Desolation Point (30 page)

There was a restless whimper from where Sarah lay with her head cushioned on Alex’s thigh, and Alex murmured softly to settle her. She had fallen asleep about twenty minutes ago, wrapped so tightly in a blanket that barely any of her remained visible. The Glock lay in front of her, still loaded and within easy reach. Once bitten, twice shy, Alex thought. She didn’t care if Sarah had been in contact with Marilyn; there was no way they were meeting this rescue team without being armed.

A rustling in the undergrowth instantly made her look up. Sarah had obviously heard it too, because she was struggling to unwind herself from the blanket. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused when she glanced at Alex, but she snatched hold of the gun and pointed it in the direction of the noise.

“Easy,” Alex said, not liking the barely contained panic evident in Sarah’s reaction. “Take it easy.”

Sarah ignored her, one hand swiping hair from her face, the other still clasped around the gun.

“Two hands, Sarah,” Alex said, and Sarah nodded nervously, moving her free hand into a rough approximation of the correct position.

The noise was closer now but scatter shot as if something was darting from side to side. It sounded nothing like the tread of a person. Alex shook her head, relaxing slightly. “Probably an animal,” she whispered.

Sarah muttered what sounded like agreement, but didn’t move an inch. The long grass edging the clearing began to shift as it was disturbed. Then it parted wide, to allow a large black and tan dog to run straight toward them. Sarah let out a yell, her finger twitching on the trigger just as Alex called a warning.

“Sarah, no!”

The dog barked in excitement, completely oblivious to the chaos he had wrought, and bolted over to lick Alex’s face.

“Hey, Kip,” she spluttered, unable to do anything to curtail his enthusiastic greeting. “Sarah, meet Kip,” she said as Sarah carefully lowered the gun. “I think there’s a damn good chance we’re about to be rescued.”

As if sensing how cold Sarah felt, Kip had wriggled as far onto her lap as he could and allowed her to wrap her arms around him. She shivered into his coat, half-convinced that he would disappear like a mirage if she risked letting him go. Neither she nor Alex had been able to raise their voices sufficiently for any useful response to the faint cries of the rescue team, and she was hoping Kip’s barking had been loud enough to guide them in. The fire was all but extinguished, and a cold fog rolled off the river as sleet began to fall again. She and Alex had pushed themselves as far as they could possibly go. Now all they had the strength to do was wait.

Kip’s ears tickled her cheek as they pricked up and his tail began to thump against her thigh. He bounced off her knee and darted back the way he had come, his barks fading but still audible, letting them know he hadn’t gone far. She couldn’t help but place her hand on the gun, but she stopped short of picking it up.

“Are you sure?” she asked Alex.

“I’m sure,” Alex told her with absolute certainty. “I can hear Walt now.”

When Kip returned, he was walking sedately at the heels of a man whose smile immediately put Sarah at ease. The man’s tanned face was dirt-streaked and weary, but he gave a shrill whistle to alert his companions and hurried across to crouch beside the fire. He set a large shotgun by the Glock before kneeling down properly.

“Hey, Walt,” Alex said, but then shook her head, unable to continue.

“Damn, Alex.” The concern in Walt’s voice brought tears to Sarah’s eyes. Without saying another word, he unzipped the sleeping bag, quickly figured out where Alex’s hands were tucked, and lifted her sweater just enough to uncover them. He fished in the pocket of his jacket and took out a small key. “Found this on the man in the woods,” he said, a hardening to his tone showing what he thought of Tanner. With a gentleness that belied his gnarled hands, he eased the handcuffs from her wrists. “Got medics on the way.” He dropped the cuffs out of sight. “Have you both fixed up and out of here in no time.”

Alex murmured her thanks and took hold of Sarah’s hand as Walt turned to speak to Sarah.

“You the one been getting Alex into mischief, then?” His face crinkled like tissue paper as he smiled at her.

She tried to reply, but emotion clogged her throat. When she nodded in lieu of an answer, Walt patted her hand in tacit understanding.

A clamor of voices and the clomping of boots heralded the remainder of the rescue team. Walt met them halfway, directing two medics toward Sarah and Alex before conferring urgently with a middle-aged man in a park ranger uniform. The buzz of radios overlapped as three more men—heavily armed and wearing navy blue jackets emblazoned with
FBI
—took up strategic positions to keep a wary eye on the perimeter of the clearing.

