“Okay, just let me know so I can grab an extra steak, all right?”
“Uh, okay.” Caleb put his hands into his pockets and took another step back. “You gotta go, M. You’re gonna be late.”
“Oh crap. Yeah.” Amelia glanced at her phone, pretending not to notice that Caleb had fallen back into using her childhood nickname. “Hope to see you tonight.”
She waved and pressed on the gas pedal. As the late-morning sun hit her through the windshield, she wished that she had just been grown-up enough to keep track of her keys. Then she’d be driving her own car, where she had a very useful pair of dark-rimmed sunglasses inside the middle console. Paused at the end of the driveway, she flicked down the sun visor, making an avalanche of papers pour down into her lap.
“Shoot,” Amelia muttered, quickly shuffling all the papers into a pile. But one caught her eye. It wasn’t just a loose piece of paper—it was a picture. Actually, a series of pictures. She’d seen them before many, many years ago.
The edges were worn and yellowed, but the image took her back fifteen years to when the fair came to town.
In the first of four photo booth pictures, teenage Caleb, with a full head of hair and twenty pounds heavier, had his arm around teenage Amelia. They were both smiling conspiratorially, like they knew a secret the photo booth did not. In picture two, Caleb was kissing Amelia’s cheek, laughing. In the next photo, Amelia had turned her head, melding their lips together, in a half kiss, half laugh. The last photo was of Caleb alone in the booth, holding on to Amelia’s hand as she dashed out as if the kiss had been part of a ding-dong-ditch. He was smiling but looked confused.
Amelia flipped the picture over. Written in her loopy, teenage-girl handwriting was a short message: Love you forever and ever. M.
The photo had been taken a week before Caleb broke up with her without explanation, a week before he began his transformation into a different person whom she never actually came to understand again.
Well, she didn’t have time to figure him out today. Amelia quickly collected the papers and shoved them back into place. She’d just have to deal with squinting.
CHAPTER 3
ELLIE
Tuesday, May 10
9:58 a.m.
The first raindrop hit the rig’s windshield as Chet sped out of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Soon the glass was covered in moisture, the drops blending together on impact into a thin film.
“Chet, turn on the wipers,” Ellie ordered. What she really wanted to say was Drive faster, but he was already going over eighty miles per hour down Highway 12, siren blaring. When he didn’t respond immediately, she reached across the cab and flicked on the wipers herself. He didn’t flinch, and Ellie leaned forward in her seat, her heels pumping up and down and her mind trying not to run through the ever-growing list of maybes compiling in her mind. Chet followed the map on the screen that drew a line directly to her sister’s driveway.
Ellie flipped through the contacts on her phone and pressed the Call button . . . again. It went straight to voice mail.
“Amelia, please call me. Please. I’m almost to your house. Are you okay? Dad? The kids? Call. Me. Please.” She hung up after leaving the third message in the past five minutes. She’d tried the home phone, but it was off the hook and no one was picking up at the office. Steve’s phone also went right to voice mail, and for a moment Ellie was starting to wonder if she was in some twilight zone where she was the only person who ever answered her phone.
“Still nothing?” Chet grunted, taking a sharp turn onto Exit 78 to Broadlands. Less than four miles now.
“Nothing.” Ellie tapped over to texting and typed hurriedly.
Got a call from dispatch. Heading to your house. Worried about you and Dad. CALL ME. NOW!
Chet turned onto Lark Lane right as Ellie hit Send. No police cars, no sirens other than the ones blaring from their own speakers. Maybe it was a misunderstanding after all.
Chet slowed as they approached the end of Amelia’s gravel driveway, stopping just short of the entrance. Ellie’s heart raced along with the wail of the siren until he shut it off. The police were coming. Protocol meant that the paramedic team should be at least three blocks down the street until Chet got the all clear. Ellie was prepared to fight with her partner about breaking the rules, but it looked like he wasn’t exactly planning on following them either.
“We should wait in the rig,” he said, leaving the keys in the ignition and the lights flashing.
“I’m not waiting,” Ellie said, and yanked on her blue safety gloves, making sure her protective eyewear was pushed up on her nose.
“Would you slow down and let me finish? We should wait in the rig, but if Chief Brown and your sister are in that house, no way I’m staying put.” He’d put his gloves on as he spoke and opened his door as if inviting Ellie to do the same. She hopped out of the passenger side of the rig and rushed to the side door of the ambulance, where Chet was already unloading their kits.
“Chet, I could kiss you.”
“Your daddy risked his life for me dozens of times through the years. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t at least try to help him and his girls?”
She hefted up one of the kits that she’d spent an hour checking and rechecking that morning. Ellie didn’t have a lot of details about this situation. She didn’t know if there was even an emergency inside Amelia’s house or if it was just a misunderstanding. She didn’t know if it was true that there had been gunshots. And, as much as it devastated her to admit, if there were guns involved, sometimes EMTs couldn’t do much to help.
But she’d learned in her short time as a paramedic that even though there were always unknowns, her preparation was the one thing she could be sure of. And today she had to find a way to turn her “sister brain” off and turn her “medic brain” on.
“We’d better get in there if you wanna beat the cops,” Chet said, handing Ellie a second bag, this one with a hard cover. She pulled the strap over her left shoulder, and Chet threw one over his head so the strap rested across his chest.