2. Harlan
Chapter 2
Harlan
A fter spending most of the night bullshitting with my brothers over dinner, being woken in the middle of the night by dispatch relaying a report of a car accident from a witness on the interstate is not my idea of a good time — it is, however, part of my job.
You knew that you shouldn’t have stayed up late.
As the sheriff of Everette, I gambled that nothing was going to happen during the overnight shift I signed up for so my normal overnight deputy, Wayne, could have time off with his wife for their fifteenth wedding anniversary — gambled and lost.
Not a whole hell of a lot happens in Everette. Most of the time, my job is to play mediator over petty town squabbles, monitoring the tourists, and policing local kids who think they can get away with stuff their parents tried and perfected in their own youth.
I pull my cruiser over to the side of the road, the firetruck right behind me. The glow of my red and blue lights accompanies the sirens of both vehicles. There are skid marks down the highway, and it looks like the vehicle swerved a few times before going through the guardrail.
About twenty feet off the highway, there’s a camper tipped over in a ditch. Looking around, I don’t see the driver anywhere.
Let’s just hope that no one was hurt.
I kill the sirens and step out of my car, my partner for the night, Johansen, doing the same from his side of the car.
Where the hell is the driver?
“Where do you want me boss?” he asks. I don’t know how he and Wayne usually work together, they have their own rhythm, and having your boss as a partner for the night means he’s deferring to me to get us started.
Carrie Haymitch is standing off to the side of the freeway, her own car parked with its hazards on while she holds her jacket tightly around her against the chill of the night.
“You go talk to Carrie. I’m going to see if there’s anyone in that rig.”
Maybe they can’t get their seatbelt undone and are stuck. Maybe they tried to hoof it to town. From what I can see, it doesn’t look like the camper rolled, just tipped over. With a tourist season like ours, I’ve seen my fair share of rolled vehicles, a tipped-over camper isn’t too bad considering. Gonna be a bitch to get out of there, though.
Rawlins and Murphy, two of the overnight volunteer firefighters, jog toward us with their EMS duffle and we start our way down the steep embankment.
A muffled wailing sound comes from the vehicle.
Someone’s in there. Fuck.
Picking up my pace, I rush down the ditch and around the back of the camper. I can’t see shit with the rig tipped over. The passenger side is pointing straight up, the vehicle laying on its driver side. The sound of muffled cries gets louder the closer we get to the vehicle.
I think it’s safe to say that the owner of the camper didn’t try to hoof it to town.
“Hello. Sheriff’s department,” I call out as I move toward the front cab of the car and hoist myself up. Rawlins stands behind me, ready to follow, and I glance through the passenger side window to see a woman unconscious in the driver’s seat, red liquid on the bare skin of her arm. There’s a car seat strapped to one of the rear seats and a chubby hand is waving from it.
Jesus fucking Christ. There’s a baby in there.
My heartbeat spikes in my chest as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I’m used to the adrenaline spike, and I breathe through it before turning back to the first responders behind me.
“There’s a kid in here. Driver looks unconscious,” I call out before trying to open the passenger door.
“Guys!” Rawlins yells, waving the rest of the volunteer firefighters over.
“It’s locked. I need the unlock kit,” I say to Rawlins.
He calls back to Johansen who jogs over and passes me the kit. After wedging the door open as much as I can, I reach in with the plexiglass arm and hit the unlock button to pop the door open. Handing the gear back to Johansen, I say, “I’m going to get the baby and pass them up to you. Then I’ll look over the driver.”
Gingerly, I lower myself into the cab of the camper and move toward the back. The baby is wearing a pink onesie, and her chubby cheeks are flushed from her cries, her lashes wet with the tears running down her cheeks.
Fuck baby. I hope your mama is okay.
“Hey there, girlie. Let’s get you out of here, huh?” I say in my gentlest voice. Poor kid is probably scared out of her mind. She looks up at me from where her car seat is tipped to the side, with the lightest gray eyes I’ve ever seen, and her cries taper off until she quiets and blinks up at me.
