by Susan Wiggs
“That’s not what I said.”
Mason eyed the crumpled résumé in the basket, wishing Faith McCallum had worked out. As Regina had pointed out, the candidate had looked great on paper—midthirties, years of experience as a home health aide, glowing references, able to start immediately, willing to live on the premises. He shouldn’t be surprised that she was a no-show. People were never what they presented themselves to be.
“Ever think maybe I’m just lucky?” That was what everyone said when they met Regina. He was a lucky stiff. They had been introduced by Mason’s father. When Mason had taken charge of the New York office of Bellamy Strategic Capital, his father had brought Regina on board, presenting her like a rare delicacy acquired at great expense. Mason couldn’t argue with his father’s taste. She was every guy’s dream—beautiful, sharp, successful, exuding a WASP-y, private-school self-confidence. Best of all, she didn’t have that nesting thing going on, that persistent need to set up housekeeping, spend hours decorating the place with fragile things and have three babies. In some respects, she was the female version of Mason—with one notable exception. He wished she liked sex as much as he did. Sometimes trying to convince her to have sex felt like talking her into attending an insurance seminar.
“You still haven’t told me about your trip,” Alice said, regarding him with narrowed eyes.
He read the challenge in her gaze. “Oh, you mean the trip to scatter Dad’s ashes? The one where we had to make a pilgrimage to the same avalanche zone that killed him? The one that was cut short when we got a phone call about you falling down the stairs? Is that the trip you mean?”
“Yes. That is the trip I mean.” She glowered at him.
“It was great, Mom. Fantastic.”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“Yeah, we did it exactly as instructed. They’re scattered to the four winds, just like he wanted.” He left out the part about breaking the beer stein.
She gazed out the window at the pretty spring day. “He’s really gone, then.”
Mason didn’t reply. How could someone be gone when the memories were burned into your mind? There were moments when he felt as if his father—his funny, charming, flawed, maddening father—was right in the next room, mixing drinks.
“Ivy said it was rather beautiful.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Because I’m interested in your take on it. For God’s sake, Mason, can’t we ever just have a normal conversation?”
“We have them all the time, Mom.” It was true. He placed a video call to her several times a week. But deep down, he knew what she meant. There was always that distance between them, a sense of matters neither would ever bring up directly.
No, not always, he conceded, remembering. When he was a little kid, his mom and dad had been his whole world. He and his mother had been great together, the dynamic duo. She’d been more playmate than parent, taking him along on adventures all over the world. One summer, they might be building houses for displaced people in Cambodia, followed by snorkeling off the coast of Bali. Another year, it would be camping in Siberia at an arts program for homeless children. She’d had a unique flair for combining humanitarian work with family fun, and she’d ingrained in her son the same urge to do good in the world.
It wasn’t until later—his seventeenth summer—that the gulf had appeared. That was the year his discovery of a family secret had caused him to keep his distance from both of his parents. He couldn’t talk about it with one parent without betraying the other. Forced into an untenable position, he had simply turned away from them both, forging his own path through life. They thought his sudden change in attitude was the result of teenage rebellion, and maybe it was in part, but he had also felt the need to wall himself off, in order to avoid those intimate ties.
Sometimes he thought that was the reason he was addicted to the rush of risk-taking—in sports, in finance, in anything but emotional entanglements. It was a way to escape the pressure of family expectations. Truth be told, he was more comfortable cave-diving or making risky business deals than he was getting emotionally involved.
He regarded his mother thoughtfully. A little more than a year ago, she had completed a triathlon. Her photo had appeared in the New York Times as she crossed the finish line, first in her age group, her muscular legs gracefully outstretched, sweat-streaked blond hair flying out behind her, an expression of triumph on her face. The ski trip to New Zealand had been a reward to herself for a job well-done.
Now her life had veered along a horrific and unanticipated path. She was confined to this house, where she struggled through every day, and eating her breakfast had become more challenging than any grueling race.
She had responded to the trauma and its aftermath by vacillating between grimness and outright rage. Did she know he ached for her every moment? Did she know he wished there was some magical way to take away the emotional pain he saw in her face and heard in her voice?
Maybe this was their moment. Maybe it was a chance for them to make a new start. “Listen, Mom—”
“Where the hell is Regina with that Bloody Mary?” his mother snapped. “I need a better intercom system. The one you chose never seems to work.”
“I’ll have someone check it out.”
“See that you do.”
And just like that, the moment for reaching out to her was past.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Bellamy.” The housekeeper hurried in, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a young woman at the door.”
“She’s not at the door.” The young—very young—woman barged into the sitting room. She looked like a character from a comic book, in shorts with torn-off leg holes, dark stockings laddered with runs, lace-up army boots, a striped shirt that resembled a cast-off from the janitor’s closet. Her hair was a crazy shade of purple. She wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses that gave her an owlish look. “I need a phone, quick,” she stated.
“Ms. McCallum?” She didn’t jibe with the crumpled résumé.
“Yeah, so listen, I need you to call 911. Like, now.”
“What the hell?”
