Three Wishes (5 page)

“You saw me at the diner. I had one beer with my chicken. Bree asked if I wanted another. I didn't. LeeAnn poured the coffee. I had two cups.” The wipers pushed snowflakes from side to side. Peering out between them, Tom envisioned himself in a tunnel of light formed by the Blazer's headlights. The eeriness of it gave him a chill. “Where's the ambulance?”

“Up a ways. So. You had your coffee, then you left. What time was that?”

“Eight, give or take.” His left side ached. He changed position to ease it, still he felt the Blazer's every shift. “I went home, stayed half an hour, then left.”

“To go joyriding in the snow.”

“Not joyriding.” He hadn't felt any joy, hadn't felt any joy in too long to remember. “Just riding.”

“Where?”

“Around town. Out toward Lowell. Into Montgomery. Like I said, the Jeep holds the road.”

“So you wanted to see how good it was in the snow?”

“If you're asking whether I was pushing to see how fast I could go before spinning out, I wasn't. Come on, Bonner. You looked at tire tracks back there. Did it look like I was weaving coming up the hill?”

“Nope.”

“As soon as the truck hit, I was gone. It was like being at the wrong end of a bulldozer, pushed sideways into the wall.”

“When did you first see the truck?”

Tom took a deep breath and swallowed it fast when he felt pain. Bruised ribs, he guessed, plus cuts on his hands from fleeing the Jeep, plus God only knew what up and down his left side, where the truck had hit him hard. But all that was nothing compared to what had happened to Bree.

“Gates?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he struggled to re-create those lost seconds. Finally, he sighed and looked up. “All I remember is the headlights closing in.”

“What kind of truck was it?”

“I don't know.”

“Color?”

Again he tried to recall. “It wasn't a big truck. More likely a pickup. Color? Black, maybe? Hell, I couldn't see much in the glare of the lights. Take a look at my Jeep, though. It'll have paint in the scrapes.”

“I looked. The truck was maroon.”

“What about the tires?”

“Consistent with a pickup, but bald. When did you first see Bree?”

“I didn't see her. Not directly. I was aware of passing a dark shape just before the truck came around the corner, but it didn't register as anything more than a shadow, maybe a lamppost. I didn't know it was a person until I heard the thud.
Felt
the thud.” He felt it again, and again, and again. He doubted he would live long enough to forget it. It raised the hair on the back of his neck. “How much longer till we're there?”

“Not long. So you don't have any idea who was driving the truck?”

Tom expelled a frustrated breath. “If I knew, don't you think I'd say?”

“Beats me. I don't know you much.”

“Trust me. I'd say.”

“Yeah? Funny that you would. Most guys would be clamming up around now.”

“Only if they have something to hide. I don't. That guy hit me. You studied the scene. You know that. There wasn't a hell of a lot I could have done differently.”

“Still, you're city. I'd have thought you'd be yelling and screaming for a lawyer.”

“I
am
a lawyer.” He hadn't intended to say it, but there it was.

Bonner sent him a guarded look. “I thought you said you were a writer.”

“I am. I write about law.”

“Ah,
jeez.”
His head went back with the oath. “Another one lookin' to be the next Grisham.”

“Actually,” Tom said, because he figured Bonner would run a check on him and find out anyway, and then, of course, there was his damnable pride, which survived despite months of trying to kill it, “I was writing before Grisham ever did.”

“That's what they all say.”

“I was published before Grisham ever was.”

The chief paused. “That so?” Cautious interest. “Have I read anything of yours?”

“While the Jury Was Out.”
One look at the chief and he had his answer. “Lucky I have a common name, huh? I've been here seven months, and no one's figured it out. Christ, they will now,” he muttered, refocusing on the road. “How much longer?”

“Not much. Why the secret?”

“It's been a rough few years. I needed downtime. I needed to be someplace where people didn't know who I was.”

“Why's that?”

