Weakness came over her, a vague sense of being present, yet somewhere else, too.
Lifted.
Now lowered.
She knew she was lying on a stretcher, yet, she felt above it, as if swimming in the air. She gazed upward into Zack’s concerned hazel eyes as he covered her with a thermal blanket. “This should warm you up a little.” He snapped a buckle. “The incline to the road is pretty steep. We’ll be as gentle as we can. Ready?”
“Like I have a choice?”
“Don’t worry. We won’t drop you.”
“Be sure you don’t. Remember, I’m a lawyer.”
As they loaded her into the ambulance, Sam sighted the North Star, a twinkle of good will. “What time is it?”
“Eight-thirty, ma’am,” Trooper Mitchell said, and closed the ambulance door as Zack wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm and pressed his stethoscope against it.
In the light, she could finally see his face, cherub handsome, firm, round cheeks, and a pouf of curly blond hair sticking out from underneath his Orioles baseball cap, hazel eyes that met hers with dead-pan seriousness. Alonzo…move over. Sam liked hazel eyes, although she didn’t trust them. Daddy had hazel eyes.
Moving.
Unshackled.
Floating.
She could see her body, Zack holding her wrist, checking her pulse, and his worried face. He rapped on the window and shouted into an intercom. “We’re losing her…hurry.”
Sirens.
“Sam. Sam, don’t leave us.”
Zack’s call commanded her to return to the living. She felt sucked into her body and opened her eyes.
“You’re back.” He pumped the blood pressure cup again. “That’s better. Your color’s returning. You scared me there for a minute. Don’t you die on me, Sam…you’re too pretty to die.”
A slight veer to the right, and the ambulance came to a stop. Doors opened, more pulling and lifting, wheels dropping, moving toward opened doors. Zack clipped beside her. “We’re at the hospital, Miss Knowles.”
“You may call me Sam.”
“They’ll take good care of you here, I promise. A relative of mine works the ER. Her name’s Tracey.”
More strangers emerged, this time in scrubs, and ushered her into a room.
Unbuckling.
Lifting.
Zack’s disembodied voice. “Sam, we’re moving you onto a hospital gurney.” He came into view, his smile like a tether, willing her to live. Twinkling eyes set off a five-o’clock shadow, a tower of virility. Not rugged, mountain-man handsome but definitely worth staying alive for, if living meant seeing his face again.
Zack set a bouquet of hyacinths on her chest.
“How…where did you get these? Are you a magician, too?”
“Hardly. The owner has a lot of them growing by his lake. I picked these while they were loading you unto the stretcher.”
“Hyacinths don’t grow in the wild in North America.”
“Maybe not in most places. But at Dawn’s Hope, they’re plentiful. A friend of mine, Jonathan Gladstone, lives there.”
Don’t debate a gift, Sam, or maybe you should. Look what a mess the last gift got you into.
She sniffed them, their scent spiriting her to another time and place…Westchester. Mama snipped a bouquet and handed them to her. “Go put these in a vase, Samantha. Your father’s always in a better mood when I put these flowers on the table.”
“Thank you, Zack. Hyacinths are my favorite.” Sam drank in their scent, nature’s laudanum.
“I’ll put these in a vase. They’ll be in your room waiting for you,” Zack said.
She hated her fondness of hyacinths since Daddy had liked them, too. Why couldn’t she love roses or even lilacs, Mama’s favorites? Daddy used to stomp on the roses and cut the lilac bushes so far back, they died. For some reason, he spared the hyacinths. Sam never let Daddy know how much she liked them, so he wouldn’t hurt them like he did all the other flowers. She never told Justine or Abe about the hyacinths, how their scent came to her whenever she felt afraid, late at night, alone in her apartment, after a bad dream.
She sniffed them again, and blessed sleep took her to oblivion.
3
Zack paced the hospital corridor, torn between wanting to leave, a zillion and one other things he had to do, like grading papers and going over lesson plans, and wanting to stay to be certain Sam was out of danger. He chose the latter, preferred option. He wondered if he should call Jonathan with an apology for not showing up to watch the Red Sox-Orioles game.
