Page 71 of Silent Threat
Shehadbeen tumbled.
Breathe.She chose to focus on the positive. At least the airbag hadn’t broken her nose.
“I’m fine,” she said, not so much to Pete, but because she needed to hear those words herself.
Long breath in. Hold. Slow breath out.
OK, she could do that. She could calm down. She knew how. She had this.
But as shock ebbed, anger took its place. If she found out that Joey had been in that SUV, or his popcorn-for-brains cousin ... She was going to revise her principles of nonviolence and strangle the idiot. This wentwaybeyond stupid.
She stilled.
Yes, it did, didn’t it? Whoever had been in the other car had gone way beyond scaring her.
She couldn’t see Joey, or even Big Jim, running her off the road like that, then driving away. But if not one of them, who?
She could not have another stalker, could she? What were the chances?
Long breath in. Hold. Slow breath out.That worked, so she kept the breathing technique going. She didn’t want to start hyperventilating and scare Pete even worse.
Then Harper Finnegan arrived, sirens blaring, the ambulance right behind him.
Harper made sure she was OK before he moved on to police business. “I’ll take pictures and measurements, write up what’s here, then I’ll meet you at the ER,” he told Annie while the EMTs fussed over her.
“I’ll go with her,” Pete offered, still pale as a postal envelope.
Annie shifted as one of the EMTs checked something on her back, pulling up her shirt. She wanted family with her.Would Kelly come?Did she want to call Kelly?
She looked back at Pete. “I appreciate the offer. But let me call my cousin. She can meet me at the hospital. Could you please find my bag for me? It’s somewhere in the car.”
The ride to West Chester Hospital took only twenty minutes. The EMTs kept her entertained on the way, working to determine whether she had a concussion, taking her blood pressure, then starting an IV. They put her in a neck brace, even though she told them she didn’t need it.
They asked her about her older bruises. She told them about her mad dive into the pool. They made her work at convincing them that she wasn’t a victim of domestic abuse, which she liked, because it gave her hope that if someone elsewasabused, the EMTs would help her, or him.
All Annie wanted was some kind of cream for the stinging abrasion on her neck, some kind of ointment with lidocaine. Of course, that was the one thing they didn’t have in the ambulance.
They did let her call Kelly.
“Are you OK? I’ll meet you at the hospital. I’m leaving right now.”
For some reason, Annie’s eyes filled with tears as she thanked her cousin.
Pain pounded in her head. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
She had about five minutes of rest before they were at the ER. She told the EMTs she could walk. They insisted on pushing her on a gurney anyway. She was taken right through into a small evaluation room that had green curtains for walls. The nurse who popped by a second later, a Hispanic woman called Maria, took Annie’s vitals again and checked the IV.
“Dr.Chen will be with you in a minute.” Maria gestured with her head toward a short, older gentleman who had just walked into a room on the other side of the nurses’ station. Before she left, she drew the green curtain that turned the bed into a sterile cocoon.
And then Annie was alone, closed in.
Kelly will be here in a minute.
When heavy footsteps headed her way, she looked toward the sound. Then a large shadow fell on the green divider.Definitely not Kelly.And not Dr.Chen either.
The hefty outline of the man in her kitchen flashed into Annie’s mind. Her heart clenched as she stared at the curtain. Then anger flared. She wasnotgoing to be a sitting duck again.
She grabbed for the IV stand.
