In a way, they had. Medically, they’d done all they could.
Hurry up and heal, Faye, Tara silently commanded, looking down at her sister. She seemed to barely raise a bump in the sheets, as if she were wasting away. Tara attached the photo to the new bed tray. Faye’s smile in the picture was a heartbreaking contrast with how she looked now. The bruises had begun to fade, but she was so pale, so lifeless.
“What you need is a makeover,” she said cheerfully. “That’ll be fun.” Tara would bring in makeup, nail polish, a flatiron and comb for Faye’s frizzy hair. Faye hated when it got bushy like it was now.
The room could use livening up, too, she thought, looking around. Yeah. She’d make the place so homey that life would be far more welcoming than death. At the very least, it would make Tara feel like she was doing something.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Carol. Meeting postponed until Wednesday. Joseph must not have felt ready. That wasn’t a good sign for the company, Tara knew, but that cleared Tara’s day for a visit to Chief Fallon.
She still held the sack with Faye’s belongings, so she carried it to the cupboard. What was inside anyway? Bloody clothes? Probably. She twisted the top of the sack, not wanting to see any of that. Then she noticed it felt boxy at the bottom. And heavy. Faye’s purse probably. And it might have her phone. It felt heavy enough to have an iPad. Both might contain clues about that night.
Tara braced herself to look inside. The first thing she saw was a shoe. It had splashes of dried mud...or was that blood? Her stomach lurched and she averted her gaze, checking the contents by feel. She found Faye’s purse—leather, messenger-bag style—and pulled it out by its strap. It was merely dusty, thank God.
Inside was the usual purse debris—lipstick, mirror, wallet with cash and credit cards, tissues, gum, pen, keys—and an iPad. No phone.
The iPad would have contacts and a calendar, if Faye was as organized as Tara knew she would be. At the very least, she could get Dr. McAlister’s number. Her heart racing, Tara clicked the on button and located Faye’s calendar. The only thing written for the day of the accident was a grocery list: Crowley’s—low-carb ketchup, salad stuff, prescriptions.
What medicine had Faye been on? Tara would pick up the pills when she got to town. Sure enough, Dr. McAlister’s name and number were listed. Tara left a message for the doctor on the machine, which informed her he would return calls at the end of the day.
That was that. Tara shoved the sack into the cupboard and shut the door, unwilling to examine its contents further. She’d felt only one shoe, she realized. Where was the other one? She didn’t want to think about that.
“I’ll find out what happened,” she said, bending down to kiss her sister’s cool forehead. “Just wake up, okay?”
She was so preoccupied driving back to Wharton that she missed the business loop exit. As the highway curved and began to climb the mountain, she realized she was about to pass the accident site.
Her stomach bottomed out. She stared straight ahead, trying not to see, but her peripheral vision caught orange warning cones in front of the crushed guardrail and the flutter of a torn strip of yellow caution tape tied around a eucalyptus tree.
Her mind conjured up the accident again, this time with more detail—her sister’s shriek as she wrestled with the wheel and slammed the brakes, her father’s bellow, the crunch of metal, the snap of breaking branches, smashing glass...the car rolling and rolling, finally stopping with a sickening thud.
Panic surged inside Tara. Her vision grayed and her stomach heaved. Scared she might wreck, she gripped the wheel, slowed down and pulled to the shoulder to compose herself. When she finally felt normal, she looked out the windshield. Across the highway she saw more caution tape tied to a railing. On the highway below were bright black tire marks in parallel snakes. Was this where the accident had begun? This far back from the rail? Had her sister swerved to avoid hitting another car or an animal? There were deer in the hills, coyotes and javelina. It could have been a dog.
She got out of her car and surveyed the distance between the swerve marks and the rail. Not another mark on the highway. Surely slamming on the brakes would have