After so long with only Alex for company, the activity was too much for Sarah, who instinctively shrank away, pushing herself closer to Alex. She flinched when one of the medics—the only woman in the team—knelt beside her and touched her wrist.

“Shit, sorry,” the woman said, immediately withdrawing her hand. “I should’ve…” Flustered, she shook her head. “I guess you’ve had a pretty rough week, huh?”

Sarah arched an eyebrow and the woman smiled in recognition of the understatement.

“My name’s Renee, and my colleague there is Theo. We need to take a look at you both, if that’s okay?”

Sarah’s reply was cut off when Alex started to cough. Within seconds, the attack had become so ferocious that she was making a terrible whooping sound as she tried to draw air into her lungs.

“Jesus,” Sarah whispered. She watched, frozen in terror, as Alex’s eyes bulged with distress.

Renee had already moved to help Theo, who passed her an oxygen cylinder as he hooked Alex up to a monitor and set a probe on her finger.

“Sats are only eighty-four percent. Tachy at one thirty-eight. Chest sounds like crap.” He turned to Sarah. “How long was she in the water?”

Oxygen hissed from the tank. Renee waited impatiently as the reservoir bag on the oxygen mask inflated, and then she secured the mask over Alex’s nose and mouth.

“About six, maybe seven minutes,” Sarah said, peering over to try to see the numbers on the monitor. She knew from her time in the ICU that eighty-four percent was a dangerously low reading.

“Was she breathing when you got her out?” Renee asked gently, her fingers slapping at a vein on the inside of Alex’s elbow.

“Yes.” Sarah watched the needle slide beneath Alex’s skin. “But not very well, and she’s been wheezing ever since.”

“I’ll try her with an albuterol neb,” Theo said. He glanced at the monitor. “Pressure’s pretty low.”

“Already on it,” Renee muttered, concentrating on the IV she was setting up. “ETA on the chopper?”

“Not sure, Walt was dealing.” He swapped the mask for one with a plastic chamber fixed beneath it. A white mist formed as the medication in the chamber mixed with oxygen. “Here you go. This should make things a little easier,” he said to Alex, but she didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed on Sarah, the fear in them fading as her breathing gradually became less labored.

The numbers crept up to ninety-five percent and refused to go beyond, but the medics appeared to relax somewhat, and that was good enough for Sarah. They seemed even happier when the park ranger ran over to report that a rescue chopper was en route with an ETA of fifty minutes.

“We should let Harborview know about the pulmonary edema. She might need CPAP,” Renee said, her fingers pressing down Alex’s neck and spine. “Anything hurt back here, Alex?”

Alex shook her head before Renee could tell her not to.

“Think you might be happier if we don’t strap you onto a long board, huh?” The look Alex gave her must have been answer enough because Renee patted her arm and smiled. “You gonna behave yourself for Theo while I have a look at Sarah here?”

Alex gave her a weary thumbs-up and offered her wrists to Theo as he set down dressings and antiseptic.

“Now, where were we?” Renee said. Placing a hand on Sarah’s forehead, she frowned and used her free hand to pull her kit bag closer. “Dammit. Theo, have you got the tympanic?”

The thermometer beeped three times in Sarah’s ear. Sarah studied the ground intently as she waited for the verdict, which came with a low whistle of dismay.

“One-oh-one point eight.”

“Is that bad?” she asked, already certain that it was far from good.

“I’m guessing you’ve felt better,” Renee said evasively, beginning to select IV supplies from her kit. “Marilyn told us you got shot. That was a few days ago now?”

“Yes.” Sarah had no idea precisely how many days. She lifted her sweater away from the bandage on her side. “Alex had to stitch me up.”

A look of unguarded horror flitted across Renee’s face before she swiftly buried it beneath a mask of professionalism. She gestured to the stained dressing. “Okay if I take this off?”

Dirt filled Sarah’s fingernails as she gripped hold of the ground, but she nodded slowly. She could see now where the inflamed skin was bulging beyond the dressing, and the draft of cool air passing across it was enough pressure to make the pain nearly unbearable. She tensed when Renee’s gloved fingers touched her abdomen.

