Why Lie? (Love Riddles #2)

by Carey Heywood

  Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing or if shoving sticks under my wheels will help. I’d rather try and fail than do nothing at all.

  Once my hands are full, I quickly, or as quickly as possible with mud-coated shoes, make my way back to Lady. Then I wedge the sticks sideways as far under each tire as I can.

  Once that’s done, I climb back into my car, thoroughly soaked through, and try to see if my car will move. One dirty hand gripping the steering wheel, I shift out of park and into drive.

  Gently at first, and then with more pressure, I push down on the gas.

  Nothing.

  Not even an inch.

  This is not good.

  Shifting Lady back into park, I reach for my phone. Thankfully, it has charged enough to at least turn on. Whether it has a signal or not is still a guess.

  It isn’t cool in my car, but my wet clothes cause me to shiver as I wait for my phone to start up. My hands shake and it’s a toss-up as to if it’s nerves that are causing it or not.

  Once my phone is unlocked and my home screen is showing, my gaze moves to see if I have a signal. Relief courses through me and exits with a whoosh of air when I see that I do.

  Who do I call?

  My gut says Gigi but what will she be able to do? 911 seems extreme because while my current situation sucks, the only immediate danger I’m in is of catching a chill.

  I go with my gut and call Gigi, ignoring the notifications of missed calls, voice mails and texts. There’s a chance I could lose this signal and I don’t want to waste.

  She answers right away. “Sydney?”

  When I reply to the affirmative, she says, “Oh, thank heaven. Where are you?” “Stuck in mud about halfway down the dirt road that leads to the cabin. I’m not sure what to do now.”

  “Honey, honey,” I hear her call but know it isn’t to me. “She’s stuck on the dirt road going up the canyon. What should I tell her to do?”

  “Here, pass me the phone,” my pops replies.

  “Syd?” he asks.

  “Here, Pops.”

  “What have you tried to do to get unstuck?”

  I explain how I tried to push then pull my car and what I did with the sticks.

  “Was your car in neutral when you tried pushing it?”

  Heat hits my face as I shake my head. I am such an idiot. “No, I completely forgot to move it out of park. Want to stay on the phone while I try to give it a push now?” “Yes, but wait a second. Gigi is using my cell to call the authorities to find out what’s the safest route for you to take.”

  Twisting my mouth, I look unseeingly out my windshield

  I want to be moving, or at bare minimum, trying to. As crappy as the visibility is, I see something coming toward me through the windshield.

  “Pops, I think someone is coming up the road.”

  Squinting, I try to distinguish what kind of vehicle is headed my way. That’s when I hear it, a rumbling roar that has me snapping my head around to look behind me.

  “Pops!” I scream.

  Her car was in front of me. A phone was pressed to her ear. Then came the noise. It was an endless thunder clap that only grew louder.

  Her head whipped around as I shifted Jake’s truck into park and swung open the door.

  I was out of the cab, screaming, “Move,” but she couldn’t hear me.

  Mud sucked at my shoes, trying to trap me with every step. My throat burned with my warnings, my attempts in vain for her to hear me.

  It was coming, a mudslide like the target of a missile, and we were right in its path. Trees, their roots weakened from the drought, fell like dominos. Like massive chocolate chips in a muddy batter they poured toward us.

  I’m fifteen feet away as she turns back toward me. Other than a small jump when she sees how close I am, she seems frozen in her seat. With both of my hands, I motion for her to get out of her car.

  Her eyes are wide, her face a picture of terror. Coming unstuck, she drops her phone and pushes open her door. I’m ten feet away. My voice gone because I have not, not once, stopped screaming for her to move.

  Still I scream. There’s no real sound to it, only a raspy breath acknowledging that air is leaving my body. I’m seven feet away, my arms already reaching even though I know I won’t get there in time.

  A massive branch hits the outside edge of her open door. The force of it spinning her car around before the door comes off entirely.

