So Dark The Night

“This woman was shot. What happened?” The nurse looked up at Colin.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The sound of sirens mingled with the whispers of the people gathered. Another car stopped and two men got out, hanging back from the crowd around the woman.

“Is either one of you a doctor?” Colin asked the new arrivals, hearing the desperate edge to his words. This woman couldn’t die. Please, God, keep her alive. I’ve seen enough people dying to fill five lifetimes. Memories threatened to swamp him with emotions he never wanted to relive.

The taller of the two said, “No, sorry.”

Colin returned his attention to the woman on the pavement, her petite frame silhouetted by the headlights from several cars. Her dark pants were torn in places as well as her short-sleeved shirt.

She wore only one sandal. He glanced around for her lost shoe. He didn’t see it. He examined the bottom of her bare foot. Cuts and dirt greeted his inspection as though she had been running through the woods without one shoe for a long distance. Red-painted toenails taunted him with the mystery that surrounded this woman.

Who was Derek?

Who had shot her?

Where had she come from?

The shriek of the sirens came to a stop as the ambulance pulled up. Colin moved back to allow the paramedics to examine the woman. A sheriff’s deputy, a member of his congregation, climbed from his cruiser and walked toward him.

“Can you tell me what happened here, Reverend?”

The three teenagers clambered out of the SUV and hurried toward the deputy, all talking at once.

Colin waved at them to be silent. “John, I was driving home from the youth conference when this woman ran out in front of my car. I thought I was going to be able to avoid her until she spun around and lunged into my path.”

Brent nodded. “She came right at us. Someone shot her!”

“Shot? Then this isn’t a car accident?” the deputy asked.

“No,” all the teenagers answered.

“Excuse me. I need to call this in. Get more help out here.”

While the deputy walked to his cruiser, Colin’s focus shifted to the woman being wheeled to the ambulance. He wished he could follow the ambulance to the hospital. If he hadn’t been on the highway, would she have made it safely to the other side? That was a question he was afraid would plague him for a long time. She had been shot, but how extensive were the injuries caused by his SUV? He couldn’t stop the questions from coming. Who was she? Who was Derek? Who shot her? Why?

When the deputy came back, he said, “You all will have to go down to the station to make a statement.”

“Even them?” Colin hated the boys being involved.

“I’m afraid so. Neil’s dad will be out here shortly. He’ll take you in and get your statements.”

Brent, Jamie and Neil looked at one another, their eyes wide.

“Can we call our parents to tell them we’ll be late getting home?” Jamie held up his cell phone.

“Sure.” John Edwards pulled Colin over to the side away from the three teenagers. “Did you see anyone chasing her?”

“No, everything happened so fast.” In his mind Colin could see her frozen in his headlights for a few seconds before she started moving again. Then the awful moment when she spun back toward him, her eyes wide with terror. “John, there may be someone else in trouble. Someone named Derek. Before she passed out, she said something about Derek needing help. At least, I think that was it.”

“Derek St. James? He has a cabin not too far from here. I hadn’t heard he was back in town, though.”

“Maybe that’s who she was talking about.” Colin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll check it out after this scene is secured.”

“Be careful. Someone in the woods has a gun.” Colin realized he was stating the obvious, but he couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching him. Chills encased him in a cold sweat. He threw a last glance toward the area where he thought someone had hidden and shot at the mystery woman. “Look over that way. I think that was where the shot came from.”

“I thought you didn’t see anything?”

“Nothing like a person or a flash when the gun went off. I didn’t even hear anything with the music on in the car and the windows up. I was too busy trying to avoid the woman. But from the way she spun and fell, that has to be the place. Good cover for a shooter.” He knew more than he wished about guns, cover and death.

“I’ll have the crime-scene boys check it out.”

Heading toward the teenagers, Colin took a calming breath, a coldness embedded deep in his bones. Crystal Springs might be near Chicago, but crime rarely occurred in his little corner of the world, one of the reasons he had been so attracted to the town. It had always been a safe place to raise a family. But the shooting of this woman had altered all that. Deep in his gut he felt their peaceful little slice of heaven was about to change. Icy tentacles burrowed deeper. He shook, his hands balled at his side so tightly that pain zipped up his arms.

TWO

Colin paced from one end of the waiting room to the other. The strong antiseptic odor reminded him of what he disliked most about his job—visiting people in the hospital. His wife had died at Bayview County Hospital, and every time he stepped into its corridors, he remembered Mary Ann’s lingering death from cancer. The clean, disinfectant smells, sounds of beeping machines and murmured voices made his stomach clench whenever he came here. He needed to get past his automatic reaction. But even after four years, he hadn’t been able to.

“Reverend, she’s been moved from recovery to her room now,” a nurse at the door said.

Colin nodded, forcing his stomach muscles to relax. Drawing in a deep, fortifying breath, he headed for Emma St. James’s private hospital room. Dread leadened his steps. He hadn’t seen her since the ambulance had taken her away from the wreck. First, he had been at the sheriff’s headquarters giving a statement about the accident, then when he had finally arrived at the hospital two hours ago, Emma St. James had already been wheeled into surgery to have her shoulder repaired.

A deputy stood at her door. “Good afternoon, Reverend.”

“Hi, Kirk. How’s your wife doing?”

“Better. She should be at church this Sunday.”

Colin started to enter the hospital room, but Kirk held up his hand. “Sorry, the sheriff is inside questioning the woman.”

Colin leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. The sights and sounds he had come to know so well when Mary Ann had been here surrounded him. Slowly, any relaxation he had achieved dissolved, leaving him tense again. Time crawled by painfully slowly. A doctor was paged. A phone rang at the nurses’ station. An orderly wheeled a patient to the elevator.

The door to Emma’s room swung open, and J. T. Logan left, followed by a tall, slender woman with short brown hair. Colin pushed himself away from the wall, preparing to go into the room.

“Reverend, I hope you can help her.” J.T.’s deep, gruff voice halted Colin’s progress.

“You told her about her brother?”

J.T. gave a curt nod. He gestured toward the woman at his side. “This is Madison Spencer. She’s a detective with the state police. She’ll be assisting me with the investigation. This is Reverend Fitzpatrick.”

“The man who hit her?” Madison angled her head toward the sheriff. “Are you so sure him visiting is a good idea?”

Colin flinched at the bald truth. How was he going to help Emma St. James when his SUV had struck her and he was riddled with guilt?

“If anyone can help her, it’ll be Colin.”