“I need your location, ma’am,” the woman said.
I gave her the information.
“Are they breathing?” she asked.
“So far. I’ll check to make sure.” Duh, good idea. It was still so dark, I could barely see my own hands in front of my face, but my eyes were beginning to adjust. I hunched down and felt an arm, covered by a soft wool sweater, indicating it was probably a woman. Moving my hand up her arm, I felt her shoulder, then her neck. There was a weak pulse. She was still breathing.
“She’s alive, but very weak,” I said. “Hurry, please.”
“We have a squad car in the area, ma’am,” the dispatcher said. “Please don’t panic. They’re less than two minutes away.”
“I’m not panicking,” I said, standing. “I just can’t see anything. Are you sending an ambulance, too?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll stay on the line until the police arrive.”
“Thanks.”
The door to another office opened suddenly. Naomi peered into the hall. “What’s going on out here?”
A sliver of light from her desk lamp cast her in shadow and did nothing to light up the situation in the hall.
“What are you doing in there?” I asked.
“I’m trying to work,” she said, her tone petulant.
“Really sorry to bother you, but somebody passed out in the hall.” Hey, I could be cranky, too. She wasn’t the only one whose peace and quiet had been disturbed. “Can you turn on some more lights? I can’t see a thing.”
Naomi didn’t move, just stared at the body. “What happened?”
“How should I know? Turn on some lights. This woman fainted or something.” I was getting crabbier by the minute. I hated stumbling over bodies.
“Oh, my God.” Naomi fumbled for the light switch on the wall outside her office door, but nothing happened. “Sorry, I guess the hall light’s burned out. I’ll have to get it fixed.”
She flipped her office light on and opened the door all the way, and the hall was illuminated. She tried to open Layla’s door, but it was locked. She skirted the body and tried Karalee’s office. It was unlocked so she shoved the door open and turned on the light.
“How’s that?”
“Much better.” As I said it, I could hear a siren wailing in the distance. “Police should be here any second now.”
“Is she breathing?” Naomi asked, still staring at the body.
“Barely,” I said.
Naomi wrung her hands. “It’s a good thing you found her. You probably saved her life.”
“I just happened to come along,” I said modestly, clasping my hands together. They felt tacky. I held them up to the light, then wished I hadn’t.
Blood. My stomach twirled and my head started to spin. I really hated blood. “Idiot,” I muttered. I couldn’t help it, though. The sight of blood made me sick. I took deep breaths and stared at the woman on the floor. Since she was bleeding, she must’ve hit her head on something. Something sharp or hard enough to draw blood.
As I stared more closely at the woman, my insides took an even more unwelcome dip. That fuzzy black angora sweater looked alarmingly familiar.
“Oh, no.” I inched back until my butt hit the wall.
“What’s wrong?” Naomi demanded.
Icy chills slithered down my spine, worse than I’d ever felt before. God help me, I had just saved the life of Minka LaBoeuf.
The blast of sirens brought everyone out of the classrooms. I managed to keep the hall clear while Naomi ran to the front door and led the two police officers through the gallery to the hall. One officer looked around while the other knelt and checked for a pulse.
“Watch out,” I muttered. “There’s blood.”
The officer kneeling looked up at me. “You found her?”
I nodded, then shivered and looked away.
“Okay, good job.” He grabbed his walkie-talkie and called for an ambulance. He was answered by a squawk, then the dispatcher responded, “Ambulance en route.”
“I’ll wait up front,” I said, and walked back to the gallery, where all the lights were now glaringly bright. Alice rushed over and met me.
“What happened?” she whispered. She looked even more pale than when she’d first showed up in class. “Is somebody sick?”
“Somebody’s been hurt,” I said.
Tom, Cynthia, and Gina crowded behind Alice.
“Who is it?” Tom asked, staring past me into the hall.
“Another instructor,” I said, unable to utter Minka’s name out loud.
“It’s Minka LaBoeuf,” Naomi announced from behind me. “Brooklyn saved her life.”
I winced. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” Naomi insisted, then added, “Brooklyn found her and called nine-one-one. Look, she’s got Minka’s blood all over her hands.”
Oh, great. I knew she meant that in a nice way, but it really didn’t sound good.
“I . . . I need to wash my hands,” I whispered, staring at the dried streaks of blood.
“How did you get her blood on your hands?” Cynthia asked, her eyes focused on my outstretched hands.
Her tone carried a strong hint of accusation and I was about to shoot back something when Alice took hold of my arm and said gently, “Let’s go wash your hands.”
Just then, the tall, good-looking Hispanic officer whose badge read “Ortiz” zeroed in on me. “You found the victim.”
“Yes, I did,” I said. Soldier up, Wainwright, I thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “She was passed out in the hall. I stumbled over her on my way to Layla Fontaine’s office and called the police.”
“Who’s Layla Fontaine?”
“She runs this place,” I said. “Her office is at the end of the hall. I think she must’ve gone home already.”
“What do you do here?” he asked, taking notes.
“I’m just one of the instructors.” I waved my hand toward Naomi. “This is Naomi Fontaine. She’s the facilities coordinator for the center.”
“But—but I didn’t do anything,” Naomi declared, her wide-eyed gaze whipping back and forth between Officer Ortiz and me. “I opened my office door and Minka was lying there, and Brooklyn was kneeling over her.”
I shot her a look. “They already know that.”
“It’s okay, ma’am,” Ortiz said calmly.
No, it wasn’t. Was Naomi deliberately trying to throw me under the bus? Whatever happened to me being the big hero, saving Minka’s life? You couldn’t trust anyone anymore.
“Where’s Layla?” Tom asked, looking around.
“She went home,” Cynthia said through clenched teeth. “Brooklyn just said that. Try to keep up.”
Someone was even crankier than I was.
The cop tending to Minka called from the hallway, “Can somebody turn on the hall light?”
“It’s not working,” Naomi explained to Ortiz.
He walked a few feet into the hall, stretched his arm up, and tested one of the exposed bulbs by twisting it. The hall filled with light.
“Now that’s weird,” Gina said, her eyes big and round.
Cynthia frowned in agreement.
Another blast of a siren announced the arrival of the ambulance. Two EMTs rushed through the gallery carrying their packs filled with equipment. I managed to corral the onlookers away from the hall to give the techs enough space to pass through.
Whitney walked over and joined us. “What’s going on? I thought I heard a siren. Are we on a break?”
Gina grabbed her arm. “Girl, where were you?”
“I was on the phone,” Whitney said defensively, then lowered her voice to add, “That skinny guy let me use one of those storage rooms down the hall so I’d have some privacy.”
Was she talking about Ned? I looked around the gallery, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Somebody was attacked while you were gone,” Gina whispered excitedly.
“We don’t know that,” I said quickly.
Officer Ortiz signaled me over. “We’ll need to get everyone in one place and start some interviews.”
“You can use my classroom,” I said, then turned to Gina and Whitney. “Can you help me lead everyone back to the classroom?”
“You bet,” Gina said. She gathered my people while Naomi assembled Minka’s students and led them back into their classroom. Within five minutes, the area was cleared.