Renee quickly rolled a blanket to place behind her. “I think you better lie down for this,” she said. She helped her lean back onto the pillow and wrapped a cuff around her upper arm. “That’s gonna go tight for a minute.” She watched the monitor as the numbers calculated. “You been dizzy? Sick?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, feeling a combination of both as she answered. “It comes and goes. I could look after Alex okay for a while and then it’d hit me.”

“Certainly hitting you at the moment,” Renee muttered, unsheathing a needle that bore an uncanny resemblance to a drainage pipe. “Your blood pressure’s way low.”

“Mmm.” Clouds scudded across the sky, fading and sharpening as Sarah stared at them. Cold fingers prodded hard, just above the tattered skin on her left wrist, and she heard Renee warn her about a “sharp stick.” She nodded in sympathy; she had stood on a lot of sharp sticks when she had been running around without her boots on. The sympathy lasted right up until she felt Renee dig the needle deeply into her arm.

“God.” She moaned and tried to pull away, but hands gripped her shoulders, keeping her in place. Instead of struggling, she just started to cry quietly. “Please don’t,” she whispered, as someone began to unpeel the tape around the dressing on her side. “Please don’t do that.”

“Start her with five,” Renee said, somewhere beyond her line of sight. “She must be hurting like hell, the poor kid.”

There was a warm flush of liquid in Sarah’s arm, and a man’s voice telling her that she would feel better soon, and then everything turned soft and melted away.

*

“
Sarah
?” Alex kicked her blankets loose and, in defiance of all common sense, tried to move across to where Sarah lay.

“She’s okay, Alex.” Theo put out a hand to stop her, but she weakly slapped it away.

Sarah clearly wasn’t okay. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t reacting as Renee lifted the dressing from her side. Her chest rose and fell far too quickly, condensation building up on the oxygen mask that now obscured her face. The IV bag hanging from a tree branch above her head was already half-empty, the liquid entering the chamber in a rapid stream rather than the sedate, steady drip so beloved of all the movies.

“She has an infection,” Theo said. He shifted his hands to Alex’s shoulders; it took barely any pressure for him to persuade her to stay where she was. “I need to help Renee get her cleaned up and start her on some antibiotics. The morphine I’ve just given her should keep her comfortable while we do that.” He straightened Alex’s oxygen mask and rearranged the blanket she had thrown off, pulling it up beneath her chin. The foil inner layer crinkled as he tucked it in. “Just sit tight,” he told her. Then, seeming to realize she might need more incentive, he added, “I can’t help her if I’m worrying about you.”

His point hit home. She sagged back, watching as he connected a smaller IV bag to Sarah’s line. He moved closer to Sarah, blocking Alex’s view completely, and she thumped the ground with her fist in an impotent gesture of exasperation.

“Gotta let them do their job, Alex.” Walt’s voice came from behind her. For an old man with a rheumy eye, he missed very little.

“I know,” she admitted quietly.

“Twenty minutes on the chopper,” he said, taking the plastic lid from one of the medic’s kits and using it to perch upon. “You warm enough?” With the ranger’s help, he had rekindled the fire and rigged a canvas shelter that was protecting them from the worst of the sleet.

“Yes, thank you.”

He ran a hand over his chin and then gestured beyond the shelter to where one of the FBI agents stood watching them expectantly. “Feds wondered whether you felt up to answering a couple of questions.”

She pulled her oxygen mask down and nodded with some reluctance; even a rudimentary debriefing would take energy she didn’t have to spare. Still, she was moderately surprised they had waited this long to ask to speak to her. Walt beckoned to the agent and then brought a steaming cup to Alex’s lips.

“Figured you might need this first.”

She took a cautious sip and closed her eyes in sheer pleasure. The coffee was hot, rich, and deliciously sweet. Walt chuckled, keeping her hands steady when she lifted them to cradle the cup.

“Not too fast,” he said.

The liquid tracked warmth down into her stomach, but she heeded his advice and set the cup aside as the agent ducked into the shelter.

“Hi, Alex. I’m Agent Castillo.” He introduced himself with a firm handshake and sat on the lid Walt had vacated. If the six foot three federal agent found it incongruous to be cramped up on the floor of a makeshift field hospital, he showed no indication of it in his expression.

“This won’t take long,” he said. “I’ll come by and speak to you and Sarah properly once you’re safely at Harborview.”