After the Rains (9 page)

Evan and his friends pulled her back into their circle. In spite of the chill, they were all without jackets, the sleeves of their T-shirts rolled up to flaunt fake barbed-wire tattoos that encircled each of their arms.

Natalie eyed Matt Kimmell’s impressive biceps. “So who’s the artist?” she joked, feeling bold in the darkness.

“What do you mean, man? These are real!” Evan pouted playfully and struck a muscleman pose. His friends followed suit, hamming it up.

Natalie laughed. “Yeah, right. It looks more like somebody turned Matt’s little sister loose on you with a Magic Marker.” She’d never felt so witty and uninhibited. She ran a finger playfully over Matt’s tattoo, then turned to see Jessica Gorman and several other younger girls sauntering over to join them.

“Hey, Amber. Hi, Jessi, how’s it going?” she said.

Jessica beamed at her and shouted over the music. “It’s a great party, huh?”

Natalie nodded. She thought she saw admiration in Jessica’s eyes. So much for Sara’s worries about setting an example. Wasn’t she doing just that? She could prove that you didn’t have to be drunk to have fun.

She stayed in the circle for a while, then, feeling braver, decided to see who else was here. Pulling another can from the cooler, she started walking, following the banks of the creek.

Judd Wright and his buddies did a double take when they spotted her. “Whoa! Natalie? Is that you?” But it didn’t seem to take them long to warm to the idea of her being here. “Decided to get in on the action, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She didn’t like the suggestive tone of his voice.

Holding her watch at an angle to catch the light from the fire, she squinted and tried to make out the numbers. She was surprised to see that it was almost 11:30. With a stab of guilt, she realized that it had been almost an hour since Sara had gone back to the car. She threw the can of beer, still half-full, into the fire and started for the car to check on her friend. She decided that if Sara was still mad, she would just go home. Maybe she would anyway. She was feeling a little sleepy.

Halfway to the car, she saw Evan and Brian Wagner crossing the field ahead of her. Brian wasn’t walking too straight. She remembered that his
truck was parked right beside her car. She said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t crash into her car when he backed out. Natalie breathed a sigh of relief as the pickup cleared her Camry and roared down the lane to the highway. As she reached the car, she saw Brian’s taillights headed west, away from Bristol. She wondered briefly where they were going, but forgot about it when she opened the car door and saw Sara sitting there, head bowed, tears streaking her cheeks.

She climbed in and turned on the motor, pretending not to notice Sara’s tears. “I’m ready to go, okay?”

Sara nodded. “Are you okay—to drive?”

“Sara, I’m fine. I had a few sips of beer two hours ago, and you act like I’m the biggest alcoholic on the face of the earth.”

“Well, I didn’t know. I’ve been here awhile. How was I supposed to know what you were doing? Excuse me for wanting to be safe.”

“Hey, I’m sorry I left you,” she said, meaning it. “That wasn’t very nice of me.”

Sara waved off her apology. “It was my choice. Just forget it. Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”

Natalie ignored her question and revved the engine. “Are you cold? You could have had the keys and run the heater, you know.” She knew she sounded defensive.

“I’m fine. Let’s just go home,” Sara said again, the question lingering in her voice.

Natalie put the car in reverse and maneuvered through the cluster of vehicles that were still parked haphazardly in the field.

She bumped along the road that led to the highway, squinting through the windshield. She flipped her dimmers back and forth, but it was hard to make out the edge of the lane in the dark. Her head hurt, and she needed to go to the bathroom in the worst way.

She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally reached the end of the lane and pulled onto the highway that led into town.

Eight

C
ole snored softly beside her, and Daria looked at the clock before reaching up to turn off the lamp on her nightstand. It was seventeen minutes past midnight. Nicole and Noelle were sleeping, but Natalie still wasn’t home. Daria lay there listening for her daughter’s car on the drive, praying she wouldn’t fall asleep until Natalie was safely home.

The phone rang. She was tempted to answer it before Cole could, but because Cole was a veterinarian and got so many late-night calls, the phone was on his side of the bed.

Beside her, he propped himself on one elbow, switched on the light, and picked up the phone. “Hello? Yes, this is Cole Hunter …”

Something in her husband’s voice made her sit up in bed and switch her own lamp back on.

