Chapter 2 - THE SECOND ACCIDENT
“When did you last sleep?”
Samantha looked at Alexander.
“Yesterday.”
His expression hardened.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the answer you’re getting.”
“Samantha.”
She glanced at the glowing clock on the dashboard.
“About twenty-two hours ago.”
Alexander stared at her.
Then he leaned toward the partition.
“Marcus, take Ms. Whitfield home first.”
Samantha straightened.
“No.”
Alexander looked back at her.
“You’ve been awake twenty-two hours.”
“And you apparently still think being rich means strangers let you rearrange their transportation.”
“You climbed into my car.”
“By accident.”
“An accident I’m beginning to consider fortunate.”
She would have answered, but something about the driver caught her attention.
Marcus had lifted one hand to rub his temple.
Then he did it again.
His shoulders shifted.
The SUV drifted slightly toward the lane marker before correcting.
Samantha’s exhaustion disappeared.
“Marcus?”
He glanced at the mirror.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Fine.”
His answer was too quick.
Alexander looked forward.
“Marcus?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
Samantha watched him.
Sweat glistened near his hairline despite the cool cabin.
His movements were slower now.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for a nurse who had spent twelve years watching people deteriorate before machines announced it.
“Any headache?”
Marcus hesitated.
“A little.”
“Nausea?”
Another pause.
“Maybe.”
Alexander frowned.
“What is it?”
Samantha didn’t answer.
She suddenly realized she had a headache too.
Not the dull pressure of exhaustion.
Something sharper.
Heavier.
She looked at Alexander.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have a headache.”
His expression changed.
“Yes.”
Her pulse accelerated.
“Marcus, lower the windows.”
He looked confused.
“It’s raining.”
“Now.”
Something in her voice made him obey.
Rain and cold September air rushed into the SUV.
Samantha took one breath.
Two.
“Alexander, open yours all the way.”
He did.
“What are you thinking?”
“Carbon monoxide.”
Marcus turned slightly.
“That’s impossible.”
“Eyes forward.”
The SUV wandered again.
Marcus corrected late.
Samantha leaned toward the front.
“Pull over.”
“I’m trying.”
His words were beginning to blur.
Alexander moved instantly.
“Marcus.”
The driver’s chin dropped.
The vehicle moved toward the concrete divider.
Samantha was already unbuckling.
“Alexander, take the wheel from this side.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
She climbed forward between the seats.
For one moment the movement brought back another life.
A transport aircraft bucking violently over black water.
Smoke in a cabin.
Three patients strapped to stretchers.
A captain shouting that they had ninety seconds.
Samantha had been a critical-care flight nurse then.
Six years with an Air Force medical transport unit.
Emergency evacuation drills.
Crash survival.
Mass-casualty training.
The kind of experience she rarely discussed because people either treated it like an action movie or asked questions she didn’t want to answer.
Her left palm scar had come from that life.
So had the one through her eyebrow.
Alexander grabbed the steering wheel from behind Marcus.
“Got it.”
“Keep us straight.”
Marcus was fading.
Samantha reached down.
“Foot off the accelerator.”
He didn’t respond.
She shoved his knee sideways.
The SUV slowed.
Alexander held the wheel while Samantha reached for the electronic parking control.
“Not yet,” she said.
“What?”
“We’re still moving too fast.”
Traffic streamed around them.
Horns sounded.
Samantha watched the speed drop.
Thirty-five.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty.
“Now.”
Alexander activated the emergency brake.
The SUV jerked.
Marcus slumped sideways.
They stopped half on the shoulder, rain blowing through four open windows.
“Everybody out,” Samantha said.
Alexander opened his door.
Samantha released Marcus’s seat belt and dragged his upper body toward her.
Alexander came around the vehicle.
Together they lowered him onto the wet pavement.
A second Cole security SUV stopped behind them.
Two men emerged.
“Call EMS,” Samantha ordered.
One hesitated, looking at Alexander.
Alexander snapped, “Do what she says.”
Samantha checked Marcus’s airway.
Breathing.
Pulse rapid.
Skin flushed.
“Does he have any medical conditions?”
“Diabetes,” Alexander said.
Marcus stirred.
Samantha checked the medical bracelet on his wrist.
Type 2 diabetes.
But this wasn’t behaving like severe hypoglycemia.
“Get me your first-aid kit.”
One of the security men returned with a large emergency case.
Samantha found oxygen.
Good equipment.
She fitted the mask over Marcus’s face and turned the flow high.
Alexander crouched beside her.
“What about you?”
“I’m talking.”
“That does not answer the question.”
She looked at him.
His face was slightly pale.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Interesting. Marcus said the same thing.”
Alexander sat.
She checked his pulse.
Fast, but strong.
Then she placed the oxygen mask on him.
He tried to remove it.
Samantha slapped his hand away.
His eyebrows lifted.
“You just hit my hand.”
“Write a complaint.”
Despite everything, one security man almost smiled.
The ambulance arrived seven minutes later.
By then Marcus was awake but confused.
Paramedics confirmed that all three had symptoms consistent with carbon monoxide exposure.
One of Alexander’s security men crouched near the rear of the SUV.
Then he called out.
“Mr. Cole.”
Alexander looked over.
The man was staring beneath the vehicle.
Samantha followed.
A flexible black tube had been secured near the tailpipe.
It ran forward beneath the chassis.
One end disappeared near an air intake.
Alexander’s expression changed.
“Is that supposed to be there?”
“No, sir.”
The guard reached toward it.
Samantha stopped him.
“Don’t touch it.”
He looked at her.
“If somebody put that there deliberately, preserve it.”
Alexander watched her.
“You say that like you’ve done this before.”
“I’ve been around scenes people later wished they hadn’t contaminated.”
The paramedic tried to put her on a stretcher.
Samantha refused until Marcus was loaded first.
Only then did she sit.
Alexander remained beside the ambulance.
“You’re going back to St. Catherine.”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“You have your own doctors.”
“Tonight I appear to have you.”
She was too tired to argue.
Then one of the paramedics said something about carboxyhemoglobin levels.
Samantha froze.
Nine months.
Trauma Bay Four.
Alexander’s original bloodwork.
She could suddenly see the numbers again.
She looked at him.
“When you crashed nine months ago, was there a fire?”
Alexander frowned.
“No.”
“Smoke inside the vehicle?”
“No.”
“Did the exhaust system rupture?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
Her heartbeat changed.
She remembered standing beneath fluorescent lights while a resident studied his arterial blood gas.
The number had bothered her.
She had written it down.
Mentioned it.
Then everyone had focused on internal bleeding and the metal fragment in his side.
Alexander saw something in her face.
“What?”
“Your carbon monoxide level.”
His expression sharpened.
“What about it?”
“It was high.”
“How high?”
“Too high for a nonsmoker with no fire exposure.”
Rain ran down Samantha’s face.
Alexander went completely still.
“I reported it.”
“To who?”
“The trauma attending.”
“And?”
“He thought it came from exhaust exposure after the crash.”
Samantha looked back toward the black SUV.
Toward the tube someone had deliberately fastened beneath it.
Then she remembered Alexander arriving nine months earlier.
Confused.
Gray around the mouth.
A pulse that weakened too fast.
Everyone had blamed blood loss.
Maybe only some of it had been blood loss.
She looked directly at him.
“Alexander.”
“What?”
“This isn’t the first time someone tried to poison you with your own car.”
His face lost all color.
Samantha held his gaze.
May you like
“Your crash nine months ago wasn’t an accident either.”
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