by Jessi Gage
She set the computer on Cami’s lap and flipped up the lid. A blinking cursor waited for her to type.
“In case your writing’s as hopeless as mine,” Officer Reynolds said.
The bright white of the blank document made Cami’s eyes water and her head throb.
Hello. Now is fine, she typed. Pls make screen darker. So bright.
Officer Reynolds complied, then tactfully suggested her mother take a cafeteria break. “I find it’s best if statements are given confidentially,” she said when they were alone.
Though she never would have admitted it, Cami was glad. She loved her mother, but felt lighter with her gone for a little while.
Over the next half hour, she answered questions about Friday as best she could. Yes, she remembered the white truck cutting her off. No, she hadn’t gotten a plate number. No, she didn’t remember anything once her Civic started rolling, at least nothing that would interest Officer Reynolds. There had been terror and pain, but the order of events was a jumble she hoped never to think about again, let alone describe.
When Officer Reynolds was done, she said, “Thank you, Ms. Arlington. Now, do you have any questions for me?”
She thought about it. Yes. What happened to the white truck? My mother mentioned the police are looking for the driver. Does that mean what I think it means?
“Mm-hmm. Hit and run. Even though your car never made contact with the truck, that’s the charge. Reckless driving and felony hit and run, to be precise. Off the books, we call it aggressive driving or road rage.” Officer Reynolds leveled a grim look at her. “We were looking for him, alright. Witnesses gave a partial plate. But wouldn’t you know it, the man comes strolling into the station this morning to turn himself in.” She slapped her knee in pleased astonishment.
How could someone cause an accident and just drive off? That was pure selfishness and rudeness. At least the person eventually came forward. That was something.
What’s going to happen to him?
“Up to a year in prison or a fine of ten grand. That’s the max. Too bad it’s not more, you ask me. I don’t hold with no aggressive drivers or cowards who flee the scene.”
Cami nodded in agreement, wincing with pain. Then she remembered it had probably been her timid driving that had pushed the driver over the edge to begin with. The thought of some guy going to jail or putting his family into financial hardship because she was a terrible driver made her feel awful.
Who is he? Why did he turn himself in?
She imagined some harried husband rushing to get home from work or to pick his kids up from school. Maybe he’d been too embarrassed to turn himself in. Maybe he’d feared what his family and coworkers would think of him. She understood the fear of disappointing people. She wouldn’t excuse it, but she could understand it. It only took one mistake to destroy a family.
Enough sympathizing with the man. His aggressive driving had put her in the hospital.
Part of the fault was hers, and she was paying for that part. She supposed he should have to pay, too. It seemed only fair when she put it like that.
“Jerk’s name is Derek Summers.” Officer Reynolds’ voice slammed into her with the force of an airbag. “Who knows why he came forward. Attack of conscience, I guess. Too little too late, you ask me.”
Officer Reynolds was saying something about her having her day in court, but Cami’s ears were hearing words spoken a lifetime ago. I caused the accident… I really hurt somebody.
Reality clicked into alignment with those impossible nights from her coma. Could it be? Could Officer Reynolds’ Derek Summers be her Derek?
A storm of hope and hurt crashed over her, leaving her ravaged and raw.
Derek might be real. But if he was, then he’d cut her off and left her bleeding and hurting in the middle of the freeway. If she acknowledged his existence, she would also have to acknowledge her part in the guilt haunting his eyes and his dreams. He’d cut her off, yes, but she’d chosen to put herself in a dangerous situation. She wasn’t cut out for the demands of freeway driving, plain and simple, but she’d gotten on anyway, tossing her no freeway rule out the window for someone else’s approval. Once again, she’d hurt someone she loved with her terrible driving.
It became unbearable trying to mesh the Derek from her coma with the one Officer Reynolds had just dumped in her lap, so she stopped trying. It was all a big coincidence. Derek was a common enough name.
Despite her resolve to dismiss this Derek from her life, she couldn’t help remembering the serious, sweet man who had earned her love with his honesty and passion. She typed I want to see him before she could stop herself.
Officer Reynolds read the screen and both her eyebrows disappeared beneath her bangs. “It’s a free country, Ms. Arlington. You can ask to see him, and he can agree or disagree.” While she spoke, her hip emitted a buzzing sound. She pulled her pager off her belt and scowled at it.
Recovering control of her digits, Cami reached for the keyboard, but Officer Reynolds snapped the lid shut before she could type Never mind.
“That’s my cue,” Officer Reynolds said as she stuffed the laptop in her bag. “Here’s my card. Have your mother call me if you have any more questions or if you remember anything else. I’ll get back to you on that request. You take care, Ms. Arlington.” She walked out the door.
* * * *
Derek pulled into the job site, grateful for the distraction of work. He found Fred in the trailer, hunched over his desk with the phone to one ear, a walkie-talkie to the other, and a puddle of spilled coffee dripping off a pile of papers onto the floor. Fred looked up as he growled a series of commands into the talkie. When he saw Derek, his head fell back in relief.
“Yeah, yeah,” Fred said into the phone. “It’s okay, now. Summers showed up.”
