Cait put the phone facedown on the table. Curled up a fist and rested her chin on it.
As she stared across the linoleum, she felt weird. Not exactly depressed—because that would be ridiculous. In the first place, she was alive. And secondly, as it turned out, she hadn’t been the one to let things down with G.B.: If she hadn’t been chatting with the uniforms, she’d have just been cooling her heels in the foyer of the theater, stewing on whether or not to call him and when she should leave.
The evening had turned out to be a total bust.
Glancing down at her feet, she flexed her toes.
Her lack of footwear, at least, was an issue she could do something about.
Getting up, she hit the stairs in search of fresh white socks and her UGG slippers. And as she went, that odd off-kilter feeling followed her to the second floor, staying on her close as a second skin.
Maybe it would help if she put a label on whatever it was … but she was too afraid to.
As she came back into her room, she thought about Sissy again, and prayed that the afterlife was easier than the stuff that went down on the earth.
At least if you were a ghost, or an angel, or whatever you turned into, you didn’t have to deal with being chased in parking garages. Or talking to the police.
As Jim sat behind the wheel of his truck, making turns like he knew where he was taking him and Sissy, he felt pretty damn castrated. Even though there was a lot about this situation that wasn’t his fault? Didn’t matter. Someone had to take responsibility for the unfairness and there was no one else in line with him.
Plus, he didn’t like the way she was just sitting there. Especially as she put the visor down and looked at herself in the credit card–size mirror. When she flipped it back up, he wasn’t sure whether she’d seen what she wanted. Probably not.
“McDonald’s,” he repeated, in case she’d been too distracted. “Okay?”
When he didn’t get a response, he let her be. A Big Mac, large fries, and a Coke were probably not first on her mind right now, but if he didn’t get some food in him, he was going to—
“Fuck!”
Wrenching the wheel to the right, he narrowly missed a black cat that ran right out in front of them. Which was the good news. The bad? As the damn thing shot off in the opposite direction, the truck beelined for an oak tree big enough to be in a Harry Potter movie.
Without thinking about it, Jim threw an arm bar across the seat, catching Sissy at chest level, as if that would somehow work out better for her than her goddamn seat belt. At the same time, he tried to course-correct by yanking a hard left and slamming on the brakes.
As time slowed, he watched the tree rush for the front grille, all defensive lineman and then some.
Wasn’t this perfect timing—a car accident right in the middle of—
Boom!
Okay, really getting tired of explosions at this point. And the impact certainly sounded like the discharge of a small-bore cannon—or at the very least a bazooka. But he had more important problems than pegging a decibel match.
Unlike Sissy, he’d forgotten to put his seat belt on.
And also unlike her, his air bag failed to deploy.
He caught the steering wheel in the pecs and the windshield right in the face, a brilliant flash of light making him feel like someone had hit his good self in the puss with a roman candle.
Man, there had been waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many light shows and loud noises…
… lately.
“What the f**k!” he yelled as someone came at him.
Instead of waiting for an answer, Jim grabbed whatever was in front of him and hauled the weight to the side, rolling with it and mounting up with every intention of beating the ever-living—
“Stop! Stop! I’m a paramedic! I’m here to help you!”
As his “attacker” cringed into the pavement, Jim frowned and noticed that there was a stethoscope around the man’s neck. And the guy was wearing a uniform with patches. And there were red and blue strobe lights going off everywhere.
He looked around, still keeping one hand locked hard on that throat, and the other curled into a fist and held high over his shoulder.
Over to the right, like something out of an ad for insurance policies, his truck was wrapped around a tree trunk—
The tackle came from the other direction, the one he wasn’t looking in, and whoever it was had some experience knocking people down. Jim bowling-pinned it to the ground, the force sliding him across the asphalt, ripping a hole in his arm, driving the breath out of his chest.
Unlike him, however, his wrecking ball was not prepared to beat the shit out of his target.
As Jim was all but bolted face-first to the ground, a sensible voice said in his ear, “You’ve been in a motor vehicle accident. You were unresponsive when we arrived on scene. The EMTs are in the middle of their medical assessment, and with your consent, they would like to continue.”
Jim strained the one eyeball he had with any upward trajectory. The mountain heap on top of him was an African-American CPDer with a goatee and a bald head. And the heavy bastard seemed perfectly content to take a TO on Jim’s backside for however long the situation required it.
Sissy! Where was—
“What’s that, sir?” the cop said. “Sissy? You were alone when we found you, sir.”
“No! Sissy was with me!” Oh, great. He had the enunciation of a three-year-old, the words coming out with all kinds of ths where they shouldn’t be.
“Look, how about we take this one thing at a time. Do you consent to be treated?”
“I need to find her.”
The EMT Jim had welcome-matted came over, walking with a limp. “I think he’s got a head injury—”
“Sir, I’m going to have to cite you for—”
As they both started yammering at him, Jim figured he’d change his tactic. “Fine, treat me,” he spat.
The main issue was that he had to find out where Sissy was— so he needed his booty-sitter up and off of him.
God, please let Devina not have shown up with her normal f**king impeccable timing.
The cop dismounted slowly. “You’re going to have to lie still. Your head went through a lot of glass, and we’re also worried about your spinal column.”
Roger that, occifer.
Jim immediately flipped over onto his back with every intention of getting to his feet. But the instant he tried to do the upward-mobility thing, his body went weak on him.
“Nah,” the cop said, “you don’t need to be doing that—”