Loe raamatut: «First Responder On Call»

Chapter 1

The buzz came first. A hundred—no, a thousand—bees, circling her head and making it vibrate with an indescribable pain. Next came the stinging. Over and over, the sharp points hitting her face, each one worse than the last.

If she could’ve made a noise, it would’ve been a whimper.

She tried to turn her head, to steer it away from the angry swarm. But she was clamped down. Something viselike held her in place, stopping her from even the slightest movement. All she could do was blink, and even that yielded little more than a blurred picture overhead. She wasn’t even sure what it was she could see above her. The night sky, maybe? A dark swirl of clouds, blocking out every star and barely letting through the moonlight?

Typical Vancouver.

The thought temporarily overrode the pain, probably because it was something concrete. Something that grounded her. Yes, the muted gray tone definitely embodied the city’s weather. Even in mid-July, a rainstorm like this one could be expected. It was usually a small sacrifice to make in exchange for being wedged between the Pacific Ocean and a half a dozen mountain ranges. But right now, it gave her a chill.

The rain...

It’s what beat down on her face, the source of the sting. She blinked again. A string of wires—power lines, she thought—came into focus.

The buzz...

The vicious drops were hitting the wires as well, and the zap of water on live electricity filled the air.

The accident...

A flood of memory came rushing to the forefront of her mind. It was disjointed, like the pieces of a puzzle that had been scattered across a table. But it was memory nonetheless.

The storm, rushing in from nowhere.

The road, slick beneath her tires.

The slam of...something.

Then the horrible sound of metal on metal.

And blackness.

The buzz and the sting were muted now, taking a back seat to the struggle to remember anything else. What kind of car had she been driving? What was the source of the anxious pressure in her chest? And most important...what was her name?

Oh, God.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t recall it, even though when she dropped her lids closed, she could picture her own face. She could see the swirl of her ash-blond hair and the overwhelming number of freckles that dotted her complexion. Her gray eyes and fair lashes were there, too, well above the surface of whatever blocked the rest.

Please let me remember. And please...someone help me.

As though her silent plea willed it into existence, a new noise caught her attention. Boots on pavement, approaching slowly, like their wearer was trying to disguise his steps. But whoever he was, his feet were too heavy for subtlety. And the gait had an odd, shuffling cadence, too. One that struck a familiar cord. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

Not good.

The two-word thought was hardly strong enough to match the abrupt increase in her heartbeat, which thrummed so hard against her rib cage that she was surprised it didn’t drown out the rain, the buzz and the footsteps. But maybe the man attached to the boots—she wasn’t sure why she was so certain about what he wore, but she was—did hear her heart. Because his movement stopped. And a gruff question, spoken from a few feet away, carried to her ears.

“Where is he?”

Both the query and the voice itself sent a thick slap of fear across her whole body. She couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to answer.

The man repeated himself, a little louder, biting off the words. “Where. Is. He?”

She tried to shake her head, but of course met with the same resistance she had before. The boots hit the ground once again. She still refused to look. She knew he was close enough to be leaning over her, because his body blocked out some of the rain. It should’ve been a relief. It wasn’t. Nor was the rush of air that came as he reached down and lifted off whatever it was that held her down. Because she still couldn’t move. And now she was exposed.

“I know you’re awake,” he said. “You might think I don’t remember what you look like when you’re sleeping, but you’re wrong. I remember everything.”

It struck her as unfair that he could claim perfect recall, while she had nothing but bits and pieces.

But maybe listening to him will help you. Maybe it will give you a clue. Maybe he’ll even say your name.

She forced her attention to his chilling ramble.

“The way you smell,” he was saying. “The way you always thought you could hide. How you believed you could get away with it. With him.”

