Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi 2)

She nodded, uncertain whether he believed her or not. “He was driving like a maniac—speeding and swerving. He didn’t even slow down to see if we were okay.”

“You didn’t get a look at the license plate, did you?”

“No. Everything happened too quickly.”

“Doesn’t matter. I know who it was. Not much I can do about it without another witness, but you can bet I’ll let him know I heard about this.”

She doubted that would accomplish much, but she supposed she had little recourse. She couldn’t even tell him the make of the vehicle, and he couldn’t go around questioning everyone in town who drove a red sports car, even though he seemed to think he already knew who’d been driving like such a maniac. A repeat offender, apparently.

“You’re both getting wet in this mist. Why don’t we sit in the patrol car while I fill out the accident report and call for a wrecker?”

“You really think a wrecker is necessary?”

“Ma’am, you won’t be driving that car anywhere. The back fender is crumpled all around the rear tire.”

She sighed. Terrific. She hoped her insurance company and the rental car service would be able to work all this out without much trouble. Running a hand over Isabelle’s damp hair, she moved toward the cruiser. “I appreciate your assistance, Officer…?”

“Smith, ma’am. Dylan Smith.” He touched the brim of his hat in a rather charmingly old-fashioned gesture.

“I’m Adrienne Corley.”

“Yes, I know. You’re Gideon McCloud’s agent from New York. Heard all about you from Carla at the diner this morning.” He opened the back passenger door of the patrol car. “Your pretty little friend can sit in the back seat while you and I fill out the accident report in the front.”

“Would you like to sit in the police car, Isabelle?”

The child looked intrigued. “Okay.” She climbed obligingly into the car, leaning over the front seat to study the dashboard and radio.

“I suppose I’ll need my identification and insurance policy number. Would you mind keeping an eye on Isabelle while I get my purse?”

“Not at all, ma’am.”

As Adrienne made her way across the slick pavement toward the crumpled car, she wondered if Dylan Smith deliberately tried to act the stereotype of a drawling Southern cop. She still didn’t know the root of his antagonism toward Gideon, or vice versa, since Gideon hadn’t mentioned the encounter again after leaving the diner, but Officer Smith had been pleasant enough to her. Apparently he didn’t hold her association with Gideon against her.

She had just reached the front of the rental car when her foot came down on an oily pool of rain water. The slick sole of her loafer offered absolutely no traction. Her leg flew out from under her, and she felt herself falling.

All she could do was brace herself for the impact with the hard, wet pavement.

Gideon’s sneakers slapped hard against the floor tiles of the Honesty Medical Clinic. Staff and patients alike moved swiftly out of his path as he charged down the hallway to the emergency examining room. No one dared interfere with his progress.

Sitting on a padded bench in the hallway outside the closed door of the examining room, Isabelle was happily listening to her own heartbeat through a stethoscope as a brightly uniformed young brunette hovered nearby. The child smiled broadly when she spotted her brother. “Hi, Gideon.”

He knelt in front of her, his hand on her knee as he looked for injuries. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “We had a wreck, but nobody got hurt, and then Miss Corley fell down and Officer Smith brought us here, but Miss Corley’s going to be okay and Miss Nancy’s letting me listen through a stefascope.”

“It’s a stethoscope, Isabelle,” the young woman corrected clearly.

“Stethoscope,” the child parroted carefully.

Nancy beamed at Gideon. “She’s so bright. I can’t believe she’s only—”

“Where’s Adrienne?” he broke in, having reassured himself that Isabelle was unharmed.

Nancy’s smile faded a bit in response to his curt interruption. “She’s in there with the doctor. But you can’t—”

Gideon pushed open the examining room door and moved through it, leaving Nancy sputtering behind him as the door swung closed in her face.

Wearing a hospital gown with a thin robe belted over it, Adrienne sat at one end of a paper-covered examining table, her bare feet dangling over the end. Her right foot was strapped into a black brace, her bare toes notably swollen. Two women stood at one side of the room studying a chart; Gideon recognized one as the doctor and assumed the other was a nurse.