I give her a quick glance over and don’t see any visible injuries. With the way she quieted after seeing me, I’m more inclined to think that she’s just scared, not hurt, thank god.
Keeping her in the car seat for stability until she can get checked out, I unlatch the car seat from the metal hooks holding it to the camper seat and gently twist it to lay horizontal to the ground before handing the seat to Rawlins.
Once she’s cleared out of the vehicle, I leave the guys to check the baby over and pivot toward the driver, climbing back to the front.
Reaching a hand out, I shift a mass of black hair off her face and neck and press my fingers to the side of her throat feeling for a pulse.
Please be alive. Please. I chant the plea to the universe.
The steady thump under my thumb has me blowing out a relieved breath.
“Strong pulse. Let’s get her out of here,” I call out. The guys pile in behind me. It’s a tight fit in the camper with the three of us, and I shift more toward the back while they work on getting her out of her seat while keeping her as stable as possible.
There’s some sort of sticky red liquid on her face and arm, and I didn’t see any open wounds. Leaning forward, I sniff, and the syrupy smell tells me it’s not blood on her like I initially thought. A quick glance around the cab I notice the soda can in the cup holder.
Thank fucking god.
“I think she got knocked out in the accident,” I say, hoping that’s the worst of her injuries. Like the baby though, she’ll be transported to the hospital and looked over.
Rawlins reappears with a backboard, and after a quick mental calculation, I set it in the back along the driver’s side wall of the camper. It’s balanced on the cabinets mounted there, but not super stable. Rawlins and Murphy gently move the driver while I hold the board in place, making sure to keep her spine as straight as we can until we have her strapped onto the board.
Murphy crawls out through the passenger side door, and Rawlins grabs the front of the board. We hoist her through the open passenger side door, and I direct the back of the board over the front seats.
Once we’re out, the guys carry her toward the ambulance, and when she’s secured to a stretcher, I look her over while the guys get her vitals. Midtwenties, black hair, medium build, she’s on the shorter side, I’d put her at maybe five feet one inch, about a hundred and thirty pounds, if I had to guess.
“Who’s a pretty princess? Who’s a pretty princess?” The sound of a baby laughing drags my attention away from the driver as the EMS van pulls up along the side of the road. Johansen is cooing and making faces at the little girl who’s still in her car seat.
“What’d you find?” I ask him.
“Registered to Maisie Williams. Twenty-eight. Address on file is in Texas, which matches the plates. No recent tickets or criminal record. Probably a tourist. Carrie was driving home from work and saw the accident. She’s the one who called it in.”
I nod. “You stay behind and process the scene. I’m going to ride to the hospital with these two. ”
“She’s still out?” he asks, looking to where the firefighters and paramedics are surrounding her.
I nod again. “There’s a bump on the left side of her scalp, probably from where she bashed it against the window. Probably what knocked her out. Strong pulse though.”
Leaving Johansen to handle the scene, we load into the ambulance, the car seat nestled between my feet. I pull my phone out of my pocket and call my brother Jedd. He’s the only mechanic in town and the only person within fifty miles with a hauler big enough to tip and tow the camper out of the ditch.
“Whassit?” he answers, his voice heavy from sleep.
“Accident. There’s an RV tipped in the ditch just south of mile marker two forty.”
“Urgh. Okay. Be there in a few.”
“I’m on my way to the hospital with the driver and an infant. Tow it back to your shop and do me a favor. Look for the driver’s purse or wallet and a diaper bag for the baby, grab that and meet me at the hospital.”
“There was a kid? Are they okay?”
I don’t have a concrete answer for him. “Baby seems fine, but we’re taking them in to get checked out. Driver is still unconscious. Just get the stuff and meet me at the hospital, would you?”
“Yeah. Okay. Got it. Be there as soon as I can.”