No loss for Zack. Lately, Jonathan Gladstone had been as sour as the fox’s grapes, his dour moods nothing unusual in and of themselves, especially since his wife and son died. Morose was too tame a word to describe him. His mood was darker now, five years later, then when the divers brought their bodies out of the lake.
Christian duty demanded Zack visit Jonathan tomorrow, but sometimes Christian duty took a man so far out of his comfort zone, he landed in a foreign country. He’d tired of Christian duty. The more time he spent with Jonathan, the more Zack’s own moods deepened. Who’d have thought depression could be so contagious?
It was a mystery how some people cocooned their grief and others sprouted wings through tragedy. Sam had a reason to let despair get the better of her, but there was strength in her sass. Her humor seemed sensual in a way. No relatives…probably alone in the world except for her work. He imagined somewhere, or at sometime, life had pushed her down, yet she’d sprung back up, determined to bloom without the sun.
Like Jonathan’s hyacinths.
For Zack, faith made a difference when disappointment came. Then again, he never had to cope with losing a wife and child. Grief sometimes ate people inside out, like cancer, and Zack feared Jonathan’s grief would devour him. Aunt Sadie had more confidence. “Quit playing shrink to Jonathan’s sorrow and leave the boy alone,” she’d said every time Zack complained about Jonathan’s dark moods. “He’ll rout himself out, eventually.” Maybe so, but an afternoon with Jonathan drained Zack more than pitching nine straight innings.
His beeper vibrated. Now what? Another accident? He checked the hail. Jonathan—probably wanted to brag about the Red Sox’s win tonight. At least the interruption brought him out of his well of thoughts. Good thing. “Much too deep in there to dawdle,” Aunt Sadie would say.
Zack went to the nurse’s station and dialed Jonathan’s home phone. “I heard the recap on the radio. You didn’t have to beep me to rub it in. Besides, I was about to call you.”
“Not why I beeped you, but for your information, the Orioles got smashed, not beat. Anyway, what happened to you? It’s not like you to blow me off.”
“I had to go out on that 911 to your property.”
“Odd thing about that moose. Aaron told me a few days ago he thought he’d seen one hanging around the lake. I thought he was joking. She’s not going to sue me, is she?”
One never knew when Jonathan told a joke, even if you stared him in the face—his vibrato as constant as a fog horn. “Don’t be so paranoid, although, she is an attorney.”
“I knew it. I don’t need to be sued right now. I’ve got too much on my plate as it is.”
“Yeah, right. Like what?”
“I started a new landscape, I’ll have you know.”
His art might be the very thing to rout Jonathan out, like Aunt Sadie said. “Good for you. As for that lawyer, don’t worry, she’s not a litigator. I think she’s an ADA in New York City, although, you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Is she OK?”
“Banged up quite a bit, and she went into shock. She’s stable now. Thought I’d visit her before I bag it tonight.”
Jonathan hedged.
“Why did you call?”
“Can you stop over tomorrow?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Got a question to ask. Nothing serious.”
“You can’t ask it over the phone?”
“
No.”
Hesitation. Could be Jonathan didn’t want to talk anymore. He generally ended his conversations with a rude disconnect. Sometimes he’d put the phone down and walk away in the middle of the caller’s sentence.
Zack heard deep breaths. At least he hadn’t disappeared. “Is she pretty? The lawyer lady, I mean. Must be a looker if you’re hanging around.”
“Not her looks that interest me, although she’s pretty enough.”
“What, then?”
“She’s different.”
“In comparison to what?”
A philosophical argument Zack would debate another day. “When I handed her a bunch of your hyacinths, you’d think I’d given her a million dollars. She’s like this little girl trapped inside a glass coffin of distrust.”
“Stop analyzing, Zack. People aren’t puzzles to be solved. Nobody really knows anybody, not even after a lifetime together. Seems like you’d have learned that by now, after Ellie—”
“I told you never to mention her name again.” Zack’s cheeks burned.
Dennis Faubert stuck his head out the door. “Your passenger’s awake, Zack. We’re going to move her up to the floor in a few minutes.”
