Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Emma didn’t argue when Matthias offered to wait in his Jeep in the parking lot of the drug and alcohol rehab center the next morning.
She pulled out her camera and snapped photos of Nell on her own, and then of Eric and Nell together.
Matthias stepped out and took the Nikon from her to catch a few pictures of all three of them.
Emma thought back to similar photos taken by her mom.
First day of school. Last day of school.
Graduation. Just like then, the two sisters and their pseudo brother made faces and held fingers up behind the others’ heads.
Photo session complete, Matthias handed the camera to Emma. His phone buzzed. “It’s Cassie,” he said, then returned to the driver’s seat.
“You don’t need to come in with me,” Nell protested when Eric and Emma didn’t join him in the Jeep.
“Don’t be silly. Of course we’re coming with you,” Eric said. “We want you to know we’re here for you.”
“I can manage the crutches on my own. It’s not like I have any luggage.” Nell held up the grocery store tote that held every stitch of clothing she currently owned.
Emma eyed it. “When you feel up to it, you and I are going shopping.”
Nell smiled. “That would be fun.” She waved goodbye to Matthias and crutched toward the crosswalk leading from the lot to the rehab’s entrance, Emma and Eric flanking her. She stopped at the edge of the access road.
“What’s wrong?” Emma panicked, hoping her sister wasn’t having a change of heart.
“Nothing.” Nell pivoted to look at them, her expression grave. “I’m serious, though. I love you both, but I need to do this on my own.”
“We know that,” Emma said. “We’re only walking you in. We’re not moving in with you.”
“Please, Em. I want to do this myself.”
Emma remembered a note Nell had left for her when she and Zeke had run off. She’d wanted to deal with her situation in her own way then, too. Much as she always had when they were kids.
“You’ve always been a stubborn brat,” Eric said with a strong dose of snark.
Emma snorted. “I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn’t going to actually say it.”
Nell stuck her tongue out at them. “You call it stubborn. I call it independent.”
“Tomatoes, tomahtoes.” Emma shook her head. “Fine. We’ll wait here to make sure you don’t fall off your crutches or anything.”
“I can accept that. But no more pictures of me going in. Save them for when I leave this place for good.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
Nell took one hopping step and threw her arms around them in a group hug. “I love you guys.”
A lump rose in Emma’s throat as she choked out, “I love you, too.”
Eric’s equally weepy response got lost in Nell’s hair.
She released them with a smile, turned, and started across the access road.
Eric draped an arm around Emma’s shoulders. “Our little one is leaving the nest.”
As Emma watched her sister make her way along the crosswalk, she became aware of the nearby roar of an engine growing louder.
Emma caught movement from the corner of her eye.
A dark car was blasting up the access road.
She registered the speed and the fact that the vehicle was careening toward her sister.
Emma screamed Nell’s name. Saw her turn and freeze. Emma launched into the crosswalk, intent on shoving Nell out of the way.
But not fast enough.
The thud was deafening. The impact flung Nell into the air before she slammed to the ground. Emma caught a glimpse of her sister’s wide, terrified eyes before she disappeared beneath the car. The thump thump of tires bumping over Nell, the driver never touching the brakes.
Screams around her sounded like they were filtered through water.
Emma raced to the body in the road. To Nell’s broken and bloody body.
One crutch was shattered into pieces; the other lay six or more feet away.
Emma slammed to her knees at Nell’s side, only vaguely aware of Eric next to her.
She barely registered the crash of metal on metal in the distance, her full attention on the stunned expression on Nell’s face.
The once sparkling blue eyes now wide and staring.
A pink froth bubbled from her lips. Blood soaked through Nell’s shirt.
So much blood. Emma touched Nell’s cheek, still warm. Pressed fingers to her neck.
“Do something!” Eric shouted. At Emma. At the people rushing up to them.
“Give us room,” a stranger said as he knelt next to Nell.
Emma couldn’t breathe. The world whirled around her. She looked up at the newcomer. Took note of his scrubs; of the stethoscope he whipped from around his neck and used to listen to Nell’s chest.
“We’ve got an ambulance on its way,” the man said. “Please step back and give us room to work.”
Another man in scrubs appeared from the gathering crowd. Both of them huddled over Nell and started CPR.
* * *
From his Jeep, Matthias didn’t have time to react to Cassie’s report that the car used to run Emma and Nell off the road had been discovered abandoned and torched near the Pennsylvania border. That another car, an older black Ford Focus, had been reported stolen from near the same location.
