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He was almost to the car when he saw the driver’s door jiggle and pop open a little bit, only to close again. His heart leapt. She was alive and aware. When he got to the ditch, he swiped snow off his face and took a step down into snow-covered weeds, grabbing the back wheel to steady himself before sliding sharply downward. Damn it all. Straining, he had to climb back up a bit to reach the car.
“Savannah!” he yelled.
The Escape was solidly wedged into the ditch, on its side. With an effort, he actually climbed onto the car and knelt on the back door, bending to open the driver’s door and yank it upward. It came with a wrench, its hinges torqued.
“Savannah!”
With snow now falling into the car, he looked inside. She was there, struggling to turn herself around so her head could pop out the door. “Thank God. Oh, thank God. . . . Are you okay?”
“Hale,” she whispered tremulously.
He reached in for her, wanting to scoop her into his arms and squeeze her hard.
“Hey!” The voice came from behind him.
He turned to see the sheriff’s deputy marching toward him through a veil of snow, wearing golf shoes, or a facsimile thereof. “The road’s closed,” he called, but his attention had turned to Savannah, who was half standing in the car, her head and shoulders outside the door. Her messenger bag was in one hand, and she flung it into the ditch.
“I’m in labor,” Savannah said quietly, for Hale’s ears only.
“I know. Are you . . . ?”
“Can you help me out?” she asked, her voice calm but slightly quavering. “I need to get out.”
He saw then that she might be holding it together, but she was quietly panicking inside. “Don’t worry. We’ll—”
“You the one who called nine-one-one?” the deputy yelled from behind him.
“Yes,” Hale answered tersely. “We need to get her out of the car. ASAP.”
“She’s pregnant?”
“Yes,” he repeated.
“Maybe we should wait for the EMTs.”
“No,” Savannah said firmly. “No time.”
The deputy yelled, “Ma’am, you’re probably better off staying inside the vehicle and letting the experts—”
For an answer she placed her arms on the side of the car and started pulling herself upward. Hale didn’t like it. He was in too precarious a position to offer much support.
The deputy finally got that he wasn’t being listened to and slid down the embankment next to the car. “Lady, listen—”
“I’m a goddamn detective, Deputy!” she spit out furiously and practically pulled herself out with her anger. Hale grabbed her hands as she struggled upward. With all his strength he hauled her up and onto the car so that she was lying on her side.
“If you’d just wait a minute,” the deputy sniped.
“She’s not going to,” Hale said, stating the obvious.
“Help her off the car.”
While Hale held her arms and slowly inched Savannah over the side, the deputy grabbed her from his position in the ditch and eased her down until her feet touched the ground. Hale released her only when he was certain she was safe, and then he slid off the back of the car to help Savannah climb up from the ditch to the road.
“You’re really pregnant, ma’am . . . Detective,” the deputy observed, a master of grasping the situation.
As Savannah crawled up to the edge of the road, she suddenly folded herself forward and into a squat.
“Oh . . . God . . .” The deputy’s eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open.
