“Yeah, Ellie texted a minute ago. She and Dad should be here soon.” Amelia had been furious at her little sister when she put her schooling on hold to move back in with Dad, but at moments like this, when she felt alone in her own house, when the weight of life was so heavy on her shoulders that she was sure she couldn’t take another step, she knew she couldn’t have made it through the past few months without her.
Amelia wondered what the far-off look in Steve’s eye meant. She had a feeling that he wanted to talk to Ellie about their dad when she arrived, about this “long-term solution” he spoke of. He and Ellie had always had a good relationship, more like big brother/little sister than brother-in-law/sister-in-law, and Ellie looked up to him. If anyone could convince her, it’d be Steve. But it worked the other way too. Steve was wrapped around Ellie’s little finger. If anyone could get Steve to back off, it’d be Ellie.
“Go. Change.” Amelia shoved him toward the back stairs that led up to the bedrooms. “And let’s have some fun tonight, okay?”
“Fun? I’m the life of the party, baby.” He winked and gave her a little smack on the rear before finally heading upstairs.
“Oh believe me, I know,” she shouted after him. It was hard for her to stay mad at Steve. Maybe that was why he “won” nearly every argument. He’d stolen her heart in that firehouse twelve years ago, and she still didn’t want it back.
CHAPTER 5
ELLIE
Tuesday, May 10
10:17 a.m.
Shot. Someone shot Amelia.
“What about the girls? Where are the girls?” Ellie asked, her throat nearly forced shut by the thought of what might be inside. Steve’s eyes rolled back in his head, and Chet pushed Ellie out of the way. But she wasn’t giving up. She grabbed Steve’s bloodied shoulder and shook him till his eyes focused forward. “The girls, Steve. Are they inside too?”
“No,” he managed to mutter, fading fast. “School . . . at school . . .”
Ellie released Steve and ran up the gravel drive, shouting behind her. “Where is Amelia? Where?” The second time it came out as a scream. Chet leaned over Steve’s barely moving lips, gloved hand still pressing on his shoulder.
“The office!” Chet called out, shouting over the rain, rocking back onto his heels. “He said she’s in the office. Wait!” he yelled. “You can’t go in. The shooter could still be there.”
“I don’t give a damn,” Ellie spat, water spraying off her lips, and sprinted up the cement steps to the gaping front door before Chet could stop her.
As she entered the misty dimness inside the house, the trauma and airway kits thumped against her side with every step. The room was dim, the curtains closed and the storm rolling through made it look like twilight in the silent house. Ellie flicked the light by the front door. Nothing happened. She tried again—nothing. No power.
She ripped open the pocket on her cargo pants and pulled out the small black Maglite she used to check eyes for proper dilation. As her eyes adjusted, Ellie followed the beam of light around the gray room, taking in the familiar surroundings while searching for anything out of place.
The room was tidier than usual, the dark leather couches in their customary U formation. The coffee table in the middle was free of any clutter. As far as she could tell, Amelia was nowhere in sight. She swept the beam of light around one more time but couldn’t find anything in the grayness.
“Clear,” she whispered, the pounding in her ears slowing a fraction. To the right were the front stairs that led up to the bedrooms. To the left was the dining room, its swinging doors leading to the kitchen, the guest bathroom, and the side entrance to Steve’s company. They’d be clear too. They had to be. Maybe Steve heard wrong. Maybe it was a minor injury. Maybe Amelia was hiding somewhere and was too afraid to come out. Maybe . . .
Then she saw it, and the pounding in her ears started up again. Blood—a row of bloody footprints cutting through the carpet of the dining room. They skirted the table, a deep, nearly black crimson.
The prints lightened as they headed toward the front door, turning red and then pink and then almost disappearing. She looked closer—large shoes, large feet. The prints were not Amelia’s but more likely Steve’s from when he was shot and tried to escape.
But the blood—there was so much. What if it wasn’t Steve’s? What if it was Amelia’s? What if her sister, the woman who’d taught her how to put on lipstick, who taught her how to prank-call boys she had a crush on, who was supposed to be the matron of honor at her wedding, was lying somewhere in this house, bleeding?
If Ellie turned away now because of fear and her sister died, she’d never forgive herself. She had to go forward, had to go through the swinging door to the kitchen and follow the footprints until she found their source.
In a nearly inaudible whisper, she ran through what she’d need to treat Amelia’s gunshot.
“Packing gauze, IV to start a line, non-rebreather mask, twelve-gage needle decompressor just in case . . . in case . . .”
Her steps went from clacking on the tile floor to being muffled by the front room’s thick carpet.
When she reached the door to the kitchen, it opened with the gentle pressure of her gloved fingers. Ellie tried to flick on the overhead light, but the kitchen remained dim. Her breathing came faster, and she had to swallow three or four times before turning her flashlight toward the kitchen floor.
The trail of red footprints snaked across the tile floor and disappeared behind the door to the Broadlands Roofing office.
In the storm-aided murkiness, she couldn’t make out anything about the table beyond the streaks of red skirting it, one large swoop of blood on the tile where it looked like someone had slipped. Ellie stepped through the gore carefully, grateful for the rubber tread on her work boots.
She’d worked a lot of scenes when she lived in Champaign—lots of parties gone bad and car accidents with people who made the tragic mistake of not putting on their seat belts. She’d seen blood, but the first step as a paramedic was to find out where it was coming from. If you couldn’t find the source, you couldn’t stop it. She had to find the source and was terrified to find it at the same time.
Slinking past the table, chairs, and footsteps, Ellie reached the door.
The dead bolt wasn’t even locked. Ellie pushed on the door gently, but it didn’t budge. Then she pushed it again, harder this time. Something heavy was behind the door, heavy and unresponsive. It was either Amelia or . . . or the man who Steve said had shot her.
Shot. Amelia is shot. Ellie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to refocus and gather her strength.
With one hard shove, the door budged half an inch. Ellie flinched, hoping it was a piece of furniture but afraid she was ramming the door into her injured sister. With another shove and then another, an opening developed. She could get through, but her packs wouldn’t fit. Out of breath and the seconds ticking away, she placed them in the clear spot in the kitchen, praying she wasn’t destroying some vital piece of evidence, and reassessed the opening in the door.