I slip my phone back into my pocket, the sounds of the paramedics fading off in the background as I look over the driver. Aside from the swelling from the lump on the side of her face that’s already starting to bruise, she’s fucking gorgeous. Long lashes fan across the tops of her cheekbones, her lips relaxed and plump in her sleep.
Jesus, Harlan. Now’s not the time to appreciate the view .
I shake myself out of it and look down at the little girl who’s already fallen back asleep in her car seat.
Who are you two and what were you doing on the road so late at night?
A couple hours later, I’m still in the hospital and just got an update from the driver’s doctor. Mild concussion from the knock she took to her head, but otherwise all clear. She’ll wake up when she wakes up, but until then, they’re going to keep an eye on her.
Baby girl was fully cleared by pediatrics and came through the accident with nothing more than the bruising from her car seat on her shoulders.
These two were lucky. Luckier than some of the idiots on the scene.
Based on the accident report I got, the length of her skid marks indicate she was going about ten miles over the speed limit before she went into the guardrail.
“Hey.” I turn toward the familiar voice. Jedd strides down the corridor of the hospital with a bag looped over his shoulder and one of those tiny purses women use clasped in his hand. “What’s the news?”
“Driver has a concussion. Still hasn’t woken up yet, so they’re keeping an eye on her. Baby is fine, peds cleared her. She’s sleeping in her car seat in Mom’s room.” I wave him behind me.
I take the bag from him and usher him toward her room. Invasive and not giving a shit, I open the small handbag and take out the even smaller wallet.
Maisie Williams has a Texas driver’s license with an address in San Antonio. I was off an inch on her height but spot on for her weight — assuming the number on her license is accurate — and I note the organ donor symbol on the card.
Not on my watch, Maisie.
“Whoo-whee. She’s a looker,” Jedd whispers from behind me, and for some reason, it makes me want to pop him upside the head.
Idiot brother.
“You get the rig back to your shop?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah. She did a number on the side paneling tipping into the ditch like that, the frame is all bent to shit. She blew out the two back tires and the front end is bashed from where it hit the embankment. Probably gonna be totaled out by her insurance.”
I nod, filing the information away for when she wakes up. I wonder if the popped tires were the reason for her driving off the road. Where was she going so late at night? The energy drink in her cup holder tells me she was probably tired and trying to make it to her destination instead of pulling over and sleeping for the night.
Which is just fucking stupid, if you ask me, especially since she had a baby in the back.
The horrors I’ve seen when it comes to highway accidents set my temper on fire when I think about drivers who let themselves be distracted, drive tired — or worse, can’t put their goddamn phones down when they’re behind the wheel.
Sure, this woman was lucky — really fucking lucky since her daughter is okay. But I’ve seen enough not lucky drivers to piss me off thinking that she put herself and her daughter in danger instead of just pulling over for the night.
Sliding back into professional mode, I note the nurses cleaned her up a bit before changing her into a gown. I get a better look at her and see the color in her cheeks is a little better. She looked like a corpse when we first rolled in here. The IV bag of fluids hanging next to her bed is almost empty. If she’s going to wake up, it’s probably going to be soon.
“What are you going to do with the kid?” Jedd asks from behind me.
“If she doesn’t wake up soon, I’ll call CPS. They’ll probably have us hang on to the kid while they send someone out.”
A sniffling cry from the car seat next to the bed drags my gaze away from the sleeping woman. I glance at my watch, noting that it’s six a.m. Kid’s probably hungry. “There any formula in that bag?”
“Nope. And I couldn’t find any in the camper either. Probably still nursing.”
“Go find a nurse, see if they don’t have some formula and a bottle we can use.”
“You hanging here till she wakes up?”
I run a hand through my hair, scratching at my scalp. I’m tired, but I shove the exhaustion back until I can focus. “Yeah. I’ll hang here until she wakes up, or a CPS rep gets here to take the baby.”
“I’ll call the guys, they can come help us take care of the baby until her mom wakes up.”
Jedd disappears through the door, and I look at the driver again. I have more questions than answers for her, and I hope she wakes the fuck up before I have to call the state out for the baby.