No. He plunged to his knees beside the window. It had broken into a zillion shatterproof pieces, and then had somehow been ripped out of the windshield. It took him a moment to realize the truck was teetering, and there was still plenty of distance yet to fall.
Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Someone had once taught him how to pray, but that had been a long time ago. It was too late for that, anyhow. He knew it in his bones.
The beam of light was steady and unwavering as Sean forced himself to ignore the precarious creak of the teetering truck. From deep within the vehicle, a cell phone beeped, signaling a message waiting. He found a gap where the window had been and shone the light inside.
Live, goddamn it. Be alive, please.
He found Crystal. Though she lay at an impossible angle, her beauty queen face was a perfect mask. She looked like a statue of a renaissance angel. Even her eyes were a statue’s eyes, open, unblinking and blank. There was no expression on her face. He forced himself to say her name, to gently touch her, to check for breathing and a pulse. Nothing. Judging by the eerie chill of her smooth skin, she had been gone for a while.
Sean had seen his mother dead, but this was different. Painful as it had been, his mother was supposed to be dead. After suffering for a year with her illness, everyone had expected it, and she’d been laid out for viewing, a decent Irish Catholic to the end. There was nothing remotely decent about this, he realized, his thoughts tumbling over one another.
Derek. Where was Derek?
A lash of panic whipped through Sean. He called his brother’s name, his voice echoing through the ravine, into the dawn silence. It seemed weird and horrible to be yelling while Crystal lay there, but he called again, startling a pair of birds skyward. Maybe Derek had been thrown from the truck, or maybe he’d survived and gone to look for help.
But maybe not.
Sean squatted down and peeled away the remains of the windshield. Something sliced into his hand but he kept working. The truck teetered some more but he didn’t stop.
Everything in the SUV had landed in the wrong place. There were stray golf clubs stabbing into upholstery, a lost shoe on the crushed dashboard. The DVD player, of which Derek was so proud, was mangled and smashed. He came across Crystal’s purse and it was virtually empty, as though someone had turned it inside out.
Sean became desperate, half crawling into the truck, searching for his brother. He brushed past Crystal’s bony limbs. Something slick coated the heaved-up dashboard. A terrible odor infested the cab.
Then he realized where Derek was.
Sean paused to gather his thoughts. It couldn’t be done. It was impossible to think. Slowly, gingerly, he got out of the car, slipping in blood. His hand shook so bad he couldn’t hold his phone still enough to dial. He finally sank to his knees, putting the phone on the ground to keep it steady while he stabbed at the numbers: 9-1-1. Send.
chapter 14
Saturday
6:30 a.m.
Lily was startled from sleep. She should not have been sleeping at all, she thought, leaping up from the sofa, pacing the living room as soon as her feet touched the floor. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had no right to relax her vigilance until she made sure Crystal was all right.
She checked the wall clock—6:30 a.m. Outside, the world was a monochromatic gray. She grabbed the handset of the phone and quickly checked the caller ID to make sure she hadn’t missed a call. She had not. Still, she felt guilty for having dozed off.
Maybe she should have had coffee with Sean Maguire. No, she thought. Coffee was bad for you, even in an emergency. She shuddered herself fully awake with the thought. Get a grip, Lily.
The TV, which she’d muted hours ago, flickered with the hyperrealistic colors of a paid-programming broadcast. She picked up the remote to click it off. Then a terrible thought seized her and she switched to a local station and turned up the volume. A talking-head anchorwoman, looking impossibly perky at this hour of the morning, offered a farm-and-ranch report.
Lily muted the sound again but left the station on the local news. She punched in the number of Sean’s mobile phone. Funny how she’d memorized it instantly, the moment he gave it to her. She got a recording and hung