Echo Of Danger

Nothing, but she could see the vein pulsing at his temple.

Someone knelt beside her, and she realized it was Jason. “Careful. Don’t move him.”

“No. His head...”

Jason bent over her son, seeming to trace the swelling behind Kevin’s ear with his gaze. “EMTs are on the way. They’ll be here soon. Two ambulances, I told them.”

“Dixie...” She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Kevin long enough to look. And now, when she tried, Jason’s solid body blocked her view.

“Head injury,” he said briefly. “It looks...bad.”

Deidre’s sluggish wits started to move again at that moment. Kevin must have fallen, but Dixie... How could she have gotten a head injury sitting on the sofa?

“What...what happened to her?” Ridiculous to think that he would know any more than she did.

“Someone hit her. She couldn’t have done that much damage falling.”

Amazing that he could sound so calm. Dixie had been attacked. How could that be true? That meant that someone had come into her house and done this.

Jason had turned, surveying the room. Looking for evidence? Deidre cradled Kevin closer, trying to control the trembling that had seized her. She had to be strong. She had to be there for Kevin. She couldn’t fall apart now. Frank was gone, and she was all Kevin had.

Jason’s hand came down on her shoulder, his firm grip steadying her. “It’ll be all right.”

He didn’t sound as if he believed the words. She didn’t. How could anything be all right again when the unthinkable had happened?

Sirens wailed. Jason stood up. “I’ll go signal them. Hold on.”

Deidre managed to nod. She’d hold on because she had to. She couldn’t lose Kevin.

In what seemed a moment, her small living room was filled with people. They’d obviously called out both of Echo Falls’s paramedic teams. One surrounded Dixie while the other moved swiftly into place around Kevin.

“You’ll need to move back just a little.” It was a female voice. “I’m just going to slide your arms out from under him, okay? You don’t need to worry. Joe has him.”

She must have made some sound as hands pulled her away, because the woman patted her. “Just ease back a bit. You can put your hand on his foot, okay? That way he’ll know you’re still here.”

Her throat was too tight to allow for speech. All she could do was close her fingers around Kev’s bare foot, sticking out of the blanket. The superhero pajamas he’d insisted on wearing were getting too small for him. She should get him a new pair. Clinging to the thought was holding her to normalcy for a moment. She held on to a world in which the biggest threat to a small boy was outgrowing his favorite pj’s.

The paramedics talked to each other in low tones, and then the woman put her arm around Deidre. “We’re going to transport Kevin to the hospital in the ambulance. You can ride with him, okay?”

Deidre nodded, unable to think beyond the moment and the clasp of her hand around Kevin’s foot. Voices murmured in the background, people giving orders, asking questions, making arrangements. All she could do was move when they told her to, watch Kevin being lifted onto a stretcher and maintain a tenuous hold on the feeling that assured her he was still alive.

As they made their way toward the door, someone moved in front of her. A police officer, saying something she couldn’t take in, focused as she was on Kevin. Then Jason was deflecting him, drawing him away.

“I was with Mrs. Morris. I’ll answer your questions.”

Good, because she wasn’t going to stop, wasn’t going to let anything or anyone separate her from her son.

Lights flashed in the dark outside, turning the trees odd colors. Someone helped her into the back of the ambulance. She slid to a position as close to Kevin as she could get, all her attention focused on him, shutting out everything else. The paramedics murmured to each other, but her mind couldn’t seem to sort out the words.

They slid out of the driveway, making the turn toward town and the hospital. The siren wailed, and they sped along. People would be looking out windows, wondering who and what.

Kneeling in the ambulance next to Kevin, Deidre was barely aware of the journey until they came to a smooth stop. She glanced up to see the lights of the emergency room, and then they blurred in a flow of smooth, controlled activity as the doors opened and the ER staff moved to join the paramedics. Kevin was so small—there hardly seemed to be enough space for everyone to work on him.

In seconds they were out on the pavement. As Deidre followed the gurney carrying Kevin inside, another ambulance wailed into the drive behind her. Dixie. She breathed a silent prayer. But Dixie of all people would understand that she had to stay with Kevin.

* * *

HALF AN HOUR LATER, she stood alone in the small room set aside for families waiting for news of their loved ones. With its neutral-toned upholstered furniture and muted landscape prints, it had been designed to convey a balance between hope and comfort. She should know—she’d been on the hospital auxiliary committee that decorated it. A discreet plaque on the wall informed anyone who noticed that the lounge had been given through the generosity of Franklin and Sylvia Morris.

She clenched her hands, trying not to give way to fear, to panic. The door opened, and her breath caught. But it wasn’t one of the doctors. It was Judith Yoder, her neighbor, her friend. Deidre’s control broke, and she stumbled into Judith’s outstretched arms.

“Hush, hush.” Judith patted her as if Deidre were one of her children. “Don’t cry. You must be strong for Kevin. You can be, I know. Let the gut Lord help you.”

Judith’s Amish faith might seem simple to an outsider, but it was bedrock strong and would carry her through anything. It seemed to bolster Deidre’s own faltering strength.

Deidre choked back a sob and straightened. She managed to nod. “How did you know?”

“Eli saw the flashing lights from the bedroom window. He could tell it was at your house.”

She knew it hadn’t been as simple as that. Eli, being a volunteer firefighter, had probably run to the phone shanty to call dispatch and find out what had happened. Then he’d have called an Englisch neighbor to drive Judith to the hospital. But nothing would be too much trouble for either of them when a friend needed help.

Judith sat beside her on the sofa, clasping her hands as Deidre spilled out everything that had happened in a probably incoherent stream.

“They took Kevin for tests. I heard someone say to have an operating room ready. I haven’t heard anything about Dixie. I don’t know what’s happening.” That was the worst thing—not knowing.

“When someone said a woman had been seriously hurt, I thought it was you.” Judith’s previously calm voice trembled.

Deidre closed her eyes for an instant, seeing Dixie lying on the rug in her living room. “If I’d been home...” She struggled for breath. “Dixie was only there because she was doing something kind for me.”

Judith’s grasp of her hands tightened. “Ach, Deidre, you must not start blaming yourself. This is the fault of the person who did it, no one else.”

She tried to accept the words, but guilt dug claws into her heart. She hadn’t been there. Kevin had been in danger, and she hadn’t been there.

Judith seemed to understand all the things she didn’t say—the fear, the panic just barely under control. She talked, a soft murmur of words that flowed around Deidre in a comforting stream even when she didn’t fully listen.

The door opened and closed as others began to arrive—the judge, gray-faced and controlled, demanding answers no one had; the minister, looking young and uncertain; even Jason, who surely realized he didn’t need to be here at all but seemed unwilling to leave.

Deidre roused herself to speak to Jason. “Thank you for your help. I’m sure you’d prefer to go home.”

It was her father-in-law who answered. “I’ve asked Jason to stay, for a time, at least. He can deal with the police and any reporters who show up.” His tone implied that any reporter unwise enough to attempt to speak to them wouldn’t have a job for long.

One of the aides carried in a tray with coffee and tea. Deidre shook her head, but Judith insisted on fixing her a mug of hot tea with plenty of sugar.

“It will make you feel better. Drink it up, now.”

It was easier to obey than to argue. And Judith was right. The hot liquid eased the tight muscles in her throat and warmed her cold hands.

The judge paced. Jason leaned against the wall, solid and apparently immovable. After what seemed an eternity, Kevin’s pediatrician, Elizabeth Donnelly, came in, accompanied by a tired-looking older man.