Hiding in the Shadows by Kay Hooper

“I never asked how she planned to help this friend of hers. And … that was the last time I spoke to her.”
    A few minutes later, driving away from Conrad’s office, Bishop said, “You know, it occurs to me that half a million dollars to help a friend is a bit excessive. Didn’t you tell me this friend of Dinah’s had been in a car accident and has been in a coma since?”
    “Yeah.” Kane paused, then muttered, “Oh, shit. I should have gone by to see her. Dinah went twice a week, regular as clockwork.” His guilt was obvious.
    “Isn’t she in a coma?”
    “Yes. I looked in on her that first week, when I went to talk to the hospital staff about Dinah’s visits. They couldn’t tell me or the police much we didn’t already know, and Faith Parker certainly couldn’t help. I gather they aren’t expecting her to come out of it.”
    “Then,” Bishop said, not uncaring but matter of fact, “she wouldn’t know if you visited or not.”
    “I said something like that to Dinah once,” Kane confessed. “And she gave me the oddest look. She didn’t say anything—but she didn’t have to. I kept my mouth shut about it after that.”
    Bishop looked at him. “Dinah told Masterson this woman had been hurt because of her. Was that true?”
    Kane shook his head. “Only in that she was driving to meet Dinah when it happened. But she felt responsible and nothing I could say made any difference. Said if it hadn’t been for her, her friend would never have beendriving that afternoon, and so would never have run her car into an embankment.”
    “She lost control of it?”
    “According to the police report. I asked about it as a matter of course, after Dinah disappeared. The police couldn’t see a connection, and I couldn’t either. Just a common traffic accident, caused by carelessness.”
    “And she was a good friend?”
    “It certainly sounds that way, although I can’t remember Dinah ever mentioning her before the accident. Not that it’s all that unusual for her to have old friends I’ve never heard of. Especially if they’re work related.”
    “And was Faith Parker work related?”
    “Dinah was so upset about the accident, I didn’t ask too many questions. All I know for sure is that Faith never appeared in any of Dinah’s stories, at least not by name.” God knew he was familiar with Dinah’s backlog of work; he had spent long hours reading and rereading everything she’d written, looking for clues to her disappearance.
    “I don’t like coincidences,” Bishop said grimly. “A friend of Dinah’s, possibly someone related to her work, rams her car into an embankment and ends up in a coma, an accident about which Dinah feels excessively guilty—to the tune of half a million dollars. A few weeks later, Dinah herself disappears. Now, there may be absolutely no connection between the two things, as the police believe. But I think we’d better make sure.”
    “How? If Faith Parker is in a coma, who do we ask?”
    “We’ll have to look more closely at the police reports of the accident, maybe take a look at the car, too. Talk to her doctors again, the nursing staff again.”
    “And ask them what?” Kane was baffled. “According to the staff, Dinah spent her visits in that room talking to her, not to anyone else. And they don’t seem to know anything about Faith’s background or history.”
    “Maybe with a different set of questions to ask, we’ll get different answers,” Bishop assured him.
    Kane valued Bishop’s intuition as much as he did his investigative training—maybe more so. And he was eager to try anything that might help to point them in a new direction.
    “It’s worth a try,” he agreed. “And maybe Dinah’s other lawyer can tell us something as well.”
    “Maybe. At the very least, we can verify that Dinah really was giving money to worthy causes.”
    Kane frowned. “You think it could be something else?”
    “No, but it never hurts to be sure.” He smiled