Finally, she did move, albeit without conscious effort. She shivered. And he saw it. She knew because he laughed, a low, dark chuckle that was harsher than the weather. He followed the eerie sound with touch. Just a small one—fingers to shoulder. But it was enough to send her mind reeling. She could feel the man’s hands on her everywhere. Sometimes balled into fists, sometimes stroking her with a tenderness that made her skin crawl.

Why would the accident leave me with those memories, but take away my identity? Her stomach swirled into a tight ball of nausea.

“If you don’t tell me where he is, baby, things are going to be much worse for both of you,” the man warned.

Baby. It was the endearment that brought another name—not her own, and not the man’s, either—to the surface. Xavier.

She clamped her lips tightly to keep from crying it aloud. Somehow, she was sure that even if she could say nothing else, the name would come out.

“You’re awake,” said the man above her. “And now you’re thinking about him. Tell me. You want to. You hate lying and you hate secrets.”

The cajoling tone was just as frightening as the threatening one. It made her want to cry. She suspected that once upon a time, she might’ve given in to the tactic. And she hated the thought that she could be manipulated so easily. Especially by the man who had his hand on her now.

As if he could sense her internal suffering and wanted to make the outside match, he began to squeeze. Or maybe he just wanted to hurt her, plain and simple. His fingers tightened, and his thumb drove into her collarbone. If she could’ve gasped, she would’ve. Instead, silent, unshed tears built up behind her sealed eyelids, then stayed there, burning with an inability to fall freely.

If I tell him what he wants to know, he’s going to kill me, she thought. And maybe even if I don’t.

But then it stopped. Just like that. His hand was gone. He cursed under his breath, and his footfalls hit the ground hard and fast—fading away at not quite a run. It took only a moment to figure out why. Tires squealed on pavement. A door slammed. And a second set of feet hit the ground.

Thank you.

She didn’t care who they belonged to. All that mattered was that whoever it was had driven away the angry man with the rough hands.

“Holy hell.”

In spite of the fact that the voice was gruff, and the two words a curse, relief washed over her. Something in her gut told her this man harbored her no ill will. The feeling increased as he dropped to the ground and placed a hand directly on the spot that the first man had squeezed so relentlessly. His touch was warm and gentle and imbued with concern.

“Miss, are you with me? Blink if you can hear me.”

She fluttered her lids. A set of dark-lashed, bright blue eyes stared down at her from behind a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. His gaze filled with relief.

“Thank God.” He ran a hand over his damp jaw and breathed out.

From under her lashes, she watched as he leaned back on his heels and yanked a phone from his pocket. He dialed without looking, then spoke in a low voice. Was he doing it for her benefit? Maybe to keep her from worrying? She thought maybe he was.

After a few moments, he dropped the phone from his mouth and said to her, “Sit tight for one second, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

He stood up and strode away. Panic threatened, but she fought it. She could still hear his feet sloshing over the wet ground, and only a heartbeat passed before he came back into view, dangling a white, mostly shredded purse from his fingers. He spoke into the phone again, this time loudly enough for her to hear.

“She’s got a bag here. Just gonna make sure she knows I’m opening it.” He held out the purse, and she blinked her assent.

“Okay,” he said. “No medical card and no driver’s license. But I’ve got a Port Moody Public Library card. Name on the card is Celia Poller. That’ll have to do.” There was a pause. “Okay. Yeah. I have to. See you as soon as you can get here.”

He hung up, then crouched down beside her again, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. “Miss Poller? Celia?”

She turned the name over in her head. Was it familiar? She honestly wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling she should lay claim to it. She blinked again.

“Okay, Celia. If you had to get into a car accident right here, right now, then I’d call you about as lucky as can be under the circumstance. My name is Remo DeLuca, and I’m a paramedic with BC Ambulance Services.” He paused and met her eyes before he went on. “What I’d like to do is keep you very still. Unfortunately, I can’t do that right now. There’s a downed power line just over there, and with the way the puddles are growing, we’re right in range for a solid electrocution. So, Celia...I need your consent to go outside of normal protocol.”

