Brooding Angel Read online

  Fear seized her in an iron, merciless grip and squeezed the air out of her.

  She wasn’t going to get married. She was going to die.

  * * *

  Damn it all to hell.

  A barrage of curses littered the stagnant air in his squad car as Mitch sucked in his breath. Horrified, he watched the BMW in front of him being tossed about. It rolled end over end like a stunt vehicle in a cheap cops-and-robbers movie.

  A sinking sensation in the pit of Mitch’s stomach consumed him; bile rose up and seemed to fill his mouth. The driver of that car would be hard-pressed to survive an accident like this.

  The tan sedan flew down the street, the escaping driver oblivious to the havoc he was causing on either side of him, or probably grateful for it. The careening cars provided a necessary diversion. The vehicle headed straight for the freeway, racing onto it at over ninety miles an hour.

  Mitch knew he had a choice and he had less than a second to make it. Should he continue chasing after the escaping suspect, or pull over and check the condition of the person in the wrecked car? Though he wasn’t an optimist, there was still a slim chance that the driver of the vehicle was alive.

  Gut instinct made his choice for him.

  Another stream of curses burst through the air as he slammed on his brakes. They screeched in protest as the rear of his car fishtailed violently.

  The car had barely skidded to a stop when he leapt from it, running toward the wrecked BMW, which had stopped rolling, its end wedged against a utility pole.

  It couldn’t be any worse.

  Inevitably, a crowd had gathered, materializing out of the surrounding buildings. They clustered to the side, magnetically drawn by the morbid sight of wrecked metal and smoldering flames.

  Angry at the senselessness that caused people to become voyeurs to other people’s tragedies, Mitch pushed two onlookers out of his way as he ran toward the car. Smoke was billowing from the rear of it, red-and-yellow flames beginning to lick the sides like long, probing tongues.

  “It’s going to blow up!” someone behind him shouted. Mitch didn’t know whether it was said with relish or not, but he could guess.

  The crowd pulled back as one, simultaneously afraid and fascinated by the life-and-death situation playing out before them.

  Mitch was close enough to see that the driver of the wrecked vehicle was a young woman. In the next moment, the air stopped dead in his lungs.

  Clancy.

  Blood was matted in her long, blond hair. She was hanging like a limp doll, held fast by her seat belt, suspended from what was now the top of the car.

  Grabbing the handle, he tried to pry the door open. It held fast. The crash had bent one side against the other, sealing the door shut. Reaching in, Mitch fumbled with her seat belt, trying to open it. The damn belt had probably saved her life, he thought, but it was going to terminate it if he couldn’t get her loose. Gasoline fumes were everywhere. He didn’t want to think about what might happen.

  The clasp gave way and she fell down. Mitch grabbed her, quickly dragging her through the open window.

  Something hot was seeping into her eyes. Water? Was she swimming? Clancy tried to pry open her eyelids, but the stickiness made it hard.

  Stickiness?

  Water wasn’t sticky.

  Where was she? What was happening? Why couldn’t she see?

  Everything ached and she couldn’t breathe. She struggled to rise to the surface. Something was pulling at her, handling her roughly.

  Hands. She felt hands.

  Her eyes were opened now and she saw a man looming over her. A man in a dark suit. No, not a suit, a uniform. A dark uniform.

  Police?

  Mitch. No, not Mitch. Mitch was gone.

  Her throat felt as if there were chunks of glass in it. She tried to force the words out. “I—”

  “Don’t talk,” Mitch ordered.

  He had her on the ground outside the car. He didn’t want to move her, but he knew he had to. It was just too dangerous to leave her here. The car might suddenly blow up.

  She felt like a broken doll, he thought as he rose with her in his arms. As slowly as possible, Mitch moved her to the safety of the sidewalk.

  Clancy groaned as he lowered her. “My wedding dress,” she protested, the words sounding thick and indistinct. “It’s in the back seat of the car.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” he promised. He heard the sound of a siren in the background and let out a sigh of relief. “It’s going to be all right.”

