Monty watched a white car turn into the Courtyard’s Main Street entrance. “I think that’s Dominic Lorenzo’s car. Must be his morning to work in the Courtyard.” Or Meg Corbyn needed medical treatment and Lorenzo had been summoned.
Burke turned into the Courtyard and continued down the access way. Pulling into the employee parking lot, he parked in a space beside Lorenzo’s car.
“What brings you here this morning?” Burke asked as the three men walked toward the back door of Howling Good Reads.
“I need to talk to Simon Wolfgard about the medical task force,” Lorenzo replied.
“You’re not going to try to convince him that letting doctors into settlements tucked in the wild country is going to be beneficial?”
“May the gods help me, yes, I am.” Lorenzo looked uneasy. “As of this morning, I’m the task force for Lakeside and the surrounding area. I’m on paid leave from Lakeside Hospital in order to gather information and provide medical care for blood prophets. I’ve been given a grant from Lakeside’s government to hire one assistant. I’m hoping I’ll be allowed to make use of Ms. MacDonald’s administrative skills in exchange for sharing anything I learn with the Others. Right now, I’m one of four doctors covering the entire Northeast Region.”
“Couldn’t you decline the appointment?” Monty asked.
“I could have. I didn’t. Helping these girls will have an impact on everyone. And thanks to my exposure to the Others here, I have a little experience dealing with the terra indigene, which is something the other doctors can’t say.”
“At least you won’t spend half your time traveling across the whole region.”
“Not in the beginning, anyway. First we have to locate the girls, and I doubt we’ll be successful unless the terra indigene choose to help.” Lorenzo eyed Monty. “You okay?”
“Been better.” He hesitated, but there was a medical office in the Market Square, and Lorenzo was here. “After you talk to Wolfgard, I’d appreciate it if you could give my daughter a quick checkup.”
“Is she sick?”
When Monty hesitated, Burke said, “Lizzy’s mother was murdered in the Toland railway station yesterday. The girl boarded the train on her own to come to Lakeside to be with Lieutenant Montgomery.”
“Gods,” Lorenzo breathed. “Sure, I’ll take a look. The girl wasn’t injured?”
“No,” Monty said. Then he tipped his head toward HGR’s back door. “Doctor, you go ahead. I need a word with the captain.”
Burke raised his eyebrows and waited.
“Someone close to Elayne and Lizzy slipped a bag of jewels into a stuffed bear that was seldom out of Lizzy’s reach,” Monty said.
“Unless it was Elayne herself, the short list is her mother, her brother, Leo, and Nicholas Scratch,” Burke said.
“Using Boo Bear was a desperate choice or hasty one. Scratch strikes me as being smarter than that.”
“Maybe. But if Leo playing doctor with Boo Bear and Lizzy meant operations—opening seams and sewing them up again—then planting the jewels in the bear had been part of a plan all along, although I would guess that the jewels had been hidden somewhere else in the apartment most of the time.”
“It doesn’t explain where the jewels came from,” Monty said. “Elayne’s family is sufficiently well-to-do, but I don’t think they could afford that many jewels unless they liquidated all their assets.”