Angel killed the call and pressed the cool metal to her forehead. She wasn’t an unauthorized person. She was the woman he loved, the woman who loved him, and damn it, no one would tell her anything. She’d gotten the same song and dance from the hospital, when she’d finally been able to get through to the jammed switchboard. No, they couldn’t tell her if a Troy Lee Farr was in the emergency room. No, they couldn’t tell her if he had been admitted. No, no, no…
“They won’t tell me anything.” She dropped her hand and looked at her family. “He’s not answering. He’s not calling me back. No one will tell me anything.” Her voice rose, a note of hysteria audible even to her, and she clasped a palm over her mouth. “What do I do now?”
No one replied, but Hope straightened, her gaze riveted on the window. Unsettled by her sister’s expression, Angel spun. An unmarked silver unit purred up the driveway. The bottom of the world fell away, and she waited for the abyss to swallow her up.
The car stopped next to Darryl’s truck, and Cookie and Chris Parker climbed out. Cookie jogged up the walkway toward the front door. Freed from her painful paralysis, Angel burst out the salon door. “Cookie?”
He turned in her direction, his face haggard and strained. Her gaze locked onto the front of his shirt, stained with dirt and dried blood. Her knees gave and she sagged to the top step. Lord help her. It was true. It was him, and it didn’t matter how many messages she left.
“He’s dead.” The whisper slipped past her lips, the words unreal, nasty in their wrongness. She lifted her gaze to Cookie’s as he reached the steps. “He’s dead. Isn’t he?”
“No.” He shook his head and bent to kneel below her so they were eye to eye. “No, he’s not.”
The tears came, silent sobs tearing her throat. Cookie wrapped her close, tucking her face into the warmth of his neck. His familiar spicy scent enveloped her, and he held her, not the right man, but still her friend after all.
“He’s alive, Angel, but he’s hurt, pretty badly,” he murmured near her ear. “We need to go.”
She nodded, scrubbing the dampness from her cheeks. “And you’ll tell me what happened on the way?”
“I’ll tell you anything you need to know.” With gentle hands, he pulled her to her feet. “I promise.”
“I need to get…” She turned toward the house, but Hope was already there, pressing her purse into her hands.
“Go on.” Hope kissed her cheek and hugged her tight.
In the car, Cookie gave her a brief rundown of the accident. She twined her bag’s strap around and around her hand. Troy Lee had left the road at approximately sixty miles per hour, struck a culvert, flipped end over end, then sideways over and over. Horrific images enhanced by every adventure movie she’d ever seen played in her head.
“He was unconscious when we pulled him from the car.” Cookie darted a glance at her in the passenger seat. Chris Parker had ducked into the backseat and remained a silent presence behind her. With capable hands, Cookie drove quickly, the unit eating the miles. “But he’s responding to pain and he was making sounds before we intubated him, and that’s good. The front of the car crushed inward on impact, and the steering column…he has chest and abdominal trauma from that. The EMTs think he has facial fractures. Chris and I left the ER as they were taking him back, so I don’t know much more than that.”
Nodding, Angel closed her eyes. With fear holding her by the throat, she couldn’t have spoken if her life had depended on it. Imaginings invoked by Cookie’s description of Troy Lee’s injuries flickered on her eyelids. Memories overlaid them, seconds and seconds of belief, strung together in a montage of hope and love—a chilly night in a parking lot and his mouth descending for that first kiss, her porch light glinting off his hair as he grinned at her and held a fortune cookie aloft, strong arms around her as she revealed her pregnancy, blazing awe in his eyes when she told him she loved him, the feathery touch of his lips on the skin above her unborn child.
She held on to those moments, falling into them.
Vehicles spilled out of the small parking lot adjacent to the emergency room. People, many of them teenagers, milled on the steps outside. City officers directed the flow of traffic and performed crowd control.
“Jesus,” Chris breathed.
“Yeah,” Cookie responded, his voice tight. A Coney police officer waved him into the area behind the hospital, reserved for authorized personnel. Patrol cars—county, city and Georgia State Patrol—lined the back fence. Somehow, Cookie managed to jockey his unit into that row as well. Groups of uniformed officers dotted the area outside the ER, including the long, wide concrete ambulance dock.
