AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then she was still again, unresponsive but breathing. Gabriel reached for the first-aid kit that Ian had fetched from the boot of the SUV, and took out two pairs of gloves, handing one to Clara.
‘Will you take a look at her legs, please, Clara? Ian, have you called an ambulance?’ He was in charge now, no more following and waiting for the security team to do their jobs.
‘Yes. They’ll be here soon.’
‘Thanks. Can we have some light here, please?’
Ian fetched a lantern, switching it on and setting it down beside Gabriel. Then he got into the driver’s seat of the other SUV, turning it so that the headlights shone towards them.
‘Great, thanks, Ian.’ Gabriel glanced up at Clara. ‘She’s breathing and her pulse is steady. How do her legs look?’
‘Right leg seems okay, but she’s bleeding badly from a wound on her left leg.’ Clara bent over, looking carefully. ‘I can’t see anything in it. I’m going to apply pressure.’
‘All right, let me know if you need any help...’
They worked silently as Ian and Joe kept watch over them. Gabriel looked up as the murmur of a siren sounded in the distance. ‘I hope that’s on its way here...’
Suddenly the woman moved, groaning in pain. That was a good sign, Gabriel had obviously been worried about her apparent listlessness. He calmed her, holding her still, until the ambulance drew up on the other side of the bridge.
Clara stepped back, letting the ambulance crew take her place. Gabriel was still working, helping them to stabilise her before they took her to the hospital, and there was nothing more now that she could do. She stripped her gloves off, shivering in the night breeze.
More lights, this time those of a police car. Clara checked that Ian and Joe still had eyes on Gabriel and walked towards it, to speak with the police officer who had arrived to take charge of the scene. When she expressed her concerns about the second occupant of the car, she was told that he’d been found by another police car, less than a mile up the road.
‘He went for help?’ Clara put the best interpretation she could on the man’s actions.
‘I’ll need to have a word with the young woman.’ The policewoman quietly refused to give any more details. ‘How is she?’
‘You may have to wait awhile. The doctor’s with her now, but she was almost drowned and she’s lost a lot of blood from a wound on her leg.’
‘Okay. Good thing he was here on the scene.’ The policewoman looked at the two dark SUVs ruminatively. ‘So what’s your involvement...?’
* * *
Gabriel had satisfied himself that his patient was stable, and she was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Clara had given her name and contact details and promised that everyone would be available to give statements in the morning. Now she needed to get Gabriel home.
Ian quietly put a blanket around her shoulders, and Clara wrapped it around her thankfully. ‘You want me to drive? You can go with Joe and Gabriel.’
‘No, I’m okay.’ Clara would rather snuggle into a blanket in the back seat of the other SUV. But that wasn’t acceptable—her first priority was Gabriel’s safety, and he was safer with Ian and Joe.
‘All right.’ Ian hesitated. ‘We couldn’t stop him from getting out of the car.’
‘I know. Don’t worry about it. Once Gabriel decides there’s something he needs to do, there is no stopping him. All we can do is keep up, and you and Joe did a good job tonight. Let’s just get him home.’
‘Leave it with me. You just concentrate on getting yourself back.’ Ian grinned at her, and walked back to the SUV.
Ian and Joe had done a good job, but Clara wasn’t so sure about herself. Not being able to stop Gabriel was just an excuse. She’d known she couldn’t and she hadn’t wanted to, because the woman in the car might well have died without him.
Clara walked slowly to the car. She may have failed to do her job tonight, but it felt so much more important that Gabriel had succeeded in doing his.
* * *
He had to know. Gabriel wasn’t sure why he needed to know so badly but he did. When they arrived back at his home, he took a much-needed shower, allowing himself to luxuriate in the warm water, and then made the unprecedented step of asking Joe to send Clara up to his study as soon as she too had showered and got into some dry clothes.
When she knocked on the door, she waited for him to call her inside, and when she entered her hands were empty. No coffee or tea. No unexpected cocktails. Clara stayed on her feet until he waved her across to a seat.
‘I was very thankful for your presence of mind tonight, in bringing the tools we needed so quickly...’ He decided to start with the good part.
‘We carry those tools for just such an eventuality.’ She was in shut-down mode, giving him as little information as possible.