As if to punctuate his statement, a flash of lightning and an accompanying boom ruptured the air.

And she blinked as hard as she could.

* * *

Ten minutes earlier, Remo would’ve said the storm overhead suited his mood perfectly. A twelve-hour shift on a Friday night was pretty much his least favorite thing. He didn’t know if he’d ever been so thoroughly glad to have a workday over with. A recent new article in the Vancity Gazette claimed that EMT service wasn’t what it should be. As a result, rowdy drunk calls and calls about broken washing machines and calls about heart attacks all got an equal amount of attention. The former two both got in the way of the latter—the ones for people who actually needed his help.

Now, though, his sour thoughts had pushed themselves to the far corners of his mind. The immobile woman on the side of the road commanded his full attention. He could tell she was near shock. Unaware of her surroundings and oblivious to the danger that skirted the edge of her body. Adding to the problem was the part he hadn’t told her about. The other local EMTs were tied up at a house fire, and he was going to have to wait at least fifteen minutes for the backups to arrive. Her slate-gray eyes were fixed on him and him alone, full of both hope and fear. He didn’t want to let her down.

“Another quick second, all right?”

He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then pushed to his feet. His eyes flew over the scene, filtering out the things he already knew were there—the devastated car with its crushed front end, the cracked pole and the downed wires—in search of something he could use as a stretcher. As easy as it would be to scoop up the pretty blonde and carry her out of harm’s way, he knew better. He couldn’t see any external afflictions, and he suspected—based on instinct, mostly—that distress was what kept her from moving rather than an injury, but experience and training had taught him not to rely on gut alone. Some of the most heinous injuries were invisible to the naked eye. So what he needed to do was keep her as still and straight as possible.

Then he spotted it. The car’s windshield, sitting on a patch of grass a few feet away. It was miraculously intact, and he suspected that somehow, the impact had dislodged it and sent it flying. It might even have been the thing that saved the woman’s life. With the windshield missing, she’d had a clear path out the vehicle. He could almost picture the sequence of events.

Incredible.

Remo glanced down at her. Did she have any clue just how lucky she’d been? He doubted it. Not at the moment, anyway.

With a disbelieving head shake, he slipped off his glasses, wiped them with his T-shirt, then stuck them back on his face and headed up the road. There, he positioned himself in front of the glass. He bent down, closed his hands on the slippery edges and lifted. It came up with surprising ease, and it took him only a second to get it stable enough to cart it back over to Celia. Careful to keep it from hitting the ground with any kind of force, he eased it down beside her. Then he took a breath, pushed his knees as flat as they would go, stiffened his arms and positioned the windshield against her body.

“Okay, Celia. Here we go.”

Moving as slowly as he could and being extra cautious in keeping her head and neck stable, he inched the glass underneath her. In spite of the rain, he could feel sweat beading along his forehead and his upper lip. He ignored it. By the time he got her into position, he couldn’t see a damned thing. He was dripping, his glasses were completely fogged up, and the sky had darkened even more. Breathing heavily, he dragged the windshield and its passenger out of range of the sizzling power lines, then knelt down beside the makeshift gurney.

“You still with me, Celia?”

She blinked, then inclined her head. He was relieved to see that she was no longer frozen, but he still didn’t want to take any chances.

“Try not to move around,” he cautioned with a smile. “Hard to say if anything’s broken, and I’d like to retain the role of hero for a little longer.”

One corner of her mouth tipped up and she breathed out. His relief was short-lived. As quickly as her little show of amusement came, it left. Her whole face drooped and her eyes dropped shut.

Damn, damn, damn.

Remo dragged his hands up and clasped Celia’s face. She was cold.

Because it is cold out here, he told himself.

He clasped her wrist and pressed his head to her chest. Her pulse was strong and steady, and her breathing was slow and even, and that was something.

“Did you faint on me, Celia?” he murmured, brushing her hair back from her face.