Angel tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up at Cookie as he opened her door. “What are they all doing here? I thought there were only two vehicles involved.”
Cookie nodded. She stepped from the car and he took her elbow. “They’re here for Troy Lee.”
The show of brotherhood and respect left her breathless. As the wide doors drew closer and the reality beyond it bigger, gratitude grew for Cookie’s steady hand beneath her arm. Her whole body seemed weak and shaky, ready to collapse.
“Are you all right?” he murmured above her ear, fingers tightening.
She met concerned gray eyes. “No.”
Several officers spoke to him and Chris along the way. He nodded and made brief responses, but didn’t stop. Dodging the big doors, he guided her to a smaller side entrance and hit a buzzer there. Moments later, the lock clanged, and he tugged the door open and ushered her inside.
The chaos outside had only been a precursor. The ER interior bustled with urgent movement and imperative voices. A nurse ran down the hall to a cubicle, her arms laden with supplies. Outside that doorway, a small group of Chandler County officers, in uniform and out, hovered.
Cookie locked gazes with Tick Calvert as they reached the gathering. “What do we know?”
“They’re still working on him. His breathing is abnormal and his blood pressure is falling.” Tick jerked his chin toward the doorway. A pastel plaid curtain blocked their view. “They’re doing a sonogram, looking for internal bleeding. Tori called his stepmother. She and the sisters are on their way.”
His weary gaze flicked to Angel then back to Cookie’s, leaving the impression he’d say more if she hadn’t been there. Cookie squeezed her elbow. “It may be a while. Let’s get you out of the hallway.”
“I don’t want to leave him.”
“I know, but you’ve had a rough day and you have to take care of you too.” He urged her toward the nurse’s station. “Come on.”
“Tori? The Davises are here.”
At Lorraine’s subdued voice, Tori lifted her head from her folded arms and nodded. “I’m coming.”
She scrubbed a hand over her burning eyes and rose from the hard plastic chair. Lord, she didn’t want to do this. Earlier had been bad enough, calling Troy Lee’s stepmother, hearing her fear and horror over the phone. What had followed had been even worse, when a hospital volunteer, violating every regulation in the book, had allowed two of Kaydee’s friends in to see her body. Calming the hysterical girls had been next to impossible.
As she followed Lorraine, she twisted her engagement ring around and around her finger. With each revolution, a prayer for strength and the right words beat in her soul. Lorraine stopped outside the tiny staff lounge. “I’ll be right out here if you need me.”
Tori pressed her hand. “Thanks.”
With a sharp inhale, she pushed open the door. Sara Davis, seated on one of the same plastic chairs, jumped to her feet, and her husband Trace spun from his post at the window. Sara pressed a hand over her heart, her brown eyes wide and wild with apprehension. “Oh, Tori, thank God. Where’s Kaydee and what is going on? The nurse who called said there’d been an accident, and there are all those people outside. They’re saying some kids were killed, but that can’t be the same accident. It can’t. My Lord, Kaydee just had that little wreck before Thanksgiving
and it demolished her car, but she was fine. Fine—”
“Sara. Let Tori talk.” Trace laid his hand on her shoulder and she stepped out from under it. He gazed at Tori with calm steadiness. “What can you tell us?”
“There was an accident and Kaydee was involved.” Tori swallowed and indicated the table and chairs centering the room. “Why don’t we sit down?”
“I don’t want to sit down.” Sara’s voice rose and she backed up a step. “I want to see my daughter.”
“Honey, please. Let’s hear what she has to say.”
Sara glanced at his outstretched hand and stepped past him to sink into a chair. She folded her hands on the table, knuckles white with tension. Trace’s eyes lingered on her down-bent head, then a visible shudder ran along his body and he pulled out the chair next to hers.
Tori took the chair on Sara’s other side. “Kaydee was with Paul Bostick and some other teens today.”
“No.” Sara shook her head, an emphatic negative. “She’s not allowed to be with him—”
Trace’s gentle hand at her shoulder stopped her. He lifted his gaze to Tori’s. “Go on.”
