the crew. ‘Good to see you guys. This chap apparently took a tumble from the balcony up there. GCS of three and I’m sitting on an arterial bleed here.’
Ellie edged back as the paramedics moved in.
‘Grab a collar,’ one told the other. ‘And a scoop stretcher.’
She slipped through her door, not pausing until she stood beside the bassinette. The light had faded fast while she’d been outside and she had to blink for a moment to readjust. Because it was quiet in here, she had assumed Mouse was still asleep but her heart skipped a beat when she realised that the baby was awake. Not crying but staring up at her mother. She could imagine she saw recognition in that intense gaze. Trust. She hadn’t been afraid because she knew that the person who loved her the most was coming back.
Ellie swallowed hard. She found a smile. ‘Everything’s going to be OK,’ she whispered. ‘Max is here. Let me just give my hands a quick wash and then I’m going to pick you up and I’m not going to let you go, I promise.’
With Mouse in her arms a short time later, Ellie went to stand in her doorway to watch the ambulance crew working under the direction of the emergency department consultant. They had a collar in place and an oxygen mask covering the man’s face. IV lines were in and the motel manager was holding a bag of fluid aloft. A pressure bandage was in place on the lacerated arm and a splint was being applied to the broken ankle.
The police were here as well. A female officer went upstairs to the children and another two officers were taking charge of the woman, who had stopped crying and now looked so stunned she was making no protest at being led away.
The scoop stretcher was made ready to use. The paramedics then adjusted the man’s position slightly so that he was completely on his back with his spine correctly aligned. It wasn’t quite dark out there yet so there was more than enough light to see what had been hidden on one side of the man’s lower chest.
A knife handle was protruding. Had he been stabbed before he’d fallen or had he been holding the knife and fallen onto it? Either way it was shocking.
The paramedics went into action smoothly and swiftly. They made a doughnut-shaped padding to go around the impaled object and stabilise it.
‘Let’s load and go,’ one of them ordered.
‘I’ll leave you to it. He’s looking stable.’ Max stepped back as they clipped the scoop stretcher into place on either side of the man. He looked up as they lifted it and his gaze went straight to Ellie, standing there with Mouse in her arms.
The crowd shifted as the stretcher was carried to the ambulance. People wanted to see the end of this drama with the ambulance departing, hopefully with its lights and sirens activated. The police cars would be going soon, too, taking the woman and children away.
Max didn’t go with them. He stripped off his gloves and dropped them onto the considerable pile of wrappings and other debris the paramedics had left behind. Then he walked straight towards Ellie. His face was grim. So was his tone of voice.
‘Pack your stuff,’ he ordered. ‘There’s no way you’re staying here. I’m taking you home.’
‘SHE can’t go.’
‘Excuse me?’ Max flicked his gaze up from where he was slotting the bassinette, stuffed full of baby clothes and nappies, into the back of his car.
‘Your sister,’ the motel manager said nervously. ‘The police might want to talk to her again. She’s their best witness.’
‘She’s already given them a statement. They can talk again later. Preferably tomorrow. We’re only going to be just down the road. I gave you my address on the registration form.’
The manager looked bewildered. Things were happening in his establishment that were far more than he had any desire to cope with. Max took pity on him.
‘I know it’s a bit weird. She should have come home with me in the first place but she’s kind of independent is my sister. Extremely capable but she likes to manage things on her own.’ Not that she was putting up any kind of resistance to him having taken control for now. Ellie was sitting in the back seat of his car, with Mouse in the baby seat strapped in right beside her. She had to be listening to this exchange but she was sitting very still. Looking tense enough to snap at any moment.
Max didn’t want any further delays. He smiled at the manager and lowered his voice. ‘She doesn’t really approve of me, you know? I like to ride motorbikes and have parties. Not the best environment for a new baby, is it?’
‘N-no, I guess not.’
Max shut the back hatch of the SUV so that Ellie couldn’t hear him. ‘But this hasn’t turned out to be a very good environment either, has it? I can’t leave her somewhere where people get stabbed and thrown off balconies.’
‘Nothing like this has ever happened before.’ The manager was almost wringing his hands. ‘All the police here…all that blood…They’re putting up tape, did you see? In case that guy dies and it becomes a crime scene. What’s that going to do to my business?’
Max had seen the tape. Luckily he’d moved so fast he’d got most of Ellie’s possessions out of the unit before it became impossible to access the door. Now he needed to get her away from here. The last thing Ellie needed was the police asking too many questions. They would be wanting to talk to him at some stage and he needed to think about what he was going to tell them concerning his relationship with their chief witness.
Talk about weaving a tangled web of deception. The strands were winding themselves ever more tightly around him and it was getting hard to think straight. All Max could do was run on instinct and hope that it served him as well as it always had when it came to out-of-control situations. He wasn’t at all sure that it had worked particularly well over the last week but he had no choice other than to continue to go with it. No way could he leave Ellie here to fend for herself. She was in a fragile state anyway and this nasty incident must have shaken her up badly.
Max ignored the manager’s anxious fluttering around the back of his vehicle as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He had to manoeuvre to get out through the extra police cars that had arrived on scene and a glance in his rear-view mirror showed the manager now talking animatedly to an officer, pointing at his departing car. He suppressed a sigh. How much time would they have before someone official came knocking at his door?
For a wild moment, Max considered driving right past his own address. Finding somewhere else to put Ellie and Mouse. Somewhere nobody could find them. The police or Marcus Jones. But then what? They’d be totally dependent on him, wouldn’t they?
And why on earth did that ridiculous scenario hold some kind of strange appeal? It was crazy. This whole week had been crazy and by the time Max had formed that inescapable conclusion, he was outside his apartment.
‘Here we are.’
The statement, admittedly uttered with some resignation, fell into silence. Max turned his head to find huge eyes in a very pale face.
‘I’m really sorry, Max.’ The apology was a whisper. ‘I’m
