"Thank you."
"You don't have any idea where he might have fled?"
"None."
"Okay." He lowered his foot to the floor and leaned forward. "You've said that Starks made other women employees at Delray uncomfortable, not just you."
"That's right."
Removing a pad and pen from the breast pocket of his sport jacket, he asked if she could name a few. He jotted down the names as she enumerated them. "Sally Buckland in particular," she said. "She resigned from Delray at the beginning of the year. Oren factored largely into her decision."
"You know this for certain?"
"Absolutely. He had a terrible crush on her. She wasn't interested and tried everything to avoid him, but he was persistent. On several occasions she complained to me that he wouldn't take no for an answer."
"No to what?"
"To anything. The situation got so bad, it was beginning to affect her work, so I interceded on her behalf. I told Oren that Sally wasn't interested, that he was wasting his time on her."
"How'd he react?"
She smiled sadly. "He turned his attention to me."
"Was there ever a time when you were interested in him?"
"Romantically? Good Lord, no."
He arched one sun-bleached eyebrow.
"Absolutely not!" She chuckled. "When you see him, you'll understand. He's not at all my type."
"What's your type?"
His question checked her amusement, because the first word that sprang to mind was You. It startled her, rattled her right down to the soles of her feet. Because were it not for the fact that he was investigating a crime involving her, and seemed to harbor some mistrust of her that extended beyond a peace officer's instinctual mistrust of everybody, she would find the deputy sheriff attractive. His imposing bearing, his sheer physicality, even his damn gray eyes, were appealing.
But he seemed bent on trying to trip her up, to catch her in a lie, which made her dislike him intensely. Pulling herself up straight, she said, "Oren was my colleague. Bright. I'd even go so far as to say gifted. But he became a rejected suitor who stalked me, and who last night vowed to kill me. He said he must."
The deputy studied her for a moment longer, then replaced his notepad and pen in his pocket and stood up. "Maybe Lofland's settled in by now."
When Ski entered the hospital room, no one was happy to see him. Not the nurse, who told him the patient was still very weak and asked that Ski not take too long. Not Mrs. Lofland, who when he introduced himself was polite, but only because she had to be. Not the patient, who seemed the least happy of all that Ski was there.
Ben Lofland, fresh from the surgical recovery room, was attached to various lines and tubes and looked like warmed-over death. Oren Starks's bullet had gone clean through him, creating entry and exit wounds but, miraculously, doing only moderate damage to tissue on its passage. It had missed all his organs and the bowel. The worst of the injury had been the amount of blood lost. Either Lofland was living right or he had the devil's own luck.
Ski was betting on the latter.
His condition was far from critical, but he came across to Ski as a whiner. Once introductions were out of the way and the nurse had left the room, he said, "I really don't feel up to this right now."
"I'll be brief," Ski said.
"Why do you need to talk to Ben? Hasn't she told you what happened?"
Ski turned to Amanda Lofland, who'd placed hard emphasis on the she, making the pronoun sound like a word for something that smelled bad. "Ms. Malone gave a detailed statement last night and again this morning. But it might help us catch Starks--"
"You haven't caught him yet?"
Ski disliked the implication of incompetence that had underscored Lofland's question. "Ms. Malone didn't see his vehicle. She was busy trying to keep you from bleeding out on her bedroom floor."
Ski knew it was the mention of Berry Malone's bedroom and not pain that caused the guy to wince. Lofland shot a worried look at his wife, who was hugging herself as though at any moment she might fly apart.