Less than an hour later Stone once more pulled into the hospital parking lot. He half carried Danny into the emergency room entrance. While they were working on him Abby screeched to a stop in the parking lot, jumped out of the Mini Cooper and rushed in. Stone met her at the door and took her to Danny, who was lying on a gurney in the triage room.

Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she held her son’s hand. “Danny, what the hell happened? Who did this to you?”

He murmured, “Just an accident, Ma. Don’t worry. I’ll be good to go. Took better hits on Friday game nights.”

Abby looked at Stone. “An accident?”

He shook his head.

The doctor said, “We need to get him admitted and have some tests run. He seems stable now, but he may have internal bleeding.”

“Will he be okay?” Abby said anxiously.

“Ma’am, we need to run some tests. We’ll take good care of him. And we’ll let you know how he is.”

A moment later they whisked him away.

Abby stood there, teetering a bit. Stone put an arm around her shoulders and led her to a chair in the waiting area.

“He said it was an accident.”

“It was no accident. Three men. Big and mean with baseball bats.”

“How do you know that?”

Stone didn’t answer her immediately. Something had just occurred to him. One of the men he’d beaten up had looked familiar. He tried to think where he’d seen him, but couldn’t place him.

“Ben?”

“What? Oh, because they came after me when they were done with Danny.”

“How’d you get away?”

Stone touched his waistline. “It cost me my belt, but I hurt two of them pretty bad. One of them got away. I need to call Tyree and report it. Do you have his number?”

She handed him her phone and he made the call.

After he explained things to the sheriff and described the men and their truck, he nodded at something Tyree said. “Right, we’ll be here,” he replied.

Stone handed the phone back to Abby. “He’s going to come here to get a statement after he checks out the crime scene.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.” But there was a hollow ring to her words that puzzled Stone.

“When I called you didn’t sound all that surprised that someone had attacked Danny.”

She didn’t look at him.

“Abby, I know I’m a stranger here, but I saw those guys up close and personal. If Danny hadn’t managed to throw himself out of the truck, he’d be dead. And they might come back to finish the job.”

She touched her eyes with one of her hands, brushing away the tears. “There’s some things been going on in Divine. Strange things.”