TRAPPED (2 page)

Elle had forgotten about the man who had boarded late. She’d been writing in her journal and had looked up just as he swung his body into the seat. She’d caught a glimpse of broad shoulders in a pale green shirt.

She turned back to the young copilot and swallowed hard. “I am going to help you.” She wasn’t sure how, but she would do something. “But first, I need to see how badly the rest of the passengers are injured. Can you hang on?”

He nodded and closed his eyes.

Elle turned and stepped past Pamela, to the point where she could shine the light on the remaining passenger’s seat. Because the man had been in the front row, there hadn’t been any seat for him to use to brace himself. It appeared as if his belt had failed, as hers had, and he’d been pitched out of his seat onto the floor. He was under debris from the wall and ceiling. She could see an arm, a leg, a portion of his back.

She let the light rest there. He was breathing.

Alive. He moved his legs, then his arms.

“Be careful,” she said. “You’ve got stuff on your back.”

The man stilled.

“We’ll try to lift it off,” she said. She motioned for Pamela to help her. “I can only use one arm,” she said to Pamela. “But between the two of us, we should be able to do it.”

But she wasn’t going to be able to hang on to her flashlight, and they couldn’t work in the dark. She stepped toward the elderly woman. Now her eyes were open. Alert.

“My name is Elle,” she said.

“I’m Mrs. Hardy,” she said. “Beatrice Hardy. You need to help my husband.”

“Go on, Bea,” the elderly man said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Sort of what the copilot had said. “I’ll help him,” Elle promised. “But first we’re going to help the man up front. I need you to hold the flashlight for us. Can you do that?”

The woman unbuckled her seat belt, got up and reached for the flashlight. They returned to the front of the plane. Working together, Elle and Pamela dug the man out, tossing the heavy pieces aside. It was wood or fiberglass or some other combination of materials, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it was heavy and, while she kept her right arm tucked next to her side, it was impossible to keep the right side of her body from moving. Piercing pain traveling through her neck, shoulder and arm was the result. It made her feel sick to her stomach.

Finally, the man was free. She could hear him moving in his seat, but the light was not quite in the right spot. She retrieved the flashlight from Mrs. Hardy, who immediately returned to her husband’s side, and aimed it toward the man.

Evidently right in his eyes.

“Hey,” he said, protesting, holding his hand in front of his eyes.

She lowered the light fast.

And wondered if she’d been too quick to dismiss her own head injury. She’d been thinking about Brody and, suddenly, she was seeing him.

And hearing him.

It wasn’t possible. She was in shock. And pain. Her shoulder hurt like the devil. That was it.

She flashed the light again, being careful to keep it away from his eyes. The man’s body was long and lanky, with narrow hips and a flat stomach. Nice wide shoulders. Strong chin.

Oh, no. She knew that chin.

“Brody?” she said, her voice squeaking.

Said chin jerked up and she caught the full impact of his hazel eyes. He looked her up and down and even knowing that it was so dark that he couldn’t be seeing much, she wanted to run and hide. Thirteen years. And it felt as if it were yesterday.

“Evening, Elle,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “I guess this just proves that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.”

Chapter Two

The minute he
said it, he was sorry. Over the years, Brody had thought of a thousand things that he might say to Elle if their paths ever happened to cross. That had not been one of them.

He felt worse when he heard her quick intake of breath. And he was just about to apologize when she stepped toward him. “This is Pamela. Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, mid-seventies, are in the back row. Total of five passengers. Two crew. Copilot has a bone sticking out of his lower leg and the pilot is barely conscious and bleeding from the head. No working radio.”

It was a nice, concise report but did nothing to explain why she was on this plane.

Damn, the side of his head hurt. When the plane was rolling, everything became a projectile and something had knocked into him pretty hard. He was pretty sure he’d lost consciousness briefly. When he was coming to, he’d heard Elle’s voice, like so many times in his dreams. Then, when she moved closer to lift the weight off his back, and he’d smelled orange blossoms, he’d been shocked. Never before had Elle’s sweet scent been part of his dreams.

Then she’d said his name and he about jumped out of his own skin.

How many times over the years had he heard her say
Brody?
Her tone rich, a little lower than the average woman’s. In friendship—that had come first. In passion—it had followed pretty quickly. In joy—he liked to think so. Maybe he’d have heard it in sorrow when she left, but he’d never know. All he’d gotten was a note.

And now didn’t exactly seem like the right time to ask for more information. Now was the time to do what he did best.

“Either of you injured?” he asked.

The woman next to Elle stepped forward. “We have to get out. You have to help us.”

“Are you injured?” Brody repeated.

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. We have to go now. The plane might explode.”

Elle had introduced her. What was her name? “Pamela, right?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to sit tight for just a minute.” He turned his attention to Elle. “I heard you say something about your arm.”

“It’s fine,” she said, dismissing the inquiry. “What about you?”

He rolled his shoulders back and considered his own injuries. He’d been lucky. He was going to have a hell of a lump on his head, but he could get past that. Something from above had hit his back and it was definitely going to be bruised and sore tomorrow, but if the angle of the hit had been a little sharper and a couple inches higher, it likely would have fractured his spine and he would never have walked again.

