Summer Shadows (48 page)

TEN-YEAR-OLD BILL
has rushed into the night and onto the jetty to rescue Terror the terrier before high tide claims him.

“It’s okay, Terror,” he called again and again. “It’s okay. I’m coming.”

He glanced up and saw a huge wave, crest white with spume, about to break over Terror’s rock. It would definitely wash him out to sea. Bill jumped the last crevice and grabbed just as the wave broke.

The wave caught him full in the face as he bent over the pup. He coughed and sputtered and tried to lift the very wet and frantic Terror, but he couldn’t. The wave receded, pulling him down on his knees beside the terrified dog. His toes hooked over the edge of the rock toward land and held on. Water now covered the rock with no relief, lapping partway up his thighs as he knelt.

He felt rather than saw the rope about the animal’s neck. At first he didn’t realize what it was. He squinted at it through water-spotted glasses, puzzled. Then it hit him with all the force of the line drive that had clipped him in the nose last year. Someone had tied Terror to the rock!

Anger burned in Bill, hotter than he’d ever known in his life. Who would have done such a terrible, terrible thing? He grabbed the rope and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. He pulled again harder. Nothing. It was wedged firmly in a crevice, and with all the water, he couldn’t see where and how.

Moving quickly, he put himself, still on his knees, his back to the sea, behind Terror. When the next wave broke, it struck him in the middle of the back, but his body protected the dog, at least a little bit. He began working his hands around the rope at Terror’s neck. He found the knot quickly, and his cold fingers began to pick at it.

Come on. Come on!

Whoever the guy was who tied Terror up had used the slipknot that boaters use to tie up to a dock, loop inside loop inside loop. He’d tied it himself lots of times when he’d gone out on Uncle Ted’s boat with him. Bill stood, gave a brisk tug, and the loops fell apart. The rope dropped away just as a wave struck him in the back of the knees. He felt himself stumble and grabbed Terror.

As the wave receded and pulled at him, he braced himself. When the sickening sensation was gone, he picked up the dog and held Terror against him like a mom did a burping baby. He was relieved and surprised that they were both still solidly on the rock.

Thanks, God. Just a little bit longer, okay?

He cradled Terror, cooing to him as the dog lay shivering against his chest, his wet little head pressed against Bill’s neck.

“Just stay still, okay? We’ll be back on land real soon.”

He looked back the way he had come, and in that moment Bill knew fear like he’d never experienced before. The houses were so distant, their lights little pinpricks, like stars. The night was so dark, and the water swirled wildly over the rocks in front of him. He couldn’t see where to step. He just couldn’t see.

I
HAD JUST
witnessed a car bomb and was finally on my way home. I hadn’t gone very far when my mind, never very quiet at the best of times, exploded. Images flashed through my mind with the relentless pulse of the light strip on a police cruiser. Fire, crushed impatiens, sirens, static, yellow police tape. Surviving brothers with sunglasses. Firefighters with Mercurochrome. Polite detectives with fine brown hair that floated every time they turned their heads.

And rushing white water, swollen and angry, creaming over rocks.

And the inevitable, “Rose, what happened?”

It didn’t take much intelligence to realize just how close to the edge I was.

“I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.” I repeated it to myself like a litany. Maybe if I said it often enough, it would become true.

But coming out of the house and seeing those lights and hearing that static had brought such a rush of agony, I was unlikely to feel fine for quite some time. I hadn’t had this strong a flashback in years.

You’re being stupid, I told myself. You’re a nurse and an EMT. You deal with emergencies much too frequently to be spooked like this.

But that’s when I’m the healer, the helper. I fix the problems. I don’t cause them.

But you didn’t cause the problem today.

No, I didn’t, but I didn’t prevent it, either.

Like you could have. What are you, prescient?

I shrugged away that bit of logic and went back to the real crux of my distress.

But I was the cause then.

The little voice that had been answering me back was uncomfortably quiet.

Suddenly I knew I wasn’t going to make it home. I felt the bile rise in my throat and swallowed desperately against the impulse to vomit. I felt the tears begin, blurring my vision until I could barely see the road. I felt the shaking start deep in my stomach, and I knew it would radiate outward until my whole body shook.

Oh, God!

I blinked madly, desperately.

Oh, God! I have to get off the road before I fail again, before I’m the cause again
.

And I saw the answer to my prayer loom out of the darkness, a white farmhouse with green trim, clean and orderly and known. I pulled into the Zooks’ drive, shoved the car in park, and fell to pieces.