Page 97 of Rescued Heart

The thin, white-headed man simply blinked out his front window. No blood. No signs of physical trauma.

Eddie opened his door. “Sir, are you?—”

“I-I tried to stop. I did. But the light…the truck…I didn’t see…Please, don’t take my keys.” Tears rolled down his checks. “Sarah’s going to take my keys, isn’t she?”

A pounding came from the pickup bed where the semi’s cab rested.

Eddie stepped back. The thumps came again. Weaker. Except it wasn’t from either truck.

What was left of a tiny gray car was wedged behind the pickup and half smashed under the semi’s tilted cab. How had he missed it?

“Sir, wait right here for a second.” Eddie dashed to the car. The car engine was somehow still running, and a teenage girl beat the driver’s side window over and over.

Eddie swung his arms. “I’m coming!”

She rammed her shoulder into the door. Despite the caved-in roof, the door opened slightly. Eddie tugged on the door and wedged it enough to see that the car’s ceiling had smashed down into the back seat.

Please, Lord, let no one have been in there.

The teenage girl tried to squeeze between the pried door and the twisted metal frame.

“Easy, let me help you out.” He needed to assess and make sure her escape didn’t hurt her further.

But the girl wedged through the gap in the door, holding her arm against her stomach. As soon as her second foot hit the ground, she screamed in pain.

Eddie scooped her up and was halfway to the sidewalk when he heard a faint cry—from the smashed car.

Oh no. He tightened his hold on the girl. “Was there anyone else in your car?”

Please, Lord, let me have heard the cry from the sidewalk. That car is too smashed.

The girl burst into tears. “My sister was supposed to babysit our neighbor, but she paid me to do it, but I was running late. You’ve got to save Lacy.”

He set the teen down and grabbed his walkie. “Lieutenant, I’ve got a trapped child in the car.”

Trace and Kianna rounded the back of the semi and knelt before the girl.

“What do we got?” asked Trace.

“Her arm and foot, for sure.” Eddie transferred the teen into their care, but the teen driver grabbed hold of Eddie’s jacket.

Her lips quivered. “Please save Lacy.”

Two men jogged over from the sidewalk with their phones. “Eddie, look here. Eddie Rice. Over here.”

The taller man, wearing a Hawaiian button-down shirt, blocked Eddie’s view of the car. “Right here, hero.”

Eddie stepped around the man. “Return to the sidewalk.”

The man kept his phone near Eddie’s face until Zack yelled from the end of the other semi, but Eddie couldn’t hear over the shouts of the photographers on the sidewalk.

Zack pointed to the rear of the semitruck as his voice came over the radio. “We’ve got a gas tanker spill.”

No wonder he smelled gas.

That’s when Eddie spotted the flammable sign on the back of the second trailer. That wasn’t a pool of water the back end of the semi sat in.

Bryce’s voice called over the walkie, “Stephens, get the crowd back. Rice, update me on the child.”

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