The Whistler (The Whistler #1)(45)

“Sorry I brought it up.”

“Back to Monday night.”

—

Word spread that Lacy was back in town, and by early evening visitors were bumping into one another. Since most were acquaintances, the mood grew festive and the nurses complained more than once. Gunther, always the flirt, took center stage, did most of the talking, hogged the attention, and fought with the nurses. Lacy was exhausted and content to let him do whatever.

At first, she was horrified at the thought of seeing anyone, or, rather, letting anyone see her. With her slick head, stitches, bruises, and puffy eyes and cheeks, she felt like an extra in a cheap monster flick. But Gunther put things in perspective with “Chill. These people love you and they know you just survived a head-on collision. And in a month you’ll be hot again and most of these poor folks will still be homely. We got the genes, baby.”

Visitation was over at 9:00 p.m., and the nurses happily cleared out Lacy’s room. She was exhausted. Her afternoon torture session with Gunther had lasted for four hours and ended only with the arrival of friends. Four hours of constant grilling and long hikes down the hall, and he was promising more tomorrow. He closed the door, said he wished he could lock it and keep everyone out, then turned off the lights and made his nest on the sofa. With the aid of a mild sedative, Lacy soon fell into a deep sleep.

—

The scream. The sound of terror from a voice that never screamed, never showed emotion. Something was wrong with a seat belt. He was complaining. She glanced over, then the scream as his wide shoulders instinctively threw back. The lights, so bright, so close, so shockingly unavoidable. The impact, the sense of her body hurling forward for a split second before being caught and slammed backward. The noise, the explosion of a bomb in her lap as five tons of steel, metal, glass, aluminum, and rubber collided and tangled. The vicious blow to her face as the air bag a foot away detonated and shot forward at two hundred miles per hour, saving her life but doing its share of damage. The spinning, her car airborne for a second as it turned 180 degrees, slinging debris. Then nothing. How many times had she heard victims say, “I must’ve been out of it for a few seconds”? No one ever knows how long. But there was movement. Hugo, stuck in the windshield, was moving his legs, trying to either get out or get back in. Hugo moaning. And to her left, a shadow, a figure, a man with a light crouching and looking at her. Did she see his face? No. And if she did she could not remember it. And then he was on the passenger’s side, near Hugo, or was it another one? Were there two shadows moving around her car? Hugo was moaning. Her head was bleeding, pounding. Footsteps crunched on broken glass. The lights of a vehicle swept the wreckage and disappeared. Darkness. Blackness.

—

“?There were two of them, Gunther. Two of them.”

“Okay, Sis. You’re dreaming now, and you’re sweating. You’ve been mumbling and shaking for half an hour. Let’s wake up and talk, okay?”

“There were two of them.”

“I hear you. Wake up now, and look at me. It’s okay, Sis, just another bad dream.” He turned on a small lamp on the table.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“What difference does it make? You’re not catching a plane. It’s two thirty in the morning and you’ve had quite a dream.”

“What did I say?”

“Nothing intelligible, lots of mumbling and groaning. You want some water?”

She took a sip from a straw and pushed a button to raise her bed. “It’s coming back,” she said. “I’m seeing things now. I can remember some of it.”

“Attagirl. Now, these two figures you saw. Let’s talk about them. One was obviously the driver of the truck. The other was probably driving the getaway vehicle. What did you see?”

“I don’t know, not much. Both were men, I think. I’m pretty sure of that.”

“Okay. Can you see their faces?”

“No. Nothing. I’d just been hit, you know. Nothing is clear now.”

“Sure. Where did you keep your cell phone?”

“On the console, usually. I can’t say for sure where it was at that moment, but probably on the console.”

“And where did Hugo keep his?”

“Always in his right rear pocket, unless he was wearing a jacket.”

“And he wasn’t wearing one, right?”

“Right. As I said, it was hot and we were casual.”

“So someone had to reach inside the car to get the cell phones. Can you see that as it happened? Anyone touch you or Hugo?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, I don’t remember that.”

The door opened slowly and a nurse entered the room. She said, “Everything okay? Your pulse spiked.”

Gunther said, “She’s dreaming. Everything’s fine.”

The nurse ignored him and touched Lacy’s arm. “How do you feel, Lacy?”

“I’m good,” she said, her eyes still closed.

“You need to sleep, okay?”

To which Gunther responded, “Well, it’s kinda hard to sleep with you guys in here every other hour.”

“There’s a motel across the street if you’d like it better over there,” the nurse responded coolly.

Gunther let it pass, and the nurse left.