“Asking for refreshments in the middle of a medical procedure is hardly discreet. I presume you are questioning my assessment. I do not need you to correct me in private. I’m a grown woman, capable of handling criticism.”
I’m opening my mouth to apologize when she adds, “However, since it’s unlikely I’m mistaken, if you wish to be corrected in private, I understand that. Your ego is more fragile.”
Off to the side, Dalton gives me a sympathetic eye roll as he holds the flashlight for us.
“I believe this scratch is significant,” I say, running my finger along a shallow cut in the side of the woman’s abdomen.
“She has many cuts, Casey. She was fleeing through the forest.”
“This part of her body was under several layers of bandage.”
April goes still and then blanches, just a little.
I continue. “It’s possible that this cut is unconnected, but there’s also something here.” I take her forceps and point. “This looks like part of the abdominal injury, but I don’t think it is. There’s a deeper wound over here
.” I move the forceps an inch to the left. “That seems like an impalement of some sort. An object that went directly in, causing a deep wound. This part here”—I pull back—“is much shallower. The infection has made it seem like it’s all one injury running together, especially after abrading the dead tissue. But if that other part is impalement, what’s this?”
“Three cuts,” Dalton says. “First on the side. She avoids that and gets a shallow slice. The second blow penetrates, but not deeply. Then comes the third.”
April frowns. “I’m sorry, Eric, but I don’t understand. Avoids what?”
I get to my feet, forceps still in hand, and walk over to Dalton. He nods, knowing what I intend. Still, when I stab at him with the forceps, April gasps, leaping up like I’ve gone mad.
Dalton swings sideways, avoiding the blow, and the forceps graze his side instead.
“One,” he says.
I pull back for another stab, and this time, as I make contact with his stomach, he yanks away, staggering backward. He barely has time to say “Two” before I’m on him again, and this time, the forceps hit him straight in the stomach, my hand sliding up the metal, as if they’re penetrating deep.
“Three,” I say as I turn to April. “Three blows. Looks like you were right after all. She didn’t fall. She was attacked.”
FOUR
After that, we transport the woman to the ATV, and I drive her back to town with April, while the others bring the horses. An hour after we reach Rockton, I’m in bed, asleep.
That sounds awful. I’ve just realized that someone in the forest attacked this woman and left her for dead, and I’m going to drop her off at the clinic and catch up on my beauty sleep?
No, I’m not. I’m going to …
Well, that’s the problem. What am I going to do at 3 A.M., with an unconscious and medically stabilized victim who doesn’t speak English or French, and a crime scene somewhere in a night-dark forest? The answer is nothing. I can do nothing tonight. Which doesn’t keep me from hovering over the patient until April drives me out. Or from heading to the police station until Anders physically bars the doorway. Or from returning home and pulling out my notebook until Dalton slings me over his shoulder and carries me up to bed.
They’re correct in their chorus of “There’s nothing you can do tonight, Casey, except get a good night’s sleep.” It just feels wrong. Someone tried to murder this woman and I’m heading off to my comfy bed, curled up with my partner, my dog snoring on the floor beside me.
It’s not even light out yet when I bolt upright with a gasp, as if surfacing from underwater. As I hover there, Dalton murmurs, “You can’t do anything tonight.”
I glance down at him, lying on his back, his fingers tracing my bare side.
“The nightmare is bullshitting you,” he says. “Nothing has changed. You’re not forgetting anything. You’re not failing to do anything.”
“Nightmare?”
He gives me a hard look, as if I’m being coy. It takes a second for the dream to filter back. Me, napping in bed while shouts echoed all around me, people screaming and running for cover, a mass murderer with a knife charging from the forest, slaughtering residents as I grumble that I really wish they’d stop screaming so I could sleep.
I tell Dalton, and when he chuckles, I’m the one giving him the hard look.
“Sorry,” he says, reaching up to pull me down in a tight hug. “I know it was frightening at the time.” He presses his finger below my breast, where my heart beats triple-time.
“Reminds me of nightmares where I forget to study for exams,” I mutter. “I haven’t been in school for a decade, but I still have them.” I sigh and look up at him. “You don’t ever get those, do you?”