car that was so often in her driveway...the car that belonged to her best friend, Ryan Grant.
The ambulance barely came to a stop before Piper grabbed her heavy red medical bag, hopped out and hit the ground running. The warm November sun beat down on her back as she ran toward the chilling scene.
The medic in her couldn’t get to the victims fast enough. The woman in her feared what she’d uncover once she reached Ryan.
Once closer, she squatted in an attempt to see the inside of the vehicle. A wave of relief swept through her the second she realized the car was empty. Okay, so he wasn’t trapped, but what was the extent of his injuries?
Sirens blared in near surround sound between the police, ambulances and a fire truck trying to assist the wounded and clean up the mess.
Piper tried to keep her eye out for Ryan, hoping she’d see him sitting in the back of an ambulance with just an ice pack on his head. But her duty was to assist where needed...not to seek out those most important in her life.
As she moved closer to the tractor-trailer, where the majority of the cops seemed to be congregated, she noticed numerous Hispanic people huddled together. With disheveled clothes, scraggly beards and various cuts and bruises, Piper couldn’t help but wonder what they were all doing at the scene of an accident involving only one semi and the car of her best friend.
Piper ran to the group of obviously injured men and women. Some were crying, some had their heads dropped between their shoulders and some were shouting Spanish slang even she didn’t understand because of the rapid rate, but she could tell they were angry and scared.
As Piper passed two uniformed police officers she heard the words illegal and FBI. Yeah, this was so much more than an ill-fated accident. By the number of uniformed officers scouring the area, it looked as though these people were not here legally.
Moments later she heard other officers discussing how so many stowaways were hidden in such a small compartment in the back of that semi. This situation was beyond what Piper was used to. Her job right now was to assess and treat the victims, not to worry about the legalities of this mess.
“Where do you need me?” she asked another paramedic who was examining a man’s leg beneath his torn pants.
“The truck driver was pretty shaken,” the paramedic told her. “He’s sitting in the back of a squad car for questioning right now. No visible injuries, but his pupils were dilated and he did say his back was hurting. Seems he was driving this illegal group and he had no clue.”
Piper nodded, gripped her bag tighter and headed toward the squad car closest to the overturned semi. Sure enough a trooper had his forearm resting on the roof of the car as he leaned in and listened to whatever the man seated in the back was saying.
“I swear I had no clue what was in the back of my truck. Please, you’ve got to believe me,” the driver pleaded. “I was just trying to get into the other lane and that car came out of nowhere. I didn’t see him at all.”
According to the man’s story, he was completely innocent. This was a mess of epic proportions and not something a few questions would solve. But all Piper needed to do was to assess the man to see if he needed to go to the hospital or if he could continue being questioned.
“Officer, may I please check him out?” Piper asked. “I understand he has back pain.”
The officer stood to his full height and nodded, but didn’t move too far away. Often medics and cops worked together. Being a first responder required teamwork and so far she’d never had an issue with any cop getting in the way of her treating a patient at the scene.
Piper leaned in and saw a middle-aged man with a protruding belly hanging over his faded jeans, a dirty, bushy blond mustache with matching beard and nicotine-stained fingers.
“Sir, my name is Piper and I’m an EMT. I was told your back is hurting. Can you stand?”
He nodded and slid out of the car as Piper backed up. When he came to his full height, he winced, grabbing his lower back—whether for show to get the officer’s sympathy or because the pain was indeed real, she didn’t know. Yet again, not her place to judge.
“If you’ll come this way, we can set you in the back of an ambulance. You may want to go to the hospital just to make sure nothing else is wrong, but I can get your vitals over here.”
“I appreciate that, ma’am.”
As she led the man toward the nearest empty ambulance, her eyes scanned the crowd for Ryan. Had he already been taken to the E.R.? Were his injuries life-threatening? The unknowns were killing her.
She knew a life flight chopper hadn’t been dispatched to the scene, so that was a mild comfort. Not only for the fact Ryan didn’t need a medevac, but that none of the others involved in the accident did, either.
Another ambulance arrived on the scene as Piper assisted the truck driver into the back of a vacant one. When fresh paramedics hopped from their emergency vehicle and made their way toward the group of injured people, she jogged back over to assist.
But froze in her tracks as one head lifted and a familiar set of dark eyes met hers. He was amid a group of Mexicans, but this man... She knew this man.
Dear God. How could this... What the hell...?
“Alex?” she whispered to herself.
Piper took off at a dead run and stopped beside Alex Santiago. Her bag dropped at her feet as she held her breath.
Was she honest to God seeing the man who’d disappeared months ago without a trace? Could it truly be him?
The man glanced up at her, holding his hand over his eyes to block the glaring afternoon sun.
My God. It was him. The hair was a shaggy, unkempt mess and the scruff on his cheeks and chin indicated he hadn’t shaved in a few days or even weeks. But this was Alex... The man who’d been missing from Royal, Texas, for months.
The man most people assumed had become a victim of foul play, maybe even at his best friend’s hand. But here he was, living and breathing.
“Alex, what on earth are you doing here? Where have you been?” she asked, eyeing the knot on the side of his head.
He winced as she slid her fingertip over the swollen bump. “You must have me confused with someone else. My name isn’t Alex.”
Piper’s hand stilled above his head as she leaned down to look him in the eyes. She was pretty sure she knew what her friend looked like. Just because she hadn’t seen him in months didn’t mean she was clueless.
She looked closer. Um...yeah, this was Alex. If he didn’t think he was Alex, then he’d hit his head too hard in that crash. But at least he was alive.
“Your name is Alex Santiago,” she told him, making sure to keep her eyes locked on to his, waiting for a spark of recognition from his end.
His brows drew together and he slowly shook his head. “I’ve never heard that name.”
“Then what do people call you?” she asked, worry growing deeper with each passing moment.
Alex’s
