Death at the Wheel

by K. J. Emrick

  “What if she doesn’t want to see me? What if…what if she’s hurt so badly that I need to say goodbye to her…after we just…” Her voice trailed off as she choked up.

  “Of course she wants to see you,” Darcy argued gently. “She came all this way, right? She wants to see you. Come on, I’ll be right there with you.”

  Rosie managed a smile and a nod of thanks. With a deep breath, she opened her door and waited for Darcy to come around the front of the car. Together, they went into the hospital.

  The Intensive Care Unit was on the second floor, through a set of metal swinging doors that separated it from the rest of the hospital. The nice woman at the nurse’s station told them which room to find Lindsay in after confirming Rosie was a relative.

  She told them something else, too. Lindsay’s husband was in the room with her. He’d stayed here in the hospital until Lindsay had come out of surgery and he’d been here in the ICU ever since.

  There were only three rooms here, lined up on the right side of the hallway that comprised the entire Department. The rooms on the left were offices and closets. Lindsay’s room was the last one on the end. As they stood in front of room 2C, Rosie looked uncertain. She drew in a deep breath as Darcy smiled her encouragement. After a moment, she straightened her dress and pushed the door open.

  The room was painted in shades of cream and light green. Two hospital beds were surrounded by monitors and strange machines on poles and other pieces of equipment. Only one of the beds had a patient at the moment. The redhead Darcy had seen at the accident scene lay there in a white hospital gown, the bed elevated so she was nearly sitting upright. Her right arm was in a straight cast that started at her shoulder and left only her fingers poking out of the end. A sling supported from a hook on a ceiling track kept the arm elevated and stationary. Her face was bruised and both eyes were black. Her breathing was slow and even as she slept.

  Next to the bed, in a chair on the other side from the door, sat the man Darcy had talked to at the accident scene. Alan Harlow. He was in the same blue shirt and black slacks that he had been in before, ripped and torn from the crash, his left sleeve cut away so that a bandage could be wrapped around his shoulder and upper arm. He sported a bruise of his own on the side of his face, dark stitches holding a cut closed in the center of it. He blinked at them from behind his glasses.

  “I remember you,” he said to Darcy. “You were at the accident scene.”

  “Yes. I, uh, own a store right there on Main Street. You’re Alan, right? You’re Lindsay’s husband?”

  He stood up, slowly, favoring his left hip. He held his hand out to Darcy. “I am. Her husband, I mean. We were coming to meet her mother.” He took his hand back and offered it to Rosie. “I’m guessing that would be you?”

  Rosie held Alan’s hand in both of hers, hesitantly, her gaze watery. “I’m Rosie. Lindsay called me just last week to say she was coming to see me again with the new man in her life. She didn’t tell me anything about him. About you, I should say. I’m so sorry that we had to meet like this.”

  They stood there for a long moment until Lindsay shifted on the bed and drew Alan’s attention away. He went back to his seat next to her. “She’s been doing that ever since they brought her in here. She’ll lie so still for so long and then there’s this little movement that makes me think she’ll wake up.”

  There was another chair against the wall at the foot of the bed. Rosie sat down in it, carefully watching her daughter for any other signs of movement. Darcy leaned against the wall near the porcelain sink. Apparently any more introductions would wait for Lindsay to wake up.

  The silence stretched, punctuated by Lindsay’s slow breathing and Rosie’s periodic sighs. Darcy could feel the emotional tension permeating the room.

  “I heard the driver didn’t make it,” she said to Alan, needing to say something. “I’m sorry. He was your friend, right?”

  “Who?” he asked.

  Darcy racked her brain to remember the name Jon had told her. “Uh, Jarred. The one who was driving your car. He was your friend, right?”

  Alan stared at her blankly for a few seconds. Then he blinked and shrugged, like he had just grasped what Darcy was talking about. “Yeah. Jarred and me. We were friends for years. He was happy when Lindsay finally agreed to marry me.”