Zack nodded an acknowledgement. “Sorry, Jonathan. Gotta go. I suppose you won’t change your mind about church tomorrow?”
“You know I don’t go to church. Not since Angelica—”
“I’ll stop by after services, then. Do you want to fish at the lake?”
Disconnected.
****
A blonde girl in pink scrubs held Sam’s hand. “Miss Knowles, you’re in the emergency room. Can you hear me?”
The past few hours rushed in on her… a run-in with a moose…she lived…the moose died…the crumpled car…a handsome EMT…sirens. “Yes. I remember coming in here, now.”
The walls and ceilings had stopped their concaves, allowing Sam to focus on the myriad of scrubs that bustled about her. She raised her arm, wrapped snuggly in a sling. “What’s this for?”
“The doctor wants you to rest your arm for a few days.”
“Is it broken?”
“No. But, you do have significant bruising on your upper torso.”
“You talk like a nurse.”
“I am.”
Sam strained to read the name tag when the nurse checked Sam’s IV port. “Tracey Golden. You’re Zack’s relative?”
“Cousins.” Tracey stroked Sam’s hand. “Dennis will be in to talk to you shortly.”
“Dennis?”
“Dennis Faubert, the physician’s assistant. He’s almost a doctor…will be as soon as he finishes his studies at Albany Medical Center.”
Another reason to never leave the city, real doctors twenty-four-seven. “When in a pinch…”
“You’ve been in and out of lucidity for the past hour. Glad to see you coming around.”
“My head hurts.”
“You banged it against the driver’s window…hard enough to break the glass. Dennis will explain everything. He’s ordered pain medicine, if you’d like something for your headache.”
Pills? Should she? Mama took pills the night she died.
“No, thank you. It’ll go away, eventually. My clothes, my purse?”
Tracey bent underneath the gurney and put Sam’s soggy purse by her feet. “As for your clothes, I’m afraid we had to cut them off. They were stuck to your skin.”
A bearded man in green scrubs walked in. “Miss Knowles?”
“You know me. Now who are you?”
He smiled. “Dennis Faubert.”
“Ah. Yes. Almost a doctor. So what’s the verdict?”
“We ran some tests and did blood work. You obviously hit your head, so we needed to rule out a concussion. Zack said your blood pressure bottomed out, too, although it’s stable, now. Nothing’s broken, but your shoulder’s sprained. We sewed up that gash on your forehead and disinfected the other lacerations…they’re small so they didn’t need anything else…more like paper cuts...a lot of them. They’ll heal quickly. I’m afraid you’re going to be very sore for a few days, and the larger laceration on your forehead might leave a scar, but it might not show with bangs. ”
Bangs? She’d never worn bangs in her life. She’d worn the same hairdo since grade school, letting her straight red hair fall slightly over her shoulders. How else was this crazy accident going to change her life? Sam stretched her brows and blinked her eyes. “My neck is sore.”
“That’ll go away. Only minor injuries. You were lucky.”
“Luckier than that moose, anyway.”
Dennis and Tracey laughed as Tracey took Sam’s blood pressure. “That was quirky, all right. Last January we had a confused bear walk down Main Street during a mid-winter warm spell. Poor animal thought it was spring and came out of hibernation. Crazy how that moose decided to take a stroll down the road.”
“So what now, almost Dr. Faubert?”
“Dr. Brandon wants you admitted for observation and respiratory treatment. You had about 800 pounds pressing against your chest, a miracle your ribs weren’t crushed. You could have easily been impaled. Somebody up there must’ve been watching out for you. I want you to wear that sling for a couple of days to give your shoulder a rest. Your oxygen levels are a little low, which could be from hypothermia. You’re dehydrated, too, so I want to keep that IV in overnight.”
“I don’t remember you running all those tests.”
“You pretty much slept through everything, although I don’t believe all your fatigue is attributable to the accident. Some of what we’re seeing could be exhaustion.”
Could be, at that.
“Does anyone have a cell phone I can borrow?”
