Unseen by Nancy Bush

was gonna park the car and come back. I don’t know.”
    “Could the driver have come back after you left in the ambulance?”
    “I suppose…you can check with Lorraine…” He grimaced, letting Will know exactly what he thought of that idea.
    “Was there any body damage to the Camry?”
    “Uh…I was lookin’ at the girl, and I just saw the car’s rear end, mostly. Don’t recall any passenger-side damage. Didn’t see the front.”
    Will grilled him some more and learned Gemma had arrived at the hospital in the early evening, just as it was getting dark. If she were the woman who’d run down Edward Letton, that would mean there had been a lot of hours in between the accident and her appearance at Laurelton General.
    There didn’t appear to be anything more to learn from Billy, so Will shook his hand and thanked him for the information, then he turned back to the exit. He was out the door and heading to his department vehicle, when he abruptly changed direction and returned to the hospital, making for the bank of elevators. What was it about Gemma LaPorte that kept him wanting to see her again? Was it just this investigation? The fact that she was an enigma that he couldn’t quit puzzling over? Was it that he both wanted her to be innocent of hit-and-run, and yet somehow hoped she was that avenger? Someone who wanted to rid the world of sick scum no matter what the cost?
    That was the kind of thinking that could get him fired, or worse, he knew. That kind of vigilante philosophy that the bad should be punished without benefit of a trial. That murder, in the name of good, was almost okay.
    He’d seen it a couple of times in his career. Law enforcement officers who, burned out and frustrated, took their job to that next level. Not waiting for the judicial system to pass its verdict. Deciding to wipe out the offender first and ask forgiveness later.
    Only there was no forgiveness. There was prosecution and jail time.
    But Will didn’t think he had burned out. He didn’t truly condone Gemma’s behavior. Vigilantism was not to be tolerated at any level. It was just that inwardly—and this Will would never admit to anyone—he applauded her courage and ability to act.
    The elevator took him to the fourth floor, and when the doors opened he saw Gemma in a wheelchair, being pushed toward the elevators by an orderly. Simultaneously, another elevator’s doors opened. Edward Letton’s wife, Mandy, stepped out and glanced over at Will, whom she’d met briefly in Letton’s room. Then as both sets of elevator doors closed behind them she turned to Gemma, whose bandage had been removed, leaving the splendor of her bruised face and swollen eye for all to see.
    Mandy understood who Gemma was instantly. “You…” she said tautly. “What are you doing on my husband’s floor?”
    Gemma, who’d seemed locked in her own thoughts, looked blankly at Mandy.
    “This is the fourth floor,” Will told Mandy. “Your husband’s on five, but he’s not allowed visitors. You know that.”
    She didn’t even register a word. “You’re the woman who ran him down.”
    Gemma’s eyes widened.
    “Ms. Letton, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Will said, stepping between Gemma and Mandy Letton, whose gaze had zeroed in on Gemma like twin laser beams.
    “I don’t know what kind of monster you are,” Mandy said with a catch in her voice, “but my husband’s barely alive because of you! Were you drinking? On drugs? Or was this some kind of thrill kill! Luckily, you didn’t succeed. He’s still alive and he’s going to make it.”
    Gemma’s gaze turned from Mandy to Will. He could read the questions in her eyes: Why didn’t Letton’s wife know what Letton had been about to do? Will would have loved to tell her that members of both the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department and the Laurelton Police Department—the city where Mandy and Edward Letton lived—had tried to explain about the guard at Edward Letton’s