“Okay. Have a nice evening.” She smiled and stepped back, anxious now to reach her destination.
“You, too. Be careful in the park, dear. It’s getting dark.”
She nodded and walked backward for several yards, watching the woman to make sure she would be all right. Ralphie and his owner disappeared behind some bushes. Beyond the darkness, lights flickered on through the trees like fireflies. Part of her wanted to follow the old woman and her dog out of the park, back toward those lights, but she knew she couldn’t.
Sighing, she turned around slowly. She had to get this over with before she could take the woman’s advice. She crossed a reservoir of darkness between the town lights behind her and the moon-painted lake before her. The sudden and complete silence made her feel very isolated. She might be the only person in the world.
Alone, in a dark, silent universe. Funny, how often she felt this way.
A rustle off to her left, like something or someone brushing against one of the low bushes shattered the quiet. Probably a raccoon, or maybe another dog, she reasoned. Yet a tingle of fear made her quicken her pace in spite of the treacherous grass.
A second sound rippled around her. Louder. Closer.
She froze in a puddle of shadow, knowing any movement would betray her presence. Then terror struck her like an icy fist to her chest. Someone was here in the darkness with her. She could feel someone watching her. There was nowhere to hide.
She whipped around in a panic, hurling herself back toward the street, back toward the lights, the old woman and the poodle. Her feet slid on the grass, her legs twisting under her as she fell to the ground. Clawing at the soaked earth, she tried to get away.
There was no sound, no warning. Pain exploded through her body, and she screamed when merciless feet kicked her onto her back and more monstrous pain pierced through her like a million knives stabbing at her flesh.
She threw her arms up over her face, trying to protect herself. She tasted blood in her mouth, smelled it on her hands before they fell useless to her side. Something inside her mind began to shut down as a dense black cloud swallowed her:
Without warning, a light filled what remained of her consciousness. Through the skin of her eyelids, she could feel its brightness, sense its warmth.
Irresistible.
She forced her eyes open. An angel looked at her.
So this was how it felt to die.
DR. JONATHAN TAYLOR stepped out of Memorial Hospital into the sweltering summer night, the smell of acid from the steel mills in Gary assaulting his nostrils. In the distance he heard the whine of an ambulance racing toward the ER. Another siren, farther away, joined in. He was glad to be going home. Summer nights like this, when oppressive heat stacked pollution over the city, always drove people a little nuts. But none of it would be his problem until tomorrow. Grateful, he turned toward the staff parking lot.
“Wait, Jonathan! There’s one coming in for us.”
Damn!
“Bonnie, the skin graft on that five-year-old finished me. You didn’t catch me.” Only musclenumbing exhaustion would have driven him to snap at his scrub nurse. What in hell was wrong with him tonight? He sucked in hot, acid-tinged air. “Masters can take it.”
An ambulance screeched to a halt inches from him. The back doors flew open and two paramedics jumped out. He took a step back, clearing the way into the hospital, but then curiosity took over. He leaned forward.
Even with the ambu bag forcing air into her lungs, the woman on the gurney looked dusky from lack of oxygen. Coughing, spitting blood, she fought to move her head free of the restraining straps.
Deep inside him, something snapped. A sudden surge of adrenaline shot through his system. He was needed. He swung around, gave Bonnie a nod and shouted at the paramedic, “What have we got?”
“Mugging victim. Police found her in the park.”
The trauma team swarmed toward the gurney, rushing the victim to the room set aside for lifethreatening cases. Jonathan followed instinctively. The body on the gurney was starting to thrash violently as the victim struggled for breath.
“Get me the tracheotomy tray!” the resident on duty shouted over his shoulder.
The woman’s dusky color changed to chalky white. She was choking on her own blood, fighting to breathe. Beneath her eyes, her face had caved in, cutting off her windpipe.
“She doesn’t need a trach.” Jonathan pushed through the trauma team. “Look at her irises.”
The victim’s irises were shrinking to pinpoints, her skin bleached out entirely. Jonathan knew he had to act. Inserting two fingers between her bloody lips, he pushed her palette up and forward.
Her thrashing and gasping stopped. The victim took in a sigh of air and opened her eyes. Her unfocused gaze searched, then locked onto his.
“You’re safe now. I promise. I’m going to help you.” Her eyes blinked, then refocused. “Stay with me.” His harsh demand couldn’t stop her blue eyes from closing again. He’d lost her to oblivion; probably just as well, from the look of her. Someone had beaten this woman to a bloody mess. How she’d endured this much he’d never understand. She was a survivor!
“Get a chin strap.”
Bonnie handed it to him, as always, knowing what he needed without instruction.
Finished, he moved back to make room for the neuro team. Carl Johnson looked at him for confirmation.
“It’s a craniofacial separation. God knows what else you’ll find. I want to go in to reconstruct as soon as she’s stable. Before the swelling prohibits.”
Johnson nodded. “I’ll let you know.”
There were no cops in sight, and the ambulance had left on another run, so Jonathan headed to the locker room. He shed his faded jeans and red polo shirt for green scrubs, all the time wondering about the woman. He shook his head, brushing away the cruelty he’d seen. His adrenaline had kick-started him. All he needed now was to splash cold water on his face and down one cup of the bitter black muck the hospital called coffee to keep himself going. It was going to be a long night.
“Jonathan, I think you’d better see this.”
He hadn’t heard Bonnie come in. Something in her pale face made him grab the chart, but instead of looking at it, he stared at her. Bonnie was an old pro. Why was she so upset? She’d seen worse.
“What’s going on? Dr. Johnson done?”
“Not yet.” She put her hand out as if she might touch him, then stopped. “The victim is Randall Chambers’s niece, Amanda Braithwaite. The police are in ER with her identification.”
He heard her words. They crashed like clanging cymbals through his brain but their meaning wouldn’t sink in. Because he’d been in the operating room for eight hours. Because he was hungry. Because he was impatient to do his job while he could make a difference. Because he didn’t want to believe them.
“What?” He stared at the clipboard with the ER admittance chart a black blur. That woman with every facial bone pulled away from her skull so it hung like a bloody mask couldn’t be his Amanda.
“It’s Amanda Braithwaite,” Bonnie repeated. “The police found her Medic Alert bracelet, her driver’s license and…”
“All right! All right! I get the picture,” he snarled, not wanting to understand, not