She’d heard there were library users who steered away from the building if they saw his Humvee in the parking lot.

There was something clearly off about him, she thought, but she’d never gotten a vibe from him that he was a predator. A nutcase, yes. A paranoid schizophrenic, possibly.

She’d told Joe she would not have even thought of Cudmore in relation to April’s attack.

That she’d misjudged the man so completely gnawed at her. Marybeth was perceptive when it came to judging others and to assessing potential threats, especially when it concerned her children. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t picked up on anything with Cudmore.

—

ALL THE DOCTORS could tell her was that it could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months. Marybeth had a long meeting with the hospital bookkeeper that morning and it had been both frustrating and fairly traumatic. Long-term care for April would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one knew how much. Marybeth made several calls to their insurance company and received few answers.

“Things are so crazy right now,” one of the insurance staffers told her. “They change the rules on us every week. We don’t know which end is up. So at the moment, I can’t tell you for sure what we can cover and what we can’t.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Marybeth asked.

“I wish I could tell you,” the woman said with genuine empathy. “Health care right now is a nightmare. I hope you can be patient while we try and sort it out.”

—

“I CAN BE PATIENT while we go bankrupt,” Marybeth answered.

She tried not to think about the enormous costs of keeping April alive, but she couldn’t help it. She was in charge of family finances, and she knew this could wipe them out. And no one seemed to be able to answer her questions.

She tried not to think about a possible answer to their financial woes, if it came down to that, but she couldn’t help it. Her mother, Missy, was a multimillionaire. She was also on the run with Wolfgang Templeton. Missy had not been in contact in any way since they had flown away from Templeton’s Wyoming ranch in his plane. But even if Marybeth reached out to her, would Missy help out? She’d never really liked April, and she hated Joe.

Missy would be her last possible option, Marybeth concluded. And it might be preferable to declare bankruptcy over that.

The combination of Tilden Cudmore, April’s condition, and the insurance problems—plus being away from her home and family—were weighing her down mightily. After visiting hours the previous two evenings, she’d drunk a bottle of wine by herself in her hotel room so she could sleep through the night.

—

AS SHE PACED, she felt a tremor in the floor. It felt at first like heavy equipment being moved down the hallway. Then she realized the vibration didn’t come from inside the building, but from the roof. The Life Flight helicopter, likely the same one that had transported April and her a few days before, was landing on the helipad.

Her observation was confirmed when the hallway came alive with emergency room doctors and technicians. An empty gurney sizzled down the hallway with nurses on either side.

Curious, Marybeth stepped out into the hallway after they’d gone by.

“Hi,” she said to the night nurse at the station. “What’s going on?”

They’d gotten to know each other since Marybeth arrived. The nurse was named Shri Reckling. She had three daughters, and a husband who worked for the state of Montana. Because of their similar families and situations, Marybeth and Shri had bonded instantly.

“Emergency landing,” Reckling said. “A gunshot victim in critical condition. He’s from Wyoming, just like you.”

“Really,” Marybeth said. “My husband says that because the state has such a low population, there is only one degree of separation. If you don’t actually know a particular person, you know someone who knows him or her.”

“Montana is the same way,” Reckling said with a sly smile. “Is that your way of asking who is in the helicopter?”

“Yes,” Marybeth said.

“I don’t have a name yet,” Reckling said. “When they do the admittance paperwork, we’ll know more. All I know at this point is the FBI is involved somehow.”

“So he’s with the FBI? Or a fugitive?”

She knew Joe had worked closely over the years with the FBI, particularly a special agent named Chuck Coon. So the one degree of separation would likely come to fruition.

Nurse Reckling leaned back and shrugged. “I’m not supposed to release the names of patients, you know.”

“I know,” Marybeth said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Reckling looked up and down the hall, then whispered, “Stay in the lounge. I’ll drop by when I know something.”

Marybeth winked at her. Waiting would give her something to look forward to besides deciding what kind of wine to buy on her way to the hotel.

—

LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES LATER, the team of emergency doctors rushed the gurney back down the hallway from the elevator. Marybeth looked up from her magazine—which she was reading again—to see a scrum of alarmed men and women clatter by. All she saw of the shooting victim was a glimpse of a man’s large and lifeless hand hanging down from under the sheets.

The hallway went quiet again when the double doors to surgery wheezed closed.

She waited another half hour, checking her watch every few minutes.

Finally, Nurse Reckling leaned in the doorway.

“He’s in emergency surgery,” she said. “He’s likely to be in there for hours.”

Marybeth arched her eyebrows, as if anticipating more.

Reckling raised an electronic tablet and said, “It says here ‘N. Romanowski.’”

Marybeth went cold and the magazine slid from her hands and dropped to the floor.

“Nate Romanowski?”

“No first name given,” Reckling said. Then: “Oh no. Do you know him?”

“God, yes,” Marybeth said, standing up unsteadily. She reached out for the back of the chair to steady herself. “Is it bad?”

Reckling took a deep breath. She said, “I’m not in the ER.”

“Please.”

“I heard one of the doctors talking to somebody with the FBI,” Reckling said with a sigh. “Special Agent Dudley was his name. He insisted I put him through to surgery. The surgeon there told him it doesn’t look good. The injuries are massive and he doesn’t think Mr. Romanowski can make it. I heard the FBI guy on the other end screaming at him until the doctor just hung up on him.”

Marybeth was stunned.

The phone rang at the nurses’ station, and Shri Reckling said, “That’s probably him again. I don’t really want to answer it. Are all those FBI types so pushy?”

10

The arraignment for Tilden Cudmore began at nine-thirty on Wednesday morning in the Twelve Sleep County courthouse, Judge Hewitt presiding.

Joe sat in the third row from the back, his hat crown-down next to him on the bench. His mind was still reeling from what Marybeth had told him about Nate the night before. He would miss his friend. Joe had a lot of questions Marybeth couldn’t answer—like when did Nate get out of federal lockup? And why was he in Twelve Sleep County?

He hoped she’d have more information when he picked her up in Billings later that day, after the preliminary hearing had concluded. She was as ready to come home as he was ready for her to. Marybeth said the doctors recommended she leave. April’s condition was stable and they’d keep her that way. The question wasn’t bringing her out of the coma—that could be done at any time. The question was April’s recovery or lack of it when they brought her out from under the propofol. She could be healed or she could be brain-dead. Marybeth’s voice had broken when she said it.