He knew. The knowledge shivered through Tori as the agonized awareness dawned in his eyes. Tori swallowed. “A Whitman County deputy attempted to stop Paul for speeding. Paul didn’t pull over and the officer pursued them into Chandler County and onto Highway 3. The truck they were riding in hit a tree. Kaydee was in the front passenger seat. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt and she had to be extricated from the vehicle.”
“Jesus Christ.” Trace closed his eyes.
Sara’s throat convulsed. “What are you saying?”
Tori leaned forward, hands out. Sara wrapped cold fingers around Tori’s. “She didn’t have a pulse at the scene, and the paramedics performed CPR between there and the emergency room here. When she arrived, she was still unresponsive and attempts at resuscitation failed. I’m sorry, Trace, Sara, but she died.”
“No. Oh no, please.” Sara clapped a hand over her mouth, her spine-chilling moan lifting the hair on Tori’s arms. “No! It’s not true.”
“Sweetheart.” Trace tried to put his arms around her.
“Don’t touch me.” Sara jerked away from him. She turned fierce eyes on Tori. “I want to see her.”
“Of course.” Tori rose and gestured toward the door. “Lorraine and I will take you. I should tell you that her appearance will be altered—”
“I don’t care.” Sara’s face crumpled. “I just want to see my baby.”
Tori held the door. His features set, Trace didn’t attempt to touch his wife again as Lorraine escorted them to the cubicle. She held the curtain for them to enter, keeping the fabric at an angle where others passing by couldn’t see in.
Sara stopped short, hand over her mouth again, gaze locked on Kaydee’s battered face. “Oh…”
She moved in slow motion, trailing alongside the gurney, touching her daughter’s ankle, her knee, her hand. Finally, she curved her palm around Kaydee’s jaw, stroking the tangled hair from her forehead. “Oh Kaydee darling, my baby…my beautiful, beautiful girl…”
Tori closed her eyes, trying to keep a wave of burning tears at bay. She wasn’t supposed to get involved, she wasn’t, but how could she not?
“Tori.” Lorraine whispered at her ear. “The deputy has arrived with Miss Francie, Devonte Richardson’s grandmother, and she’s at the nurse’s station. I’ll stay with the Davises so you can talk with her.”
“Thank you,” Tori murmured. She opened her eyes, catching a glimpse of Sara as she leaned to press kisses across Kaydee’s forehead. Tori’s heart squeezed. She slipped into the hall and turned Mark’s ring about her finger.
Lord, please, get me through the rest of this day. Help me, give me the words, the compassion…
When Mark returned to the hallway, several of their colleagues had drifted away, leaving only Chris and Tick waiting. Tick leaned against the wall, cell at his ear, as Mark joined them.
“Yeah, precious, I’m all right. Just tired.” Tick rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ll call you. Love you.” He clicked the phone closed and returned it to his belt. He nodded at Mark. “Angel okay?”
“No.” She was a big bundle of fear and nerves, ready to collapse. Mark hadn’t wanted her caught up in the chaos in the waiting room. Instead, Lorraine had arranged for her to wait in the nurse’s lounge, where they could check in on her, but she wouldn’t witness what was going on with Troy Lee’s care. Mark jerked his head toward the cubicle. “Any word?”
Chris didn’t take his eyes off the curtain. “Layla came by a couple of minutes ago. Part of his ribcage broke and separated. He’s bleeding into the lung cavity and maybe his gut. They’re pumping blood into him and draining his chest, but Mackey wants to manage it without surgery.”
Tick dragged both hands down his face. “They’re having a hard time keeping him stable.”
Mark nodded. “What about the kids?”
“Paul Bostick is upstairs in surgery. Head injury and ruptured spleen.” Tick’s mouth tightened. “They LifeFlighted Santana Mixon to Tallahassee. Kaydee Davis and Devonte Richardson were dead on arrival.”
“Damn.”