  He looked down at Clancy’s face, but she didn’t hear. She was unconscious.

  Chapter Two

  The next moment, Mitch realized that Clancy hadn’t just lapsed into unconsciousness. She had stopped breathing.

  For the space of a heartbeat, panic tightened his gut with cold, steely fingers. He shook it off; he didn’t have time for panic. He had to think. Mitch concentrated, summoning what he remembered of his CPR training. It seemed a hundred years since he’d had it.

  Clancy looked so fragile, he was afraid he would fracture her ribs if he applied any pressure to them. Things like this were best left to the paramedics. But he knew that if he refrained from doing anything until the paramedics arrived, there was a good chance she would be dead by the time they got to her.

  Cold feet were for people who had the luxury of hanging back.

  Placing Clancy flat on the ground, Mitch combed her blood-soaked hair away from her face with his fingers. He tilted her head back and blew in a puff of air. Silently, he counted to three. Lacing his hands together, he placed them over the region of her heart and pushed hard, one, two, three times.

  She lay there, withdrawn from the earthly world. Still.

  “Breathe, damn you, breathe,” Mitch ordered through gritted teeth. Or maybe he just thought it.

  Like a programmed robot, he sealed off any feelings that lurked within him and repeated the procedure, this time more quickly.

  Nothing happened.

  He did it again. When he placed his mouth over hers a third time, Mitch felt Clancy’s mouth move. A groan transferred itself from her lips to his.

  And we have a winner.

  Mitch raised his head and saw the slight rise and fall of her chest. She was breathing. He couldn’t remember when he had experienced this sense of relief and accomplishment before. It rushed over him, sweet and satisfying, like the first spring breeze after a long, chilling winter.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Clancy had always had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. They were a crystal blue, looking as if they had been lifted from a shimmering ocean on a calm day.

  Clancy was staring at him as if she didn’t recognize him, confusion mingling with the blood on her face. Her lips moved, but he didn’t hear a sound.

  Mitch leaned closer to her mouth. He felt her breath on his face, cooling the perspiration he felt running down his cheeks.

  “You?” she whispered. She didn’t have enough strength to finish her question.

  He understood. Mitch placed his hand over hers, one human being offering mute comfort to another. It was all he could give. The other emotions were sealed away. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  He saw her mouth his name, though no sound came out. Her fingers laced weakly with his. He knew she was thanking him.

  The next moment he was aware of people crowding around them. He looked up. They were surrounded by paramedics. Someone must have called 911. With a twinge, he upbraided himself for not being the one who had handled it. Seeing Clancy had thrown him into a tailspin.

  “We’ll take it from here, Officer.”

  A short, squat man in a white uniform was elbowing him out of the way gently but firmly. Competent hands reached down to Clancy.

  Mitch began to rise, then stopped. One of his hands was still tethered to hers. Clancy had her fingers wrapped around his. For such a delicate-looking thing, she had a good grip. It was as if, in holding on to him, she was holding on to life. That was a good si
gn, he assured himself fiercely.

  She’d make it.

  Leaning over her, Mitch gently extracted his hand and moved aside. A paramedic was wheeling over a gurney for her. His own part in this was over.

  He looked around, taking stock of the situation. For a few moments there, the life-and-death scenario he’d been engulfed in had blocked out everything else. Mentally, he stepped back and thought of the set of circumstances that had brought him to this point.

  Life was really strange, he mused.

  More sirens joined the din and a second squad car pulled up alongside his, to the rear of the ambulance. He wondered what had happened to the suspect and if anyone had managed to apprehend the bastard before he’d caused any more accidents in his wake.

  The rear door of the second squad car swung open. Mitch saw McAffee jump out of the back seat. The policeman was heading toward him like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

  Now that it was over, the deadly calm that was so much a part of his life blanketed Mitch. He waited until McAffee reached him before saying anything.

  “Where’s my lunch?”

