4

"What do you mean, you're calling the supervisor to find a room for me?" Garreth frowned at the emergency room doctor. "I'm not staying." Hunger cramps wracked him.

The doctor scowled back. "You most certainly are. You may call those flesh wounds, but you've bled heavily. It's given you the most bizarre blood picture I've ever seen. You need to a unit of blood and several days observation."

Knots raced through Garreth's gut. "Make the blood To Go. I'm signing myself out."

"I'm ordering you to stay." Danzig appeared in the doorway, regarding Garreth narrow-eyed. "Or would you assault another orderly and go over the wall again?"

Garreth set his jaw. "I hate hospitals."

Danzig and the doctor exchanged glances. The chief sighed. "Skip that for a moment, then. Just tell me what you know about Mada Bieber."

Garreth froze. "What does she have to do with this?"

"Nothing as far as I know, but Anna Bieber has been calling the station frantically. It seems she hasn't seen Mada since the two of you drove off together around eight-thirty."

Garreth closed his eyes. The one loose end. Everyone believed that the person who died in the van accident was a stranger, the man who shot Ed and him. How did he explain Mada Bieber's disappearance? Then again, it occurred to him, why should he try? She had run away once in her life once before.

He opened his eyes again. "Sue Pfeifer saw her last, turning in the keys to my car at the station."

Danzig frowned. "What?"

Garreth sighed. "It's a long story, the short of which is, in talking we discovered that she might well be my grandmother after all. That upset her. I don't know why. Am I such a terrible person to have as a grandson? Anyway, she took off with my car. I was going to go looking for her. I thought maybe she'd decided to walk around thinking. This archer business made me forget all about her, though." He frowned in concern. "I hope that psycho didn't have friends who took her hostage or something."

"Hostage!" Danzig's eyes widened. "Oh, lord."

Garreth caught the chief's gaze. God, how he longed for bed, and for the blood in his refrigerator. The smell of blood here was driving him crazy with hunger. "Please get my jacket; I'm going home. Helen can look after me, or Maggie can after she's off duty."

Danzig's face lost expression for a moment. "If you're going to be that stubborn about it, all right."

"Chief!" the doctor exploded.

Danzig shrugged. "You can't hold a man against his will if he's able to walk out under his own power."

Please let me be able to stand and walk.

"But when you're home"—Danzig turned on Garreth with a severe scowl—"you get into bed and stay there. I'll call Helen and have her make sure you do."

Garreth dropped his eyes. "Yes, sir," he said meekly.