She heard the serious tone he used when there was an emergency at the vet clinic. She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes past midnight. Daria prayed this call was for the clinic, but when she looked at Cole’s face, her heart began to pound.

“Yes, that’s our car,” he was saying. “Yes … yes, that’s the license number. What’s happened?”

Daria gripped his arm and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, please, Lord,” she whispered. “Please …”

“Oh no,” Cole said into the phone now, his shoulders sagging. He swung his legs over and sat on the side of the bed, elbows on knees. “When did it happen?” Daria had heard that tremor of horror in his voice only one other time in all their years together.

She climbed out of bed and began to pace and cry. From Cole’s end of the conversation, it was obvious something terrible had happened.
Oh, please, Lord … not Nattie. Please, God. Please …
She thought immediately of Nathan Camfield. How would Nate ever bear it if something had happened to their daughter?

“We’ll be right there,” Cole told the caller. He dropped the receiver into its cradle, stood up, and looked at her with a stunned expression. “Natalie’s been in an accident.”

“No, no!” Daria moaned, shaking her head from side to side in disbelief. “Is she …?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“She’s alive. She’s in the emergency room at Community, but …” He dropped back to the bed and put his face in his hands.

“What, Cole? What is it?” Panic rose in her. There was something he wasn’t telling her. Something worse.

“They said …” He stopped and took a tremulous breath before going on, “There was a passenger in the car with Nattie. Her passenger was killed, Daria.”

“Oh, dear God, no! Was it Sara?” Her thoughts spun out of control. “What happened, Cole? How did it happen?”

Already he was in the closet pulling on his jeans. Daria knew she needed to get dressed too. They had to go to Nattie. She would be devastated. Maybe she was critically injured herself. But Daria couldn’t dwell on that possibility now. Her mind simply could not take in all the facets of this horrific news.

“Cole, how did it happen? Do you think it was Sara? Who else would’ve been with them?” she asked again.

“I don’t know,” he said, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. The sheriff’s deputy said it was a two-car accident out on the highway. Apparently, some kids were leaving a party out at Hansens’—”

“Oh, Cole,” she breathed. “You don’t think Natalie was out there, do you?”

“I don’t know, Daria. Hurry, get dressed. We need to go to the hospital.”

She felt as though she were moving in slow motion.

“I’ll leave a note for the girls,” Cole told her, already halfway down the stairs.

She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and fumbled with shoes and socks. When she got to the kitchen, she could hear Cole starting the car in the garage. She’d just gotten her car door shut when he backed out
of the garage and raced down the driveway. He pulled onto the road and drove far too fast on dirt roads that were still soft from the recent rains.

“Oh, Cole,” Daria cried, as the reality of what had happened hit her full force. “What if it’s Sara?”

He didn’t answer but kept his eyes straight ahead as they sped through town, then found a place to park near the hospital’s emergency-room entrance.

Inside, the halls were littered with people. Daria recognized a few faces, worried-looking teenagers mostly, though her muddled state of mind wouldn’t allow her to put a single name with a face.

A nurse met them at the admissions desk. “Are you the Camfields?” she asked.

“I’m Cole Hunter,” he said, correcting her. “We’re Natalie Camfield’s parents.”

“This way,” the woman said, leading them through a heavy door to the right of the admissions desk.

“Do you know anything about the accident?” Cole asked her as they dashed through the emergency ward.

“Right this way,” she replied, ignoring his question.

The way she said it, it struck Daria that the woman must have known something she wasn’t allowed to reveal. Daria’s hands began to shake, and she wondered where Maribeth and Don were.
Oh, Father, don’t let it be Sara
.

Then a numbing thought hit Daria like a punch in the stomach.
What if the wreck was Natalie’s fault?

The nurse stopped at an examining room and pushed the curtain aside. Natalie lay on her back on a cotton sheet. Her face was pale, almost gray, and dirt smudged her cheeks, but Daria could see that her daughter was in one piece and that she was breathing. Relief coursed through her veins, leaving her drained and on the verge of tears.

