A Time to Dance/A Time to Embrace (56 page)

He was so distracted that when the officers positioned themselves in front of him and Casey, Jake stepped to the side for a better view.

“You the driver of the red Integra?” The officer shone a flashlight at his face.

Jake’s heart skipped a beat and he squinted.
Oh God . . . help . . .
“Yes . . . yes, sir.”

“You injured?”

“No, sir.” Jake’s throat was so tight he had to force the words out. “I had an air bag.”

The other officer shone a flashlight in Casey’s face. “You the driver of the Honda?”

Casey’s teeth were clattering. “Yeah.”

“We had a tip from a driver a mile down the road, said she saw a yellow Honda and a red Integra racing like a couple of speed demons down Haynes Street.” The first officer took a step closer to Jake. “That true?”

Jake shot a look at Casey. This was a nightmare. What were they doing here? Why had he ever agreed to race Casey? Wasn’t he going to go home? Just a few more minutes and then he’d call it a night, wasn’t that what he’d told himself?

“Get your license.” The officer pointed to Jake’s car. Then he gestured to Casey’s Honda. “You, too.”

Jake and Casey did as they were told. The first officer handed the laminated cards to the second. “Run a check on them, will ya?” Then he turned back to Jake. “Listen, pal. Make it easier on yourself here. Forensics teams will tell us how fast you were going—down to the mile. You don’t cooperate now, and we’ll make the process miserable for you
and
your parents.”

The sound of a power tool filled the air.
Please, God . . . let them
get him out of there.

Jake tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. This time he didn’t look at Casey. “Yes, sir . . . we . . . we were racing, sir.”

“You aware there’s a law against that?”

Jake and Casey nodded in unison. The other officer joined them again. “Clean records for both.”

“Not after tonight.” He nodded to his partner. “Cuff ’em. Then call their parents.”

Jake’s blood ran cold—not because he was going to jail but because they were taking him away from Coach. He wanted to scream, shout at everyone to back off and let him stay until he knew everything was okay. His heart felt heavier than cement as the realization set in. Coach might die . . . he might already be dead. And even if he wasn’t, nothing would ever be okay again. Jake was the worst, most awful sort of person, and whatever happened to him after this, he deserved every minute of it.

The first officer grabbed Jake’s wrists and held them tightly together behind his back. The metal pinched his skin, and Jake was almost glad. In seconds the handcuffs were on, and the officer walked back to his car. The other officer did the same to Casey, and then left, so the two of them were alone on the road, cuffed and staring at Coach Reynolds’s destroyed vehicle.

The medics were still working frantically around what was left of Coach’s truck, still desperate to get him out. Jake closed his eyes and willed them to hurry up.
God, how could You let this happen? It should
be me in there, not Coach. He didn’t do anything wrong. Get him out,
please . . .

“I got it!” A paramedic shouted from amid the workers. He tossed a mangled truck door behind him. It landed on the neatly manicured grass that bordered the Marion High parking lot. “I need a backboard, stat. And an airlift. The guy’s not going to make it by ground.”

They were going to get him out! Jake’s knees shook, and again he couldn’t catch his breath. A wild splash of hope colored the moment, and Jake fought the urge to shout Coach’s name above the chaos.

The paramedic began barking out orders, shouting words Jake had never heard before. The one thing he did pick up was this: Coach Reynolds was still alive! That meant there was a chance . . . a prayer that maybe he might make it! Jake’s legs could no longer hold him, and he fell to his knees, his heart thudding hard against the surface of his chest.
Hang in there, Coach . . . come on. God, don’t
let him die.

Jake had no idea how long he and Casey stayed there, stone still, watching the rescue. Finally, a helicopter appeared overhead and landed on the empty street. About the same time, one of the paramedics waved his hand at the others. “I’m losing him.”

“No!” No one heard Jake above the sound of the chopper. He struggled to his feet, took three steps toward the huddle of medics, and then returned to his place.

Beside him, Casey began to sob.

There was a rush of motion and someone began doing CPR. “Let’s get him out of here!”