He threw himself into his day, working through lunch to get the site ready for the walkthrough. He’d only paused long enough to text Deidre to find out how Haley was doing and read her response: Wouldn’t even know she’s hurt. The little bit of good news almost took his mind off the constant pull in his stomach from that frigging lump of guilt.
His personal cell rang around one. Not recognizing the number on the display, he headed to the unoccupied locker room to take the call. When he answered, Lt. Christy’s voice greeted him with, “Got info for you on the driver of the Honda.”
Derek paced while Christy told him her name, Camilla Arlington, her age, twenty-six, and that she was in serious condition at Mercy Med and had recently woken up from a coma.
“Had part of her skull removed to accommodate swelling in her brain. When the swelling goes down, she’ll have surgery, and they’ll screw that piece of her head back in. Could take weeks to get to that point.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose as he listened.
“Officer who took her statement gave her your name,” Christy said. “Woman deserved to know who cut her off and put her in the hospital, don’t you think?” The words lashed into him, even though Christy didn’t go out of his way to rub his nose in the mess he’d made. The lieutenant plowed on without waiting for an answer. “She asked to see you. Can’t talk on account of the breathing tube they got her on, but she can write on a pad of paper. And she can understand just fine, which is a miracle considering her major injuries were to the head. I’ve got an officer free at three tomorrow if you want to meet up here at the station and have an escort over to Mercy Med.”
His mouth went dry. He thought about saying he had too much work to do to break away tomorrow. It was the truth, since tomorrow was the last day before the walkthrough. But if showing his cowardly face would help the woman—Camilla Arlington—in any way, he knew he had to make it work.
He nodded his agreement, then realized he was on the phone. “Okay,” he said. “Three o’clock tomorrow.”
That gave him a little more than twenty-four hours to work up the courage to face the consequences of his anger. Or flee the country and see if there were any go
od construction jobs in Mexico.
* * * *
Cami’s mother returned with an herbal tea and a scone. “How did it go with the officer?” She settled into the visitor’s chair, eyes and ears pricked for exciting new information.
She thought about lying and saying she was too tired to talk about it, but her mother deserved better from her. Accepting her fate, she picked up the pen and briefly summarized Officer Reynolds’ interview, leaving out Derek’s name. He wasn’t her Derek, so she didn’t know why she couldn’t bring herself to write out his name. It just felt easier to skip over that detail.
“Well, I’m glad that man turned himself in. I hope they throw the book at him.”
Cami stared at the wood-grain pattern of her rolly-bedside table.
“Aren’t you glad, sweetheart?” her mother tapped crumbs from her scone onto a napkin before eating it. “You’ll have justice for all this.” Her gesture included all the machinery and monitors surrounding the bed. Her demand for justice reinforced Cami’s suspicion she had never really forgiven her. If her mother wanted justice for what Derek Summers’ mistake had caused, then surely she wanted justice for what Camilla Arlington’s mistake had caused, the loss of her husband, a rift through their happy family.
She shrugged her uninjured right shoulder in answer.
Maybe this was her justice. Maybe her mother would truly be able to forgive her now that she was suffering physically from a car accident. Other than a painful but superficial case of whiplash, she hadn’t been hurt in the accident that claimed her father’s life. Technically, he hadn’t suffered any serious injuries either. He’d died from a heart attack triggered by the stress of the accident. But his lack of injury had never lightened the weight of Cami’s guilt. And she doubted it lightened the weight of blame her mother laid at her feet. It certainly didn’t for Cade.
In a way, Cami felt closer to the brother she hadn’t spoken to in eight years than to the woman she spoke to at least once a week. At least the pitiful excuse for a relationship she had with Cade was genuine. What she had with her mother felt fake and brittle—a facade she longed to shatter but couldn’t imagine living without. If she asked for the truth, she risked losing the one person in her life who at least pretended to care about her.
Depression blanketed her, turning her mood foul. She picked up her pen and interrupted her mother’s upbeat chatter. I bet they’re missing you at work, she wrote. I’m fine here. Why don’t you go in?
“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. There’s no place I’d rather be than at your side. Besides, they know family comes first.”
Her mother was an administrator at Shasta College, north of town. Cami knew for a fact she hadn’t taken a sick day all year, and thus had plenty of time off for this “family emergency.”
She tried another tack. Hey Mom, she wrote after a few minutes, going for casual lest her mother think she was trying to get rid of her. I’d like to check my email. Would you mind running to my apartment for my laptop? And it might be nice to have my slippers and robe for when they let me out of bed.
She wasn’t a slob exactly, but she’d been born to a pathological neatnik. Once her mother set foot in Cami’s apartment, she wouldn’t come out until every speck of dust was removed, every piece of clutter stored in its proper place, and every item of clothing had been washed, dried, pressed, and put away with color-coordinated precision. She’d be lucky to see her mother again by dinner time.
“I could do that. If you’re sure you don’t need me here.”
I’m sure.
Understatement of the year. What she needed more than anything was some time to herself. Well, what she really needed was a rough and serious construction worker with a tender streak that made his angry streak look like a pinstripe, but since he didn’t really exist, she’d settle for some time to think.