  Like quicksand, the flowing mud and whatever debris it has picked up in its path surrounds her car. She screams, the sound stolen by the raging flow of earth. It’s her mouth, opened as she cries out that I see. If the mudflow was a river, I am on one of its banks while she is in its center.

  I turn, and run back toward Jake’s truck. It is currently just barely outside of the flow. Mud licks at its tires but somehow does not grab hold.

  Skirting the truck, I run, my legs on fire, staying on the edge of the flow and chase her. The flow is faster than I am but the progression of Sydney’s bug is hampered by the trees the mud does not pull down.

  It crashes into them, and stays there, pushed against a tree until the car swings around and becomes a part of the flow again.

  She can’t get out of it. If she did, I don’t know if I’d be able to get to her before we both drowned in a river of mud.

  Her car is crumpled and dented from every angle but is currently the only thing protecting her from the swirling branches, rocks and god knows what else the mud has grasped.

  Each time she hits a tree, I pray that the side now missing a door is away from the force of the mud. When it isn’t, the mud flows in, covering her legs as it fills her interior. As much as her bug is protecting her, if I can’t safely get her out, she might die in it.

  There’s only one direction of the flow, downward. Like water, it moves in the direction of least resistance, snaking through the edge of the road I drove up and into the forest on the other side of it.

  In theory, once we hit the base of the road, where dirt connects to pavement and the elevation levels off, the flow should slow.

  It won’t stop; there’s still too much pushing behind it.

  If I wasn’t a runner, wasn’t already used to canyon trails, there’s no way I ever would have been able to keep her car in sight. The flow is unpredictable.

  At times, too far ahead of me, her car has come close to the side I’m running down. Other times, she’s clear on the other side. Her car is a kayak in a hurricane.

  She hits another tree, the sound of it muted over the angry gurgle of the mud. With each hit, each crash, I watch helplessly as her body jerks.

  From where I am, I can’t tell if it’s blood or mud that coats her skin. Her car is held there, against the creaking tree she hit. I no longer feel my legs as I push to run faster when I see her slump over in her seat.

  Her belt holds her up, but her head and torso pitch slightly toward the center of her car. She’s twenty-five feet ahead of me. “Hold on,” I pant.

  Her car rocks against the tree, the flow trying to pull it back. Then a massive tree branch hits it, further denting the passenger side.

  The force of its impact causes my stomach to drop. Her head doesn’t move. The tree does manage to hold her car in place. That’s the only pro as the mud flow angrily pulls at both the branch and her car while the tree struggles to remain upright.

  I’m twelve feet behind her. The flow is spreading, flattening out as the ground levels off.

  She’s still too close to the center. Even if I can get level to Sydney, it will be impossible to reach her. My eyes scan my side of the flow. What I’m looking for I don’t know. It’s not like I expect to find rope and even if I did, without her being conscious to catch it, it would be useless.

  Past her is the paved road. Through the trees and the rain, I see our salvation in the form of flashing lights. My weary legs carry me past her, my eyes moving over her still body.

  Like a wind-up toy slowing before it stills, the br
anch and her car continue to jerk against the flow. Internally, I scream to stop as I pass her. Arguing with myself that I am strong enough to wade through the river of mud to rescue her. I want to be her hero. It kills me to admit to myself that if I tried, we’d both die.

  When I reach the paved road, I’m able to move faster than through the forest. On both sides of the mudslide, at a distance, are police SUVs.

  They are blocking off the road to oncoming traffic in either direction. A man climbs out of the driver side of the SUV I race toward.

  “Help,” I manage.

  Whether he can hear me I don’t know. With one hand, I motion for him to follow me. I don’t know how long or how far I’ve run but he easily overtakes me and, grabbing my arms stops me.

  “There’s a woman trapped in a car, in the mudslide,” I gasp, before he has time to ask.

  There’s a radio attached to his uniform. He reaches up, presses a button, and barks, “Need an ambulance. Send it up Overlook Lane so it’ll be on the west side of the slide. Get Jimenez and Cross to head up their side of the slide. There’s a woman trapped in a car.”