A team of paramedics lifted a board, and for the first time, Jake could see the man they were working on. There was no question it was Coach Reynolds. He still had on his Marion Eagles jacket.

A wave of sobs strangled Jake’s heart. What sort of monster
was
he, to race that way on a city street? And what about Coach, the man who had been more of a father to him than his own dad these past years.

“Please don’t let him die!” Once more Jake’s agonized cry drowned in the whirring helicopter blades and engine noise.

They loaded Coach Reynolds into the chopper, and it lifted off the ground, disappearing into the sky. Jake watched it go until he could no longer hear the whirring of the engine. When it was gone, an eerie, deathly silence fell over the street. He looked around, suddenly aware of the action taking place near the damaged cars. Other police had arrived and were taking measurements, marking the spot from Jake’s car to the wreckage of Coach’s truck. As the paramedics left the scene, two tow trucks pulled up. The drivers climbed out and waited by their rigs.

Jake began to shake again, and his arms ached from being cuffed behind his back. “We’re going down,” Casey whispered beside him. “In flames, Jake. You know that, right? The season’s over.”

The season?
Jake wanted to vomit. What kind of a person was Casey anyway? The
season?
Who cared about the stinkin’ season? He turned to Casey, his eyes so swollen from crying he could barely see. “Is that all you can think about?”

Casey wasn’t crying anymore, but he shook like someone having a seizure. “Of . . . of course not. I’m worried about Coach. It’s just . . . this’ll stay with us the . . . the rest of our lives.”

Jake’s anger blazed, cutting off his tears. “Yeah, and we
deserve
it.”

Casey opened his mouth, and at first it looked like he was about to disagree. Then he hung his head and finally, the tears came again for him, as well. “I . . . I know it.”

Jake was disgusted with both of them. The officers were right. Coupla rich kids driving cars that were way too fast. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. It didn’t matter what kind of trouble they faced. The police could toss him in jail and throw out the key for all he cared. In fact, Jake would have gladly given his life for the only thing that still mattered.

That Coach Reynolds survive the night.

Because if Coach didn’t live, Jake was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to either.

Thirteen

I
T WAS A NIGHTMARE
.

It had to be. Abby squinted at the clock and saw it was just after two in the morning. There was no way John would have been out this late. Car accidents didn’t happen to men like him . . . men who should have been home asleep by now.

Yes, it was just a nightmare. Abby almost had herself convinced, except for one troubling detail: John’s place in bed beside her was empty, untouched. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too thick. Why was she trying to scare herself? It wasn’t so unusual that John be missing from bed at this hour. Not after a football game. He could be downstairs watching television or eating a bowl of cereal. He did that lots of times.

Still, as convinced as she was, she had to tell the caller something.

“Did you hear me, Mrs. Reynolds? Are you awake?” The voice was calm, gentle. But the urgency was undeniable. “I said we need you down here at the hospital. Your husband’s been in an accident.”

The man was relentless. “Yes.” Abby huffed out her answer. “I’m awake. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She hung up, then called Nicole. If the dream was going to be persistent, she might as well work it out, and that meant playing the role expected of her.

“Your father’s been in an accident.”

“What?”
Nicole’s voice was half shriek, half cry. “Is he hurt?”

Abby forced herself to be calm. If she lost it now, she’d never make it to the hospital. And only by going through the motions would she ever break free from the awful nightmare. “They didn’t tell me. Just that we need to come.” Her eyes closed, and she knew she was right. It had to be a nightmare. And no wonder, especially after the bomb threat earlier. Her dreams were bound to be bad.

“Mom, are you there?”

“Yes.” She forced herself to concentrate. “Is Matt home?”

“Of course.”

“Have him drive you. I don’t want you going out at night alone.”

“What about you? Maybe we should pick you up.”

“Sean’s already dressed and waiting for me.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine as soon as this nightmare is over.”

The entire ride to the hospital, Abby was shocked at how real everything felt. The cool breeze on her face, the steering wheel in her hands, the road beneath the wheels. Never in her life had a dream felt like this.

But that’s what it had to be.