Go enjoy the sunshine for me.
Her mother brightened at that and gathered her things, chattering away about what other items Cami might like from her apartment.
When the door finally snicked shut, pounds of tension rolled off her. Her head sank deep into her pillow, and her fingers uncurled. Time alone with her thoughts. Just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, dragging her thoughts away from her memories of Derek was like dragging her mother from a department store sale.
Her body was at peace, eager for rest and healing, but her heart throbbed with sadness. She missed Derek.
He might not be real, but she couldn’t deny the reality of her love for him. Being with him had felt real, the focus of those precious hours so sharp the edges cut her heart.
As afternoon crept toward evening, she worried about him as if he existed. Who would comfort him through his nightmares? Who would encourage him to make things right when he made mistakes? Who would keep him company during the lonely weeknights when Haley stayed with her mom?
With the push of a button, she silenced the TV, and in the stillness that passed for quiet in an ICU room, the breathing machine sighed in incrimination. Fool…ish, it chanted. Fool…ish. Fool…ish.
She needed to let it go. Let him go. He wasn’t real.
She’d asked to see Derek Summers, and she hoped he would agree so she could see for herself the name was just a coincidence. Then the lingering thread of hope keeping her heart from plummeting into despair could finally snap, and she could let the tears fall and wash away the beautiful dream.
Chapter 15
After Lt. Christy’s call, Derek managed to put his nose to the grindstone and make significant progress on readying the site for Friday’s walkthrough. As an added benefit to keeping his head down and plowing through his workload, he didn’t have time to dwell on how much he hated himself.
When he stood from his desk to stretch his back, he looked out the trailer window to find the site abandoned and streaked with long shadows. Across the gravel lot, the last laborers were climbing into their cars and trucks, headed to their homes for big meals and good sleep.
Speaking of which, it was after six. He ought to go home for the night too, but every time he thought about his quiet, empty house, he felt a pull in his chest he’d rather not explore.
Instead of going home, he headed over to survey the three buildings himself so he knew firsthand what was ready to go for Friday and what they still needed to do.
The four-story concrete skeletons loomed cool and gray under a gold-blue sky. Late-rush hour traffic hummed along the east edge of the site and his boots crunched over the machinery-rutted ground. As he strode into the shadow of the first building, the scents of fresh concrete and welder’s dust permeated the hazy air. The day’s dying sun glinted off the cab of a crane and shot an unexpected memory of buckling metal and breaking glass into his mind.
No. Don’t think about that.
He stalked the bare concrete halls of the first building by the harsh light of strung-up halogens, jotting notes on electrical and plumbing fixtures and critical ductwork paths. He frowned at the unoccupied platforms where the chillers should be. Delivery was scheduled for tomorrow morning, and he’d prepared the laborers to stay late if needed to get them installed.
The schedule was tight, but it would have to work. Failure was unacceptable.
He made his way into the second building. Above him hung a network of ducts and copper pipes studded with set-point sprinklers, the naked guts of a building. The glare of artificial light off the hardware brought another unwelcome memory slamming into his mind, a car-filled stretch of sunny freeway, turned upside down, the burning smell of airbag explosives, the splat-splat-splat of blood dropping onto upholstery. He reeled with the sickening onslaught to his senses and steadied himself with a hand on the cold wall.
What the hell? Bad enough he had to deal with the accident in his sleep; now it was intruding on his waking hours? He should be moving past all this now that he’d turned himself in. The pit of guilt in his stomach should be shrinking, not sitting heavy like a damned boulder.
He wished Lt. Chris
ty had kept the woman’s name—Camilla Arlington—to himself. It would be easier to face her tomorrow as some nameless face.
Shaking off his dread of tomorrow’s visit, he finished his rounds and headed back to the trailer as the sun sank below the horizon. That frigging lump wasn’t the only sensation in his stomach. He was hungry too. He needed to go home and eat dinner, but he resisted. Only after spending an hour on the busy work of clearing out his inbox and organizing his project files did he realize why he didn’t want to go home.
She wouldn’t be there.
He’d cleared his conscience today. He shouldn’t have the nightmare anymore. These fleeting images were its last hurrah. He knew it instinctively, just like he knew the nightmare’s exit from his psyche would render DG unnecessary.
With the return of his sanity, he felt utterly bereft.
Half an hour later, he opened the door to his dark house. His gaze instantly darted to the hallway. His heart leapt with anticipation—the optimistic organ hadn’t gotten the memo that DG was gone forever.
Ignoring the soreness in his chest, he trudged to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich. His usual chair at the table beckoned him, but a stronger pull had him carrying his plate to the bedroom. He’d never eaten dinner in bed before—except in his stressed mind with DG—but for some reason, he couldn’t imagine eating anywhere else tonight.
He kicked off his boots and climbed on the rumpled bed. After putting a pillow at his back, he balanced his plate on his lap and reached for the beer he’d set beside his lamp. It was a cheap lamp with a brass base and a wire-and-fabric shade. Its mate was in the living room, the pair having come with the leather sofa and end table set he’d gotten when he’d moved in. His gaze fixed on the shade. It was flattened along one side. He lost his appetite.