He leaned back and studied her for a second. Her skin had a hint of a tan, but mostly it was a connect-the-dots palate of freckles.

More than pretty.

She had that clean-faced, granola-girl feel that made it easy to picture her hiking up the side of the Grouse Grind. Remo liked it. Which made him sigh and question his sanity.

“Obviously even more tired than I thought,” he said.

Checking out a girl—a patient...sort of—was very low on his list of priorities. Right below the washing machine emergencies. Remo gritted his teeth and told himself to stop before he even got started. Except as soon as the self-directed order made its way into his mind, her hand lifted and found its way into his palm, and a shot of heat cut through the chill.

He looked down in surprise. “Celia?”

Her eyes opened wide. “Xavier.”

For a second, he thought she’d mistaken him for someone else. “Sorry, honey, I—”

She cut him off. “Please, Remo.”

“What do you need?”

“Xavier.”

“Where is he?”

“The back.”

“The back?”

Her eyes flicked toward the shattered car. She couldn’t possibly be saying there’d been someone else inside. Could she? He looked down at her, hoping he’d see a hint of delirium in her gaze. Instead, he just saw faith. She didn’t know him at all, and she still believed in him.

“I’m not even wearing the uniform,” he muttered.

“Help him.” Her fingers tightened around his.

Remo inhaled. “I don’t think Xavier’s here, Celia.”

“He is. In the back.” Her eyes closed for a second. “I hurt.”

“Where do you hurt?”

“Everywhere. My leg, mostly.”

Remo tilted his head down. A dark splotch stood out on one of her thighs. It nearly blended in with her rain-drenched jeans, but staring at it made him sure it wasn’t just water.

Blood. Damn again.

“The ambulance will be here soon,” he said, careful to keep the growing concern from his voice. “Hold my hand as hard as you want. Sometimes that helps.”

She gave him a weak squeeze. “Promise me.”

“I can’t do that.” It pained him a bit to say it.

“Xavier, Remo.”

He glanced toward the car. The engine was crumpled so badly that it was barely recognizable, the hood disintegrated. No doors. No steering wheel. An empty back seat. Except...

What’s that?

Remo pulled off his glasses, gave them another wipe, then looked again.

A stuffed bear.

His gut churned. She didn’t just mean there was another person in the car with her. She meant there was a kid in the car. A kid named Xavier.

She had to be mistaken. She had to be confused. There was no car seat. No other sign that a child had been there. Yet there was that horrible instinct again, telling him he’d read the situation correctly.

“Celia?”

But her eyes were still closed, her breathing even and slow once again. She had a small crease between her brows, like her worry carried over into her lack of consciousness. Remo freed his hand from hers and smoothed his fingers across the wrinkle. It faded for a second, then reappeared. He sighed.

“All right, honey,” he said. “I promise. If there’s a kid around here named Xavier, I’ll do my best to find him.”

He stood and stepped woodenly toward what was left of the car. The rear seat was shredded, its leather split and its foam exposed. Rain thumped down on the remainder of the roof, then poured down onto the remainder of the floor.

“Xavier?” he called softly.

There was no answer.

“You there, kid?”

He took another step and called out a little louder.

“Xavier? I’ve got a lady here who’s pretty worried about you.”

Still nothing.

He swiped the rain off his chin and squinted through his glasses, considering whether both Celia and his gut feeling were off. He tossed another quick look her way. From a few feet back, she looked smaller and more vulnerable.

Shouldn’t have left her lying there.

He moved to go back to her, but sirens cut through the air then, startling him so badly that he jumped. He stumbled a little, trying to catch his footing. He wasn’t quite successful. Cursing his own overreaction, he put out a hand to stop himself from doing a face-plant. The new position—one knee on the ground, body bent over—gave a different perspective.

Between the split cushions of the car seat was a gap that led to the trunk. And inside that gap was an unmistakable object. A small, limp hand.