  His hand went to a chain he wore around his neck, pulling on the ring at the end of it. A man’s wedding band, Darcy realized. Lindsay had been wearing a necklace like that in the crash. He spun it on its chain like a talisman, in much the same way that Darcy used her Aunt Millie’s ring. Like a talisman. Something to center himself with.

  She was a little puzzled by his reaction when she mentioned his friend’s death. Everyone reacted differently to that stuff, she supposed. Being around death a lot herself, because of her gift, she had seen people scream, cry, argue, and even shrug like Alan had just now.

  “My goodness,” Rosie said, just noticing the ring Alan was holding on its chain. “Why are you wearing your wedding ring around your neck? Did they take it off you after the accident?”

  “No, nothing like that,” he answered. “Lindsay and I agreed to wear our rings like this. It was a tradition in my family dating back to World War Two when the Nazi’s had a habit of liberating jewelry from people to pay for their war effort.” He smiled and held his ring up. “She liked the tradition so much she insisted on doing it with me.”

  The lights in the room glinted off the curved surface of the steel ring. Darcy could see there was an inscription on the inside but she couldn’t see what it said. She thought back to the one Lindsay had been wearing. Matching wedding bands worn on necklaces. She thought that was a sweet tradition to have. She hoped she and Jon would develop their own traditions when they started their life together as husband and wife.

  “Did the doctor tell you anything about my Lindsay’s condition?” Rosie asked after another long moment of silence.

  Alan had gone back to watching Lindsay with fierce intensity. He sat there silently staring at his wife for so long that Darcy thought he wasn’t going to answer Rosie at all. Finally he nodded, but did not turn his head as he spoke. “He said her arm is broken. There was internal bleeding. They’ve fixed her up inside and set her cast. Between the concussion and the anesthesia they gave her for the surgery they just aren’t sure when she’s going to wake up.”

  “Oh, my,” Rosie said, pressing her knuckles to her lips.

  “I’m surprised they don’t have someone watching her,” Darcy wondered.

  “The monitors display directly out at the nurse’s station, from what I understand,” Alan said. “Plus, I haven’t left her side. I won’t leave her side. Not until she wakes up.”

  Rosie resettled her hands in her lap, fidgeting with her fingers. “I’m so glad my daughter has someone like you in her life. The distance we put between us…I wish it hadn’t been that way. Now this has happened. I nearly lost her. I just can’t imagine what would have happened—”

  “Do the police have any information on the other driver?” Alan asked, cutting Rosie off.

  “Uh, no,” Darcy said, biting back a comment about Alan’s rudeness. He was probably not in his right frame of mind, after all. Still, Rosie jerked in surprise to be cut off like that, and a frown settled into place on her face. Darcy hoped her new son-in-law acted friendlier once he knew his wife was out of danger. “My fiancé is a detective with the police in Misty Hollow,” she explained. “He says they’ll know more once they run the license plates on the car he disappeared from.”

  Alan‘s dark green eyes narrowed as Darcy explained what Jon had told her. “A police detective, you said? Your fiancé is a police detective?”

  “Yes. He’s one of the best. He’ll figure out who did this to you. I can promise you that.”

  Alan tugged hard on his necklace, then turned his attention back to his wife. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want whoever did this to Lindsay to get away with it.”

  Da
rcy could hear the tension in his voice. “You know, we can watch over Lindsay for you if you’d like to get some rest. You got pretty beat up in the car accident, too. Some rest would probably do you good.”

  “Not as beat up as Lindsay got, I might say,” Rosie commented, not looking directly at Alan.

  It was an odd thing to say. Did Rosie sound mad? Darcy couldn’t quite tell.

  “No,” Alan was saying. “I don’t want to leave her side. Not until she wakes up. I need to be here when she wakes up.”

  “But you won’t do her any good if you’re exhausted yourself,” Darcy reminded him.

  He scooted his chair in closer to the side of the bed and took Lindsay’s left hand in his. “I will not leave her. She’s my wife.”

  And that seemed to be the end of the conversation.

  “My, but I’m simply parched,” Rosie said, patting her hand to her throat. “Darcy, would you mind helping me find one of those vending machines?”

