Chapter 15 Carmen #2
Then June shook herself, stepping forward, her hands lifting instinctively as if she wanted to help, but her face was pale. Holt’s eyes flicked to the car down the embankment, then back again, jaw tight.
Willa snapped into motion.
Carmen didn’t have time to appease anyone. She turned and rattled off her assessment to her crew in clear, clipped medical language because that was what she did best when her emotions threatened to rise.
“Unresponsive adult female. Head laceration with bleeding. Pulse weak and thready. Breathing shallow. Possible concussion or intracranial injury. We need oxygen, we need IV access, and we need transport now.”
Her EMTs moved quickly, transferring the patient onto the gurney with practiced coordination.
Carmen stayed with them, hands steady, checking the bandage, adjusting the collar.
Zane stepped away toward Willa. “The car is still held by my winch,” he told her quickly. “We need to stabilize and secure it before it slips into the pond.”
Willa nodded, already looking down the embankment, his eyes narrowing.
Holt moved toward them.
“I need to see the vehicle,” he advised them in a controlled voice, but Carmen could hear the strain under it. “We need to know if this was an accident or something else.”
Zane nodded once. “Then come with us.”
June stayed near Carmen, her eyes filled with worry.
June’s voice dropped. “Is she going to be okay?”
Carmen looked at her sister, and for a moment, Carmen wanted to lie, wanted to give June something comforting.
But Carmen couldn’t lie like that, not when she had seen the blood, not when she had felt the faintness of that pulse.
“I don’t know,” Carmen admitted. “There was a significant blow to her head, and she’s unresponsive right now. We’ll know more once she’s assessed at the hospital.”
June swallowed hard. “Do you think she drove off the embankment?”
Carmen’s gaze flicked to the road again.
“I don’t know how she could have,” Carmen said quietly. “There are no skid marks. There’s no debris on the road. There’s no other vehicle here. Nothing about it makes sense.”
June’s eyes darted toward the pond and the steep drop. “But if she was alone, then she must’ve driven off the road.” She looked at Carmen. “Unless there is another body.”
“No, as far as we know, there isn’t another body,” Carmen told her, her brow furrowing tightly. “There were no open doors or other broken windows except on the side where we pulled her from.”
“So she must’ve driven off the road.” June’s face tightened.
“I don’t see how,” Carmen stated quietly. “She was buckled in on the passenger side of the car.”
June’s breath caught. “Passenger seat?”
Carmen nodded, her face grim.
June’s eyes widened, and the color drained from her cheeks.
Her mind, Carmen could see it, was already trying to build the picture and failing to make it fit.
Carmen turned slightly as her crew began moving the gurney toward the ambulance.
“Take her to the hospital,” Carmen ordered. “Go now.”
The doors were shut, and the ambulance roared off down the road.
Carmen stood still for a moment, watching it go, then turned back toward June.
Holt returned from the embankment a few minutes later, his face set, and eyes sharp. He looked like a man trying not to show the weight of what he was thinking.
He came straight toward Carmen and June.
“You were saying?” Holt asked, voice low, obviously having overheard what Carmen had said.
Carmen met his gaze. She didn’t like the man, not really, but this was not about liking. This was about facts.
“Yes,” Carmen confirmed. “She was in the passenger seat and buckled in.”
Holt’s eyes narrowed. “Could she have climbed over and buckled herself?”
Carmen gave him a look that should have answered that question, but she spoke anyway.
“It’s possible in theory,” Carmen said. “It’s not possible in reality, not if she was already injured and unconscious which I believe she was.”
Holt’s mouth tightened. June stood beside Carmen, silent now, her eyes fixed on Holt as if she was bracing for something. Holt’s gaze flicked toward the car down the embankment.
“You say there were no signs of a driver?” Holt asked Carmen.
“No signs of a driver that I saw,” Carmen replied. “The driver’s door was closed. There was no blood on the driver’s seat that I could see from the angle I had.”
June’s hands curled into fists at her sides. “So what are you saying?”
Carmen held June’s gaze for a moment.
“I’m saying someone didn’t want her walking away from this,” Carmen said, her voice flat.
“I’m saying she was injured before the vehicle rolled.
The blood around the wound was thick and congealed in her hair, and there were smudges on the seat and along the belt line.
It didn’t look like a fresh injury from the roll itself. ”
Holt’s eyes sharpened. “You’re confident about that?”
“I’m careful with my words,” Carmen replied. “But yes, I’m confident enough to say it should be looked at as suspicious.”
June’s face went ashen, and Carmen could see fear clawing through her composure.
Holt inhaled slowly. “If she was unconscious before the vehicle went down, then someone put her there,” he murmured.
Carmen nodded once. “That’s what I believe.”
Zane returned from the embankment with Willa, dirt on his boots, tension in his shoulders. He looked like a man who had just wrestled a dangerous problem into submission.
“We’ve secured the vehicle,” Zane said. “We can get it pulled up safely now.”
Holt’s gaze moved to Zane. “We’ll need it processed,” Holt said. “We’ll need to treat it as a crime scene until proven otherwise.”
Zane’s expression didn’t change, but Carmen saw the tightness in his jaw.
Willa looked at Carmen, then June, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she could feel the gravity of what had just been said even if she had not heard every word.
“Who is it?” Willa asked quietly, her voice steady.
“It’s Dr. Judy Vernon,” Carmen said, voice low and heavy.
Willa’s brows drew together, confusion flashing through her face.
Then comprehension hit, sharp and brutal.
“No,” Willa whispered.
June’s throat tightened. “Yes.”
“My assessment is that Dr. Vernon was struck on the back of her head and placed in the car before it rolled down the embankment. She was already unconscious,” Carmen said.
Then she looked back toward the road where the ambulance had vanished and felt cold settle in her bones.
Because whoever had done this didn’t just want someone hurt. They had wanted someone gone.
And if the owner of Willow Pond Farm hadn’t called it in, whoever did this had come very close to getting what they wanted.