  McAffee looked stunned. “Lunch?” he echoed dumbly. It took him a minute to remember. “I—I dropped it.”

  Mitch thought of the homeless vagrant he’d given money to just before news of the robbery had crackled over his radio. Maybe the man had spotted the fallen sack and made good use of it.

  His expression remained unchanged as he thought about McAffee’s excuse. Mitch moved away from the paramedics, though he kept one eye on the proceedings. “That means you owe me a meal.”

  McAffee frowned, his wide mouth turning down at the corners. How could Mitch be talking about food at a time like this? “You drove off.”

  “I was chasing a suspect.” The crowd was beginning to draw closer again. A single look from Mitch froze a few people in their tracks. There was nothing he hated worse than rubberneckers. They were always getting in the way, often endangering themselves as well as others. He glanced toward his befuddled partner. “That didn’t mean you had to throw away a meal I was looking forward to. Discipline, McAffee. This world is nothing without discipline.”

  He waved back the people who still hung around and then began to walk toward his squad car.

  McAffee looked after him, not knowing if Mitch was kidding or not. He’d been partnered with the man for almost two years, and he still didn’t know how to read him most of the time.

  Mitch stopped just short of the car. He turned to watch the paramedics as they quickly loaded the gurney with Clancy on it into the rear of the ambulance. He remained, watching, long after they had closed the double doors and pulled away.

  “They caught that guy,” McAffee said from behind him. “I heard it on the radio just before I got out. He was doing one-ten when they caught up to him.” He shook his head in disbelief.

  Mitch looked over his shoulder. “Anyone else hurt?”

  “Nope.”

  He watched the ambulance, its lights flashing a crimson warning as it sped down the street toward a hospital. It was heading north. Toward Queen of Angels, most likely, he mused. He looked down at his hand. It tingled. Mitch would swear he could still feel Clancy’s fingers hanging on to his. Just his imagination, nothing more.

  “Good,” he muttered to McAffee.

  * * *

  The cottony white world that oppressively surrounded her on all sides peeled away slowly, like the layers of an onion beneath a paring knife. Each layer that fell away brought her closer to the surface.

  Closer to the voices she heard around her.

  Closer to the pain.

  Clancy resisted, afraid of completely rising to that level, instinctively fearful of what might be waiting for her.

  But an instinct even stronger than fear took over, propelling her up, up, until she was finally able to open her eyes.

  She wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t anywhere that she recognized. Had her parents taken her somewhere again? Was there a new language to learn, a new lay of the land to commit to memory?

  Her eyes almost fell shut, but she forced them open again. There was an antiseptic smell around her, as if everything had been scrubbed and cleaned over and over, just for her.

  Clancy turned her head and the movement felt awkward. Cumbersome. She was wrapped in something. Blankets? Bandages?

  Oh, God, the accident. This was a hospital room. She was in a hospital.

  She hadn’t die.

  Clancy blinked and focused again. There were tubes running into her left hand. Two sets. They wiggled, hurting her when she tried to move her fingers. She felt stiff. Rough cords of pain wrapped themselves around her, like a boa constrictor squeezing the life from its prey.

  And yet some of the pain felt as if it were at a distance, as if she were reaching out to feel it, but it kept backing away.

  She felt, she realized, as if there was just half of her present.

  Horror spiked through her. Her eyes darted down to the bed, afraid of what she would see. She released a ragged breath of relief. There were two long lumps beneath the blanket where her legs should be. She saw her toes peeking out at the very end of the white fabric.

  It had been just her imagination, nothing else. She’d been in an accident, a horrible accident, but someone had saved her and everything was soon going to be all right.

  Clancy wiggled her toe.

  And saw that nothing happened.

  The second icy wave of fear descended. She swallowed, pushing it aside. There was a logical explanation for this. There had to be.

  By stages, Clancy became aware of movement to one side. Though it felt as if her neck would snap, she turned her head further to see. There was someone here in the room with her.

  Stuart? Was he here? Oh, God, she wanted him here, wanted him to make everything better. Wanted him to tell her it was going to be all right.

