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“Good, good,” Herb told her efficiently. “I’ll get you some blankets.” He bounded up the stairs into Rania’s house with the energy of a man half his age, Margie hot on his tail, seemingly revitalized now her husband was taking charge. Leaving Lacey alone with the terribly injured woman.
Rania’s breath became more raspy in the still morning air, like a rattlesnake had taken up residence inside her chest.
Things seemed to happen a lot more quickly then. Herb came back with a handful of blankets, which she carefully spread over the woman, trying to keep her warm and treat her for shock. Then he said he was taking Smudge over to his garden, to get the dog out of the way. It seemed he must know the man, as Smudge followed him happily enough. Nico had warned her that Smudge didn’t take to strangers.
A few moments later, there was a commotion from the road outside the gate and a young man strode in carrying a black duffle bag, which he dropped near Rania’s head. “I’m Dr. Gabriel DuPont,” he introduced himself, while at the same time assessing Rania, lifting her makeshift bandages to look at the wounds and taking the woman’s pulse. Lacey could hear Herb and Margie talking to someone else outside the front gate. Perhaps the neighbors had finally cottoned on to the fact something was going on in their sleepy little community.
“She doesn’t sound good,” Lacey whispered. “Her breathing has become labored and much louder in the past ten minutes.”
“I’ve got it,” the doctor replied calmly. He was young, probably only a little older than her. Clean-shaven and good-looking in a nerdy sort of way. With a flop of sandy hair that he needed to brush away from his eyes whenever he bent over Rania. He undid his black bag and removed his emergency items. He took out a blood pressure cuff, along with a syringe, bandages, and various vials and packets of medicine. It looked like he was going to insert a line in her arm, hopefully to administer some life-saving drugs. Lacey sat back on her heels, stupidly grateful that this young doctor was here to take over. She could now leave everything in his capable hands.
Margie came up and tapped her on the shoulder. “Here, luv, your phone is ringing.” Lacey had forgotten the older woman had it. She stood and took it with a small smile of gratitude and looked at the caller ID. “Nico,” she answered a little breathlessly, stepping away from the doctor and his patient.
“I’ve just heard about the injured woman,” he said. “I’m on my way right now.” By the sound of it, Nico was calling from a hands-free and speaking inside his motorcycle helmet; she could hear the muffled thrum of the motor. The tightness in her chest eased ever so slightly at the sound of his voice. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt at all?” How did he know she was involved? For all he knew she should still be tucked up in bed in her Kombi van. “The radio dispatcher mentioned your name,” he added.
Ah-ha, that was how. She guessed there probably weren’t too many Laceys in the vicinity.
“No. I’m fine. The next-door neighbor flagged me down while I was out for a walk with Smudge.”
“Yes, good old Margie, she’s always poking her nose into other people’s business. But this time it seems like a good thing that she did.” He gave a short, humorless bark of laughter.
There was a flurry of movement near Rania, and Lacey’s focus was diverted. What was going on?
“Excuse me. Lacey, is it?” The doctor lifted his head, and she caught his gaze and nodded. “Do you know CPR?”
Oh, shit. That didn’t sound good.
“She’s stopped breathing,” the doctor said calmly. “I’ll give the chest compressions. Can you do the rescue breaths?”
“Yes.” Her mouth answered the word, but her body was screaming,No, no, no! Not this again. Please. No!
“What’s going on?” Nico demanded down the phone, but she didn’t have time to answer, merely hit the end button and dropped to her knees beside the girl’s head, ready to follow the doctor’s instructions.
CHAPTER SIX
THE AMBULANCE PULLED away from the front gate, no lights or sirens on. The small crowd stood and watched it go in somber silence.
The girl, Rania, was dead. Not even the skill of a trained doctor could keep her alive. Nico glanced over at his friend, Gabriel, who stood with shoulders slumped, hands still covered in dried blood. Margie sobbed into Herb’s chest, and a few other neighbors who’d gathered when the ambulance had first arrived now stood around, slightly shell-shocked and looking grave. This sort of thing just didn’t happen in their sleepy little hamlet. Certainly not blatant murder, which was what this looked like.
Nico had arrived well before the ambulance, but there was nothing to be done for the girl. Gabriel and Lacey had still been performing CPR, but the look on the doctor’s face said it all. It was too late. Once the paramedics had arrived and taken over the fruitless effort, Gabriel told him she’d lost too much blood. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if they’d got her to hospital, she still would’ve died.
Another team had arrived in their police cruiser soon after Nico, and were now cordoning off the area with police tape and shooing people away from the scene, ready for forensics to take over. A specialized team was already on their way from Devonport. Nico had arranged it all over the phone, as he watched the paramedics fight to get Rania back. He acknowledged even before they did what’d happened here. The girl was dead, and this was now a murder scene.
Nico lifted his head to search for Lacey. She’d been standing by Gabriel as they loaded the body into the ambulance, but now she was over by the hedge on her own, arms wrapped around her middle, eyes as huge as saucers. She was only wearing a thin long-sleeved shirt, and was also covered in Rania’s blood, but she seemed not to notice, her awareness turned inward, her eyes not focussed on anything. The haunted look on her face said it all, and without thinking, Nico made his way over to where she stood. The paramedics had handed her back her jacket, but it hung bloody and forgotten in her hands.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
She just shook her head and seemed to withdraw even further into herself. He was reminded of her reaction the other night after she’d pounded the shit out of him, when she appeared to have some kind of panic attack. She clearly didn’t deal with trauma well. Did that have something to do with why she was on sabbatical from the force?
Without asking for permission, Nico put his arm around Lacey’s shoulders. Warily at first, because he thought she might flinch away from him. But she leaned into him instead, and he could feel the slight trembling running through her body. Whether it was from the cold or from shock, he wasn’t sure. She was quite a conundrum. On the one hand, Gabriel and Margie had both sung Lacey’s praises, saying that she’d acted quickly and proficiently, doing everything that needed to be done with ultimate professionalism. But now he could see the cracks beginning to appear as the need to act wore off.
“You did a great job,” he said, pulling her in tighter and resting his chin on top of her head. “I know this was a terrible thing to go through. But you did it all by the book. You have to believe you did everything in your power to help that poor woman.”
She moaned and shook her head slightly, as if his words caused her pain. “No, I didn’t. She died, Nico. She died and there was nothing I could do about it.” Lacey buried her face into his leather jacket as great sobs shivered through her.
He held her and let her cry. It was the best thing for her right now, to get all that emotion out. But again, it made him wonder. It was unusual for a police officer to show such raw grief, especially in public. Even one who’d only been on the beat for a short time, which seemed likely for Lacey. You learned to guard your emotions better when you were a cop. And while you might not become inured to death and violence, most people learned to put on a brave face. It wouldn’t do to show the public how affected you might be by a brutal murder or other violent crime. They’d never trust you to protect them if you did. Maybe that explained why she wasn’t cut out to be a police officer. He’d love to know her story, find out what had caused her to be this way. But he’d have to let her tell him in her own time.
Suddenly, almost as if she’d flicked an internal switch—or as if she could hear his thoughts—her sobbing subsided and she withdrew her face from his chest.
