Peril (10 page)

“Can you see who it is? This person who pushes you off the path?”

Amy started to cry. “Not at first. It's like I get hit.” She took her fist and popped it into her other palm. “And then I'm rolling. I'm so dizzy I want to throw up.”

Joanna reached for Brett's elbow. “When that happens she'll literally fall down. It's almost like a seizure. She'll stop what she's doing, put her hands up to her head, and then crumble to the floor screaming. It breaks my heart to see her so terrified.”

“Amy, what do you see when you're not dizzy anymore?” Keelyn asked.

Amy braced herself into the back of the chair. Her voice a whisper. “I can't say it out loud. Do I have to say it?”

Keelyn leaned forward and placed a hand on the girl's knee. “We're here to help you make sense of what's happening. We can only help if we know what you see.”

She fidgeted in her seat and tears coursed down her face. Derrick handed her a tissue from a nearby box. “Amy, sweet child, you're safe here. Your mom is just outside. You're in a police station. All the people here would die before they ever let anything bad happen to you. Plus, that horrible man would have to get through Keelyn, and I know she's one tough cookie.”

“What about you?” Amy asked Vanhise.

He leaned forward and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I'd be with you, hiding behind Keelyn, of course.”

A faint smile. “You're silly.”

He smiled back. “I know. This is hard stuff, and I'm glad you're willing to let us help you. Is there someone you see when you're not dizzy anymore?”

A moan escaped from her lips, and Brett's heart ached right along with it. It was the first moment he believed the girl might be telling the truth. He'd interviewed hundreds of criminals and probably a thousand victims in his tenure as a police officer. There was something unmistakable about a soul in trouble and how it expressed pain that it thought no other human being could survive. It came from deep inside . . . the center . . . the soul, some would say.

That's what it sounded like. Haunted. Spiritual. A cry for help from a soul in such distress it would rather die than continue to live through the trauma it faced.

Amy's sharp rasp of air into her chest focused his vision. “Please, don't make me.”

Keelyn got off her chair and kneeled next to the girl. “Amy, you are safe here. It's going to be okay.”

Her eyes bulged. “He's big. So much bigger than me, and he sits on top of me and he's so heavy that I can't breathe anymore.” She gasped and reached for her throat. “He's got weird hair. Sharp and spiky like that guy on Food Network Channel.”

Keelyn gently took Amy's hands and eased them back down to her lap. “Shhh . . . you're okay. It's okay.”

“There are these things around his neck. Shiny squares that bounce the light into my eyes and now I can't breathe or see!”

“Okay—”

“I reach up and pull them off and grip them in my hand. I don't want to let them go. His thumbs squeeze my neck, and my chest is burning like it's on fire!” A scream peeled through the room, and Vanhise nearly left his seat at the sound.

Keelyn rubbed her hand over the child's back, then embraced her in a one-armed hug.

“And all I can hear is a girl singing, ‘All you're ever gonna be is mean. Why you gotta be so mean?' and everything goes dark.”

Brett's own lungs flamed at the last statement. He quickly leafed through his notes back to the interview with Zoe Martin's mother.
Yep, there it is
. For her birthday the day before, Zoe had gotten a new iPod. The only thing on her player the day she went running was an album by Taylor Swift.

He grabbed his phone and pulled up iTunes. Quickly searching for the name of the album mentioned in the report, he cued the most popular song titled
Mean
. One minute into the lyrics, Amy's statement was verified.

Now what do I do?

Joanna eased herself into a chair at hearing the words. “It's true. It's really true. She remembers what happened to that girl. Is she haunting her?”

“Does Amy like Taylor Swift? Has she ever heard her on the radio before?”

Joanna shook her head. “She's homeschooled. We don't listen to secular radio. She's only eight years old. She doesn't own any of her own albums. She doesn't have a phone, a music player . . . nothing! What is going on here? You believe what Amy is saying, right?”

Brett shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. I don't know if I believe in ghosts, but I do know I'm headed back to the park.”

“To look for what?”

“For whatever Zoe pulled off her attacker's neck.”

Chapter 10

Early Afternoon, Wednesday, August 8

T
HE WARM METAL OF THE
bleachers cut through the chill in Morgan's legs as she sat next to Tyler.

He covered her hand with his, fingering her wedding ring. She looked into his blue eyes, a shade darker than her green ones, and swept a few strands of dark brown hair from his forehead.

“Still cold?” he asked, tightening his free arm around her shoulders, a smile on his lips.

“Tired.” She leaned her head into his chest.

He raised his arm and pointed to a figure in the distance. “See that guy over there?”

Morgan squinted. “Barely, why? Do you know him?”

“Hard to tell for sure at this distance, but I'd swear he's one of the men who participated in the research protocol. Scott. He was at the clinic a few months back.”

“I thought most of them were overseas now.”

“He's discharged from the military.” Tyler shrugged and turned his attention back to the field in front of them. “I'm surprised you wanted to do this, considering you had dialysis this morning.”

“I like to watch baseball.”

Tyler nudged her with his shoulder. “You aren't very good at lying. And you hate baseball.”

“I like to watch your nephew play.”

“Our nephew.”

Tyler was the youngest of seven children. All his older siblings, three each of boys and girls, had children of their own. For three months, Tyler's parents could boast a baker's dozen, but Teagan's death had brought them back to an even number. From the moment Morgan learned of her pregnancy, her mother-in-law had been concerned about the thirteenth
grandchild. Morgan could relate to her apprehension, as she tended to lean toward the superstitious herself.

