It happened whenever she came to town. She tried not to imagine two years of this kind of scrutiny. She couldn’t escape the stares, and her self-consciousness dredged up memories of the people who had known her.

She glanced at Ruth as she passed the director’s office. “The folks here might prefer you to do the suturing.”

“We don’t always get what we want in life, do we?”

Jama stopped and blinked.

“You were in a surgical residency before you switched to family practice.” Ruth looked up from a stack of paperwork on her desk.

“The mayor tell you that?”

“Zelda did. Someone might have given me more information about you. I’d like to know what other skills you might have that can be utilized.”

“I can do the sutures.”

“Do you know how to operate the new monitors, the phone system, the Pixus dispenser and all the other brand-new, state-of-the-art equipment around here?”

“Of course. You’re not going to have to break me in from scratch.”

Ruth leaned back with a sigh of exasperation. “Not good enough. I told Eric we needed time, but no one seems interested in giving it to us. What difference would a couple of extra days make?”

“My fault,” Jama said. “I opened the barn door when I treated Monty this morning. You may not come from a small town, but word spreads fast in River Dance. Why are you so concerned that I be familiar with the equipment? Don’t you know how to operate these things?”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Where I come from, everything is secondhand ancient. Let’s get with it. Don’t forget we may have more patients coming from the winery. I have applicants to be interviewed, and some have waited more than an hour.”

Jama glanced down the hallway to an older woman and a young man, both seated at the far corner from the winery workers. “Tyrell has already offered to help us if we need him.”

“How can I reach him?”

Jama jotted Tyrell’s cell number on a sticky note. “There’s something else you need to be aware of.”

Ruth looked up, her expression plain on her face. What is it this time?

Jama drew the office door shut behind her and placed Tyrell’s number on Ruth’s desk. “You know that man I flew out this morning? It is feared that his eleven-year-old granddaughter, Doriann Streeter, has been kidnapped.”

Ruth closed her eyes and took a heavy breath as an expression of distress flashed over her face. “So that would be Tyrell’s niece.”

“Yes. I think he would welcome the distraction of working with patients.”

Ruth nodded. “Zelda’s been running herself ragged today. She needs a break. Get the suturing done, then send her home. If more patients come in, we’ll call Tyrell. Meanwhile, since we seem to be up and running in spite of our lack of staff, I’ll see if I can’t interview someone with X-ray training. Maybe I can check out those skills with practical testing.”

Doriann stared at the barn siding three inches from her nose. One day a couple of years ago, Aunt Renee had brought a real-live private detective to the house to speak to a group of homeschool kids about his job.

What Doriann had always thought would be fun and exciting turned out to sound like the boringest job in the world. The detective told the kids that he had to sit for hours in his car, or in some other hidden location, waiting for someone to make a move. Then there would be a rush of adrenaline when he hurried to make sure the person didn’t get away.

Then he told them that he usually didn’t chase convicted criminals. The police did. He checked out people who might be pulling an insurance scam, or having an affair.

Unfortunately, just when his speech got interesting, Aunt Renee quickly cut him off, thanked him for his time and assured the kids that there were all kinds of opportunities for them in their future. Criminal justice was only one career option.

Doriann didn’t want to be a private detective. But now it seemed she was doing it, like it or not. Clancy and Deb needed to fall asleep before she could get her cell phone, and even then, she wasn’t sure if she’d have the guts to go into that barn.

But if she didn’t go in, that would mean she’d wasted all this time. She’d begged Mom and Dad for that GPS navigational program on her new phone last year, and now she could use it as she never imagined. She had to get out of here, wherever she was, and lead the police to the killers.

It’d be easy to find the Katy Trail or the river or the road if she could only get to that phone!

This whole waiting game was worse than boring. It was deadly. What if she fell asleep? She’d hardly slept at all last night. What if she snored? Clancy and Deb could be all over her.

That was the way the undercover detective said it happened. If he slipped for just one minute, he could lose his case, lose his client, be out of a job.

She couldn’t help wondering what that detective would do if he were here now. Of course, being a big, tough man with a gun, he wouldn’t be hiding here, he’d be charging into the barn with that gun drawn.

Doriann wished she was armed. But Grandma always told her prayer worked better than any man-made weapon. Aunt Renee always prayed for a “hedge of angels to surround us in our time of need,” whatever that meant. Doriann had heard of hedge trees and trimming hedge bushes, but she couldn’t imagine angel hedges. She’d sure love to be surrounded by angels right now, though.

Maybe she was.

And yet, she was getting tired of waiting. And she didn’t have the patience of the private eye. She itched in places she couldn’t scratch, even more than usual. Her eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. She could use a nap, which was crazy.

Still, she closed her eyes for just a moment.

She was feeling herself relax when a sharp cackle startled her. She jerked her head upright, realizing she’d fallen asleep enough to drool down the side of her face.

“Guess what I just realized,” Clancy exclaimed. “I’ve still got the kid’s phone.”

“So?”

“Her cell phone.”

Deb groaned. “What good’s that gonna do us?”

“You got a cell phone with power left in it? Mine went down with the truck. We could call anybody we wanted to with this, anywhere in the world, and it’d be free.”

“Who’s there to call?” Deb asked.

“Your contacts in St. Louis, for one. Let ’em know we’ll be there as soon as we can rustle up another car, and we’ll be needing some stuff to cook.”

“Wow, what a great idea.” Deb spoke as if she thought that was anything but a good idea. “If I had their numbers, we’d be all set. Think you can find my contact numbers on a kid’s cell phone?”

Clancy didn’t reply, but he chuckled a moment later. “Oh, man, would you look at this? She took pictures. Gotta be family. There’s this old couple, and a big honkin’ guy with black hair, and then here’s this dog. Hey, doesn’t this look like that dog we saw on the road? The one I would’ve bagged if the brat hadn’t kicked my leg.”

“The one that almost got us killed,” Deb said.

Doriann remembered the day she went around River Dance taking pictures with her new cell phone. She loved what Grandpa called her “gadgets.”

“Stop that, will you?” Deb complained. “You’re going to run the battery down. Then who’re you gonna call?”

“Doesn’t sound like we’ve got anybody to call,” he grumbled, then as Doriann peered through a crack in the side of the barn, he tossed the phone aside, into the hay he’d called “stinking.”

“Say.” He straightened. “That did look like the hound we saw on the road. That thing had one red ear and one white, just like the one in these pictures.” He reached once more for the cell phone.

“Would you leave that thing alone! We may need it and won’t have the power.”

“Yeah? And I told you when we first started this trip that I’m the one in charge. Keep your ideas to yourself.”