Taking aim at that damnable pride, he said, “I ran into trouble.”

“Legal trouble?”

“Ego trouble.”

He stared out the window at the outskirts of Ashmont. Small frame houses came closer together now, lights on here and there. The Blazer fell in behind a plow that was spewing sand and slowed to give it space.

Tom felt a surge of impatience. “Pass him.”

“Not me. I'd rather be safe than sorry. I'd think you would, too. You don't need two accidents in one night. So. You got famous and bought into the hype.”

Tom lifted the gauze from his cheek, glanced at it, put it back. “Something like that.”

“Weren't there movies, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you loaded?”

“Not now.”

“Poor?”

“No.” Tom looked at Bonner. “If she doesn't have insurance, I'll cover her bills.”

“That's nice and generous, thank you, but Bree won't have any part of it. She's an independent sort. Besides, don't feel guilty. If you hadn't been where you were, that truck would've hit her directly, and it was bigger than you.”

“So if she dies, she'll be less dead?” Tom asked. “Besides, it isn't guilt.”

“Then what?”

Redemption
was the word that came to mind, and it didn't sound right. But he did know, for all he was worth, that this time he couldn't turn his back.

 

The Ashmont Medical Center was small and relatively new, a two-story brick building at the end of a long drive curving back behind the old stone town hall. Tom remembered the parking lot as being neatly landscaped, but the peaceful feeling he remembered, from things green and flowered, was gone. Halogen lights on the snow turned the scene a garish yellow.

There was a small emergency entrance at the side of the building. The ambulance stood there, empty. Within seconds of the Blazer's pulling up behind it, Tom was out. He pushed through the door and approached the nurse at the desk.

“Bree Miller?” he asked, though he knew at a glance that she wasn't there. The emergency area was negligible. Each of three cubicles was open and quiet. That meant she was either upstairs or in the morgue.

He was tied in knots envisioning the latter scenario, when the nurse rounded the desk. She was a competent-looking sort, less laid-back than the typical local. “You must be the other injured party. I was told to watch for you.”

“His name's Tom Gates,” Bonner said. “He needs stitching. Check his ribs. And his hands.”

Tom wasn't being touched until he had some news. “How is Bree?”

“She's upstairs.”

“Is she alive?”

“Yes.”

He released a small breath. “Is the surgeon here yet?”

“No, but he's close.”

Ignoring protests by both the nurse and his body, he strode toward the elevator, spotted the stairs on the near side, and slipped through the door. Minutes later, he approached the second-floor nurses' station. “I'm looking for Bree Miller,” he said. He saw a slew of patients' rooms, what looked to be a kitchen, a supply area, an open lounge, and a lot of closed doors.

This nurse was younger and gentler, but focused. Rising to meet him, she reached for the gauze he still held to his cheek. “Were you in the accident, too?”

“Yes, but I'm fine.”

She was studying the gash on his cheek. “This has to be stitched. How'd you get past Margo?”

“I just went. Tell me more about Bree, and I'll go back. Where is she?”

“If I tell you, you might head that way, and if you do, you'll contaminate everything they're trying to keep sterile.”

Tom backed off. “Okay. Just give me an update. Has she regained consciousness?”

“Not that I know of.”

“The paramedic at the scene said she was bleeding internally. Did the EMTs find anything else?”

“Bruises, but bleeding's the first worry.”

“My blood type is A. Will that help?”

“No. She's B. We have some here, and a list of donors. We've already called in a few.”

Things were bad, then. Tom felt weak. “How many doctors are here?”

“Normally, one. We called in another of our own. The surgeon coming from St. Johnsbury makes three.”

“Have your two ever done anything like this?” He knew he sounded snobbish, but refused to take back the question even when the nurse looked vaguely annoyed.

“Yes,” she said. “Doctors here know everything and do everything. They're better rounded than city doctors. They have to be.” She took his arm. “I think you should go back downstairs.”