  There was obviously more to Rosie’s request than she was letting on. Darcy followed her out of the hospital room with a single backward glance to the bed where Lindsay lay, and to where Alan Harlow sat still as a statue at her side.

  Rosie didn’t say another word until they were through the swinging doors of the ICU, back in the main part of the second floor, and walking down to the elevator. Even then she checked both ways up and down the hall to make sure no one was around. “Darcy, there’s something wrong with that man.”

  “What makes you say that?” Darcy asked. She felt it, too, but she had chalked it up to his concern over his wife. “He’s just worried about your daughter. Isn’t that what you want for the man she married?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know what to think of him.” The elevator dinged as the doors opened. It was an empty car, and as soon as they were inside Rosie jabbed the “door close” button several times to make sure it shut with just them inside. “How am I supposed to know what sort of man he is? I just have this feeling. This terrible, terrible feeling that there’s something bad going on between those two.”

  “Rosie,” Darcy said as gently as she could, “you haven’t seen Lindsay in a very long time. You can’t know everything that’s going on her life. I admit Alan is a little, well…”

  “Creepy?” Rosie said harshly.

  “I was going to say different, but he’s at your daughter’s side and hasn’t left through the whole thing. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “You mean because I had to leave when the hospital told me to?”

  There was bitterness in Rosie’s voice and Darcy knew she’d overstepped herself. “No, Rosie, of course not. That’s not what I meant at all. I just mean, you should give him some time. Get to know him first. Him, and your daughter.”

  They were quiet again as the doors dinged open. Darcy had expected Rosie to get off on the first floor but she just stood there, waiting for the doors to close again. When they did, she grabbed Darcy’s hands tightly with her own.

  “You feel things sometimes, don’t you Darcy? Do you feel anything this time? With Alan, or with Lindsay, or with anything? Something isn’t right here, I’m telling you! Something is not right with that man.”

  For a moment, the vision she’d had after touching Alan’s hand came back into her mind. That didn’t mean anything, Darcy reminded herself. She had visions often, and not all of them meant murder or death or mysterious, evil things. Well. Okay. Most of them did, but that didn’t mean this one had to.

  Did it?

  Darcy sighed. “Look, Rosie, I’ll keep myself alert to anything. If I get any…feelings, I’ll be sure to let you know. Okay? For now, though, just be happy your daughter is going to be all right and that she has a man who loves her. That’s what counts, right?”

  Rosie seemed unconvinced, but she nodded and let go of Darcy’s hands. “All right, Darcy. As long as you promise to keep an eye on him for me. I’m so worried about Lindsay that I can’t think straight.”

  “I think maybe that’s what you’re sensing from Alan,” Darcy offered as she reached out and pushed the button for the second floor again. “Just give him some time. Did you really need a drink? There’s a vending machine on the second floor.”

  “No, I’m fine. I just needed some air. And a good friend to talk to, I suppose. Thanks, Darcy.”

  It seemed like Rosie was much more relaxed as they went back down to the ICU. She even managed a smile for the desk nurse on the way by.

  They were half way down the hall when a loud ding sounded from the speakers in the ceiling and an automated voice said in clipped, recorded words, “Nurse to room 2-C. Nurse to room 2-C.”

  Lindsay’s room.

  Darcy and Rosie both ran down the hall followed closely by several white-uniformed nurses who patiently but firmly pushed passed both of them once the door to room 2-C was open. Rosie gasped when she saw the reason for the call.

  Lindsay sat up in the bed, blinking, confused, hampered by her arm in its cast and sling. Her very red hair was mussed from lying on the pillow and her eyes had that look people have when they’ve just woken from a dream and they don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

  One of the nurses rushed back into the hall calling for a doctor as she went. The other nurse went to Lindsay’s bedside, checking monitors and gently touching her face around her bruises, smiling a genuine smile. “Well, look who decided to rejoin us. You’re doing great, sweetheart. Do you remember what happened? Do you know where you are?”

