Sign Off (Caught Dead In Wyoming, Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Do you have any idea who could have wanted to scare you?"

The one time in my life I'd fainted I remember coming to in the middle of Maple Avenue during the Fourth of July parade surrounding by the avidly curious faces of my fellow Brownies, and feeling as if a trick had been played on me. How the heck had I gotten there?

That was how I felt finding myself blinking into the faces of co-workers hovering around the couch in Haeburn's office where I was stretched out. Except my Brownie-sized head hadn't sported an ostrich-egg bump as my adult head did.

And my concerned cohorts hadn't included a serious-eyed deputy whose tone implied I could clear all this up if I tried. I used to like Richard Alvaro.

"Scare her?" Jenny shrilled. "Somebody was trying to kill her. Just look at her head."

My hand started toward the throbbing.

Jenny forestalled me by placing a cold, wet towel on my forehead. A drop plopped into my eye and I jolted.

"See!" Jenny said. "I think she should go to the emergency room."

"No." I started to push myself up. Stopping abruptly, I groaned.

"Oh, God! What is it, Elizabeth?"

"It's a stiff neck. I must have slept funny." I succeeded in sitting up, but left my legs on the couch. "I'm okay." I looked around. "What happened?"

"That's what we'd like to know," said Audrey Adams, an assignment editor who doubles as weekend producer/director.

"We were editing a package on the Yellowstone Street Sidewalk Sale," said Jenks, "when we heard a ruckus from the library. Sounded like somebody trying to break through the wall." That must have been the file cabinet my attacker had set rocking. The library and the editing rooms back into each other, sharing a wall, but they open to opposite sides of the building. "When we got around, the library door was open, and the lights were out. It was lights out for you, too." He chuckled.

"You didn't see anyone?" Deputy Alvaro asked. "Anybody else in the building?"

My fellow employees exchanged looks, then shrugs. "People come and go, nobody pays much attention," Audrey said.

"Okay. If you think of anything, give me a call."

After everyone heeded that dismissal, Alvaro pulled a chair up beside the couch. "You feel up to answering questions?"

I started to nod. Mistake. Both my neck and head lodged complaints. I told him my tale, saying I had been doing research, but not what research.

"Was anything taken?" Alvaro asked.

"I . . . I don't know. My purse, my other stuff?"

He handed over the purse. "You had this with you. There's an empty can, two pens and newspaper files scattered around the table."

No legal pad.

I unzipped my purse. My fingers found the folded sheets of notes immediately. Aiming for nonchalance, I drew out my wallet. A quick check there and some pawing around amid keys, phone, mini-brush, makeup kit, notebook, a half-dozen pens, a corkscrew and two mini-Snickers bars, and I could assure him nothing of value was missing.

"So you didn't see this guy-this person," he corrected himself. "Can you tell me anything about the person?"

"Only that he or she breathes and has a real strong grip."

He stood, walked to the window, turned the wand that adjusts the blind slats to block the glare. Until he did that I hadn't realized I was squinting. He came back, but didn't sit. "Do you have any idea who could have wanted to scare you? Or harm you?"