“I knew Devonte was gone when I got to the truck. He was…there was just no way. But Kaydee… I thought she might make it if we could just get her out. Santana got thrown forward and trapped under the dash, and they had to extract her before we could take Kaydee out.” Tick talked in a monotone, staring into the middle distance. “She was talking, not really coherent, but talking. She was bleeding and I was holding, um, keeping pressure on the artery. To stop the flow, you know? I thought, if I could just hold on long enough, hard enough, if they could just get her out…she kept asking for her mama. Sara’s my cousin, did I tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“She passed out before they could cut through the door.” Tick shook himself free of the memory, his gaze losing the faraway look. “I bagged her all the way here and Denny did CPR, but there was…it was too late.”
Footsteps squeaked on the tile. Mark glanced down the hall. A state trooper approached, accompanied by a Whitman County deputy.
Visible tension gripped Chris’s body. Tick straightened away from the wall, his gaze freezing over. A matching icy anger chilled Mark, the memory of Troy Lee’s bloody face flashing in his mind. He took a step forward and stopped. Probably not a good idea to get too close to the guy. If he did, somebody might get hurt.
“Boys.” Keith Hickey, the trooper who headed up the accident-reconstruction team out of Post 40, removed a notebook from his chest pocket. “I need to get your statements since I missed you all at the scene.”
“You son of a bitch.” On a low feral growl, Tick ignored Keith and advanced on the Whitman deputy. The man’s throat moved in a hard swallow and he backed up.
“Calvert.” A note of nervousness colored Keith’s voice. “Wait a minute—”
“He told you to stop.” Teeth clenched, Chris spoke from behind Tick’s shoulder. “Twice, Troy Lee told you the kid wouldn’t pull over. Told you to stop. You ignored him.”
Unease flickered over Keith’s face. “Boys—”
“I fucking told you to stop.” Tick shoved his shaking index finger into the deputy’s chest. “Those kids are dead. My officer’s in there, his chest crushed. Because of you.”
“It’s not my fault.” His back against the wall, the deputy shook his head. “That boy didn’t have to run—”
“And you didn’t have to bring that chase into our county after you were told to stop.” Mark took up position at Tick’s other shoulder. The deputy’s gaze flicked over the three of them. The skin around his mouth went pale. “Man, this is your fault and you know it.”
“Your guy turned off the road. He didn’t have to—”
“You’re blaming Troy Lee?” Chris lunged at him, but Tick’s raised arm brought him up short.
“No. This
isn’t the time or the place.” Tick pushed his finger into the deputy’s chest once more and kept him pinned with his glacial gaze. “I’m going to have your badge. Then I’m going to see your ass in jail for this. If he dies…you’re ours.” With deliberate dismissal, he glanced sideways at Keith. “You want your statements, fine. But you get this son of a bitch who’s not worth the sweat off Troy Lee’s balls out of here first. He doesn’t deserve to be here.”
“Angel?” The soft inquiry pulled her from yet another intricate pleating of her purse strap. Heart pounding, Angel looked up. Cookie stood inside the door. Strain and weariness dragged at his features.
Angel came to her feet, the unrelenting fear trying to choke her. “Do you know something?”
Cookie shook his head and held out a hand. “Troy Lee’s family has arrived and Dr. Mackey is going to meet with them in a few minutes. I came to get you, see if there was anything you needed.”
She needed Troy Lee. “I’m fine. I just really want to know what’s going on.”
Cookie squeezed her hand. “Let’s go then.”
Over the past couple of hours, Lorraine and Tori had brought her water or tea she didn’t drink and occasional empty updates, simply more of the same. The crowds had drifted away, the teens and their parents going to the homes of the deceased teenagers. Hope and Darryl had come but after an hour had taken Brittany to Kaydee’s family home, where her friends gathered. Paul’s family and friends waited upstairs in the surgical unit. The main waiting room now held isolated groups of cops and other emergency personnel, Troy Lee’s friends.
Cookie touched her shoulder and spoke near her ear. “I’m going to check with Lorraine, see where we need to be. I’ll be right back.”
She folded her arms as he walked away. The small bruises above her elbows ached and she glanced down at them. That afternoon, when she’d put them there, seemed a lifetime away, those problems that had seemed so huge paling beside the fear of losing Troy Lee. He’d been right, with his insistence that they were all that mattered, that everything else would fall into place.
Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South Page 25