Cassie cried, a prayer for the driver. The lightning disappeared as quickly as it had come. In the blackness, she didn’t know if the car had righted itself or if even now, the driver plunged down an incline into the thick woods...or worse, into one of the canyons.
She dared not speed up, lest she, too, lose control. The road curved sharply ahead where she’d last seen the other vehicle. She crept forward, a prayer on her lips, her eyes wide and scratchy as she tried to make out the exact spot where she’d seen the driver lose control.
There. Cassie decelerated and tapped her brake. To her right and fifty feet down into a deep ravine she spotted the faint impression of light. Dread in her gut, heart racing, she pulled as far to the side of the road as possible and stopped. The rain still came in drenching torrents. Storm or not, she had to do something. Someone could be hurt.
Cell phones were great when they worked, which was rarely the case in remote areas like this one. In this storm she had serious doubts, but she quickly pressed 911 anyway. When nothing happened, she fired a text to her brother and another to Police Chief JoEtta Farnsworth in the nearest town, Whisper Falls. Maybe, just maybe, the text could get through the storm.
Then, she did what she had to do. Flashlight in hand, she leaped out into the wild, raging night and plunged down the brushy incline toward the accident.
In seconds she was drenched. Brush grabbed at her naked legs, ripping flesh. Of all the crummy times to wear a skirt. Slipping and sliding, Cassie stumbled once on a fallen tree her light hadn’t picked up. A bolt of lightning, blue with fire, had her up and scurrying faster. Old leaves mushy with rain squished beneath her pretty new heels, a gift from her mother from only yesterday.
Through the noisy storm, she heard the rumble of a motor. The vehicle, which she now saw was a smaller SUV, was still running, the headlights eerie in the deep, tangled woods.
Cassie ran to the driver’s side and pounded on the window. “Hello. Are you all right? Hello!”
A dark form slumped over the steering wheel. Shaking now, from both cold and anxiety, Cassie pulled at the back door. Locked. Frustrated, she banged on the driver’s window.
“Wake up. Wake up.” She prayed he wasn’t dead. The last dead person she’d seen had been her husband.
Darrell’s lifeless face flashed in her mental viewer. She shook her head to dispel the image.
Shivering, face dripping rain, hair plastered against her skull and vision skewed by the torrent, she shined the flashlight toward the ground, searching for anything to break out a window. Finding a thick branch, she heaved it against the back passenger glass. Nothing other than a jarred wrist for her efforts.
She hurried to the front of the car. The windshield had spider-webbed in the crash but hadn’t given way. It was weak. She could possibly break through the glass, much as she disliked the idea of exposing the injured driver to a flood of rain. She started around the car to the passenger’s side. Better to break the windshield out on the side farthest from the driver.
Behind her, the driver’s door popped. In a burst of adrenaline, Cassie whirled toward the sound. The dark woods were eerie and she was alone. Her flashlight picked out a man’s hand and wrist on the armrest. A watch glowed green in the darkness right before the arm fell, limp.
Cassie hurried to the door and pulled, but the door had opened as far as it could. Only a few inches. Her fingers fumbled around inside the door and found the locks, popping them.
“Thank You, Lord.”
She yanked the back door open and crawled inside, shivering at the interior warmth and the sudden, wonderful cessation of rain. Rain dripped all over the nice leather interior, but that was the least of her worries.
She shook the broad shoulder in front of her. “Can you hear me?”
He mumbled something.
Cassie shined the flashlight at the side of his face and scrambled over the seat, leaving a trail of water.
The man’s face turned slightly toward her. “What—?”
“Where are you hurt?”
“Hurt?”
He must be addled, concussed or...something. She owned a beauty salon. What did she know about injuries other than sunburn from too much time in the tanning beds?
“Do you think you can walk? I have my car up on the road. I can take you to a doctor.” Dr. Ron, the only physician in Whisper Falls, was accustomed to being awakened in the night for emergencies.
He shook his head. “My leg.”
What about his leg? Was it broken? Crushed? Were bones sticking out? The last, grizzly thought rattled her nerves but bones or not, she was his only help.
Using the flashlight, Cassie started at the top of his head and began a slow perusal of the driver. “I can’t see that well, but let me check you over. I texted for help. I don’t know if I had reception though. The storm.”
He nodded, his jaw tight and lines of pain radiating from his lips all the way into the stretched cords of his neck. His was a manly face with wide, chiseled jawbones and deep-set eyes. She couldn’t tell the color but she could see the pain and confusion. He was addled, no doubt about it.
She’d never been much for facial hair but his suited. A wisp of whiskers above his lip and on his chin. Just a little, just enough to make a woman notice. Not that she was noticing in a situation like this.
“Forgive the intrusion,” she murmured, not sure if he heard or understood, but her vision was limited. His medium-length dark hair could easily conceal a wound. She had no choice but to touch him. “Are you bleeding anywhere?”
Her fingers scanned the back of his head, up and over to the forehead. There. A knot the size of a softball along his left temple. “You’ve hit your head.”
She pulled her fingers back and shined the light on them. No blood. She breathed a sigh of relief. No blood suited her fine.
“My leg,” he said again and attempted a slight shift in the seat.
Cassie aimed the light lower, searching in the dimness. “I can’t see.”
He reached above his head and snapped on the dome light. He wasn’t as addled as she’d thought. She hadn’t thought of that.
Cassie blinked against the brightness. “Thanks.”
“What happened?”
Or maybe he was. “You missed the curve and hit a tree.”
That was the short version.
“My leg. What happened?”
“I can’t tell. I think it might be stuck. Can you move it at all?” Beneath the dash was a crumpled mess of metal and wires. She didn’t want to think about his leg underneath that weight.
“No.”
“Does it hurt?”
He paused as if having to think about the question.