Tracey clicked. “Haven’s one gigantic dead spot, I’m afraid.”
Some vacation, Abe. No phone, no laptop, no clothes. Stuck in the wilderness where wild beasts roam, and they don’t have a real doctor.
Another nurse sashayed in, a curly-headed, petite blonde, too young to be a full-fledged nurse, or else she got her degree while still in high school. “Miss Knowles, your friend Mr. Hilderman called. He said if you wanted to go home, he’d come pick you up, but that he thought you’d be better off staying here to recuperate.”
Common sense said she should order Abe to bring her home, blame him for her injuries and milk his sympathy for all she could—the sensible thing to do—the Samantha Knowles, ADA thing to do, the woman-who-wore-flats-and-a-black-pantsuit thing to do. The practical thing would be to go back to her apartment or bunk in with Justine, watch chick flicks, and feast on pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts.
Moose eyes haunted her.
Dennis said Somebody was watching out for her, if so, the accident couldn’t have been a coincidence. If God used a moose to get her attention, maybe she should stay and find out what the Almighty was trying to tell her. Besides, if she bunked with Justine, she’d sing hymns or preach all night long.
“Tell Mr. Hilderman I’ll give him a call tomorrow.”
The yellow-haired Shirley Temple bit her lip, then spoke. “I don’t mean to butt in, Miss Knowles, but if I were you, I’d stay a couple of days. You shouldn’t be jostling around in a car right away.”
“Sound advice. I’ll see what I can work out. Then you can tell Mr. Hilderman that I’ll be staying in Haven for a few days, at least until Lucille is out of danger.”
Tracey paled. “Lucille? Was someone else with you in the car?”
Poor girl probably imagined an overlooked body lying in the ravine.
“Lucille’s my car.”
Color returned to Tracey’s face. Shirley Temple did an about face and left the room.
“Is there a hotel or rooming house in town?” Sam asked.
“My father runs a rooming house, Aaron Golden?”
“The town justice? Let me guess, he’s probably the mayor, too.”
“My father’s a lot of things in Haven, Miss Knowles, except the mayor. My parents have a couple of rooms over the Lighthouse
Lounge, a bar, but he doesn’t serve any alcohol. The lounge is a restaurant, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“More of a hobby than a business. My parents don’t have a license, so they don’t charge. They figure they have a lot of company for supper every night.”
An interesting concept—one that probably broke a hundred and one zoning laws. A town justice worth his salt should know that.
“Anyway, one of the two rooms is vacant. Leon rents the other one.”
“Who’s Leon?”
Tracey tucked the blankets around Sam’s feet. “Leon’s this old guy my parents have taken care of for years. He and Grandma Mazie moved up here when my folks did.”
“He’s not a weirdo, is he?”
“A little eccentric, but he’s harmless.” Tracey handed Sam a cup of ice-chips. “So what do you think?”
Did she really want to stay in a boarding house full of loons, a justice of the peace who skated on legalities, a questionably sane grandmother, and an elderly psycho? She couldn’t get much rest if she had to sleep with one eye open. Then again, she’d been in more dangerous places, and this might prove to be an interesting diversion. Ironically, a haven from public enemy number one in Sam Knowles’s Book of Thugs, Thieves, and Murderers. Vermont could wait; she couldn’t ski in this condition, and Zack Bordeaux held more promise as a tour guide than Alonzo the Gorgeous.
“And does your father run his boarding house the same way he does the restaurant?”
“Oh, no. That’s all licensed and everything, along with the store.”
“In that case, Nurse Golden, would you ask your father on my behalf? Guess I’ll take your advice and stay a few days near the scene of the crime.”
“Crime, Miss Knowles?”
“I did kill a moose.”
Tracey giggled and left.
Shirley Temple returned, pulling a gurney with the help of a blue-scrubbed attendant. Sam strained to read the nurse’s name tag—Tyra Bannings. She patted Sam’s hand, a condescending, distancing gesture—six degrees of separation between the live patient and the name on the medical chart. “Miss Knowles? We’re taking you up to the floor, now.”
The Other Side of Darkness Page 3