,” Martin told her. “You weren’t in your neighborhood when you were abducted. Why did you go with Cabrera?” “He told me my father had sent him,” She could feel herself drifting off. “I’m tired, Martin. Can you come back later?” “Of course, Victoria,” Martin nodded. He looked at the nurse. “Call me if she remembers anything that could be useful.” “Can I have a mirror?” Victoria asked the nurse a few hours later when she woke up again. The woman hesitated. “Please?” The woman handed her a mirror she was carrying in her pocket and Victoria looked at her heart-shaped face, blue eyes and wavy black hair. There was a bandage on the left side of her head, smaller than she had feared. “It could have been worse. I could be dead.” She clutched the edge of the blanket and bit her lip nervously. “I deserved to be shot falling for such an obvious lure.” “You need to stay calm, Miss Ryan,” the nurse said gently. “Get some rest now and let yourself heal.” “Why did he shoot me?” Victoria asked herself. A wave of pain went through her head. “Oh fudge!” she cursed and lay back to will herself to calm down. She giggled at the word that had sprung from her lips in her pain. “Even now, I don’t use swear words.” She woke up several hours later and had just finished her dinner when the door opened and a man in a long white coat walked in. His gray eyes were kind as he looked at her. He came towards the bed and for some reason she felt her skin crawl. He reached for the chart and the way he kept looking at her as he scanned it made her want to run. Every instinct told her that this was an enemy. “It’s been a week, Miss Ryan,” he said as he put the chart back. “How are you feeling?” “You’re not my doctor,” Victoria said as she looked to the nurse. “Why is he here?” She saw his dark gray eyes and fear began to nibble at her mind. Her shooter had dark gray eyes. “I don’t want him here,” she said as she tried to get up and was struck by a wave of panic and dizziness that had her knees buckling. Why was she still so out of it if she’d been shot a week ago? She grabbed the call button and pressed it several times as he came towards her. “Go away!” she screamed and tried to move away from him. The door opened and Martin came running. He helped her up and the doctor stepped aside. “I don’t want him here!” she sobbed as Martin helped her back to bed. “Please don’t let him back in this room.” “What happened?” Martin asked the nurse as she called for the doctor on Victoria’s case. “Dr. Kennedy came in to talk to Miss Ryan,” the nurse replied. “She freaked out. There was something about him that made her panic.” “Maybe because he has the same color eyes as the man who kidnapped me?” Victoria suggested. The fear was ebbing now that the man was further away from her. “I don’t know what got into me. I’m not usually this out of control.” “I’m sorry I reminded you of that unpleasant experience,” the doctor said softly. He turned to Martin. “I’m Doctor Michael Kennedy,” he introduced himself. “I work over at Riverside as a neurologist. Doctor Winters asked me to come speak to Miss Ryan.” He looked at Victoria now and saw that she was still struggling to overcome the panic attack. “I was under the assumption that he told you I would be coming to see you, Miss Ryan. I am sorry that I upset you.” He sat down in the chair and his manner was gentle. He didn’t fool her for one minute. “What was it you noticed right before the attack started?” “You didn’t say anything to me when I asked why you were here,” Victoria told him, “and your eyes. The man who kidnapped me; his gray eyes were all he let me see of his face.” “Very good,” Michael smiled at her. “So you aren’t suffering any amnesia as a result of the shooting just some behavior problems.” He frowned as she winced when he touched her head. “Still in pain, though.” She let him believe she was over the panic now. “That should pass in the next few days,” he assured her. “The bullet did quite a bit of damage, though I understand not as much as it could have. You apparently reacted and were dodging as it hit.” “I don’t remember moving,” Victoria said as she lay back and tried to relax. “All I remember is being set up so someone could kidnap me and then put a bullet in my head.” “More of the details will surface as your brain heals,” Michael smiled at her. “You are going to be your old self in no time.” “That would be nice,” Victoria nodded, “because I don’t like who I am right now.” She looked at Martin. “Was there anything at the scene that could lead to his identity, Martin?” She saw the frown on Michael’s face. “Is that a problem? Surely the more information I am exposed to, the better chance I’ll have of remembering something?” “Or a better chance of confusing you further,” Michael said as the devil’s advocate. He looked at Martin. “Has her family been