Fall Into Me (25 page)

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“I know, but you’ve had a rough day and you have to take care of you too.” He urged her toward the nurse’s station. “Come on.”

“Tori? The Davises are here.”

At Lorraine’s subdued voice, Tori lifted her head from her folded arms and nodded. “I’m coming.”

She scrubbed a hand over her burning eyes and rose from the hard plastic chair. Lord, she didn’t want to do this. Earlier had been bad enough, calling Troy Lee’s stepmother, hearing her fear and horror over the phone. What had followed had been even worse, when a hospital volunteer, violating every regulation in the book, had allowed two of Kaydee’s friends in to see her body. Calming the hysterical girls had been next to impossible.

As she followed Lorraine, she twisted her engagement ring around and around her finger. With each revolution, a prayer for strength and the right words beat in her soul. Lorraine stopped outside the tiny staff lounge. “I’ll be right out here if you need me.”

Tori pressed her hand. “Thanks.”

With a sharp inhale, she pushed open the door. Sara Davis, seated on one of the same plastic chairs, jumped to her feet, and her husband Trace spun from his post at the window. Sara pressed a hand over her heart, her brown eyes wide and wild with apprehension. “Oh, Tori, thank God. Where’s Kaydee and what is going on? The nurse who called said there’d been an accident, and there are all those people outside. They’re saying some kids were killed, but that can’t be the same accident. It can’t. My Lord, Kaydee just had that little wreck before Thanksgiving and it demolished her car, but she was fine.
Fine
—”

“Sara. Let Tori talk.” Trace laid his hand on her shoulder and she stepped out from under it. He gazed at Tori with calm steadiness. “What can you tell us?”

“There was an accident and Kaydee was involved.” Tori swallowed and indicated the table and chairs centering the room. “Why don’t we sit down?”

“I don’t want to sit down.” Sara’s voice rose and she backed up a step. “I want to see my daughter.”

“Honey, please. Let’s hear what she has to say.”

Sara glanced at his outstretched hand and stepped past him to sink into a chair. She folded her hands on the table, knuckles white with tension. Trace’s eyes lingered on her down-bent head, then a visible shudder ran along his body and he pulled out the chair next to hers.

Tori took the chair on Sara’s other side. “Kaydee was with Paul Bostick and some other teens today.”

“No.” Sara shook her head, an emphatic negative. “She’s not allowed to be with him—”

Trace’s gentle hand at her shoulder stopped her. He lifted his gaze to Tori’s. “Go on.”

He knew. The knowledge shivered through Tori as the agonized awareness dawned in his eyes. Tori swallowed. “A Whitman County deputy attempted to stop Paul for speeding. Paul didn’t pull over and the officer pursued them into Chandler County and onto Highway 3. The truck they were riding in hit a tree. Kaydee was in the front passenger seat. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt and she had to be extricated from the vehicle.”

“Jesus Christ.” Trace closed his eyes.

Sara’s throat convulsed. “What are you saying?”

Tori leaned forward, hands out. Sara wrapped cold fingers around Tori’s. “She didn’t have a pulse at the scene, and the paramedics performed CPR between there and the emergency room here. When she arrived, she was still unresponsive and attempts at resuscitation failed. I’m sorry, Trace, Sara, but she died.”

“No. Oh no, please.” Sara clapped a hand over her mouth, her spine-chilling moan lifting the hair on Tori’s arms. “No! It’s not true.”

“Sweetheart.” Trace tried to put his arms around her.

“Don’t touch me.” Sara jerked away from him. She turned fierce eyes on Tori. “I want to see her.”

“Of course.” Tori rose and gestured toward the door. “Lorraine and I will take you. I should tell you that her appearance will be altered—”

“I don’t care.” Sara’s face crumpled. “I just want to see my baby.”

Tori held the door. His features set, Trace didn’t attempt to touch his wife again as Lorraine escorted them to the cubicle. She held the curtain for them to enter, keeping the fabric at an angle where others passing by couldn’t see in.

