“Her car looked like it had been T-boned. Couldn’t have been damage from going over the drop-off. Edge had the foresight to take some pictures of the car when we first got there, in case it fell. Good thing he did, too. You can clearly see paint from the other car. The police are up there now looking at the tire marks and trying to reconstruct the accident.”
The emergency department doors opened and Carbon emerged. He looked directly at me. “She’s asking for James,” he croaked.
I stood with my son in my arms. Carbon reached for him, but I shook my head. “I’ll take him back to her.”
Carbon’s jaw clenched. He gritted out, “You got a right to be pissed. I do, too, so I get that, but don’t you dare upset her right now.”
I nodded. “I won’t. Just going to take my boy back to her and see for myself how she is.”
It was almost a whisper from the big man, “Thank you.”
Reese went into a fit of great, gulping sobs when she laid eyes on James. She reached for him with her one good arm, the other was in a cast and strapped across her with a sling. “My baby,” she cried.
James woke at the sound of her voice. His eyes darted around the room to find her. When he did, he launched his little body forward, causing me to almost drop him. “Can I lay him right there?” I gestured to the space between her good arm and her body.
She nodded, tears steadily falling from her lashes. I placed him beside her and she seemed to instantly calm. She leaned down to smell the top of his head and gave him a gentle kiss. “I love you so much, sweet boy,” she murmured to him. He cooed and smiled up at her.
I cleared my throat, “Are you okay?”
She shrugged with her good shoulder. “Broken arm. Broken ankle. Staples in my head. Lots of cuts and bruises. Oh, stitches in my thigh. Probably going to have to have surgery on my ankle.”
“Honestly, Reese, that’s not too bad, all things considered.”
Her nonchalance vanished, “You’re right. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“A lot of people are damn glad you are. When we first got there, we thought we’d lost you. If we hadn’t heard you calling for help, we would have lost you.”
She looked at me curiously, “How did you guys find me?”
I gestured toward the chair in the corner of her room, “May I?” She nodded. I took a seat and told her everything that happened, starting with the phone call from the daycare.
She interrupted me at that part, “Duke, I’m so sorry about-”
I held up my hand to stop her. “We’re not discussing that right now,” then I continued telling her how we found her.
Just as I finished, there was a knock on the door. Apparently, that was just a warning because they didn’t wait to enter her room. Two uniformed police officers walked in. “Reese Walker, we need to ask you some questions about the accident. Is now a good time?”
I stood to tell them to leave, but Reese stopped me. “It’s fine. Duke, can you please get James for me while I talk to the officers?”
“Yes, but I’m staying in here,” I firmly stated.
“That’s fine. Please, officers, what can I help you with?”
“I’m Officer Bullard and this is my partner Officer Peterson. Can you tell us about the accident?”
“Sure. I left work a little earlier than usual because I needed to go by my grandmother’s old house to pick up something and be back in time to pick James up from daycare. I noticed a car following me a little too closely. When the road straightened, the car passed me. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but farther down the road that very same car came out of nowhere and plowed into the side of my car.” Reese stopped there and looked down at her lap. Her breath hitched, but she managed to continue, “Most people stop when they hit something, but that’s not what happened. She just kept going until my car went through the guardrail and over the drop-off. I did everything I could to stop. I stood on my brakes, pulled up the emergency brake, but nothing worked.”
“You said ‘she.’ The driver was female?” Officer Bullard asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us about the car? Color, make, model?”
“It was a yellow Nissan Xterra, with a brush guard on the front,” Reese answered confidently.
The other officer chimed in, “When it passed you, did you happen to notice the license plate?”
“I didn’t get the number, but I did notice that it was an Arizona plate.”
