“We have an elderly woman who’s been struck by a pickup truck. She’s unconscious, but she’s breathing. She hit her head on the concrete and her right leg looks broken.” As he spoke, Lenny’s eyelids fluttered. He exhaled a small sigh of relief. Holmes licked her temple. “She’s coming around now. How far out is the ambulance?”
“Oh my lord.” He glanced up to register the truck driver moaning and holding his head in his hands. “I dropped mycigarette on my lap, I didn’t even see her. I’m so sorry, is she okay? She’s okay, right?”
“Sir,” came the voice of the operator through his phone. “The ambulance is approaching. Do you see them?”
His gaze had shifted to Lenny, but at the prompt, he lifted his head to scan for signs of the ambulance. It rounded the corner, white and red lights spinning. It slowed carefully as it neared.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “They’ve stopped, and EMS is coming. I’m going to hang up now.” He did, without waiting for confirmation from the operator, and stepped away from Lenny as the paramedics approached with a gurney. He had another phone call to make.
25
The bus station in Los Angeles was busier than she would have expected, given the time of day. There were several lines at different counters, people staring up at the schedule screens, and others fighting with vending machines. Cami took stock of it all, overwhelmed and nervous as she tightened her fingers on the shoulder strap of her duffle bag.
According to the website, there was a bus headed to Tennessee that left at seven that night. It would be a two-day trip, with a transfer in Dallas, and it would only get her to Cookeville, not Baxter. She’d have to figure out something else to get the rest of the way, but it was less than ten miles. Totally manageable, even if the trip was a hellishly long time to spend in a cramped bus seat. At least the buses all had Wi-Fi now.
But she hesitated to book a seat. After all, why should she go back to Tennessee? She had some friends there, sure, but they’d barely spoken since she left for Santa Monica. Other than her background, she had nothing tying her to that tiny little nothing town. She could go anywhere. Hell, her cost of living would drop significantly no matter where she went. She’d always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Maybe she should head to Arizona.
She supposed the upside of being overwhelmed with choices was that it took her mind off her other problems. There was a silver lining in everything.
She sank onto a bench seat in the center of the station and pulled out her phone to check her bank balance. She had a bit of savings, enough for first month’s rent somewhere that wasn’t Los Angeles, but she’d have to put the bus ticket on her credit card. Maybe she could find some coding work to do on the bus ride, so it wasn’t wasted time.
The Grand Canyon was as good a place as any.
She stood and shuffled her things over to the ticket line, behind a teenager in an oversized pair of headphones and a skinny woman in her thirties wearing a baby in a backpack carrier. The baby blinked at her, wide blue eyes full of curiosity, then shoved its fist into its mouth to gum on. The teen had just wrapped up his purchase and the mother stepped up to the counter when Cami’s phone buzzed in her pocket. The accompanying jingle of her ringtone sounded a second later, and she pulled the phone out to ensure she didn’t want to speak to whoever was calling. There were only two people she could imagine wanting to speak to her instead of just texting.
It was neither of them. It was Tristan.
She frowned. Her insides grew cold with trepidation. It was probably nothing. Tristan just couldn’t get ahold of Lenny and no one was there to cover Cami’s shift. No big deal.
She tapped the green button on screen. “Hello? Tristan?”
“Cami?” Tristan’s voice sounded odd through the speaker of her phone. Likely just because she’d never spoken with him over the phone before. They’d only ever texted about work before. “Hi.”
“Hey. I’m kinda busy.” The woman in front of her was passing a credit card to the teller, wrapping up their transaction. “What’s up?”
“Oh. Uh.” There was a pause as Tristan seemed to gather his thoughts. Cami huffed, hoping to spur him to blurt out the reason behind the call. “You need to get to Santa Monica Medical. There’s been an accident.”
“What?” The words didn’t compute at first. They were sentences that should have made sense, but her brain couldn’t string them together at first. “What kind of accident?”
“Lenny was hit by a car, Cami. I don’t know much, but I know it’s bad.”
She was quiet for a long moment. The mother in front of her left the line, and the teller called her up, but Cami blinked, dazed. Her fingers had gone numb. That had happened once before, she remembered, when she’d been told of her grandma’s death. What a strange reaction to bad news. Maybe she should ask a doctor about it.
“Cami? You still there?” The strangeness hadn’t faded from Tristan’s voice, but she recognized it now as intense worry. He was barely holding it together.
“How bad?” she rasped.
“I don’t know. He couldn’t tell me much, he just asked me to go get Holmes and?—”
Her hands had gone clammy, and her quaking fingers made her fumble the phone, barely catching it before it clattered to the dirty bus station floor. “You’ve got Holmes?”
“Lady, are you gonna go?” A man behind her gestured at the confused teller. Cami stepped out of line, barely registering his irritation.
“Yeah, he’s with me at the store.”
Her jaw hurt from gritting her teeth. She forced herself to relax. “Tristan,” she snipped. “Close the store. Go home.”
“No, I can’t. She wouldn’t want me to.” He inhaled sharply, like he was using air to rein himself in. “Just get to the hospital, okay? Go. You need to be there, in case she?—”