Sara stopped short, hand over her mouth again, gaze locked on Kaydee’s battered face. “Oh…”

She moved in slow motion, trailing alongside the gurney, touching her daughter’s ankle, her knee, her hand. Finally, she curved her palm around Kaydee’s jaw, stroking the tangled hair from her forehead. “Oh Kaydee darling, my baby…my beautiful, beautiful girl…”

Tori closed her eyes, trying to keep a wave of burning tears at bay. She wasn’t supposed to get involved, she wasn’t, but how could she not?

“Tori.” Lorraine whispered at her ear. “The deputy has arrived with Miss Francie, Devonte Richardson’s grandmother, and she’s at the nurse’s station. I’ll stay with the Davises so you can talk with her.”

“Thank you,” Tori murmured. She opened her eyes, catching a glimpse of Sara as she leaned to press kisses across Kaydee’s forehead. Tori’s heart squeezed. She slipped into the hall and turned Mark’s ring about her finger.

Lord, please, get me through the rest of this day. Help me, give me the words, the compassion…

When Mark returned to the hallway, several of their colleagues had drifted away, leaving only Chris and Tick waiting. Tick leaned against the wall, cell at his ear, as Mark joined them.

“Yeah, precious, I’m all right. Just tired.” Tick rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ll call you. Love you.” He clicked the phone closed and returned it to his belt. He nodded at Mark. “Angel okay?”

“No.” She was a big bundle of fear and nerves, ready to collapse. Mark hadn’t wanted her caught up in the chaos in the waiting room. Instead, Lorraine had arranged for her to wait in the nurse’s lounge, where they could check in on her, but she wouldn’t witness what was going on with Troy Lee’s care. Mark jerked his head toward the cubicle. “Any word?”

Chris didn’t take his eyes off the curtain. “Layla came by a couple of minutes ago. Part of his ribcage broke and separated. He’s bleeding into the lung cavity and maybe his gut. They’re pumping blood into him and draining his chest, but Mackey wants to manage it without surgery.”

Tick dragged both hands down his face. “They’re having a hard time keeping him stable.”

Mark nodded. “What about the kids?”

“Paul Bostick is upstairs in surgery. Head injury and ruptured spleen.” Tick’s mouth tightened. “They LifeFlighted Santana Mixon to Tallahassee. Kaydee Davis and Devonte Richardson were dead on arrival.”

“Damn.”

“I knew Devonte was gone when I got to the truck. He was…there was just no way. But Kaydee… I thought she might make it if we could just get her out. Santana got thrown forward and trapped under the dash, and they had to extract her before we could take Kaydee out.” Tick talked in a monotone, staring into the middle distance. “She was talking, not really coherent, but talking. She was bleeding and I was holding, um, keeping pressure on the artery. To stop the flow, you know? I thought, if I could just hold on long enough, hard enough, if they could just get her out…she kept asking for her mama. Sara’s my cousin, did I tell you that?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“She passed out before they could cut through the door.” Tick shook himself free of the memory, his gaze losing the faraway look. “I bagged her all the way here and Denny did CPR, but there was…it was too late.”

Footsteps squeaked on the tile. Mark glanced down the hall. A state trooper approached, accompanied by a Whitman County deputy.

Visible tension gripped Chris’s body. Tick straightened away from the wall, his gaze freezing over. A matching icy anger chilled Mark, the memory of Troy Lee’s bloody face flashing in his mind. He took a step forward and stopped. Probably not a good idea to get too close to the guy. If he did, somebody might get hurt.

“Boys.” Keith Hickey, the trooper who headed up the accident-reconstruction team out of Post 40, removed a notebook from his chest pocket. “I need to get your statements since I missed you all at the scene.”

“You son of a bitch.” On a low feral growl, Tick ignored Keith and advanced on the Whitman deputy. The man’s throat moved in a hard swallow and he backed up.

“Calvert.” A note of nervousness colored Keith’s voice. “Wait a minute—”

“He told you to stop.” Teeth clenched, Chris spoke from behind Tick’s shoulder. “Twice, Troy Lee told you the kid wouldn’t pull over. Told you to stop. You ignored him.”

Unease flickered over Keith’s face. “Boys—”

“I fucking told you to stop.” Tick shoved his shaking index finger into the deputy’s chest. “Those kids are dead. My officer’s in there, his chest crushed. Because of you.”

