She weaved around a cement truck that was crawling up the next curve and slid over into another lane to pass an empty school bus. She could make out another limb of the H-3 far below and to the south of her. She considered using her cell phone to call Molly’s school to assure them she was on the way, but she was approaching the tunnel.
She whizzed past a VW van loaded down with surfboards. The next curve was coming too fast and so she downshifted and gave a single tap to the brake—only her foot went all the way to the floorboard. Alarmed, she tapped again and again, praying for the feel of resistance. Nothing. Now she was pumping the pedal hard. She pushed in the clutch and downshifted. She searched the road ahead for a Runaway Truck Ramp sign. Why was it she saw them all the time when she didn’t need one, but now that she did—? If only she could make it to one of the safety ramps. She’d veer off the road and run uphill to a safe, grassy stop. Instead, she read Dangerous Curve Ahead. Though she was willing herself not to look out over the guardrail, peripherally, she could make out the drop of the canyon, the glint of ocean on the horizon.
Ahead was a silver compact that she was gaining on. She pumped the brake again and glanced into the side mirror to make sure she was clear to pass the car. A motorcyclist was coming up too fast. She tried to swerve in the lane ahead of him to avoid the car in her lane, but the steering wheel was heavy and unresponsive. She was still gaining on the car.
“Dear God!” she heard herself scream. Just before she would have rear-ended the compact, she put all her strength into the steering wheel, veering onto the shoulder, then managing the Jeep back into the lane, narrowly missing the car.
But ahead was an even larger obstacle: a semi, flashing emergency lights, taking its time down the H-3 so as not to burn up its brakes. To avoid rear-ending the truck, she veered to the shoulder and slid along the guardrail, the screech of metal on metal like a never-ending scream. She yanked up the emergency brake with all the strength she could muster. The back end of the Jeep was fishtailing from the shoulder to the lane, and she bristled at the squeal of brakes from the oncoming traffic, her body tightening with anticipation of the impact. The Jeep finally careened into the guardrail, and Chase’s head clunked against something hard as the Jeep came, finally, to an abrupt stop.
A bare-chested teenage boy jerked open her door and helped her out. He wasn’t alone. Several boys in surfing shorts and flip-flops had taken on various roles—one was already talking on a cell phone to a 911 operator, another was directing traffic into the far lane to give room for an emergency vehicle. Behind her Jeep was the VW van loaded with surfboards. “Are you okay, Captain?” She guessed by the way he knew her rank that he was a military brat, like Molly.
“I’m okay, but I have to get to my daughter—”
The boy who had been talking on his cell phone ran up. “They’re on the way,” he said, and then, “Hey, haven’t I seen you on TV?”
She looked down the highway toward the sound of a wailing siren. “Is anyone else hurt? Did I hit anyone?”
The boy who had helped her from the car said, “Nothing but the guardrail.” He walked around the car and lifted on his toes to look over the edge. “Man, what a drop.”
“I need to call someone about picking up my daughter,” Chase said. “May I use your cell phone?”
The second boy handed over his cell phone. Chase stared at the keypad, unable to conjure the telephone number. She couldn’t recall the aftercare’s number or her office’s number … or Samantha’s … or Paige’s. All she could think of was Stone’s old cell number and how she needed to tell Stone that she had wrecked. But Stone was dead, she kept telling herself, her mind a running blank tape to anything else.
Emotion choked at her throat. “I can’t remember the number,” she said to the boy.
“What’s the name? I’ll call information.”
She thought a second. The siren was growing louder. Her head was hurting, and she suddenly realized that since she’d been helped from the Jeep, she hadn’t felt she could remove her right hand from the side of her head, as if by doing so, the pain would radiate even further, or everything would fall out of her head. “I can’t remember—”
“Do you have a cell phone?”
She nodded.
“In the Jeep?”
“Somewhere—my purse.” She leaned against the Jeep and held her head. The red lights of an ambulance were appearing and disappearing as the vehicle weaved around traffic. Both boys had dived inside the Jeep. When they emerged, one boy had her purse, the other her cell phone. The one with her cell phone rattled off the names of her contact list. “That’s it!” she shouted.
A second later, she was listening to the ring and silently giving thanks for the quick-thinking teenagers. “Mrs. Kamaka?” she said. “This is Chase Anderson, Molly’s mother.” Her voice was breaking with emotion. “I’ve been in a car accident. I’ll get there as soon as—what? Who picked her up?”
Chase squirmed for comfort in the emergency room bed. Her head was pounding with noise and pain. Why had Samantha picked up Molly? Who had told her to do so?
Her head had been throbbing since the accident, but the nurse said she wasn’t allowed any medication until after the CT scan. All Chase knew at this point was that someone, she had no idea who, had surmised that during the impact with the guardrail, her head had clunked into the rear-view mirror. Maybe the police officer had told her this. He had asked her lots of questions, including whether she had been drinking, and when she explained about the brakes, he had left her to climb into the driver’s seat. He pressed his foot on the brake. “Yep, they’re gone.”
