Page 36 of High Intensity

I haven’t seen Dr. Chahal since I got here but the nurse knew to expect me. They’d already stopped the medication that kept her sedated, and only a bag of saline solution is left on her IV pole when I am shown in her room.

I notice right away Hayley’s color is so much better than it was yesterday; no more white skin and grayish-blue lips. Someone cared enough to wash the grime off her face and brush out her hair. I never really noticed how long it was yesterday, because the hoodie she’d been wearing under her coat had been covering her head.

She’s a pretty girl.

Last night, after Wolff and JD left, I did a little research on my laptop. We’d talked about the crash over pizza, and it got me curious about this family. I figured it couldn’t hurt to dig up whatever background I could find. In fact, it might be useful in helping me connect with the girl.

The Vallard family is a pretty big deal, as I’ve discovered. Their company, Vallard Logistics, is worth a cool seven-point-five-billion dollars. That’s not chump change. When I spotted the company logo, the stylistic VL, I realized I’d seen those initials plenty of times on the side of transport trucks.

Vallard Logistics was founded in 1940 by Hiram Vallard, who would’ve been Hayley’s great-grandfather. He had the good fortune during the WWII years to pick up a number of militarycontracts. When other men of eligible age were drafted and sent off to war, Hiram —who had lost his left forearm in a farming accident at his uncle’s farm—was able to capitalize on an otherwise dark time in history.

He only had one child, Sarah-May Vallard, who was born a year after Vallard Logistics was founded and worked for her father’s company since she was just seventeen years old. So, when her father passed away in 1968 from a massive heart attack, Sarah-May—only twenty-seven at the time—took over her father’s company.

Hayley’s father, James, was born two years after his grandfather died and, like his mother before him, he was groomed from an early age to take over the business. Brother Grant seemed like an afterthought, and arrived nine years later. In 2000, Sarah-May handed over the reins of Vallard Logistics to James but stayed involved in the background.

I also discovered the Vallards were regular benefactors to a variety of charities, which is how I found some pictures online, leading me to the mother’s Facebook account. Most of the images Theresa posted were of fundraisers they seemed to attend regularly as a family. There were some of camping trips as well, which it looks like they did fairly frequently. That might explain Hayley’s survival skills.

The one thing I took away from the pictures was how much Hayley takes after her mother, who was a beautiful woman. In Theresa’s most recent post, she shared several snapshots of their trip to Whistler. There was one image of Hayley with her parents that brought tears to my eyes. They all looked so happy.

“Gram…”

The whisper has me turn my attention to the girl. Her eyes are still closed but she’s becoming restless, moving her legs and rolling her head from side to side. Nugget instantly snuggles hislittle body against her side. I don’t know why he does that, but it seems to calm the girl down.

I reach for the button to alert the nurse, but she already walks in.

“Is someone waking up?”

She turns down the volume coming from the monitor I only now realize was beeping. Then she leans over the bed, a hand on Hayley’s shoulder.

“Can you open your eyes, love?”

One eye opens a crack before shutting again.

The nurse takes the girl’s hand. “Can you squeeze my fingers?”

When nothing happens, she releases her hand. “That’s okay, honey. You take your time.”

Then she turns to me. “It’s going to be a while for the medication to flush from her system. Let me know if something changes.”

As soon as she leaves the room, Nugget scoots up in the bed, nudging the girl’s hand with his snout until he’s wormed his head underneath her fingers. I sit back and wait.

At some point, my gaze slipped out the window, and I’m staring at the mountains in the distance when I hear the soft thud, thud, of Nugget’s tail hitting the bed. When I turn to look, Hayley’s eyes are still closed, but her fingers are stroking the dog’s head.

“Hey, sweetheart…” I say in a soft voice, when I notice her run her tongue over her chapped lips. “Are you thirsty?”

I grab a cup of water from the bedside table, and bend the straw so I can slip it between her lips.

“Have a sip. It’s water.”

Her eyes stay firmly shut, but her lips close around the straw as she takes a drink.

“He loves getting his ears scratched,” I tell her, looking for something neutral to talk about. “He’s the smallest of my dogs and often gets lost in the shuffle, so he loves it when he can get all the attention.”

No reaction, but her fingers keep stroking on the dog’s soft fur, so I keep babbling.

“My name is Jillian, and his name is Nugget, and as you can see, he loves people. I don’t know if you remember but two of my other dogs, Hunter and Murphy, helped me find you yesterday.”

At that her fingers still.

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