  He turns and races back to his SUV, opening the back and pulling a bag from it. While he does this, he shouts something to the other officer. He then runs back to me, a black duffle slung over his shoulder and passes me to charge up the way I just came. Following him, each step burns more than all the ones before it because now, I’m running uphill.

  There’s another police officer behind me. I’m guessing whoever was with him in the SUV. My focus remains forward as I try to keep up with the first officer and not get passed by the second.

  The car isn’t where I left it, the mudflow pushing it free from the tree. The officer pulls a length of chain from the duffle and circles it around the base of a large tree trunk.

  It’s a few feet from the edge of the flow. Using a carabineer, he secures it and then attaches a line of cable to it.

  Shaking my head, I watch as he attaches the other end of it to a vest.

  “You can’t go out there,” I argue, watching him pull the vest on.

  “Got any other ideas?”

  The other police officer reaches us. It’s a woman, older than the man now wearing a vest.

  He looks at her. “You good?”

  Holy shit. He’s about to wade into a mudslide yet is asking if she is good?

  Her face a mask of stone, she nods.

  The force of the flow has slowed. Instead of the rapids it was up the canyon, it’s now a thick, slow-moving sludge of peanut butter.

  He moves into it, somehow keeping his feet.

  The rain has let up but still gets in my eyes as it slides down my face. Unblinkingly, my hands in tight fists, my gaze moves from him to the car and back to him. Like some sort of crazy action stunt man, he surges to the car. Once he reaches it, he grabs onto her useless steering wheel.

  My jaw dropping, I watch as he unclips the cable from his vest and hooks it somewhere inside her car. If he falls, if a tree knocks them, he’ll go down. There’s nothing anchoring him to us anymore.

  “Help me,” the female officer rasps from behind me.

  She’s got a crank on the cable. Moving to her, together we turn the crank, each pass tugging Sydney’s crumbled bug to us.

  My hands on the crank, my eyes on the car I notice movement beyond them. There, on the opposite bank of this mud river, are two more police officers. One of them is wearing a vest like the man holding on to Sydney’s car. Above all the noise, a siren wails, signaling the approach of something.

  Back up.

  My focus moves back to her bug. Inch by inch, we pull it toward us. When it’s only feet away, the man uses something to cut her seatbelt away.

  Then he lifts a hand and waves us closer. Stepping from her car, he pulls her from it and carries her toward us.

  I reach for her and he shakes his head.

  “Is she?”

  “There’s a pulse,” is his reply.

  The woman speaks into her radio. “We need a stretcher.”

  And as if summoned, two men are there. They carry a flat thin board and help the first police officer lie her on it. The female officer stands next to me, her hand on my shoulder silently offering me support.

  One of the paramedics triages her, the other putting a brace around her neck. Together, they lift the board she’s on and we follow them down to where the ambulance is parked behind the police SUV.

  I lumber into it after them. The younger of the two drives, the older man treating Sydney. He asks me questions about her history and allergies. I know nothing.

  Dragging a hand over my face, I stare at her unmoving body. Everything I know about her, her name, her age, her job, her address, and a host of other things is useless now.

  “Can I call her grandmother?” I ask, reaching into my pocket for my cell.

  He nods. “The signal is iffy up here. We’re taking her to Memorial if you get through.”

  As it rings, I reach over to hold her hand. It’s clammy and coated with mud. I get through. Mr. Fairlane takes the phone from Gigi and I tell him where we’re going. Faintly in the background I hear the beep of locks on a car. They’re on their way. The paramedic asks his questions again and I relay them to her grandfather.

  Once all of their questions are answered, I disconnect. That done, my attention goes tunnel, fully focused on the woman in front of me.

  Her chest rises and falls but there is no other indication that she’s okay. Her condition, her injuries, are given to the emergency room of the hospital we approach.

