“We can get some others to fill in when people call in sick,” her boss had told her earlier that day. “You’ve worked entirely too much.”
At least the work had soothed her soul.
And kept her from thinking too much about Ziad. Emma had told her he and Ben had begun meeting regularly to talk about the Bible. The week before, he even began attending their church.
Claire didn’t hold out much hope. As she wandered down the hall to the parking garage, her mind flashed back to the meal she’d prepared for her family the weekend before Thanksgiving. And her speech. “I’ve realized one thing. I still love Ziad. Through it all, that’s what I’ve concluded. I love him. He’s not a Christian. I understand that. And I’ll not marry him until he is. And if he never becomes one and I go to my grave single, so be it.”
She stood by those words with her heart and soul. Unfortunately, she knew what that meant. She couldn’t see him. If she did, she’d cave. Lord, I wish there were another way. I truly do. But there isn’t.
She fished her unfamiliar fob from her purse, all thanks to the person who’d rammed into the side of her parked Mustang at a shopping center and run off without leaving any insurance information. The convertible now resided in the shop, and she was stuck with a crappy Chevy Cavalier for a rental. At least it had heat. And a radio. But not much else.
There! Claire found the teal vehicle toward the end. She shivered, more from the sudden feeling of being alone than the chilly air. Maybe she should return to the security desk and ask for an escort. No. She wanted to get home. Fast.
As she continuously surveyed the area, she made her way across the concrete. She slid inside and started the vehicle. It groaned to life. “For something to be so new, this is a piece of junk,” she muttered. “Thanks for nothing, you jerk.”
She pulled out of her spot and wound her way to the exit. The gate lifted. She turned right, then stopped at the stoplight to allow some passerby to cross. She turned on her right turn signal.
A shadow caught her eye.
It blazed toward her.
Her breath hitched, and she fumbled for the locks. “No!”
A man jumped inside.
Pain flashed across her cheek.
He pointed a gun at her heart. “Drive!”
Her hand snaked toward her purse.
“No, you don’t!” He called her a foul name and tossed her purse into the back, then jammed the gun’s muzzle against her temple so hard it hurt. “Onto Calhoun!”
Her tires squealed as she jerked into the turn. A pedestrian shouted at her.
She mouthed a silent plea. Call for help!
“Onto Lockwood!”
Claire skidded into the turn.
“Get onto US 17 North. Now.” He called her another unflattering name.
Her voice trembling, she blurted, “If it’s money you want, I don’t have much, but it’s—”
“It’s not money, woman.” His eyes narrowed, and he smirked. “It’s you.”
For a brief, insane second, she stared at him. He’d yanked the hood of his hoodie down, and in the dim flashes of streetlights, she noticed something like snakes tattooed onto his bald head. “Me? I—I—”
“Shut up. Onto I-26 West.” Focused energy now, as if the carjacker knew precisely where to go.
Claire took several deep breaths. Stay calm. Think. No one’s going to help you. It’s you and me, Lord. No one else. She stomped on the accelerator and sped up. Maybe a cop would see them.
I-526.
Those words flew across her mind.
What?
Take the exit.
Again, those words as if someone had spoken aloud to her.
She cranked the wheel to the right, and they flew along the exit ramp.
The carjacker stared at her. “What are you doing? Who told you—”
“You want somewhere deserted?” She matched her volume to his. “That’s where I’m going!”
He jabbed at her. “Get back onto 26!”
She jerked her head back, and his gun opened a cut above her eye. “Hit me again, and we both die.”
She stomped on the accelerator. The Cavalier quivered as she passed seventy. She pressed toward eighty.
Maybe a cop would see them first and pull them for speeding.
Ziad.
It was as if the carjacker had spoken his name.
Of course he hadn’t.
Maybe Ziad was on duty out on Clements Ferry Road. That was it!
Lord, let this work. Please!
The exits for North Rhett and Virginia Avenues flew by in a blur.
“Turn around! What are you—”
“Shut up!” Her hands tightened on the wheel.
Blood oozed through her eyebrow. Oh, no. Not now. She couldn’t pass out. Not while they practically flew across the Cooper River. Clements Ferry Road came up.
God, please… Her cry remained locked in her throat as the brake pedal vibrated. The carjacker’s shouts faded as she focused on keeping them from flying off the exit ramp. Blue lights began flashing behind them.
The carjacker froze. “You stop, you die. Understand?”
He brandished the gun as if to emphasize his point.
He’d rather kill her than let her walk.
She had to end this. God, please. I’m so scared.
Peace descended as she realized what she had to do.
She stomped on the accelerator once more and blew by another two patrol cars, these coming toward her with their blue lights glittering in the cold air.
They whipped into a U-turn and became the closest pursuers.
Blood began trickling into her right eye.
Her pulse pounded in her ears.
Then came the lightheaded feeling.
Her vision began tunneling.
She refused to let up on the accelerator.
As they approached an industrial area, her vision shrank to a point.
“Lord, be with me!” she cried aloud as she jerked the steering wheel to the left.
She barely felt them go airborne, barely heard the screams—hers or the carjackers, she didn’t know—as they clipped a pole.
