number. I’ll be in touch as soon as things settle down,” the other woman said.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Hey, Megan,” the fire chief called. “Do you want us to put up temporary fencing to keep out the looters?”
“Looters. I didn’t even think about that. I’m sorry. I need to...”
“Don’t worry about us,” Eliza said firmly. “I’m going to go get Maddie out of the cold. Good luck with everything.”
She gave Megan a hug, very sorry suddenly that she wouldn’t have the chance to get to know the other woman better. She had been certain they would have been friends—and she could always use a few more of those.
The wind and sleet had died down a little while she had been speaking with Megan. The calm before the storm, maybe? She should climb into the SUV she could no longer afford and drive back through the mountain passes toward Boise before the snow began in earnest, but she didn’t trust herself to drive right now, with her emotions in turmoil.
With the vague intention of grabbing a bite to eat at one of several restaurants she had spied in the town’s small commercial district, she headed away from the scorched remains of the Lake Haven Inn.
“Was that lady sad because her hotel burned down?” Maddie asked after a moment.
“She was. It’s been in her family for many years.”
Eliza had learned during the interview process that Megan Hamilton had had no inclination or aptitude to run the hotel after she’d unexpectedly inherited it. Her interests lay elsewhere, Megan had told her, which was why she had hired Eliza in the first place.
“We can’t live there now, can we?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Where will we put all our boxes?”
“Why don’t we grab a bite to eat at that diner across the street from where we parked and we’ll try to figure out our options?”
“Do they have macaroni and cheese?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
They headed for the crosswalk and waited for the light to change. Eliza took a moment to look around, cognizant of her surroundings for the first time since she had seen that pile of rubble.
She could see the downtown business owners had done their best to decorate their charming little clapboard-and-brick storefronts. Lights hung on nearly every facade and most had Christmas trees in the windows. A few had ornaments with nautical themes, in keeping with the vivid blue of the lake that dominated the view in every direction.
“Mama, the light is green. Green means go,” Maddie declared.
“So it does.”
Maddie slipped her hand free of Eliza’s and scampered ahead of her into the crosswalk. Eliza followed close behind her, keeping an eye on a black SUV headed down the hill toward them.
The SUV was slowing down, she saw, the driver hitting the brakes in what should have been plenty of braking distance but her insides suddenly froze.
The vehicle’s tires spun wildly, ineffectually, unable to find purchase on the road. He tried to turn into the skid but she could tell in an instant he wasn’t going to be able to completely stop in time—and he was sliding straight for her child.
No. This couldn’t be happening!
“Maddie!” she screamed. Acting on a mother’s frantic desperation, she leaped forward to push her daughter out of the path of the vehicle.
She had only an instant to feel deep gratitude and overwhelming relief that her daughter was safe before the vehicle struck her. Though the driver had almost stopped completely by that time, the impact still stole her thoughts, her breath, and she crumpled like that ragged tissue of Megan Hamilton’s. Her head struck concrete and she knew a moment’s screeching agony before everything went black.
* * *
AIDAN CAINE FUMBLED for the door handle in the unfamiliar SUV he had rented from the paunchy dude at the Lake Haven airstrip. It took him a moment but he finally worked the handle and shoved the door open, panic and nausea roiling in his gut.
He had just hit a person! Maybe two. A woman and a little girl crossing the road had been the last thing he had seen as he frantically tried to pump the brakes during the slide and turn into the skid.
This couldn’t be real. He wanted to rewind the past twenty seconds of his life to that horrible moment the SUV hit that patch of ice and started sliding down the hill, wheels spinning.
When the light changed and the pedestrians had started across, he had tried frantically to turn into a streetlamp or something but the vehicle had been completely out of his control by that point.
He thought he would be able to stop in time, until he heard that horrible crunch.
A child’s cries reached him, strident and fearful. Crying. Crying had to be a good sign, right? At least it meant the girl was alert enough to be upset.
He raced around the vehicle to assess the situation and found the source of the crying was a little girl with wavy dark hair beneath a pink-and-purple stocking cap. She knelt in the snow and slush of the road next to a crumpled, motionless figure.
“Mama! Mama!” she cried out, trying to shake the unresponsive woman.
He knelt down beside the girl and put his arm around her, mostly to keep her from jostling the figure unnecessarily. “Okay. Okay.”
The girl trembled in his hold. “She won’t wake up! Mama!”
“Ma’am?” he called. “Hello?”
She wasn’t dead, at least. He could see the steady rise and fall of her chest. Beyond that, he had no idea the scope of her injuries. He thought he had barely tapped her but that crack as she went down still seemed to reverberate through him like a gunshot.
He reached in his pocket for his phone and with fingers that felt heavy and thick he started to dial 911. He couldn’t seem to make his brain function, which sent icy fingers of fear crawling down his spine.
Only natural, he told himself. Normal and expected. The accident had severely rattled him, just as it would anyone else. This had nothing to do with his health situation—nor did the accident. He hadn’t blacked out or had a seizure or something similar. He knew that unequivocally as he could remember each second of those terrible few moments.
His head ached like somebody was drilling him over and over with a nail gun, but that was nothing new.
“I already called for paramedics,” someone said. “They’re on the way.”
He looked up and found a young woman dressed only in jeans and a sweater coming out of one of the nearby businesses.
“Thanks.” He shoved his phone back in his pocket as she came closer to them and knelt beside the woman and the little girl.
“I