  But the other person in the room was a white-clad young woman who smiled warmly as she came closer to the bed.

  “Welcome back,” she said cheerfully, smoothing out the bunched blanket and tucking it back around Clancy. “Dr. Kleinschen’s going to be very pleased to hear that you woke up.”

  “Didn’t...” Clancy’s lips felt as if they were cracked in a dozen places. She drew a breath and tried again. “Didn’t you expect me to?”

  The nurse hesitated for a moment. “Of course we did. We always hope for the best.”

  The woman sounded patronizing and impersonal, though her smile seemed genuine. Clancy felt a restlessness seeping through her, spurred on by a growing panic she couldn’t quite find a reason for.

  But something was wrong, very wrong. “My toes,” she protested weakly.

  The nurse looked toward the end of the bed. Leaning over, she slipped the blanket over Clancy’s toes. “They’re all there.”

  Didn’t she understand? Clancy wanted to grab her, to shake her, but it took all the strength she had just to force the words from her lips. “But they’re not moving. I’m moving them, but they’re not moving.”

  The nurse laid a firm hand on her patient’s shoulder, as if she actually believed that Clancy could jump up out of her bed. “Shh. You stay still now. I’ll go and get the doctor for you.”

  Sparing her a tight, standard-issue smile, the nurse hurried out of the room.

  Panic had stolen Clancy’s breath and brought with it a fresh wave of dizziness. She could feel perspiration pooling along her brow, forming puddles. The dampness seemed to remain where it was, suspended, plastered along her skin.

  She raised her hand slowly and touched her forehead, only to come in contact with something stiff and rough. Gauze. Her head was bandaged.

  Clancy pressed her cracked lips together as she ran a hand along her face. The slight, searching movement hurt, but she had to know.

  The bandage covered one of her ears as well, and part of her cheek. Was her face disfigured beneath the layers of gauze and tape?

  Oh, God, what did she loo
k like? There was no way that she could see.

  A tall, slightly stooped, older man in a flowing white lab coat entered the single-care unit and smiled at Clancy. Small, rimless glasses perched on his hawklike nose in front of brown eyes that were infinitely kind. They missed nothing as they swept over her in quick appraisal. He seemed to be capable of looking beyond bandages and skin.

  As he approached, he clasped his hands together like the winner of a keenly fought tournament. “Ah, you are conscious.”

  He had a slight accent that Clancy couldn’t place.

  The doctor reached her bed and took her hand warmly in his, holding it as if they were friends of long standing rather than two people fate had randomly tossed together.

  “So, how are you feeling?” The smile on his lined face was compassionate and genuine. “Pretty awful, I would imagine.”

  There was one thing uppermost in the jumbled thoughts flitting in and out of Clancy’s head. “Doctor, my legs—I can’t feel them.”

  Marcus Kleinschen heard the note of hysteria in his patient’s voice. Small wonder, he thought, considering what she had been through. She was more than entitled to her feelings.

  He nodded in reply. “You were like a broken sparrow when they brought you in, young lady. For a while I thought I would have to remove your spleen, but you were lucky.” A smile lifted the pencil-thin, gray mustache. “If having cracked ribs, bruised kidneys and a spinal compression can be termed as lucky. But you are alive, thanks in part to the act of a courageous policeman, they tell me.”

  Dr. Kleinschen looked down at the swollen face peering out from beneath the patchwork of bandages. That would heal nicely. The other injury, well, that remained in the hands of a higher power than he. He’d seen this sort of case played out either way. It was too soon to tell with her.

  “From the bruise on your chin, I would hazard a guess that you hit it on the steering wheel. Sometimes, in these instances, the spinal cord stretches, causing a compression. That in turn causes a weakness or loss of sensation. In some cases, paralysis. There was a great deal of swelling and fluid outside the spinal cord. You were in surgery for nine hours,” he confided conversationally. “I missed the opera. My wife had had the tickets for two months.”