Glass shattered.
Metal crunched.
Claire slipped into darkness.
#####
“All units, a ten-twenty-six has occurred at the corner of Calhoun and Jonathan Lucas Street,” the dispatcher called on the radio. “Hostage in the car. Car description: teal 2010 Chevy Cavalier, license plate South Carolina EEE 999. Subject westbound on I-26.”
Where he sat in the early evening in his hide on Clements Ferry Road, Ziad jotted the plate number onto his notepad and straightened. A kidnapping? Not good. He listened as several of his comrades called that they were in pursuit. Then came another update. “Subject has taken I-526 East. Repeat. Subject has taken I-526 East.”
“Ten-Four.” The dispatcher repeated the information.
Time to move. He turned on his flashing blue lights but kept the siren off as he keyed his radio. “Dispatch, Unit Eight-Two-R moving into position to intercept if requested.”
“Ten-Four, Unit Eight-Two-R.”
“Unit Eight-Two with you.” Eddie swung behind him.
Ziad squinted in the darkness and the evening traffic. He guided his cruiser around those who pulled over. Not much further, and he’d be ready to make the intercept.
“All units, suspect is northbound on Clements Ferry Road.”
Ziad peered through the headlights.
Then he saw them.
Ahead, a mass of blue lights with a car in front hurtled toward him.
It blew by him and Eddie.
He hung a hard left in a U-turn and toggled his radio. “Unit Eight-Two-R in direct pursuit.”
Ziad focused on his driving.
“Suspect is armed and dangerous,” the dispatcher said. “Repeat, suspect is armed and dangerous.”
They shot into a rural area.
The amber glow of streetlights from a
n industrial complex came up.
They left their jurisdiction.
The Cavalier jerked left!
Too fast to—
He gasped as it skidded off the road and sailed into the air.
It clipped a utility pole. Sparks flashed in the dark.
A body flew through the air.
The Chevy crashed onto the ground, rolled two more times, and came to rest on its roof.
Ziad slammed on the brakes. He jumped from his cruiser.
Eddie grabbed his arm. “Hold on, Big Z. We’ve got power lines down big time.”
Ziad snatched up a flashlight and shone it across the area. Sparks crackled from the ends of some live wires. “We need to get to the car.”
“Roger that. But without dying ourselves.” Eddie raised his radio to his lips and made the call to the dispatcher for the power company to get out there, STAT. “Suspect down,” he added as they stared at the moaning form of the carjacker. “Ziad, get to the car. Carefully.”
They picked their way over the wires.
Ziad studied the Cavalier. It lay upside down, the roof partially caved in. Its wheels spun, meaning the car was in drive.
A sharp odor permeated the air. “Gas.”
Not good at all. One spark… He shut down the commonsense part of his brain as he finished crossing the power lines and reached the Cavalier.
He fell to his knees and peered inside. A woman with long hair hung upside down from her seatbelt.
Ziad reached inside and turned off the ignition. The wheels began winding down. He fumbled at her neck for a pulse. Steady, thank goodness.
At his touch, she moaned.
“Help is coming,” he murmured in an effort to assure her. Keep calm.
She turned her head.
“Ziad?”
He froze at the thin, ethereal voice. Not…
“Claire?” He wormed his way inside and aimed the beam of his flashlight toward her.
His heart pounded. He couldn’t think. Breathe. You must breathe. He examined her face. Scarlet with blood. It dripped onto the roof from a gash in her head.
She was bleeding to death simply by hanging upside down.
He yanked out his handkerchief and pressed it over her wound. “I am here. Where are you hurting?”
Her voice trembled as she replied, “Everywhere.”
Fear uncurled within him. “Can you move your toes?”
“N—no.”
He couldn’t panic. It wouldn’t do her any good. “Your fingers?”
“Y—yeah.”
No comfort if she had no feeling in her toes.
“Paramedics are less than a minute out.” Eddie now crouched beside him.
Ziad turned his head and squinted in the bright beam of his friend’s light. “She cannot move her toes. We need to get her out.”
“Not ‘til they get here. Hang tight.”
Claire’s hand fumbled for his. “Ziad, I’m scared.”
He gripped her fingers. “I know, habibti. I am here for you.”
Eddie touched his back. “Ziad, man, the firemen and paramedics are here. Let them take over.”
He hesitated.
“Sir, we’ve got to get in there,” a paramedic said.
He had no choice. Ziad wormed free and climbed to his feet. Eddie took his arm and guided him across the wires. “The power company is ten minutes out. They’ll cut the power when they get here.”
“Claire cannot move her toes.”
Eddie muttered something as he stared at a couple of paramedics lifting the carjacker onto a stretcher. “Our man’s got a busted arm and is pretty banged up. Nothing that seems to be life threatening.”
Ziad began shaking as adrenaline seeped from his system.
“Big Z, you need to sit down for a moment. Here.” Eddie popped open the passenger door to his cruiser. He stared at the blood on Ziad’s hands, then pulled a First Aid kit from the trunk. “Get cleaned up.”
Using swaths of gauze, Ziad did just that. He shuddered at the red rapidly going to brown. Claire’s blood—shed that night in ample quantities.