made aware of her condition?” “They were here every day to check on her while she was comatose,” Martin said. “They decided to give her distance now so she could concentrate on finding out what happened. I don’t agree with that decision by the way, Victoria, but it’s their call. I’ll be back later.” “Say hello to Joanna for me,” Victoria smiled at him and closed her eyes. “You’re wrong, Martin,” Joanna said the minute he got to the viewing room. “What if this shooter decided to go after some other member of her family now that he’s seen how well things went with Victoria?” She opened the file on Victoria Ryan, something she hadn’t done when Victoria had agreed to be her sister. “Her uncle left his contact information.” She saw the number. “Let’s ask Hawk to speak to him again.” An hour later, Hawk Travers, head of the FBI’s Missing Persons Bureau for Arizona was entering the nave of Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in Loco Grande. He felt just as strongly that they owed Victoria all the help they could give her to figure out why someone wanted her dead. She had nearly died twice to help the Marlow family get Juliana back. And the relationship they had begun to form now that she was free to do so was precious to him. She was precious to him. “Hello?” His voice echoed through the cool interior of the small church. He admired the dark wood of the support beams and the pews. It was obvious someone took a great pride in caring for the church. He heard a door open and called out again. A short silver-haired man with dark brown eyes appeared. His glasses were perched on the end of his long nose and he looked harried. “Reverend Ryan?” Hawk smiled and held out his hand. “It’s Hawk Travers.” “Oh yes,” Ryan nodded. “How is she doing, Hawk?” He was looking quite relieved as he set down the stack of hymnals he was carrying. “We’ve been praying for her since the night we heard she was shot. Now that she’s woken up, what is going to happen?” “The authorities will keep her in protective custody, Reverend,” Travers told him. “Victoria doesn’t know why she was shot, and the man is still out there.” He saw the man’s worry and wished he could have spared him. “You said the man who shot her is still out there,” Ryan asked and Hawk nodded. “Does that mean he might try again?” “I wish I could assure you he won’t, Reverend,” Hawk told him honestly, “but your niece will be in danger until we catch the man who tried to kill her.” “The poor girl,” Ryan sighed. “Come with me. I have something that might make her feel better.” Hawk followed the man out of the church to the rectory and was led upstairs into a room he knew could only be Victoria’s. The man took an old Steiff bear off the bed and handed it to him. “This bear has been with her since she was born. It might help her stay calm.” He put his hand on Hawk’s. “I would ask to come see her, but that might be too much for her right now. Tell her that Poppy and Muddy are praying for her.” “If you wouldn’t mind, Reverend,” Hawk said as he looked around the room item by item, “it might help if I stayed here for a few minutes.” “Take your time, son,” Ryan nodded; his smile telling Hawk he understood why he was staying. “Please close the door when you’re through?” Hawk nodded and closed the door behind the man. He didn’t move until he heard the man go down the stairs and then he got on the computer. He pulled up her files and saw the different investigations she had been keeping notes on. They were encrypted and he found a disk and transferred the notes onto them for the Tech division. He had just finished and closed down when he heard a commotion outside. He slid the disks into the interior pocket of his leather jacket and watched as Reverend Ryan argued with a tall, dark-haired man with a nasty look on his face. “Reverend Ryan?” Hawk called out as he approached them a moment later. The man stopped yelling and glared at the interruption. Hawk didn’t like the look of this man at all. “Am I interrupting something?” “The Reverend tells me you’re the one who brought him news of his niece,” the man snapped as he turned on his new victim. “I want to see her.” “No can do, Mr…” “Agent Steven Gunther,” the man supplied his name. There was annoyance in his dark gray eyes. “I have questions for her about an ongoing case I’m working.” “Miss Ryan is in protective custody, Agent Gunther,” Hawk told him bluntly. “Someone tried to kill her. Talk to her supervisor.” “You’re not working the case?” Gunther asked, suddenly suspicious of Hawk. “Agent Travers is Victoria’s fiancé,” Ryan spoke up before Hawk could. “He’s not allowed to work the case.” Hawk could see the little man was not at all happy with Gunther being there. In the two months since he and Victoria had begun dating he had learned to read him quite well. There was something