“It won’t budge,” he said.
Every now and then, the car made small, subtle tremors. Somewhere in the fog of her mind, she knew it wasn’t a good thing, even though this time the movement was gentler, almost peaceful. At times the car would shudder, as if the ground beneath it had given way. And she swore she heard a sharp crack.
“My feet are freezing,” Colton said.
“Try to prop your good foot up behind my chair. Maybe you can massage it to get it warm.”
“Mom, I think our water bottles spilled on the floor.”
She shifted her feet and heard soft splashes. She glanced down at the floor near the brake. Water. She scowled. An awful lot of water.
That’s when it finally hit her. Water! The car had landed in water.
Panic rose in her chest and up her throat. Oh my God! The car’s sinking! A whimper escaped her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Colton asked, his voice tinged with fear.
“Nothing,” she lied, her mind racing to recall everything she’d ever heard about submerged vehicles and how to escape them. “My ribs hurt a bit.”
Stay calm. Try not to let him know what you’re thinking. Not until he has to know.
She turned on her phone and dialed 911. A stranger picked up.
“I need to speak to Marcus,” she said, struggling to keep the panic from her voice.
“Rebecca?” the man said. “Marcus is going to call you from his cell phone.”
“He said I should call in if—” she lowered her voice, praying that Colton couldn’t hear her, “there was water on the floor of the car.”
“And I take it there is,” the man said in a calm voice.
“Yes.”
“Rebecca? Here’s what we’re going to do. You hang up. I’ll call Marcus and tell him to call you right away. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And by the way,” the stranger said, “my name’s Leo.”
“Thank you, Leo.” She hung up.
Please, Marcus, call me and tell me what to do.
The phone rang. “Marcus?”
“I’m here, Rebecca.”
“You know what you asked me to look for? It’s on the floor. And the car keeps moving every now and then.”
“Tell me about the motion.”
“At first it was an occasional movement, but now it’s constant.”
“Describe it.”
“It’s like we’re balancing on a teeter-totter. And every now and then it feels like we’re sliding forward, and sometimes it feels like we’ve dropped a few inches. It’s probably my imagination.”
Marcus swallowed hard. “You could be hung up, rocking on an embankment of some kind, a small hill.” He dreaded the thought that her car might be nose-first in the river.
“Don’t try to open the doors,” he said.
She moaned. “They won’t budge anyway.”
“Can you tell if water’s coming in quickly?”
She wiggled her foot. “It’s almost to the top of my foot, but it’s not gushing in.”
“Good. Keep me posted on how high the water is. Let me know if it gets halfway up your calf.”
She shuddered at the thought. “We’re in a river or lake, aren’t we?”
“If you’d landed in deep water, the car would be sinking fast. We do know you’re not far from Edson. You did an awesome job at helping us narrow down your location.”
“But you still don’t know exactly where we are.”
“No.” She could hear the frustration in his voice. “How are the kids doing?”
“Colton is still pinned behind the seat. Ella has barely moved.”
“Keep administering her medication.”
“What happens when it runs out?”
“We’ll find you before that occurs.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered, clenching the cell phone.
“I know.”
“Talk to me. I need a distraction so I won’t lose it in front of Colton. Why are you a 911 operator? What made you do this job?”
“I wanted to help people.”
“Because you couldn’t help your wife and son?”
“I guess. And because I couldn’t do the job I was originally trained for.”
“What was that?”
“I was a paramedic.”
“Not too far of a stretch from that to what you’re doing now.” She massaged her icy fingers. “Why did you leave that job?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You were fired? Why would they fire a good person like you?”
She heard a sigh. “I wasn’t such a good person back then. I made some bad choices.”
“What kind of choices?”
“I had a shoulder injury after a mountain rescue. My doctor prescribed some heavy-duty painkillers. After a while, they stopped working. Some nights the pain was unbearable, but I still had to do my job.”
“Why didn’t you take time off so you could heal?”
“We were short-staffed, and I couldn’t afford to take time off.”
“So you took prescription drugs? Why would that be a problem if a doctor prescribed them?”
“When the drugs stopped being effective in managing the pain, I tried to get a stronger prescription but was told I wouldn’t be able to work if I took it.”
“So you tried to ignore the pain?”
“I wish I had. No, I made a decision that has haunted me ever since.”
“What decision?”
She heard him inhale deeply. “I took drugs from our paramedic supplies.”
“And you became addicted,” she guessed.
Marcus cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“So they fired you.”
“They called it a temporary suspension. Said I could find another job until I had kicked my habit. Then I could come back to EMS. Leo helped me get a job at the center.”
She swallowed. “Did your wife know about the addiction?”
“She suspected. But she never knew the extent of it. I tried to shelter her from that part of my life.”
“When your wife and son were killed, were you—?”
“I was shooting up in a cabin in Cadomin.”
There was such intense bitterness in his voice that she flinched at his words.
“I got out of the cabin as soon as I heard, but by the time I made it to the accident scene… it was too late.” The last four words came in a strained whisper.
A tear slid down her cheek and she left it there, soaking in the trickle of heat it emitted before it cooled.
“How did they die exactly?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back.
“Jane’s car hit a patch of ice on the highway and rolled into a ditch.”
Something in his voice suggested he wasn’t telling her everything. “Do you want to talk about it? I’ve got nothing better to do than listen.”
“I’m not really supposed to be telling you my life story.”
“I need a distraction, Marcus. I can’t keep thinking about where I am, where my kids are. Talk to me. About anything.”
“I took off on them,” he began. “I was holed up in that cabin in the woods, near the bat cave. I convinced Jane that I needed some time to think, to clear my head. I insisted that I wanted a week of fishing, nothing more. But I lied. I went there with drugs. I planned to stay in a fog of oblivion.”
“So did you?”
“For four days I was stoned out of my mind. I started imagining things, seeing things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Children. In the woods around the cabin. They were wearing pajamas, even when it was freezing outside.”
“Did they say anything to you?”
“Not at first. But they left me signs that they were there. Strange gifts on my doorstep.”
Rebecca shivered. “And this was all imaginary?”
“Except for the gifts. They were real. Fruit, candy… I can’t explain it.”