One of the paramedics ran over to them. “Hey, we need a landing site away from these power lines.”
Ziad’s breath caught. “Is she—”
“She’s not going to make it without an airlift.”
Panic tried to overtake him.
“Go down about two hundred yards,” Eddie told him. “Block the road with me.”
He stumbled to his patrol car. Moments later, they had the area cordoned off while some sheriff’s deputies ran traffic control.
Above them, the ruby and emerald lights from a helicopter came closer. He flinched as the chopper, the hospital’s logo lit up on the side, landed on the road between the crash site and their cruisers.
Keeping a wide berth around the swirling rotor blades, Ziad made his way toward the crash site. His breath caught.
Two firefighters had finally extricated Claire from the car and eased her onto a backboard. To be heard over the noise of the rotor blades, they shouted her vitals to the paramedics as they carried her across the wires to a waiting gurney.
Ziad didn’t understand the terminology, but their tone revealed all.
Claire clung to life by a thread.
He followed them.
They secured her to the helicopter’s gurney.
“Not you, Claire!” The flight nurse gasped.
Seeming to overcome her shock, she began demanding information.
They slid the gurney into the back and slammed the doors.
Without hesitation, the helicopter lifted off and sped toward the hospital only a few miles away.
Never in his life had Ziad felt so utterly powerless to do anything.
“Ziad al-Kazim,” someone called. Detective Alan Rothschild, the detective he’d met that spring, strode toward him. “It’s nice to see you again, though I wish under better circumstances. I got the call. Tell me what happened.”
Eddie did most of the talking.
Ziad listened.
The beat of the rotor blades vanished, leaving behind the hum of firetrucks and chatter of the firefighters and other emergency personnel as they completely roped off the crime scene.
Detective Rothschild listened with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. He sprang into action. “Let’s bring the perimeter in tighter. Ziad, Eddie said you know her.”
“I—I do.”
“You mind calling her family?” the detective asked.
“I… I will.” Ziad returned to his cruiser and pulled out his cell phone. He’d call Ben, let him tell the others. His stomach clenched. His knees began shaking as he dialed his friend’s number. He leaned his back against the hood and pinched the bridge of his nose as his temples pounded from clenching his jaw.
“Ben Evans.”
“Ben, it is Ziad.”
“How’s it going, my friend? Are you still on duty?”
“Still on duty, and no, it is not going well.”
“What’s up?”
Ziad leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees. “Ben, it is Claire.”
“What?”
“She—she has been in an accident. She was carjacked. I was first on the scene.”
“Ziad—”
“I wanted to call you so you could tell the rest of the family.”
“Where is she?”
“They airlifted her to Potter. I will be there as soon as I can be.”
Silence. Ben had already hung up.
Detective Rothschild glanced up from his notepad. “Eddie told me about you and Claire. No wonder you’re shaken. Go on.”
“Sir?”
“Go on. We’ll handle the investigation. See you later at the hospital.”
Ziad didn’t waste any time. He jumped into his cruiser and bolted toward the interstate and where his love clung to life by a thread.
37
“Where is she?” Twenty minutes later, Ziad burst through the doors of the Emerg
ency Department.
The attendant stared at him, her eyes wide. “Who?”
“Claire Montgomery. She was airlifted here.”
Minnie, the ED administrative assistant who’d taken a shine to Ziad, approached the desk. “Hey. She’s in surgery. Second floor. Her family’s already—”
“Thank you.” He rushed toward the stairs.
His foot caught the top step, and he almost went down on his knees.
He righted himself and stumbled into the lobby.
“Ziad!” Emma ran into his arms.
He held onto her and caught Ben’s eye. “How is she?”
He didn’t answer.
Emma released him and returned to a chair. She curled up and stared at the doors leading to the operating rooms.
Delia sat down beside her and took her hand. Faith stared at the floor.
Claire’s parents hunched nearby.
Ziad immediately knelt in front of Allison. He took her hands. “Please know I am sorry.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “She loves you, you know.”
“I am privileged to have her love.” His heart rejoiced before fear roared onto the scene.
David briefly gripped his shoulder. “Ben said you were the first there. Thank you.”
His eyes filled, and he turned away.
Ben touched his shoulder, and Ziad joined him. “C’mon. Let’s go to the café. I’m sure you need something to drink.”
They wound up at a table in an isolated corner.
Ben’s eyes hooded. He ran his hands through his hair, mussing it even further than it already was. He groaned as he scrubbed his hands across his face. “Sorry about that, but I didn’t want to upset anyone any further. What’d you find?”
“Someone carjacked her. She was driving. I do not know what the carjacker told her, but she yanked the wheel hard to the left.” Ziad shuddered as the grisly accident replayed itself. “They went airborne and clipped a utility pole.”
Ben flinched.
“The car flipped three or four times before hitting and rolling onto its roof.”
“And the carjacker?”
“He is injured. I am not sure how badly.”
Ben jumped up and paced. He muttered something, then said, “And he’s here.”
“Probably. And in custody. Please, my friend. Sit. How is Claire?”
Exiled Heart Page 30
