A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

scan showed there was no further liver damage, that her lung had re-expanded, and that there was no bleeding in her brain.  With the help of medication, the ferocity of her headaches had diminished, and the pain from her fractured ribs was almost bearable.

“All right, I’ll let you go home -- on one condition,” Jeff Nordlund told her.  “A therapist will come to your house every day to work with you for as long as it’s necessary.  Agreed?”

Lily agreed.  What choice did she have?

Dancer came to collect her.  He walked beside her as a nurse wheeled her outside, and then he helped her into his 4-Runner.  It had been almost a week before she remembered who he was and why he was in Port Hancock.  And with that piece of the puzzle came the realization that, although the details were still sketchy, what had happened at Amanda’s cottage might not have been an accident.

. . .

Life on Morgan Hill was certainly not the way it had been.  Lily could not come and go as she pleased.  She was confined to the house and the grounds.  A physical therapist made daily home visits to help her with muscle, balance, and stamina issues.  And Amanda stopped by often to help her with memory, concentration, and mounting frustration matters.

The regimen was tedious, but necessary, Lily was told, and she had to admit it was helping.  The better she felt physically, the more she and Amanda were able to focus on the mental side of her recovery -- and she knew that the sooner she was able to recover all the pieces of her memory, the sooner she would be able to go back to work.

And there was one more change that was made to the way things had been -- and it involved Dancer.  With Carson’s blessing, and Diana’s hearty approval, the U.S. Marshal gave up his room at Miss Polly’s, and moved into the Morgan Hill house.

“This time, I’m not going to let your daughter out of my sight for more than a bathroom call,” he assured her father.  “At least, not until after the Lightfoot trial is over.”

“Look, I don’t want you blaming yourself for what happened to Lily,” Carson told him.  “But I expect it’ll make us all feel a lot safer, having you here.”

. . .

A week after Lily’s return home, she was grudgingly getting used to the routine, thanks mostly to the results, although they were slower coming than she would have liked.  But the saving grace was the afternoon hour she got to spend on the back patio, sharing the peace and quiet and glass of wine with her father and Dancer, relaxing, soaking up the summer weather, and talking about absolutely nothing that was of any importance.

On this particular day, the temperature was a comfortable 75 degrees.  Dressed in shorts and a tank top, she wasn’t dwelling on the scabs and the scars that covered much of her body, or the cast on her arm, or the ribs that still ached, preferring instead to lie back and enjoy a gentle breeze, and watch the puffy white clouds, high above, as they slid slowly across an endless expanse of blue sky.

And then something caught her eye -- something small and metallic that swooped in and out of the clouds, just a blip, really, rising and falling in a rhythm of its own.  It wasn’t a bird, she was sure.  And she was fairly certain it was flying way too high to be a kite.  And then she knew -- she knew exactly what it was.  And she sat bolt upright, spilling her wine all over herself.

“What’s the matter?” Carson asked in alarm.

“A plane!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” her father said.  He, too, had seen the blip.

“No, a plane!” she insisted.  “It was a plane!”

“What was a plane, Lily?” Dancer asked.

“At the cottage,” she cried.  “The explosion -- it happened right after something fell out of a plane!”

Carson and Dancer both stared at her.

“Lily, are you sure?” Dancer asked.

“I’m sure,” she said.  “I was just starting to turn over, and I saw it -- it was a plane.  It was diving and I thought it was in trouble and going to crash, and then just as it flew over us, it started to climb back up, and I saw something fall out of it, and that’s what hit the cottage!”

Dancer pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Carson asked.

“I’m calling Joe,” the US Marshal said.  “He’ll know just what buttons to push to get action on this.”

Five

 

Joe Gideon made his way through the front door of police headquarters.  It was three-thirty on Thursday afternoon, and he had hung up on his conversation with John Dancer exactly three minutes ago.  Then he had raced all the way from the Broad Street Victorian.

“Hi, Sarge,” Manny Santiago greeted him.

“Hey, Manny, how’re things?” Joe said.

“Can’t complain,” the police officer replied.  “What can I do for you?”

“Is the chief in?”

“I think so,” Santiago said.  “Want me to go check?”

“I’d appreciate it,” Joe said, and then paced the reception area until the duty officer returned.

“You’re in luck,” Santiago told him.  “Go on up.”

Kent McAllister was stretched out in his chair behind a huge oak desk in his second-floor office, his hands folded behind his head, when the private investigator entered.  The Port Hancock Chief of Police was tall and muscular, with a handlebar moustache reminiscent of another century.

“Good to see you, Joe,” he said amiably.

“You, too, Chief,” the private investigator said.

“What can I do for you?”

Joe could hardly contain himself.  “I wanted to let you know -- it was a plane.”

“Beg pardon?” McAllister responded.

“It was a plane,” Joe repeated.  “The pipe bomb at the Jansen cottage -- it was tossed out of a plane.”

McAllister sat straight up.  “How do you know that?” he asked.

“Lily remembered.”

“Well, I‘ll be damned,” the chief murmured, almost to himself.  “Of all the things we thought of, I got to admit, we never thought of that.”

“Shouldn’t be