The curtain suddenly swept to the side of the cubicle to reveal a worried Samantha and a frightened Molly. “Mommy!” she said and ran to the bed. She looked as if she were about to crawl up into the bed with Chase, but hesitated, taking her mother’s hand instead. “I want you to come home now,” she said.
“Soon, I hope.” Chase smiled at her daughter.
Samantha was in one of her trademark prairie skirts and peasant blouses, her red hair looking as if she’d driven all the way from the base in a convertible, but Chase knew better.
“Who called you?” Chased asked as Samantha was dropping her purse on an empty chair near the bed.
Samantha glanced at Molly and smiled. She patted Chase’s hand. “We’ll talk about that later,” she said in a tone too cheery. “Rumor has it you’re going to be just fine, honey. How do you feel?” There was that look of sympathy again, the one that could compel Chase’s emotions to surface and spill over.
She wiped her eyes and said to Molly, “You went home today with Miss Samantha?”
Molly nodded.
Chase looked back at Samantha. “But I called Mrs. Kamaka right after the accident, and she said—”
Molly patted her mother’s hand. “Miss Samantha bought me an ice cream.”
“Is that right?” Chase asked.
“Strawberry,” Molly said, then held up fingers, “two scoops.”
Chase and Samantha exchanged smiles. Chase’s head was hurting too much to piece together the puzzle. She settled her head back and closed her eyes against the white lights. A huge piece of this puzzle was missing, but what was it? She didn’t feel up to solving that. For now, she had her world around her. Molly was safe.
When she winced from a sharp pain in her head, Samantha said, “Have they given you anything for the pain?”
Chase shook her head, her eyes still closed.
“Do you feel like talking about what happened?”
She wasn’t sure she could, but she would try. With her eyes still closed, she said, “I was on the H-3...” for now she’d leave out what section and why she was there, “to pick up Molly …” Molly was intertwining her tiny fingers with her mother’s. Chase opened her eyes and smiled at her daughter. To Samantha, she added, “The brakes just went out.”
Samantha’s strawberry blond eyebrows lifted. “You’re kidding?”
Jus
t then, the nurse stepped into the cubicle. “Ready to go home?”
The CT scan proved there was no serious internal injury, but Chase was going home with a serious goose egg and a headache that was making her nauseous. She was released with a strong prescription for a painkiller and warned about the set in of whiplash.
On the drive home, Samantha pulled into the prescription lane of the base pharmacy.
A cheery employee shouted into the speaker, “Give us just a minute.”
Chase groaned from the woman’s shrillness. Every noise was amplified. The street lamps and oncoming headlights were too bright, the occasional horn, too loud.
“Are you hungry?” Samantha asked.
Chase shook her head. “You and Molly must be starving though.”
“She had crackers and juice while you were in X-ray. I’ll get you home and then order pizza or something.” When there was no cheering response from the back seat, Samantha adjusted the rear-view mirror. “She’s asleep,” she said.
“Samantha,” Chase whispered, afraid of the reverberation, “we need to talk about—”
The prescription whooshed its way through the tube. Samantha signed the credit card slip and sent it back through the tube. She opened the bag. “Relief is a swallow away,” she said, handing Chase a pill and a bottle of water. “It’s not cold, but it’s wet.”
“Anything,” she whispered and gulped.
Ten minutes later, at home, Samantha was easing a sleepy Molly from the back seat. “Be right back,” she said. Chase must have dozed during that short time. When she awoke, she was being helped from Samantha’s car by strange, strong hands. A man’s hands. Stone’s? She wanted to open her eyes, but they were lead-heavy. She managed to whisper his name. “Put your arm over my shoulder,” she heard and clumsily obeyed. The ground gave way to airy nothingness as she was whisked toward her home, and for a moment, she felt as if she were on a helicopter, on that first helicopter ride with Stone in Okinawa. Falling, falling, falling—recklessly, hopelessly in love.
CHAPTER 8
She lay in darkness, praying for the ringing in her head to cease. How much longer could she stand it? The ringing continued and continued, cutting through the fog within her mind, and as the fog slowly lifted, she began to recall the wreck, her meeting with Shapiro, White’s crash, and the memorial service.
When she finally opened her eyes, daylight was streaming between the slats of the open blinds. The ringing refused to stop, and she realized it was the telephone on her nightstand. When she reached for the phone, she screamed out in pain. Her neck and back seemed fused, as if she had been dressed during the night in a back brace. Her first fear was that she was paralyzed and so she tested her limbs, wiggling her toes, drawing her knees, a movement so painful she was forced to inhale short breaths. She tried her arms, lifting them up and down. Everything was working, even if she couldn’t compel her body to slide to one side or the other, or out of bed.
Thankfully, the ringing had stopped. She slowly turned her head toward the nightstand. Folded and propped like a white tent next to the alarm clock was a note: Took Molly to school. Call me when you wake. Love, Samantha
The telephone rang again. It was going to ring nine times more before switching over to voice mail. She used her elbows to lift her upper body. Fourth ring. She was sharply inhaling, wincing from the pain and the pounding of pressure within her head. Seventh ring. She slid her legs over the side of the bed and stretched for the phone. “Hello?”
An excited voice, vaguely familiar, shouted, “Are you okay?”