In the weeks following Teagan's death, an open wound festered a distance between her and Tyler. And now, considering her current state of health, it was doubtful that she'd be able to carry another pregnancy. Her love for Tyler was strong, but her will to hold their marriage together waned as illness sapped her strength. Did she even have the fortitude to stay alive? To stay on her treatment plan until the ultimate solution became available?

Near the dugout, she could see her brother-and sister-in-law waiting for Seth to come up to bat. A tall, lanky fourteen-year-old, her nephew swung the lathed stick to and fro and tapped his cleats one against the other as he approached home plate. Puffs of dust echoed from his shoes, playful in the breeze.

Tyler hugged her close to his side. “Game's almost over. You'll be able to rest when we get home.”

“Need to stop by Mom and Dad's house first. They say they have news.”

“Good news, I hope. Maybe they know if one of them is a match for you.”

Morgan eyed Seth as he took a few practice swings. A dread set in her chest.
Why am I feeling this way?
When she got those tight fingers around her heart at work, she began to ready emergency equipment to ward off the grim reaper. She tried to shake the bad omen.

“Why not just tell me over the phone?” she grumbled.

“Want me to call them and see if you can stop by tomorrow instead?” He pulled her toward him, a clinical appraisal in his eyes. “You look awful. Are you sure you don't want to leave?”

“Thanks for trying to boost my ego.” She looked back toward the field. “I just don't have a good feeling.”

The first pitch was wide.
Ball one
.

“About what?” Tyler asked.

“About . . . anything.”

The second pitch. A swing and a miss.

“Strike one!”

He fingered her long blond curls. “That's cryptic.”

“Sometimes I think my illness is God's penalty.”

“God is punishing you?”

“For not donating Teagan's organs.” She felt the explosive exhalation of his breath against her cheek. Why did she have to ruin a perfectly fine day by dredging up one of their biggest conflicts? “I'm sorry. I know you don't want to talk about it.”

His eyes drifted back to the baseball field. Cool fingers spread in her gut like worms writhing out of the dirt. Seth readied the bat. The pitcher wound up and hurtled the ball faster than Morgan imagined a teen could muster. Seth swung early. And the white projectile slammed into his chest.

The first thing to fall was the bat from Seth's hands.

Then a look of utter shock crossed his face, like a knife had been thrust and twisted into his heart.

Seth grabbed his chest.

Morgan was on her feet, scrambling down the rickety aluminum bleachers as Seth crumpled onto the hard-packed dirt. Tyler pushed her along with a heavy hand in the middle of her back.

The run onto the field drained the last bits of her strength. Her knees slid into the dirt as she neared Seth. Her sister-in-law was already at his side, wringing her son's hands within hers. Seth's coach and father stood a few steps back, seemingly perplexed by what had just occurred. Morgan gripped the boy's shoulders and shook him hard.

“Seth! Can you hear me?”

No response.

She slid shaky fingers into the groove between his Adam's apple and neck muscles.

No pulse.

Lord, please. We cannot take another child dying in our family.

She looked directly at the coach. “Do you have an AED?”

“A what?”

Morgan bit into her lip to stem what she wanted to say. “A machine that will shock his heart.”

The man's eyes widened, a hint of the emergency at hand settled into his face.

“Where would I get one?”

“Call 911!” Morgan ordered. He felt his pockets for a cell phone. Coming up empty, he took two slow steps back before he turned and ran for the dugout. Seth's teammates hovered a few yards away. Other parents began pulling phones out.

“Tyler, help me.”

Tyler dropped to his knees beside her. The baseball pitch that struck Seth's chest appeared to have come at the exact moment in his cardiac cycle when his ventricles were resting . . . recharging. During that vulnerable phase, a blow to the chest could cause chaotic electrical activity that overrode the heart's normal conduction system and arrested the heart's beating.

Morgan's nephew was clinically dead.

She stacked her hands, one over the other, and began to compress the center of his chest.

“What are you doing?” her sister-in-law screamed, her shrill question the only noise in the gathering crowd.

Bile clawed up Morgan's throat. Morgan looked up and tried to place a look of professional calm on her face. Emergencies were easier to handle when it wasn't your family.

“Lisa,” she said, “Seth's heart has stopped. We need to do CPR until the paramedics get here.”

“What?” She turned to her husband and he barely caught her as she caved into him. “Dave, she couldn't save her own child's life, and now she thinks she can save Seth? Get someone else to help him.”

Tyler's eyes narrowed. He placed one hand on his knee to stand up. Morgan reached out and grabbed his pant leg. “Not now. I need you to do CPR. I'll do the breathing.”

Dave grabbed Lisa by the shoulders and pulled her back. “Let her help! This is what she does.”

It was everlasting minutes before the hint of sirens broke the stillness over the field. Tyler stopped another round of compressions; Morgan blew into Seth's mouth, and saw the rise of his chest as confirmation that his lungs had inflated. She eased her fingers to his neck again.

She shook her head at Tyler. He fisted up his hands and started again. “It's been over four minutes.”

Of course Tyler couldn't leave his medical knowledge aside. As a transplant surgeon, his livelihood centered on incidents like this one where his patients waited for others to succumb from the effects of lack of blood flow to the brain. When blood flow stopped, neurons were injured. When cells were injured, they swelled. When they swelled, even if blood flow was reestablished, the pressure could be too high for the oxygen-hungry nerve center to be fed, and then it would be too late.