“Wait,” the young man said and she ignored him. She grabbed the roof for support and swung herself out of the car. Instantly a wave of dizziness and nausea rolled through her. “This might have been a mistake,” she said. Her savior said something in return but she couldn’t make it out. A buzzing sound started up in the distance, like maybe someone had chosen the middle of the night to fire up a chainsaw. The buzzing got louder and Tracie realized it was coming from inside her head. Black spots bloomed in her vision, making the weak light in the parking lot even less effective.
She was vaguely aware of the driver rushing around the front of the Volkswagen. She let go of the car and took one shuffling step toward the apartment complex and then another, and then the pavement rushed up to meet her and the world went black.
19
The woman collapsed into his arms and Shane shuffled backward, trying to keep his feet. She wasn’t very big, maybe five-foot two and all of a hundred pounds soaking wet, but her momentum had been moving forward as she staggered away from his car. It was like catching a hundred pound bag of potatoes someone had tossed at you. Although, he thought, a bag of potatoes probably never felt this good.
He glanced around the lot. Empty. That made sense considering the time, but if a neighbor happened to glance out a window, couldn’t sleep or whatever, the Bangor Police would be all over this apartment complex within minutes. A man, half dragging, half carrying a woman, unconscious and covered in blood, into his apartment in the middle of the night. Christ, he’d look like Jack the Ripper.
But then, maybe a visit from the cops wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Shane had never had a gun pointed at him before and decided he didn’t like it very much. This beautiful crash victim was obviously hip-deep in some serious shit, and who was to say she wasn’t one of the bad guys?
Shane didn’t think so, though. He liked to think he possessed a pretty reliable bullshit detector — he’d seen right through the dying father yarn the injured woman had tried to spin — and his instincts told him the girl was trustworthy, at least to the extent she didn’t want to cause him harm.
And in any event, she was completely helpless now; he couldn’t very well just dump her on the side of the road. So, resigned to risking possible arrest, he hoisted her onto his shoulder one more time and walked as quickly as he could to his apartment.
He dug his key out of his pocket and stabbed for the lock. Then he staggered through the front door, kicked it closed behind him, and crossed the living room to his old couch. He lowered his guest onto it as gently as he could. She groaned and muttered but her eyes remained closed. Then he backtracked, locked and bolted the door, and sank to the floor, out of breath and exhausted.
Shane looked at his watch. Twelve thirty a.m. Shit. He had to call work. He should have been there half an hour ago. Between climbing into burning wreckage, saving a pretty — if very strange — young woman from certain death, and staring down a gun barrel, he had completely forgotten about work.
He trudged across the living room and checked on his new friend on the way to the telephone. She was right where he had left her, still out like a light, pale and unmoving. Again Shane thought about the hospital and wondered briefly about personal liability should the woman die on his couch. It didn’t seem likely, but still, she had been through a lot, had lost a lot of blood, and who really knew how badly she had been injured in that crash? He decided he’d make his call, then tend to her immediately.
Shane dialed quickly. He knew the tower supervisor, who normally would have gone home at midnight, would still be in the facility making notifications and coordinating with rescue personnel about the aircraft accident, and he was right. The line rang seven times, eight, and then was answered on the ninth ring by supervisor Chuck McNally.
“Bangor Tower,” McNally barked into the phone, gruff and intimidating. Shane realized the line had probably been ringing off the hook since the accident and felt a stab of sympathy for the supervisor, normally the most kind-hearted of men but right now probably at the end of his rope.
“Chuck, this is Shane, I’m sorry about not calling sooner, but—”
“Shane, where the hell are you? We’ve had a crash just off the airport! Things are fucking insane, man. Tonight was definitely not the night to blow off work without even a call.” Shane listened to McNally rant and broke in when the man slowed down to take a breath.
“That’s why I’m calling, boss. I know about the accident. It happened right next to me as I was driving to work. The damn airplane fell out of the sky and almost landed on my car. I climbed inside the wreckage, man. I pulled a victim out alive.”
The line was silent as McNally processed the information. “You saw the crash?”
“I didn’t actually see it happen because of the trees, but I sure as hell heard it. I stopped the car and hiked out to the crash site to see if I could help anyone, and damned if there wasn’t a young woman trapped in the cabin. Anyway, I’m really sorry, but there’s no way I can come in to work tonight, I’m tired and banged up and even burned a little bit.”
“You were inside the burning airplane?”
“Yeah. It was a frigging nightmare.”
“Holy shit. I can imagine. Anyway, under the circumstances, sick leave is approved, obviously. I’ll be in the tower until morning anyway. But listen, an NTSB accident investigation team is on the way. They’ll be here tomorrow along with representatives from the Air Force, since it was their airplane. Under the circumstances, they’re going to want to interview you, so call the facility first thing in the morning and plan on coming in here sometime during the day to talk to the investigators.”
“Will do, Chuck, and thanks.”
“No problem. What kind of condition is the victim in? Have the doctors told you anything?”
“There are no doctors. She’s passed out on my couch even as we speak.”
“Your couch? What are you talking about? She’s at your apartment?”
“Yeah, she refused to go to the hospital.” Shane said nothing about the young woman waving a gun around.
“But you said she’s passed out. How do you know she didn’t want to go to the hospital?”
“She was conscious in my car and she told me. She didn’t pass out until we got back to my place.”
“Christ, Shane, don’t be an idiot. Get that girl to the hospital, like, right now.”
“Yeah, I guess I should,” Shane answered, knowing it was the smart thing to do but knowing also he was not about to do it. “Anyway, thanks again, Chuck, and good luck. I know you’re busy.”
“It’s just paperwork bullshit at this point. I’ll be fine. Get that girl to the hospital.”
“See ya.” Shane hung up the phone and glanced around the kitchen’s open entryway into the living room and saw Tracie watching him from the couch. She looked even paler than before, but Shane figured regaining consciousness had to be a good sign.
He flashed a smile. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Never mind that,” she said shortly. “Who the hell were you talking to just now?”
“My supervisor, if it’s any of your business,” he said, angered by her tone and, he had to admit, a little hurt by her attitude. After all he had done for her, who was she to snap at him for no reason?
“Your supervisor? Who do you work for? Why do you need to talk to your supervisor in the middle of the night?”
“Again,” he said, “not that it’s any of your business, but I’m an air traffic controller at Bangor Airport and I’m supposed to be at work right now. I thought my supervisor might consider it rude of me not to let him know why I didn’t show up, especially tonight. They’re kind of busy. It seems there was an airplane crash. I’m lucky I still have a job.”