“Who is this?”
“Paul Shapiro—I just heard you were in a wreck yesterday. What happened?”
“Paul, why are you calling me?”
“Damn it, Captain Anderson—don’t you think it’s just a little more than coincidental that my sister and Major White are dead and you were almost killed?”
The alarm clock on her nightstand read 8:45. Samantha would have taken Molly to school nearly two hours ago. “My brakes,” Chase said, drawing short breaths to compensate for the pain in her back and chest, “went out.” She sucked in several more breaths. “Just an accident, Paul.”
“You left yesterday before I could tell you that Melanie called me a week ago, frightened out of her mind. She said someone in a dark sedan had nearly run her off the road.” His voice choked with emotion. “I didn’t take it seriously. Told her it was just probably somebody in a hurry or some drunk on the road after the football game. You know? If only— anyway, did you notice anything unusual yesterday on your way up the H-3, or on the way down?”
“No, Paul. No dark sedan. The only crazy driver on the H-3 yesterday was me when the brakes went out.”
“You’ve got to admit that it’s more than a little coincidental that—”
“Paul, stop.” She couldn’t let him draw her into his conspiracy theories. She was sorry he had lost his sister, but she would be making a mistake to see him as anything other than a reporter, a reporter on the hunt for a story. She couldn’t afford her name to be tangled in yellow journalism. Even if she could tell him more about the 81, which she couldn’t, if he quoted her as a “reliable government source,” Hickman would assume it was her. The guilt by association would end her career.
“Don’t you see? Melanie knew about the problems with the 81 from Major White. She said White was furious when his hard landing wasn’t reported. According to Melanie, White threatened to go over his CO’s head if somebody—”
“Paul,” she shouted above his escalating ramble, “whatever information you think you have is most certainly unreliable. I don’t want to talk to you outside my office. Send your request in writing.” She ended the call and slammed the phone to the nightstand.
The phone rang again. “Paul, I said—”
“You let reporters call you at home, Captain Anderson?”
“Who is this?”
“The man who put you to bed last night.”
“What?” She tried to sit up and winced, easing back across the bed.
“Don’t worry. Samantha Harold was a proper chaperone. This is Colonel Fig.”
“You were here last night?” Why did he always make her feel as if she were handicapped around him? She couldn’t recall anything of the night before beyond Samantha’s driving her and Molly home from the hospital.
“By Paul,” he was asking, “do you mean Paul Shapiro with the Current?”
Her mind was spinning, her head throbbing with pain. “Paul said he heard about the wreck. I guess he read a police report about it, or someone from my office—” She took a deep breath. The pain caused her to exhale short breaths. “Colonel, I’m hurting. I think it’s whiplash. I need to go. Did you call for something specific?” She wasn’t sure he even heard her because she’d detected the muffled footsteps of someone entering his office and of someone rustling through paperwork.
“I’ll call you back,” he said.
But he didn’t. Instead, he showed up around eleven. Chase, after soaking in a hot bath, had developed enough freedom of motion through her neck and back to dress in a fresh uniform. She was sitting at the dinette, sipping coffee, nibbling on toast when the doorbell rang.
“Colonel, what are you doing here?”
He stuffed his keys in a pocket and smiled. “Glad to see you’re up,” he said. “Anything cold to drink?” Could he be any more arrogant, she thought?
She led the way toward the kitchen and pointed toward the refrigerator before easing in a chair at the dinette. “Help yourself.”
He pulled a Diet Coke from the refrigerator and after a long drink set the can on the kitchen island. “I called the body shop for you. Found the insurance information in your glove box.”
“Thanks, but—”
“Hungry?” He was standing in front of the open refrigerator door, gazing inside at the contents.
“No. And excuse me, sir, but are you always this rude?” She couldn’t hold back anymore. He’d pushed her too far�
�showing up two nights earlier and demanding to grill her dinner, his warning her about Shapiro, the phone call just hours earlier, and now this.
He closed the refrigerator and leaned on the kitchen island. “Are you always this hardheaded or just ungrateful when someone’s trying to help you?”
They stared each other down for several moments, and then Chase burst into tears. Damn him, she thought, and dropped her aching head into her hands and sobbed. He moved quickly to her side and placed a hand on her shoulder. Then he knelt eye-level. “Here,” he said, pushing a napkin at her. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said in a tone so apologetic, she cried even harder. The dam was finally bursting, and she was crying for everything—for the fact that she could have been killed in a car wreck but was thankfully saved. Stone would have been so disappointed if she’d left Molly all alone, even if she, Chase, felt the most alone in this moment than she had since Stone’s death.
“When was the last time you ate?” Figueredo asked.
She pointed at the toast, and then blew her nose into the napkin.
“Wow, that’s attractive,” he chuckled. She looked up at him through a film of tears. He was smiling, and suddenly the ridiculousness of her crying and blowing her nose in front of him seemed hilarious to her too. Now they were both laughing, and she was clutching her bruised ribs and begging him to stop.
Finally, she eked out, “I don’t think I like you very much.”
“I’ll try not to lose sleep over it.” His bluntness caused her to laugh again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed at all.
An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) Page 8