After gathering Cecil in my arms and ignoring the fact he doesn’t badger me about carrying him like a child, I snatch up his keys, then race outside. The slosh of a water-soaked ground makes a mess of my boots when I bolt for his truck. Instincts naturally have me veering for the passenger side door.
Even when he was under the weather, Cecil never let me drive when we took his old truck down the dirt tracks weaved throughout his property. He said he knew every road so well he could drive them with his eyes closed. Since they were the only trips he ever took, I never discredited his claims.
After buckling Cecil in, I use an old shirt to prop his head against the rusty doorframe, remove the solar charging ports from the battery, then dive into the driver’s seat. With his truck not being used very often the past six months, it takes a couple of turns of the key for the dirty fuel to pass through the engine. When it does, I reverse away from the cabin like I’ve driven every day for the past three years, throw the gearstick into first, then head for the entrance.
As the bells Cecil rigged to the front gate jingle when I yank it open, I consider my options. There’s a doctor’s office smack bang in the middle of a town not too far from here, but with the practitioner being a blood relative of Roderick’s, I don’t see him being overly obliging to an impromptu visit, so instead of turning right when I exit the driveway, I pull the steering wheel to the left.
We barely make it five miles from the base of the mountain before flashing lights reflect in the rearview mirror of Cecil’s truck. I’m hesitant to pull over. Trust has always been an issue of mine, but it worsened after I learned how many Ravenshoe PD were on my father’s payroll. They netted Roberto along with my father.
When the patrol car glides up next to me, I’m given no choice but to yield. The barrel of the shotgun he’s pointing at my head is extremely convincing.
After signaling my intention to pull into an upcoming side street, I do precisely that. The sheriff parks behind me a mere nanosecond before he demands that I place my hands behind my head over the loudspeaker.
“I was just r-reaching for the registration p-papers,” I mumble through gritted teeth before doing as asked.
Curse words spill from my mouth without pause when I recognize the condescending smirk of the man behind the steering wheel of the patrol car. He is Roderick’s second cousin and long-time friend, Sheriff Dumont.
“What’s your excuse for driving ten miles over the speed limit?” he asks after moseying up to my window like the rights for the town are in the breast pocket of his uniform.
“I w-was under t-the limit.” I know this because I purposely kept it five miles under the designated signage so I wouldn’t be pulled over by anyone in this county. They’re as crooked here as my father’s bottom teeth. “This r-road is seventy.”
Sheriff Dumonttsksme. “There’s a sign half a mile backing reducing the speed to sixty. At times, these roads get a little icy, making them unsafe to travel on at full speed.” When I attempt to look in the direction he hooked his thumb, he shouts for me to return my hands to my head. “One more failure to follow directions will see you charged with failure to cooperate with a police directive.”
“I’m not r-resisting. I-I was just looking for t-the sign.”
“T-The s-sign? Are you a retard or something?”
His impersonation of my stutter snaps my last nerve. “No. I have a f-fucking speech impediment.” That’s nowhere near as noticeable when I’m angry. “Which doesn’t affect my ability to see, and since I didn’t t-take my eyes off the road for a single second, I know there’s no sign r-reducing the speed limit to sixty. You just made it up so you could p-pull me over.”
“You didn’t take your eyes off the road for even a second?” When I nod, he murmurs on a chuckle, “Not even to make sure he’s still breathing?”
My back molars smash together when he shines his torch into Cecil’s face. The fact he can see how unwell he looks but doesn’t offer any assistance is all the proof I need as to why I sought help in another county. He, along with almost every other person in this region of the state want Cecil dead, but I refuse to let that happen.
So, with my head locked down and my heart certain this is the right thing to do, I drop my hands, throw the gearstick into reverse, then flatten my foot to the floor.
When Cecil’s truck crashes into Sheriff Dumont’s patrol car with enough force to sound the siren, I do a quick shift change, then take a wide birth around the sheriff so he can’t tack attempted murder onto the charges I’ll be sure to face once I’ve ensured Cecil is safe.
When patrol cars dart out of every side street to shadow my sprint to Saint Frances Hospital, it dawns on me that my earlier assumption was right. Neither the fire nor the bump to Cecil’s head were an accident. Roderick has grown impatient, and everyone knows irrational decisions usually follow a lack of patience.
With Cecil’s truck too slow to outrun the deputies following us, I fan my hand across Cecil’s chest to hold him in place better than his seat belt before using the truck’s chunky tires to my advantage.
I veer us down an unmarked road like four-wheel driving is on Cecil’s bucket list. Since the low-riding patrol cars can’t follow our trek across the rugged landscape, we reach Saint Frances several minutes before them. It isn’t a lot of time, but it’s enough to get Cecil out of his truck and onto a gurney in the emergency room before more than ambulance sirens rumble through the busting ER.
“Take him to the trauma bay,” shouts a female voice a second after flashing a torch into Cecil’s eyes and checking the wound at the back of his head.
When she spins around to gather instruments off a trolley being wheeled in by a plump nurse, I choke on my spit. Although her face is a little rounder than it was years ago, and her eyes darkened by the lack of natural light, I swear she’s the angel from my dreams.
My memories from the night Ophelia died are blurry at best, but you don’t often find beautiful Asian women with dazzling green eyes, so they kind of stick with you. Not to mention the insane patter the quickest careening of our eyes caused my heart.
It’s only ever responded like this to one person.
To her.
I’m not the only one stunned by the intense zap bolting between us. Jae’s dead- straight hair slips off one shoulder when she angles her head to the side before her perfectly manicured brows join together. She looks like she has a million questions in her head, but before any of them can leave her mouth, her focus is returned to Cecil by a devastating disclosure. “He’s coding.”
In less than a second, Jae races into the bay where they took Cecil. Even if my heart hadn’t already confirmed she’s the lady from my dreams, confirmation smacks into me hard and fast when her brisk movements push back her bluntly cut bangs, exposing the lightning-shaped scar on her forehead. It was from where my necklace seared her skin.
It is her—Jae—the woman I thought had died because she put my safety before her own.