  Lindsay blinked. She had her mother’s eyes, a soft hazel that wasn’t quite a pure green. She opened her mouth to speak but croaked instead. Running her tongue over her lips she pointed at her throat, looking up at the nurse.

  “She needs some water,” Alan said from next to her. He quickly picked up a plastic yellow mug with a straw in it from the bedside table and brought it up to Lindsay’s mouth. “Here you go, honey. Don’t try to talk just yet. It’s okay. You’ve been in an accident. It’s okay. Your husband is here.”

  She looked at him, blinking again, with no recognition in her eyes. She took the offered drink of water and drank deeply. The whole time, her eyes stayed on Alan, studying him like she had never seen him before.

  Rosie looked at Darcy with a meaningful glance and Darcy couldn’t help but wonder if the woman had been right about her daughter and this man after all. Lindsay must be scared, sure, but shouldn’t she show some kind of care that her husband was sitting next to her when she woke up in a hospital bed?

  She watched Alan to see what he would do. She could imagine how much it would hurt her if Jon woke up in the hospital without so much as a word for her. Not even a smile. What was going on here?

  Alan watched Lindsay expectantly, waiting for her to say something, anything. His eyes looked even larger behind the lenses of his glasses now than they had before.

  Glasses.

  He’d been wearing them at the accident scene, too. It hadn’t registered with Darcy until now because of everything that had been going on. She noticed now.

  Rosie must have seen the way Darcy’s expression changed. Nodding to herself like she’d just been proven right, she stepped closer to the foot of Lindsay’s bed. Alan glowered at her, his jaw set and his eyes fierce. Rosie ignored him. “Lindsay, honey,” she said to her daughter. “Lindsay it’s me. It’s your mother. Can you talk to us? We’re all so happy you’re going to be all right. Just tell us what happened, honey, okay? You’re not alone here.”

  Then she did turn her gaze on Alan, matching him stare for stare. “Tell us what really happened.”

  The whole room stopped still as that accusation hung in the air. Lindsay licked her lips again and her eyes settled on Rosie. She smiled at her mother. And then shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

  Chapter Four

  After the shock of Lindsay’s question had worn off, Rosie had left Lindsay in the care of the nurse and the doctor who had just come into the room, and excuse
d herself quietly. Darcy followed her down to the second floor waiting room. It was built to resemble a chapel, with rows of padded bench seats and a wooden table at the far end that held a Bible and a spotlight shining on a simulated stained glass window with an image of the sun coming up over purple mountains carefully rendered in glass. All very non-denominational, all very calming and peaceful.

  Rosie wasn’t very calm. She kept pacing up and down the room’s center aisle, her hands restlessly folding and unfolding into each other. “Amnesia. I can’t believe it. Lindsay has amnesia!”

  “It’s okay, Rosie. She’ll be alright.” Darcy sat down in a bench at the back, feeling like this day had lasted a week already. Rosie was crushed all over again that the daughter she had just reconnected with couldn’t even remember who she was. “The doctor said that amnesia isn’t that uncommon with a head injury like Lindsay suffered. He said it will most likely go away on its own.”

  “And it might not,” Rosie reminded her, pacing still. “She might need specialists and more doctors and more surgery… Oh, my. I just don’t know what to do. And poor Alan! I really thought that he was some kind of villain who had hurt my Lindsay. I thought that was why she was looking at him so strangely.” She made a sound part way between a snort and a laugh. “Amnesia. That was all it was. She doesn’t even remember me! Oh, I was so horrible to that poor man.”

  Darcy nodded along and even murmured a few words of sympathy, but in the back of her mind she was running through certain facts. Rosie might not have been as far off the mark as she thought.

  At first, Darcy had been sure that everything was just what it seemed. A horrible car accident, injured passengers, a driver who had run away from the scene. Now she was beginning to think it might be much more. It all centered around what she had seen in her vision, and the fact that Alan was wearing glasses.

  The damage to the front car in the accident, the blue one that Lindsay had been in, was really bad. Bad enough that it had thrown car parts through Darcy’s store window. Bad enough that the driver had died, and that Lindsay had been knocked unconscious only to wake up with amnesia.