But she felt another surge of relief when she realized that the doctor working over Natalie’s still form was Marlin Davidson. Marlin was an elder in their church.

He looked up when they walked into the room. “Hi, Cole, Daria. She’s
unconscious, but she’s alive. She has some cuts that will need sutures, and”—he brushed the hair off Natalie’s forehead—“she has a pretty nasty bump here. We’ve already done a FAST exam, but we’ll need to do a CT scan to make sure we’re not missing anything. We’re going to have you wait outside for a few minutes. You can sign the necessary papers. I’ll let you know the minute you can come back in.”

The nurse ushered them to a private waiting area. Daria stared at the forms they brought her, struggling to remember the simplest information, and clutching the pen with trembling hands.

Cole didn’t sit but paced the short length of the room. Daria watched his lips move silently, and she knew that as she was, he was praying the most fervent prayer of his life.

After what seemed an eternity, Dr. Davidson appeared in the doorway. Daria jumped up, Cole at her side. She was horrified to notice, for the first time, the blood that stained the doctor’s white coat. His face was unreadable as he nodded.

“Cole, Daria … please, sit down.” He waited, then told them, “She has a pretty good bump on her head that we’ll be keeping a close eye on. The cuts and abrasions are relatively minor. We have her stabilized right now, but the CT scan showed that her spleen is ruptured, so we need to move her into surgery. Dr. Grant is on his way in now.”

Dr. Davidson assured them that Natalie was getting the best care possible, but he may as well have been speaking a foreign language for all Daria comprehended. She understood only that her daughter was seriously hurt—and they must face the unthinkable possibility that Nattie’s dearest childhood friend was dead.

When Marlin left, Cole led Daria back to the chairs in the tiny private waiting room. They sat side by side, praying silently, interrupting each other every few minutes to ask aloud questions to which neither of them had answers.

“I wonder who found her.”

“Do you think she knew what was happening?”

“Was Marlin going to be there—during the surgery? Oh, Cole, I hope she’s not alone … oh, Natalie … Nattie.” Daria finally broke down and wept.

The wait was interminable. Cole walked back and forth while Daria sat on the edge of a chair, her head in her hands. From time to time Cole went to the nurses’ station, trying to get some clue as to how much longer they had to wait. But the nurses were frazzled trying to deal with the crowd that had gathered in the halls and could only tell him that they would let them know the minute they could see her.

Daria called her parents and asked them to go to the house to be with Nicole and Noelle. She couldn’t bear to have the girls home alone now. She knew they would agonize over their sister—and over Sara, if what they feared was true.

Bill Simmons, the assistant pastor of their church, came and prayed with them, then sat with them while they waited. It went through Daria’s mind that Pastor Vickers was probably with Don and Maribeth.

Finally, a haggard looking Dr. Davidson emerged from the ward and met the Hunters at the doorway of the waiting room.

“Let’s go sit down, shall we?” He motioned toward a secluded corner of the room and closed the door behind him. “She’s in ICU now. The surgery went well. I feel she’s out of immediate danger, but we want to monitor her closely for the next few hours.” He looked at the floor and cleared his throat, then turned to each of them in turn. “I don’t know what you’ve been told about the accident …”

“Marlin, do you—Do you know what happened?” Cole asked. “The deputy who called us said Nattie’s passenger was killed.” His voice broke. “He said—it was a two-car accident. Do you know who was in the other car? Do they know—whose fault it was?”

“I don’t know much, Cole. There were two fatalities, and—”

Daria gasped, “Two?”

Cole groaned, but Dr. Davidson ignored his reaction and went on in a soft, steady voice. “Witnesses have said that the kids left a party—a beer party—you know, out at Hansens’ on the highway?”

Daria and Cole nodded in unison.

“Apparently the other vehicle ran a stop sign and hit Natalie’s car broadside. The driver died at the scene, and his passenger was LifeWatched
to Wichita. Natalie was thrown from the car. And her passenger was killed.”

Cole interrupted now. “Can you give us any names, Marlin? Was it Sara Dever? Nattie’s passenger? Do you know?”

Dr. Davidson nodded slowly and looked at the floor. “Yes. It was Sara.”

Daria began to moan.