next coherent thought was of warmth and earthquake. Light. Water being dribbled into her mouth. The dark eyes of a woman, her face rosy in firelight. Cradling her as if she were a child. “Drink. Come on. Swallow. That’s a girl.” Nell swallowed. The water hurt going down as if her tissues had been abraded by claws. The tremors were her body, shaken by sickness or shock.
“We’ve called an ambulance,” the woman said. “And the park service.”
“Joe,” Nell said, her voice less than a whisper. “My husband, Joe. He’s lost on the river. Help him.”
“Shit.” The woman called over her shoulder, “There’s another one still on the water.” To Nell she said, “Where? Where did he go in?”
“Somewhere after the Double Falls,” Nell whispered. “I got caught in a strainer. Had a concussion. He left me to go get help. He didn’t come back.” The enormity of the last four words hit her. Joe didn’t come back. She closed her eyes and slid into darkness.
5
The sheets were scratchy and coarse. The scent of harsh cleansers and the faint smell of floor wax brushed her senses. She struggled to open her eyes to a slit of light. Bright. The ruthless dazzle of fluorescent bulbs overhead, the glare stabbing steel blades through her brain.
Pain caught her up, pounding in her head, spasms in her chest with each breath. Muscles so stiff they creaked like old rubber when she shifted her head. The steady beat of agony on her brain. Lids so heavy she fluttered them but they stayed closed. Hot blankets encasing her, a little bit of heaven in a sea of misery. Hospital, for sure.
As if the lights knew what was wrong, the bulbs overhead went dark. A small light to her side came on. She sighed, and the pain softened into rubber blades stabbing her, instead of steel.
Finally, Nell opened her eyes. She was in a hospital bed. Window on her right. Door and sink on her left. Another door was at the foot of the bed, a shadowed toilet within. A man sat in a chair near her. An older guy, hair more gray than brown, suit rumpled. His eyes were on her. She frowned. Something was wrong…
“Joe.” She wrenched upright and the pain exploded again. She groaned, catching her head in her free hand, an IV yanking at her other one. She dropped back to the mattress, aware in some fragile part of her mind that she was not making sounds out loud.
“They said to stay flat,” a voice said. Cool. Conversational.
The man in the chair. Not a doctor. Not wearing the right clothes. Face too unemotional. Nell eased her hands away from her head and opened her eyes more slowly. Carefully, she turned and looked at him.
He leaned slowly forward and touched the fingertips of one hand to the tips of the others, dangling them between his knees, as if to create a sort of intimacy between them. Nell was pretty sure she hadn’t seen him before, didn’t know him, and didn’t want to be close to the guy. He smelled of old coffee and even older cigarettes. He said, “What’s your name?”
Nell considered. Not an unreasonable question. Just not one she was interested in. To save some pain, she whispered, “Have they found Joe?”
“The man you say is still on the water?”
She nodded slightly. It made her head pound harder, but it hurt less than her throat.
“River rescue is being coordinated right now. What’s your name?”
She moved her eyes to the window, her thoughts mushy and slow. It was black outside. It was the same day, then. Or same night. “Who’s in charge?”
“Park officials. What’s your name?” Steel in the tone now. The guy was persistent.
“Nell Crawford Stevens.” It came out a hard cee and sibilant esses in the whisper. “What’s yours?”
“Do you know where you are?”
Nell had been dealing with negotiator types all her life. Nobody was better at negotiation than her PawPaw Gruber. “Army, The Nam. Quartermaster,” as he always said. So Nell said, as distinctly as she could whisper, “What’s yours?”
“Detective Nolan Orson Lennox, Sr., investigator with the Scott County Sheriff’s Department.”
Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, yeah. Just like PawPaw. Nell saw some buttons, each with a small picture of a bed in a different position. She pushed the one with the head of the bed upright. In her mind she heard PawPaw as the bed rose. You want something? Always find a way to improve your negotiating position. Physical, mental, emotional. Next, offer something, so they have to offer something back. “I’m in a hospital,” she volunteered, feeling stronger now that she was more upright. “Who have they called to coordinate?”
“Your mother is on her way.”
Nell looked at the cop in surprise. “My mother couldn’t coordinate her way out of a paper bag.”
Amusement lit his eyes, and Nell was pretty sure he had spoken to her mother personally. He hadn’t understood her question. She couldn’t care less who was coming to help her. She spotted an ugly, squat pitcher, beaded with condensation and pointed at it, asking for something, requiring the other party to the negotiation to do her a favor. PawPaw would be tickled when she told him. “Water?”
The cop—she had already forgotten his name—stood and poured her a glass of water. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked. He handed her the cup and helped her to steady it when her grip was too weak to hold it without spilling.
She studied him over the rim of the cup and sipped through the straw. The water tasted wonderful. When she had enough and her mouth felt less like it was covered with river mold, she dropped her head back and said, “I mean, who have they called to coordinate the river search?”
The cop put the pitcher down. He looked her over, examining her as carefully as she did him, letting the silence build. “The parks people have called in a team. After all the rain, the gorge is treacherous enough to warrant only the most experienced, though, so the team’ll be small. Maybe ten on the water. I understand that a few guides and rescue people from the Pigeon will be part of it.” When she waited, he added, “A guy named Mike Kren called about three hours ago. He’s leading them up. Some others were already closer in, rafting or kayaking. Most of them got here within the last hour.”
Nell nodded, feeling her eyes water, the sensation painful on her raw eyeballs. Unfamiliar. She did not cry. She rolled her head to the dark window, moving slowly, and started to talk, well, whisper. She told him everything she remembered, as close in sequence as she could. When she mentioned the letter Joe had left her, the cop said, “This one?”
She looked at him, and he was holding the double-bagged letter. Nell extended her hand, and he placed it in her palm. She saw him looking at her hands, at the blood-crusted wounds, but she had eyes only for the single piece of paper in the baggies.
How come she felt that it was the last thing she would ever have of Joe’s? How come she felt so…empty? No. I refuse to think that way. Joe is still out there. All I have to do is find him.
She smoothed the letter over her heart. Holding tight, so the cop couldn’t get it back without getting personal, she took a breath that quivered through her. The bandages on her chest were small lumps beneath her hands, beneath
