"Billy."

Barb smacked her on the head. "Knock it off."

"Fine," Timmie snapped. "Ignore the obvious. We missed something, Van Adder was incompetent, and now we're not going to ever know what killed a damn near healthy man."

"He was an asshole."

Timmie glared. "Asshole is not a recognized cause of death."

"Is this what being a forensic nurse means?" somebody asked.

"Yeah," Mattie responded. "Forensic is Greek for 'pain in the ass.'"

"Forensic is Greek for 'no shit, that's what he died of?'" Timmie told them all. "And in a town like Puckett, I think every nurse could stand a little training. God knows the coroner hasn't had any."

"Training isn't the problem," Barb assured her. "It's the pain-in-the-ass part. Pains in the ass get threatened, ya know."

Timmie waved her off as if she were a fly. "It wasn't a big threat. It was a little threat. Flowers and a lovely note in my locker. Big deal."

"Forensics?" Alex asked. "How can you be involved in forensics?"

Three separate people at the table groaned.

"It's a new nursing specialty," Timmie explained, ignoring them. "In other jurisdictions, forensic nurses work as death investigators, rape investigators, or police-hospital liaison. Collecting evidence, intervening in abuse situations, stuff like that. That's what I did at L.A. County-USC."

Alex nodded, suitably impressed.

"It also makes her annoyingly persistent," Barb assured him. "As in, 'won't let a dead horse drop'?"

"Is that a proverb?" somebody asked.

"No. Big animal with four legs."

Timmie scowled at them all. "You were sure singing a different song when I taught you that trick with the fabric softener and the lighter."

"You learned that in forensics?" somebody demanded. "I thought you were just twisted."

"She is twisted," Barb said. "It's why she does forensics."

"So, how'd you end up working back at Memorial?" Alex asked.

Timmie slugged back some soda and turned to Alex, who was smiling. "An offer I couldn't refuse. After a divorce and a downsizing, I ended up in a city that couldn't afford me. So instead of trying to eke out a living there, I decided to come home and eke one out here." She shrugged uncomfortably. "Besides, my dad needed me home."

"He's not who you were going to call me about, is he?" Alex asked with such real sadness he made Timmie squirm.

"I'll call you about it tomorrow," she lied badly, certain he could see the ambivalence. "It's not urgent."

Thankfully, Cindy was hip deep in reminiscing about her post-Johnny depression and didn't pick up on it.

"Dr. Adkins?" a male voice interrupted.

Timmie looked up to see a rumpled, damp young man standing at the doorway alongside Jeb Stuart's dour photo and almost crawled under the table. Something was all too familiar about that stance. That manner. That rectangle of paper in his hand.

"What?" Barb asked.

The young man laughed and bounced over to her. "Wow, he was right. He said you'd be easy to find."

Barb was glowering now. "What?" she demanded again.

Timmie's reflexes were good, but she wasn't in time. Before she could bat the paper away the young man had handed it over. "You've been served, ma'am. Have a nice day."

He barely made it out the door alive.

Timmie had never seen Barb in full fury before. It was fast, it was devastating, it was noisy as hell. Timmie had lived through four good-sized quakes. They had nothing on this.

"I think we'd better—" Timmie had meant to say find cover. She was too late again.

Barb lurched from her chair like an Atlas rocket. "Son of a bitch!" she shrieked, her voice soaring so impressively that Timmie expected her next words to be "fee fi fo fum." "That smarmy, insufferable, shit-faced sack of shit!"

Let Grimm put that in a fairy tale.

Even Travis Tritt shut up for this one. Cindy startled so badly that two people had to hold her in her chair. The pool players in the main room dove under the table as if expecting a tornado to take out the front window.

"That was what he was doing there today!" Barb howled.

Timmie swore glass trembled and weak men fled.

"What is it?" Alex asked, hand instinctively up to help.

"A subpoena! That tiny, worthless little putz is suing me for support. Me! The one who's raising his three children while he's muff-diving in his gun and handcuffs. Support!" Barb screeched, rattling glassware all over again. "I'll show him fucking support! Shit, I'll show him that trick with the fabric softener!"

"But I thought you said he was a big putz," Cindy objected blearily.

"He's a dead fuckin' putz!" Barb screamed.

"This calls for a forensic specialist," somebody offered.

"This calls for a lawyer," Timmie retorted evenly.

Barb swung on her, eyes wild. Nodded briskly.

Smoothing her skirt, she stalked from the room with immense dignity, the subpoena by now nothing more than a tiny, misshapen lump in her fist.

"Well," Mattie spoke up brightly, gaze surreptitiously following her friend. "Anybody got a funny story?"

"Ellen looked just like that when Billy yelled at her," Cindy said, nodding. "Just like that."

Everybody stared at her, then turned almost as one to look after Barb. Thought of quiet, passive Ellen.

"Oh, be serious!" somebody objected.

Cindy lifted her head. "She did. He hurt her so much she—"

"He dead, girl," Mattie interrupted. "Enough."

"And Van Adder let him go," Timmie said to herself.

Mattie swung on her like an avenging angel. "Stop! Just stop."

Timmie glared right back. Secrets, she thought. The damn town was full of secrets, and they were supposed to keep more. Everybody was afraid. Even Mattie. Even, when it came down to it, Timmie.

"It's a bad habit," she defended herself, even though she knew that Mattie wasn't fooled. "It's what I'm used to doing."

"Uh, Miz Leary?"

All heads turned toward the door.

"Oh, shit," somebody warned. "It's a cop."

Timmie's heart skipped a couple of times. "Yes?"

Another fresh-faced puppy. Nervous. "Uh... well..." His posture rigid, he delivered his report like a history paper. "I was told by your baby-sitter I'd find you here? It's your father. He's wandering around town in his underwear."

Timmie's first instinct was to flush hard, the old shame hot and familiar. So she laughed instead. Leave it to Joe to break up her life. It meant she really was home, she guessed. She turned on Mattie, determined to ride this out as a joke. "How'd you manage that?"

Mattie scowled. "Oh, yeah, I tol' that boy to come in here if you got rowdy and tell on you daddy."

It didn't keep her from following Timmie to her feet. In fact, everyone did. Timmie didn't want them to. Not when she knew what was going to happen. It seemed she didn't have a choice. The party streamed right out the door after her, and she was left with one less secret of her own.

Chapter 6