John hadn’t been doing anything dangerous tonight. The danger had been back at the football stadium, when he could have been blown to bits. But driving home from school? There couldn’t have been a soul on the road.

Abby whipped the car into the hospital parking lot and saw Matt and Nicole just ahead of her. They entered the emergency room together and were immediately led to a small room behind the double doors, out of sight from the rest of the public.

“What’s going on?” Nicole started to cry, and Matt put his arm around her. “Why’d they bring us in here?”

Abby clenched her fist as a realization slammed into her. She had no information whatsoever. Not about the type of accident or whether another car was involved. Not about the extent of John’s injuries or how he got to the hospital. She was completely in the dark, and in some ways that brought her comfort. Dreams were like that—strange, missing details, disconnected . . .

Beside her, Sean began to cry, too.

“Shhh.” Abby hugged him to her side and stroked his back. “It’s okay.”

A doctor entered the room and shut the door behind him. The first thing Abby noticed was his face. It was marked with tension and sadness.
No, God . . . don’t let this be happening. Not really. Make me wake
up. I can’t take another minute . . .

Lean not on your own understanding, daughter . . . I am here with
you even now.

The words seemed to come from nowhere and speak straight to her soul. They gave Abby the strength to look up, to meet the doctor’s eyes straight on, and ask the hardest question in her life. “How is he?”

“He’s alive.”

The four of them straightened some at the doctor’s words. “Can we see him?” Abby started to stand, but the doctor shook his head.

“We have him on life support in the intensive care unit.” The doctor lowered his brow. “It’ll be touch and go for the next few days. There’s still a significant chance we could lose him.”

“No!” Nicole screamed the word and then buried her face in Matt’s chest. “No, God . . . not my daddy. No!”

Abby closed her eyes and held more tightly to Sean. She remembered then that she hadn’t called Kade. There he was five hundred miles away and he didn’t know his father was fighting for his life. It was one more disconnected piece, a part of the nightmare.

But the dream was growing more terrifyingly real by the moment.

Nicole finally quieted down, her face still smothered in Matt’s plaid, flannel shirt.

There was sanity in staying calm. Abby looked down and saw that her hands were trembling, but she managed to meet the doctor’s gaze. “What . . . what are his injuries?”

“He suffered a severed trachea, Mrs. Reynolds. That type of injury is fatal in most cases. My guess is that the way his body wound up after the accident somehow held the trachea in place long enough to save his life. As soon as they moved him, he stopped breathing. They kept him on life support until he arrived here by helicopter.”

“Helicopter?” Abby was seeing spots before her eyes, circling spots that threatened to take up her entire field of vision. She shook her head. No, she couldn’t faint. Not now. “What . . . what happened?”

The doctor’s eyes fell to his clipboard, and he grimaced. “Apparently he was the victim of a couple street racers—high-school kids.”

“Street . . .” Abby’s world began to spin around her. “Street racing?”

No doubt about it, it was just a nightmare. Real life didn’t have that kind of coincidence. John Reynolds, the coach accused of looking the other way while his players participated in street races . . . hit by teenagers doing that very thing? It was so ridiculous, it couldn’t possibly be real.

“The boys were probably going about a hundred miles an hour when your husband pulled out of the school parking lot. He was hit from behind.”

“So . . .” Abby pushed her fingers hard against both sides of her head. Again her body wanted to faint, but she wouldn’t let it. Not until she heard it all. “So his trachea? That’s the problem?”

The doctor’s expression grew even darker than before. “That’s the most critical problem at this point.”

“There’s more?”

Nicole moaned and clung to Matt. Abby glanced at Sean and realized he was sobbing into her sleeve. Poor babies. They shouldn’t have to hear this. Still, if it was only a bad dream, it wouldn’t hurt anything. Besides, the sooner she worked through it, the quicker she’d wake up.

The doctor checked his notes again. “It looks like he broke his neck, Mrs. Reynolds. We can’t really be certain at this point, but we think he’s paralyzed. From the waist down, at least.”

“Noooo!”
Nicole screamed again and this time Matt shot Abby a pleading look.