He dropped the phone and watched in helpless horror at what played out before his eyes.
The car roared way too fast into the facility access road just as Nell started across.
Emma was right there, and for one harrowing moment, he saw that she was about to leap into the car’s path to save her sister.
Even from two rows over, the awful sound of the impact sickened him.
There was nothing he could do. At least Emma had been too slow and wasn’t struck, but he’d seen enough traffic versus pedestrian collisions to know in his bones that Nell wasn’t likely to survive. Which left only one thing that Matthias could do.
Catch the bastard.
He started the engine and rammed the gearshift into reverse.
The road into and out of the rehab was a big one-way loop around the parking lot.
At this hour, there weren’t a lot of vehicles in the surrounding spaces.
Matthias twisted in his seat and stomped the gas pedal, steering the Jeep backward, swerving around the few parked cars.
The vehicle that had mowed down Emma’s sister was barreling toward the exit.
Matthias gunned it, the path to the road now clear, and managed to back the Jeep across the killer’s path.
The brutal impact threw Matthias against the driver’s door as it caved in, cushioned only by the airbags. The stench from the propellant—like burnt rubber and gunpowder—filled the air, along with the metallic screech of the two vehicles grinding together.
Then everything fell still. Matthias battled free of the deflating bags and released the seatbelt.
He clambered over the center console, banging his knee on the shifter, and crawled across the passenger seat.
Tumbling out, he regained his equilibrium and stumbled around the front of his Jeep to the other car.
The hit-and-run driver sat dazed behind his steering wheel. Matthias ripped the door open. He wanted to grab the guy by the collar and jerk him out of the vehicle, except his training kicked in. Killer or not, he might be injured.
Matthias glanced around and spotted a bystander clutching a phone and looking back and forth between wrecked cars and the crowd gathering around Nell. “You,” Matthias shouted, getting his full attention. “Call 911. We need two ambulances and a police response. Tell them I’ve detained the suspect.”
The man with the phone nodded and did as told.
Matthias inspected the car, the crushed engine compartment and crumpled hood. It wasn’t going anywhere except on a tow truck. A quick survey of his own vehicle told him the same could be said for the red Jeep. He turned his attention to the driver, leaned down to glare into his face. “Levi Dyson?”
The man’s face darkened into a hate-filled snarl. “That’s right.” He turned to gaze across the parked cars to the chaotic crowd at the crosswalk. “I swore I’d track that bitch to the end of the world if I had to, and I almost did. I failed once, but I got her this time.”
The crash outside of East Liverpool, Ohio. The car Emma had believed tailed them all the way from Akron. She’d been right. “But… why?” Matthias asked.
Levi leveled his eyes on Matthias. “Because she’s the one responsible for my brother’s death. She’s the one who got him addicted again.” Levi spat onto the sidewalk, barely missing Matthias. “She’ll never hurt anyone else again. I made damn sure of it this time.”
* * *
Emma sat on her knees on the pavement next to Nell, willing her sister to blink, to moan, to sob. Anything. But the only movement was the smooth up and down motion of the man in scrubs doing chest compressions. The only moaning came from Eric at her side.
The only sobs were her own.
A pair of strong hands gripped Emma’s arms from behind, gently lifting her to her feet.
Matthias.
Once she was standing, he did the same to Eric and echoed the first responders’ requests to give them space.
Emma allowed Matthias to guide her and Eric back to the sidewalk, having no mental capacity to argue.
She watched what was going on before her as if viewing a nightmarish movie scene.
Except, somewhere in her consciousness, she knew end credits weren’t going to roll.
Nor was she going to awaken from this horror.
Yet she couldn’t accept what she was seeing as real. None of it felt real.
She had no idea how much time passed. Seconds? Minutes? Hell, it could’ve been hours. But she was acutely aware of the blood. An ambulance arrived. The efforts to resuscitate Nell grew less frantic and stopped altogether when the medics shook their heads and checked their watches.
“Time of death,” one of them said. “Eight twenty-two.”
“No,” Emma whispered. Death? That couldn’t be right.
Nell had just been there, giving her and Eric a hug.
Ready to start over. Begin a new life. “No. No. No.” She wasn’t aware of whether she was whispering or screaming.
Matthias pulled her into his arms and held her tight as the cries of “no” slipped into sobs and the grief swallowed her whole.