Vaguely she remembered someone cutting her red T-shirt and her bra off. Patches of yellow hair were glued to her skull. Dark shadows ringed her blue eyes. She kept swallowing against a dry metallic taste in her mouth. She kept pushing at the loose bandage that hid the row of stitches that were yellow with antiseptic. What was left of a heparin lock oozed blood down her arm.
She had to get out of here.
But how? When ambulances and cops were everywhere?
When those two curious boys in the black Lincoln kept jumping up and down and staring restlessly out of the car.
Feeling muddled, she shut her eyes. Her entire life consisted of a few hours and less than half a dozen foggy memories that made no sense. It was as if she was a child again, and there were monsters in the dark.
Only the monsters were real.
She remembered huge headlights blinding her as she’d thrown herself in front of them. She remembered the frightened trucker, lifting her and demanding angrily, “Girlie, what were you trying to do?” Next she remembered the hospital.
The two boys in the Lincoln must’ve grown bored with leaning out the windows because all of a sudden they slithered into the front seat like a pair of eels. They leaned over the dashboard, fighting for control of the radio, holding the seek button down through several stations until they came to rap music. Gleefully they slapped their right hands together, turned the volume up and settled back to listen.
“Boys! That’s way too loud!”
A stout security officer edged between the girl and the Lincoln. The boy with the slicked-back ponytail and the shark-tooth necklace quirked his head out the window again. When his huge mirrored glasses glinted her way, she was afraid he’d spot her.
“Sure, Officer,” he said, clumsily faking a respectful attitude as he thumped the dash with his hand in time to the beat.
The officer lingered a minute or two till the volume was low enough. Only then did he stride away. When he had gone the boy leaned out of the car again, hand still thumping the side of the car as he stared fiercely in the direction of her shadowy hiding place. Twelve, thirteen maybe, he had the surly good looks of a wannabe bad-boy.
The fingers stopped thumping. He yanked off his mirrored glasses and wiggled so far out of the car, he nearly fell.
She heard more sirens in the distance as his gray eyes zeroed in on her.
Dear God.
His sulkily smirking lips mouthed, “Hi.” He started to wave.
She put a finger to her lips in warning as two more squad cars, sirens blaring, rushed into the lot. A dozen officers with hand-held radios jumped out.
She shrank more deeply into the shadows, her pleading eyes clutching the smiling boy’s as a fat cop shuffled over to the Lincoln.
“You been here awhile, kid?”
The sassy smile faded. He gave the cop a sullen nod.
“You seen anything suspicious?”
Sulky silence. Then slowly the black ponytail bobbed. “Yeah.” He pointed toward the alley at the opposite end of the parking lot. “I saw…a girl with a—a bandage on her head. Way over there.”
The cops shouted to the others and they took off in a dead gallop. When they had disappeared, the boys slapped their right hands together.
Then, ever so cautiously, they eased a door open and scuttled toward her. Hovering over her, their dark narrow faces seemed to waver in and out of focus.
They were so alike they could have passed for twins. Not that they were trying to pass. The taller and skinnier of the two had shorter hair, wire-rimmed glasses and pressed jeans. The huskier kid with the ponytail and the gold earring wore rumpled black clothes. A vicious shark tooth dangled from his necklace.
When they leaned down, their hands, shaking, a whirring sound beat inside her ears and made her feel so dizzy and sick, she almost passed out.
She barely felt their hands as they gently circled her. Or heard their frightened whispers.
“We have to help her.”
“But she’s hurt. Look at all those bruises, and her eyes—”
“And her feet! We should take her into the hospital so Uncle Pete—”
“No!” She grabbed their arms, her broken nails digging into their skin, her huge eyes pleading.
“Can’t you see how scared she is?” a young voice croaked hoarsely. “Somebody bad might be after her. We gotta save her.”
“What’ll Dad do?”
The whirring inside her head got louder. Halfcarrying, half-dragging her, they crawled with her to the car and made a bed of lumpy pillows and blankets for her on the floorboard of the back seat. The boys unfolded a blanket and covered her, whispering that if she was quiet they could smuggle her home and hide her in their room until she got well.
The girl lay there, trembling uncontrollably, terrified of the claustrophobic feeling she had because the blanket was over her face.
Only vaguely was she aware of footsteps hurrying, of car doors slamming, of men’s voices talking low in the front seat, of a little girl’s excited shouting. “See there! Got ’em off!”
“Oh-big deal.”
But the girl in the back seat instantly registered a man’s beautiful, gravelly drawl. “Peppin, the officer told me you helped them.”
There was something so familiar about the sound of his voice. Something so warm. It seemed to resonate in her soul.
She knew him. She had loved him. Somewhere. Some time.
“Yeah, Dad. Peppin really helped ’em,” the older boy said.
“Shut up, Monty!” Peppin slugged his brother.
“Hey!”
“Who are all the cops looking for anyway, Dad?”
“Some young girl got high on drugs and had a wreck. It’s a very serious situation. She could die without proper medical attention.”
The girl felt hot all over. Tears pooled in her eyes.
“Die?” Peppin croaked as a key turned in the ignition. His young face bleached a sickly white, he stared at his tearful hideaway.
She shook her head at him, tears escaping under her eyelids.
Peppin sucked in a long, nervous breath. “So— Uncle Pete, what sort of treatment would she need?”
“Hmm?”
“Your patient?”
Peppin bombarded his uncle with questions, demanding specific details.
Once again Peppin’s father praised his son in that deep melodious drawl of his—this time for his intellectual curiosity.
The man’s low voice was husky and somehow devastatingly familiar, and yet at the same time it lulled her. She wanted to go on listening to it, for nothing seemed left in the whole world but that voice wrapping around her.
Who was he? Why did she feel she knew him?
She was too tired for thought, and her eyelids grew heavy again, fluttering down and then rising as she fought to stay awake.
She slept soundly for the first time since the van had rolled and the driver had chased her into those blinding headlights.
She slept, knowing she was safe, because the man with the beautiful voice was near.