When he was once more balanced on his good leg, he reached into the pocket of his coat, aware his fingers were shaking a little in reaction to the pain that made him feel weak and helpless.
“You’re making a phone call? Now?” Andie exclaimed when he pulled it out. “You can barely stand up! Can’t it wait until we get to the car?”
“No. I thought I saw Ruben earlier and I need to find him. I don’t know if he can hear me with all the crowd noise, but I have to try.”
He dialed his friend’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. He frowned, wondering if he ought to try Cade. Haven Point was his jurisdiction, after all, even if the incident was part of an ongoing investigation.
As he was dialing Cade’s number, though, he spotted Ruben back at the opening of the Helping Hands tent, talking to Samantha Fremont and Meg Hamilton.
“There’s Ruben. I need to see if I can catch him.”
Andie glared at him. “Stay here. If it’s so important that you have to talk to him right this minute, I’ll grab him.”
She hurried back the way they had come and returned a minute later with his deputy.
“What’s going on? Andrea said you just fell. Do you need help getting to your car? Do I need to call an ambulance?”
His mother and the kids were still watching with wide eyes. Charlene would completely freak if she heard what he needed to tell his deputy, so Marsh jerked his head away from the group and started walking a few steps away for privacy.
“I did fall,” he said, when they were out of earshot of the rest, “but it wasn’t an accident. Somebody very deliberately came up behind me and kicked my crutch out from under me.”
Ruben looked alarmed. “Are you sure? It’s a big crowd. Somebody could have just bumped you.”
“Positive. The first time didn’t do it so they kicked again.”
“Did you see anybody?”
“No. I thought the first kick was an accident, too, so I didn’t turn around until the second one. I thought I saw somebody heading through the gap in the tents where we were, but all I could make out was a dark shape rushing away.”
“You’re thinking this was connected to the hit-and-run.”
“What else?”
He could tell Ruben didn’t quite believe him. He would have thought he was crazy, too, if not for that second sharp kick. “I saw Wall and Kramer earlier, talking to Bill Newbold. None of them looked happy to see me.”
“You think it might have been one of them?”
“Who else?”
“What do you need from me?”
“Ask around. See if you can find a witness, maybe somebody who’s running the booths in this area. Somebody had to have seen something.”
“You got it.”
Ruben took off and Marsh watched him go for a moment before returning to Andie and the others.
“Darling, are you sure we can’t call an ambulance?” his mother pressed.
“No. I’ll be fine.”
Andie gave him a close look and he was quite sure she didn’t miss that he didn’t say he was fine but spoke instead in the future tense.
“Let’s get you to the car and I’ll take you home,” Andie said.
“What about the party?” Chloe complained.
“We’ll get there eventually,” Andie said.
“Maddie said she was waiting for me, though,” Chloe complained. “She wants to show me their new puppies!”
“She can wait a few moments longer.”
“We can take the children with us,” Charlene suggested. “You can meet us there after you take Marshall home.”
If his leg hadn’t still been howling with pain, he might have found it amusing that his mother didn’t offer to take him home instead of Andie doing it.
Because he hadn’t yet confessed that he had misled her, she still thought something was going on between them. He should probably come clean, but the truth was Charlene completely exhausted him, while Andie’s presence filled him with an odd sort of peace.
“Good idea,” he said instead. “Thanks, Mom.”
“You don’t have booster seats for the kids,” Andie protested.
“We can grab yours. No problem,” Mike said. “I would feel better anyway if we walk with you back to the parking lot to make sure Mr. Wobbly Knees here doesn’t decide to take another header.”
Andie looked as if she wanted to argue, but she must have decided the combined force of three Baileys was more than she could take on.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” she asked him.
As ever. He nodded and swung the crutches forward, keeping a careful eye on the crowd for potential threats.