“It’s a fucking emergency, okay? There’s been a wreck. My mom needs help.”
* * *
Faith kept her crumpled-up jacket pressed against the spurting artery. She glanced across the ditch at the van, parked half on and half off the road. “Hurry, Cara,” she said through gritted teeth. “Hurry.” Faith didn’t know how much longer she could last like this.
“How you doing, honey?” she called to Ruby. She couldn’t see the little girl, but had ordered her to stay in the van, several yards away. There was so much blood. Oceans of it. Not to mention an apparent impalement in the lower thigh. Even Faith, with her medical training, was freaking out.
“I’m scared, Mom. What if nobody comes?”
“Cara went to get help,” Faith said, injecting into her voice a confidence she didn’t actually feel.
“She’s a fast runner, right?”
“A really fast runner. Remember her winning time at that track meet last fall?”
“Yep. She set a school record in the four hundred.”
Ruby would know. Despite her complaints, she idolized her sister. Faith wished Cara could have driven for help, but Cara couldn’t drive. The van had a stick shift and was a clunker even for an experienced driver.
The mobile phone—the only one they had—didn’t work. The battery was dead or they had run out of minutes on their pay-as-you-go plan; it was always something with that piece of garbage. Fortunately, the Bellamy place, where they’d been headed for Faith’s job interview, was just around a bend in the road.
Only moments ago, they’d been full of hope, spying the house in the distance. There was a long, winding private road leading to a stone-and-timber mansion, which crowned
a green knoll overlooking the lake. By cutting across a broad, empty meadow from the road, Cara had probably managed to get there in a matter of minutes.
Now Faith wondered if such a fancy-looking place was surrounded by security fencing or protected by slavering guard dogs. Cara was resourceful, though. And, unlike her sister, fearless. It would take more than a slavering guard dog to intimidate Cara.
The wadded-up jacket Faith was holding on the wound had nearly soaked through. Damn. “Ruby, honey, I need a favor. Can you find a towel or something in the van? Something I can use as a really big bandage.”
“I don’t see anything, Mom.”
“Keep looking.”
“I’m scared.”
“Look anyway.” Faith gritted her teeth. How had she ended up in a mess like this? She had used her own jacket to staunch the blood. So much for her best outfit for the job interview. But oh, well.
An involuntary spasm caused the victim’s back to arch and contort.
“Easy,” Faith said to the stranger, even though he appeared to be unconscious. “You don’t want to move. Trust me, you don’t.” She eyed the piece of metal in his thigh with concern. If it cut the femoral artery, he could die in minutes.
The victim was lucky she’d come across him, probably seconds after the crash. The lakeshore road was deserted, and his motorcycle had ended up deep in a ditch. If she and the girls hadn’t happened by, he would have bled out by now.
It had been Cara, jiggling her leg and watching out the window, who had spotted a flurry of dust and exhaust in the ditch. Her yell—Mom, pull over, I mean it, Mom, pull over right now—had been delivered with an urgent imperative Faith hadn’t questioned. She and Cara had their differences, but the girl wasn’t one to cry wolf.
Ruby appeared at the edge of the ditch. “I brought you my bathrobe.” A gasp escaped her. “Mommy—”
“It looks like a mess, but we need to help this man,” Faith said. She could see Ruby starting to sway. “Don’t pass out on me, kiddo. I can only handle one crisis at a time. Just toss me the robe and go back to the van and wait for me, okay?”
Ruby didn’t hesitate. She threw the wadded-up robe to Faith and rushed to the van. Faith pressed the freshly laundered fabric on top of the soaked jacket. The hot, coppery scent of his blood filled her senses.
Where the hell were the EMTs?
As crucial moments ticked by, Faith did her best to assess the injuries of the unknown victim. She’d checked his airway immediately—all clear, though he was unconscious—and then wrapped her jacket around the big bleed from the arm, the bright rose-red of arterial blood pulsing out in spurts. In addition to the metal protruding from his thigh, he almost certainly had a compound fracture of the lower leg. A bloody bone, like a branch of stained and broken driftwood, was poking through the torn denim of his jeans.
There were probably other issues, as well, but she couldn’t let up on the bleeding in order to examine him in detail. She yearned to stabilize the piece of metal, but that was too risky. He was male, in his forties or fifties, perhaps, judging by the face framed by the now-battered helmet. He seemed to be about six feet tall, two hundred pounds. It was probably best he was unconscious, because that fracture was one of the most painful-looking things she’d ever seen.
Her mind, trained by instinct, flashed again to Ruby, who had obediently returned to the van. What time was it? When your kid was diabetic, you always needed to know what time it was. When did she last eat? When did she have her insulin? Were her levels okay?
“Ruby, I want you to speak up if your alarm even thinks of going off.”
“I will,” said the little girl.
The blood-smeared face of Faith’s discount-store watch showed nine-twenty. It was past time for the job interview.
