She didn’t have a chance to answer, because just then there was a break in the crowd, and two young paramedics, a man and a woman, made their way to her side.
Joe and the officer backed off as the paramedics started gently questioning her. She explained as best she could that she was all right, that she was just bruised and the wind was knocked out of her. In a few seconds they determined that she had no broken bones, her back wasn’t injured, and she could be moved.
The pulse of the city could keep thundering.
“What happened?” the second officer asked when it became clear that there was no immediate medical emergency.
“I don’t know. It was really crowded down here,” she said.
He looked fiercely concerned. “Were you pushed?”
“Well, of course I was pushed. But—”
“So you didn’t…you didn’t jump, did you?”
“Of course not!” she replied indignantly.
“Did you see anyone who looked like they wanted to hurt you? Did you see any gang members down here? Anyone out of the ordinary?”
She stared back blankly. “I don’t come here every day. I didn’t see any gang members. I think the platform was just very crowded, and people were getting edgy and worried about getting on a train when it did come. Look—”
“Take it easy, Leslie,” Joe said.
Then, while the paramedics continued to watch her gravely, the officer grilled Joe, who produced his ID and said that he’d known she was at the library, and that he’d come to find her, he hadn’t just happened to be on the platform.
It was a nightmare.
And despite her protests, she was put into an ambulance to be taken to the hospital, where a doctor would officially ascertain the nature of her injuries. And though Joe rode in the ambulance with her, the police officer came, too, taking down her statement.
They both left her while the doctor on duty ordered X-rays and went through a long checklist of symptoms with her, and gave her a thorough physical exam. She had to explain that the little bump on her head was left over from an earlier accident. That seemed to concern him, which disturbed her. Did the man think she was suicidal?
Robert Adair showed up with Ken Dryer. Leslie was ready to pull her hair out. She wanted nothing more than to be alone, to try to remember those fateful seconds in the subway, to remember them exactly, to understand what had happened.
The voice.
Had it been Joe’s voice? Had he been there, down on the platform, with her?
She didn’t know. All she remembered for sure was Joe being there, reaching for her, pulling her up off the track.
“You sure do like to create a lot of excitement,” Ken Dryer teased, coming in once she was dressed and the doctor had moved on to his next patient.
Robert, who was right behind him, looked both irritated and anxious. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“No. I have a bruise on my thigh, and it hurts. Is it anything bad? No. Please, I’m desperate just to get out of here,” she said.
“What happened?” Ken asked.
“It was crowded in the subway. People push and shove. I should have been more careful. I should have stayed farther back. It was an accident.”
Even as she said the word, she thought it sounded hollow.
An accident?
The blast at Hastings House had been an accident.
The ceiling giving way in the crypt had been an accident.
Move!
Who had whispered the word to her? Had Matt somehow been with her in a time of mortal danger, or had she seen Joe’s face in the crowd and imagined that her dead lover had reached out from the grave to help her?
Joe pushed past the others to get to her where she lay on the hospital bed. “You should stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because I have work to do,” he said ruefully.
She stared at the drawn, but still striking, contours of his face and longed to touch him. “How did you happen to be there?” she marveled.
“I was afraid for you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But the doctor wants to keep you overnight for observation, and I think you should stay here.”
She stared back at him. And lied.
“Okay. Sure.”
He arched a skeptical brow. “Really?”
“Sure.”
“All right,” he said.
“My papers!” she exclaimed, sitting up suddenly.
“Your papers?”
“I had a bunch of copies from the library,” she said with dismay.
“Stuff you had from the library, huh? I’ll, uh, see if the paramedics collected your things,” Robert said. She could tell that he was humoring her. They all thought she was either insane or ungrateful. She had survived a fall onto the tracks when a train had been coming, saved by no more than a few seconds from a hideous death, and she was worried about some papers.
But…
It mattered. Somehow, it all mattered. And the “accidents” wouldn’t stop happening until she figured out why.
“Thank you, Robert,” she called after him as he left the exam room.