He held his ground. “Where can I wait afterward? I want to know how she is the minute they're done. I want to talk to the surgeon.”

“You're shaking.”

He had been trying to ignore that, but he kept hearing that
thud
again and was feeling sick. “Wouldn't you be shaking if it was your car that hit someone?”

“Yes, but there's nothing you can do for her right now,” she said, pleading now. “The doctors are working on her, and you can't be there. So let Margo patch you up. Please?”

 

What with cleaning, stitching, and X-raying, Tom was downstairs for an hour. During that time, the doctor from St. Johnsbury arrived and Bree's surgery began.

When Tom finally made it back upstairs, Flash O'Neil was in the waiting room. The police chief must have filled him in on the details of the accident, because other than a quiet “You okay?” he didn't ask questions.

It was nearly midnight. Tom lowered himself onto a vinyl sofa and sat, first, with his head low against dizziness, then, as time passed, with his eyes closed and his legs sprawled stiffly. Any movement in the region of the operating room brought him up straight, but news was scarce. He sat forward again, then back, shifted gingerly, stretched out. Had he been a religious man, he might have prayed, but it had been years since he'd done that. After his mother died, he hadn't felt worthy, and before, well, he hadn't felt the need. He had been his own greatest source of strength, his own inspiration, his own most blind, devoted, and bullheaded fan.

So here he was.

Somewhere around one, Flash began to talk. He had his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging between, and was studying the floor, looking lost. “Bree was the first person I ever met in Panama. I heard the diner was for sale and came to see it. She waited on me and my wife, sold us on the town with that friendly way she has. After we bought the place, we had to close down a month for renovations. Bree was the only one who said she'd wait out the month and work for us when we reopened. She did more than wait. She was right there with us, making suggestions during the renovations—you know, things that people around here would like that we didn't know, not being from here. She and Francie—my wife—they got along fine.”

Tom had never seen a wife. “What happened to Francie?”

“She left. Proved to be a
real
flash in the pan,” he muttered. “Not Bree, though. She's worked for me for fourteen years now. I oughta make her a partner.”

A nurse ran down the hall from the operating room. Tom came to his feet.

She held up a hand, shook her head as she passed, and disappeared. A minute later, she returned carrying an armload of supplies, but she had no more time for him then. It was the young nurse from the station who came to report, “It's going slow. She lost a lot of blood.”

Again Tom felt the frustration of not being in New York, and while part of him knew that the going might have been just as slow there, it was small solace.

“I started to drive her home,” Flash said, with more emotion now, “but the hill was so bad I gave up. If I'd stuck with it, this wouldn't have happened.”

Tom made a disparaging sound. “It wasn't your fault.”

“So whose fault was it?”

“Whoever drove that truck.”

“So who drove it?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You were there. It was your car that hit Bree. What were you, asleep at the wheel?” The words were barely out before Flash held up a hand. “Sorry. I'm scared.”

Tom knew how
that
was. “Are you and Bree together?”

Flash made a sputtering sound. “Nah. She won't have me. She likes going home alone. Says she needs it after a day at work. But, man”—he gave a slow head shake—“she's my right hand at the diner. If anything happens . . .”

“It won't,” Tom said.

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“How?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and closed it again. One part of him feared Bree's dying as much as Flash feared it, but there was another part, a part that said the accident had happened for a reason and that her dying right now wasn't it.

True, that kind of thinking wasn't logical, and he was a logical guy—cold, calculating, and shrewd, his father had accused him of being, before turning his back on him for good. Maybe his father was right. With regard to family and friends, Tom had been cold, calculating, and shrewd.

Not so professionally. He had been creative and caring in his defense of clients, creative and caring in the construction of a plot. And he definitely had an imaginative streak.
Something
had to explain the eeriness he had felt when passing through the tunnel of light that the Blazer had carved in the snow. He felt that eeriness still, felt it deep in his tired bones.