Ah, well, the position had sounded too good to be true, anyway. The invitation that had popped up in her inbox late last night had been an interview with a Mrs. Alice Bellamy, who lived in a fully staffed estate on the western shore of Willow Lake. Finding a client who could accommodate Faith and her two girls was a long shot, but Faith had run out of options.
After what seemed like an eternity, she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. No sirens, but at this point she would take whatever help she could get.
She glanced up and saw a shiny dark blue car that was eerily silent in its approach. One of those new electric things that made no noise. The door opened and a guy in a crisply pressed three-piece suit with a white shirt and tie jumped out and rushed toward her.
“Do you have a phone?” Faith yelled. “Call 911.”
“Already done,” he said. “They’re on the way.”
She could tell the moment he spotted the victim, because his gasp was audible. He looked a bit as Ruby had, regarding the sea of blood.
“Hey, get a grip,” she said. As she spoke, the victim made an involuntary spasm. She really needed to check his pulse. “I could use some help here.”
“Okay. What do you need me to do?” She could feel his gaze moving over the blood that covered her.
“He’s bleeding from the brachial artery. That’s why there’s so much blood. We have to keep applying pressure. This robe I used is soaked through already,” she said.
“Then should I... Okay.” She could see his shadow on the road as he removed his jacket and bent down beside her. “Now what?”
“I need you to keep compression right here.” She could barely see her own hands.
“I’m ready,” he said.
She caught a glimpse of the label on his jacket—Bond Street Tailors, London. It sounded very posh. It was about to be ruined, though.
“What do I do? Should we wait for help?”
“We hope he doesn’t bleed out or stroke out before they get here.”
This guy clearly needed very specific guidance. “Listen carefully. This is important. Don’t move the compress that’s already there, because that’ll only make it worse. Put the jacket directly over the bleed and press down hard. It’s an arterial pressure point. Don’t worry about hurting the guy. He’s unconscious. The only thing that’s going to keep him from bleeding out is the pressure you apply.”
“Jesus. I can’t—”
“Just do it. Now. I need to check his pulse. I think he’s seizing, and that’s bad.”
Before the guy could protest again, she grabbed the jacket from him, clapping it over the wound.
“Press down hard,” she said.
He turned an even whiter shade of pale, and his eyes rolled upward.
“Don’t you pass out on me,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”
She carefully removed the helmet. The victim was gray-faced, his features slack now, his pupils dilated. She checked his airway again. Still clear, but there was almost no pulse. The whole time, she was inwardly urging the EMTs to hurry up and get here.
The useless guy swayed, then struggled to rally. Okay, he wasn’t totally useless. Just...out of his element. And definitely overdressed. Still, she was grateful he’d happened by.
“Is he going to be all right?”
“I can’t answer that. His breathing’s not right. He’s got multiple injuries and almost no pulse. Do yourself a favor and don’t look at his left leg.”
And then of course he looked. “Oh, Jesus.”
“Keep pressing and don’t let up. And don’t disturb his upper thigh.”
This was bad. Faith knew she was way out of her depth. She had plenty of training in trauma situations, but hadn’t put those skills into practice since Dennis. Pulling her mind away from her late husband, she stayed focused on the victim. “I’m losing his pulse,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt. “I need to begin chest compressions.”
“Losing...what? Ah, Christ...”
“You sure the EMTs are on their way?” she asked the
guy.
“Positive.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
“Did they give you an ETA?”
“The dispatcher said they’re ten minutes out. That was almost ten minutes ago, so—”
“Okay, I need to concentrate here.” Faith knew it was better to perform a few unnecessary chest compressions for someone with a beating heart, rather than withhold compressions from someone in cardiac arrest. Holding her hands one over the other, she leaned over his bare chest and got started. Everything else fell away as she pushed hard and fast, counting out thirty compressions at a hundred beats per minute. She visualized the heart, such a fragile organ beneath her hands, being forced to pump again and again, oxygenating the victim’s blood.
“Ma’am, are you sure—”
The rest of his words were drowned out by the welcome yip of a siren.
“They’re here,” the guy said.
“Don’t let up,” she ordered him. She was covered with sweat and blood, keeping up the rhythm of the chest compressions.
“Not letting up,” he said.
The EMTs swarmed from the truck. “I’m Joseph Kowalski,” one of them said, putting on protective gear. “Did you see what— Christ.”
“A male in his forties,” Faith rapped out, knowing they needed information fast. “I came upon him about fifteen minutes ago. He’s bleeding from the right brachial artery. Compound fracture of the left leg and there’s an impalement in his upper right leg. Possible trauma to the head, pupils dilated. I started chest compressions as soon as this guy showed up.”
The team of EMTs got down to work, draped, shielded and protected—a reminder that Faith and the other guy were not. The medical team took over the CPR and bleeding control with swift efficiency. One of the guys radioed in the incident, repeating essentially the information Faith had relayed.
“Who was the first responder?”
“That would be me,” she said, trembling from the rush of adrenaline. “I just happened by. I’ve got training. LPN,” she explained.
The well-dressed guy swayed a little on his feet, regarding his bloodstained clothes. “Deep breath,” she told him. “You’ll be all right.”