“It’s not my fault.” His back against the wall, the deputy shook his head. “That boy didn’t have to run—”

“And you didn’t have to bring that chase into our county after you were told to stop.” Mark took up position at Tick’s other shoulder. The deputy’s gaze flicked over the three of them. The skin around his mouth went pale. “Man, this is your fault and you know it.”

“Your guy turned off the road. He didn’t have to—”

“You’re blaming Troy Lee?” Chris lunged at him, but Tick’s raised arm brought him up short.

“No. This isn’t the time or the place.” Tick pushed his finger into the deputy’s chest once more and kept him pinned with his glacial gaze. “I’m going to have your badge. Then I’m going to see your ass in jail for this. If he dies…you’re ours.” With deliberate dismissal, he glanced sideways at Keith. “You want your statements, fine. But you get this son of a bitch who’s not worth the sweat off Troy Lee’s balls out of here first. He doesn’t deserve to be here.”

“Angel?” The soft inquiry pulled her from yet another intricate pleating of her purse strap. Heart pounding, Angel looked up. Cookie stood inside the door. Strain and weariness dragged at his features.

Angel came to her feet, the unrelenting fear trying to choke her. “Do you know something?”

Cookie shook his head and held out a hand. “Troy Lee’s family has arrived and Dr. Mackey is going to meet with them in a few minutes. I came to get you, see if there was anything you needed.”

She needed Troy Lee. “I’m fine. I just really want to know what’s going on.”

Cookie squeezed her hand. “Let’s go then.”

Over the past couple of hours, Lorraine and Tori had brought her water or tea she didn’t drink and occasional empty updates, simply more of the same. The crowds had drifted away, the teens and their parents going to the homes of the deceased teenagers. Hope and Darryl had come but after an hour had taken Brittany to Kaydee’s family home, where her friends gathered. Paul’s family and friends waited upstairs in the surgical unit. The main waiting room now held isolated groups of cops and other emergency personnel, Troy Lee’s friends.

Cookie touched her shoulder and spoke near her ear. “I’m going to check with Lorraine, see where we need to be. I’ll be right back.”

She folded her arms as he walked away. The small bruises above her elbows ached and she glanced down at them. That afternoon, when she’d put them there, seemed a lifetime away, those problems that had seemed so huge paling beside the fear of losing Troy Lee. He’d been right, with his insistence that they were all that mattered, that everything else would fall into place.

Clark Dempsey separated himself from a small group and approached her. “Hey, Angel.”

She made herself smile, although it was a stretch. “Hey, Clark.”

“I’m really sorry about this.”

“I am too, but thank you.” She glanced around for Cookie. He’d said he’d be right back. Impatience and worry gathered beneath her skin.

“You couldn’t have picked a better man.”

“What?” Distracted, she looked up at Clark. He gazed back with eyes both serious and gentle.

“Troy Lee. I knew he’d treat you right if you ever gave him the chance. Why do you think I started bringing him around the bar?”

Her lips parted in surprise and a small smile lit his face. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you marry Jim’s selfish ass, did you? You deserved better.”

“Angel?” Cookie appeared at her side. “Come with me.”

With his hand at her back, he ushered her toward the nurse’s station. The frustration of being a pinball, slammed and pushed around by a cosmic whim, took hold. People kept moving her, taking her here and there, but never really giving her anything to hold on to.

Beyond the nurse’s desk lay a smaller waiting room. There, a handful of Troy Lee’s closest colleagues gathered, along with a woman with short blonde hair and two girls, whose shiny brown hair and vivid blue eyes echoed Troy Lee’s. The younger of the two girls, her face tearstained, clung to the woman’s arm.

Clad in wrinkled scrubs, Jay Mackey stepped in through the opposite door. “Mrs. Farr?”

The blonde nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m Dr. Mackey. I’m sorry you had to wait.” He focused in on her. “The first thing I want you to know is that Troy Lee is stable and we’re preparing to move him from the trauma center to a room.”

“Thank God.” Christine Farr laid a hand over her heart, the intense relief on her face mirroring that coursing through Angel.