“Do you have a mirror?”
I handed him a compact from my bag, and he held it up to the light, inspecting his wound. “A butterfly bandage will hold it fine.”
“And besides that?”
“I might have a bruised rib. JB will send for a doctor once we’re home. I’ve got a couple weeks until I’m dormant, and then my body will heal itself. I can wait. I promise, Kate. I’m fine.”
He leaned back on the headrest and closed his eyes.
I sat with my head on his shoulder and my arm around his chest and wondered what might have happened had things gone differently.
What if Vincent hadn’t been fast enough and one of those people had been killed? What if in attempting to reach the truck, Vincent had been the one mowed down? Instead of sitting in the back of a squad car, I could be kneeling over his mangled body. He had been just inches away. It had been so close.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what was instead of what might have been.
SEVEN
WE SPENT OVER AN HOUR WAITING IN AN OFFICE at the police station before giving our depositions. The official investigation had begun by that point, and the officer who eventually turned up explained that they had discovered a medical card in the driver’s wallet saying that he was epileptic. Once they contacted his wife, she admitted that he had recently stopped taking his medication.
“He was unconscious by the time I reached the vehicle,” Vincent confirmed.
“He was unconscious, sitting at the wheel?” the officer asked, scribbling in a notepad.
“No. He had slumped over and was lying down on the seat. His foot was no longer on the accelerator.”
A row of three small butterfly bandages decorated Vincent’s forehead, the result of a paramedic’s ministrations while we sat in the back of the cop car. When the officer looked up from his writing, Vincent tested the wound gingerly with his fingers.
The man saw the gesture and closed his notebook. “I’ve been instructed not to keep you long. And to apologize for the wait before we got to you. It was inexcusable.”
From the way the man had bustled in all of a sudden, stumbling over himself to make us comfortable and offering up restricted information on the investigation, I assumed that Jean-Baptiste had been in touch with one of his police department contacts.
“Even though you have repeatedly refused to be taken to an emergency room, I do think you should see a doctor,” the man continued, looking concerned. “If for nothing else, you could use a few stitches on that head wound.”
“Thanks, Officer. At this point I just want to get home. This whole thing has really shaken me up.” I tried to refrain from smiling as Vincent played up his I’m-just-a-nineteen-year-old-regular-guy act.
The policeman nodded and, resting his pen on his notebook, walked around the desk to face us. He extended his hand, but when Vincent winced at the effort of raising his arm, he quickly withdrew it and instead clapped him carefully on the shoulder. “I just want to commend you for your heroic actions today, Monsieur Dutertre.”
I pursed my lips to stop another grin. Vincent must be a pro by now at creating random false identities at the drop of a hat.
“Promise me you’ll convince him to see a doctor,” the policeman said, turning to me. “Today.”
I nodded, and we followed him out of the office and through the mazelike préfecture, shaking hands again once we were in the lobby.
“Let’s go,” Vincent said as we reached the front door, and heading down the building’s grand staircase, we jumped directly into the backseat of a waiting car.
“Gaspard notified us of your acrobatic feats, Vin. Very James Bond. Nicely done,” Ambrose said as he pulled away from the curb. Vincent slumped down to put his head on my shoulder. “How you feeling, man? Clinic or home?”
“Feeling rough. I probably cracked a rib, but I don’t need a doctor.” Nice, I thought, feeling slightly stung. For me the rib was bruised. When would Vincent stop trying to protect me from the harsher realities of his existence?
“When are you dormant?” Ambrose asked.
“Got a couple of weeks,” Vincent said.
Ambrose peered at Vincent’s face in the rearview mirror. “Can that head wound wait till then?”
“I’m fine. Seriously.”
Ambrose shrugged. “Too bad we don’t scar. That doozy would amp your toughness quotient by about a hundred percent. Have the girls swooning in the streets.”
I leaned forward to give his shoulder a playful push.
“Not that that’s what Vincent’s trying for, of course,” Ambrose backpedaled, holding one hand up in surrender. “It’s just the first thing that would have crossed my mind. If I were in his place.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Incorrigible. You are truly incorrigible, Ambrose.”