  There are words I don’t recognize mixed in with ones I do: broken, blood pressure, contusions, unresponsive, and pulse.

  Over and over again, I remind myself that she is breathing, that we both are. Somehow, fate smiled on us today since we are both alive.

  She’s hurt, though, to what extent I can’t tell. The paramedic does not appear to be frantic. Not that I have any experience riding in an ambulance prior to now.

  I’m comparing his behavior to medical dramas I don’t watch on TV.

  “Will she be okay?” I ask, suddenly anxious.

  Our arrival at the hospital interrupts his opportunity to respond. Still holding onto her hand, I stay beside her as they move her.

  I’m stopped at a set of double doors and told to wait.

  “But, will she be okay?” I ask again, not wanting to let her go.

  “We’ll have a better understanding of her condition soon, sir,” is the response I receive.

  That’s no help.

  Leaning over her, I brush my lips across her forehead. Then, she’s gone.

  All I can do now is wait. The air conditioning is going, my soaked clothes absorbing the chill and incasing me. I strip down to my boxers in a family bathroom and wring the excess water from what I wore. Then I dry them the best I can using the hand dryer.

  Instead of freezing, I’m now excessively cold. To stay warm, and keep myself from busting through those double doors, I pace.

  When my phone buzzes with an incoming call from Jake, I get up to take it outside. There’s an overhang I stand beneath to avoid the rain. It’s significantly warmer out here, which is a relief.

  Because I borrowed his truck, Jake and Kacey are the only ones apart from Sydney’s grandparents and my dad that know I came up here.

  “Hey,” I answer.

  “What happened? Did you find Sydney?” Jake asks, skipping any sort of greeting.

  “I’m at the hospital with her. Her car got caught in a mudslide.”

  He whistles low. “She okay?”

  “She was unconscious when we got here and I haven’t gotten an update yet. Best case is she’s just banged up. It was bad, the mudslide took her driver side door right off the car.”

  “Shit. That’s crazy.”

  “It was. I think seeing that took ten years off my life,” I admit.

  “I’ll bet. Are you okay?”

  Am I?

  Hell, that’
s not an easy question to answer. Physically, sure, I’m all in one piece. Mentally, a replay of what happened earlier is stuck on repeat in my head.

  If those cops weren’t there, if that branch hadn’t held her car against that tree for as long as it had. If so many things had or hadn’t happened, she could be gone.

  My first memory of Sydney Fairlane was at Lola’s. It was summer and my parents’ had brought me there after a swim meet for a celebratory slice of pie with some ice cream. They weren’t the only ones who had that idea so the diner was packed with kids and their parents.

  I must have been fourteen, and puberty had not been kind. I was gangly, had braces, and acne. She had to have been nine, or ten since she was a year older then Reilly.

  She was helping Gigi and delivered my apple pie and vanilla ice cream. She told me I was missing out. That the Boston Crème pie with chocolate chip ice cream was the best.

  Jake was my best friend so I was already used to dealing with pesky girls. I argued there was a reason apple pie was an American pastime. It was because it was the best.

  She had looked me up and down with a smirk on her face and replied, “That’s all right if you want to be boring.”

  Before I could argue apple pie wasn’t boring, Gigi took offence and did it for me. For some reason, for years I held on to that. How dare some ten-year-old girl imply I was boring. Every time I saw her after, that memory dug at me. There were times I behaved stupidly just to fight those words, to prove I wasn’t boring.

  I broke into a neighbor’s garage and stole beer to supply a party I didn’t even want to go to. There were other things, risks I took, partly out of feeling helpless during times my mom was sicker than usual and to convince myself I wasn’t boring.

  The night I charmed Sydney into letting me into her bed, I realized what an idiot I’d been to hold onto that for so long.

  An idiot who took that realization and instead of learning from it, went on to make the biggest mistake of my life. A mistake that has me pacing this emergency room.

  Every five minutes, I harass the woman at the check in desk. She remains tight-lipped. “Heath.”