He stood up, careful not to hit his head on parts of the hanging interior. “I’m good to go. I’ll check the crew first,” he said.

She moved, shrinking far enough back in the small space to let him pass without touching her. He was grateful for that. His nerves felt pretty raw. When the copilot announced that they should prepare to crash, he’d prepared to die. Had said a quick prayer, said a mental goodbye to his parents and to both Ethan and Mack, the best friends a man could have had. And he’d thought about Elle, whom he’d loved and lost and never known why.

“I’ll need some light,” he said. She handed him the flashlight. He took it, careful not to brush up against her fingers.

He saw the young copilot sitting in his chair and moved toward him. “My name is Brody Donovan. I’m a doctor,” he said.

“Thank God, a doctor,” the young man said, his jaw clenched tight. “I hope you don’t deliver babies for a living.”

“Orthopedic surgeon,” Brody said.

“My lucky day,” the copilot said.

Brody wasn’t so sure of that. He’d seen enough to know that the young man had a compound fracture of the tibia.

“What’s your name?” Brody asked.

“Angus Bayfield.”

“Angus, I’m going to be able to help you, but for now, I need you to not move that leg.” When a bone broke and one end protruded through the skin, that meant that there was another sharp end still inside the leg, able to do all kinds of damage to veins and arteries. The blood loss wasn’t bad and he wanted to keep it that way.

“I’m going to quickly assess the others,” Brody said. He’d been in a combat zone for a long time. Triage was the name of the game. Assess everyone, identify the wounded, identify those most
critically
wounded that would
benefit
from treatment, and proceed from there. “Are there any other flashlights on board and what about a first-aid kit?”

The man pointed over his shoulder toward a big flashlight that was still miraculously hanging on the wall. Brody reached over and unsnapped the straps that kept it in place and flipped it on. It lit up the whole space, much better than the small flashlight that Elle had given him.

There were sections of the roof of the plane hanging down and exposed wires. The front windshield was shattered, making it difficult to see anything outside.

He heard movement behind him and turned. It was Elle. He handed her back her flashlight.

“I’m going to sit with the Hardys,” Elle said.

“Tell them I’ll be there in just a minute.”

“Sir,” Angus said, “there’s a first-aid kit under the captain’s seat.”

Brody fished around and pulled out the rectangular aluminum box. Holding the flashlight in one hand, he used his other to flip open the lid. He made a quick assessment. Basic stuff. Bandages. Gauze. Alcohol sponges. Ibuprofen. Antiseptic wipes. Antibiotic ointment. Adhesive tape. Scissors. Several pairs of gloves.

He turned toward the pilot. The man was still strapped in and he was regaining consciousness. He pushed himself back from the controls, almost to the point where he was sitting up. He looked stunned. There was blood running down the side of his face from a hell of a gash on the side of his head where something had obviously hit him.

“I’m a doctor,” Brody said, his voice gentle. “I can help you.”

He lifted the man’s wrist and took his pulse. Steady. Maybe a little slow but not alarmingly. He needed to get the bleeding stopped. “You’ve got a head injury. Are you in pain anywhere else?” he asked.

The man shook his head, very slowly. Brody didn’t believe him. He wasn’t confident the man even realized that he was a pilot and that his plane had just crashed in the Amazon jungle.

“What the hell happened?” Brody asked, turning towards the copilot.

“I’m not sure. There was some kind of malfunction with the electrical system. We lost power. Captain Ramano did a hell of a job keeping us out of a spin.”

Captain Ramano didn’t add anything to the conversation, confirming for Brody that he was definitely injured.

“The lightning?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve flown through storms before with Captain Ramano and we’ve never had any trouble.”

First time for everything. “Did you get a distress call through?”

“We did. Although I’m not sure how much good it will do. Even using satellite imaging, it’s hard to find a plane in the rain forest.”

He was probably right. Rain forests were known for their dense canopy of trees, and that would complicate an air search. But he couldn’t focus on that right now.

“I’ll be back,” Brody said.

Pamela was sitting in the first row, staring at the door, looking as if she intended to make a break for it. He did not relish the idea of chasing after someone in the dark jungle. “Pamela, I need your help,” he said.

She didn’t answer but she did stand up. He led her back to the cockpit, where he opened the first-aid kit again, removed a wrapped gauze pad and opened it.

He motioned for her to get as close to the pilot as she could. “I need you to press this hard against that cut. Can you do that, Pamela?”

“I’m not touching blood.”

He’d been just about to get to that. He pulled a pair of gloves out of the first-aid kit and handed them to Pamela. She hesitated and then put them on.

“Okay,” he said. “Put pressure on and don’t stop until I come back.”

He shone his flashlight ahead of him. At the back of the small plane, Elle was kneeling next to the elderly couple. Her hair was still dark, cut shorter than it had been in college when she’d worn it past her shoulders. He could see her slender neck, her collarbone.

Elle had always been slim and in good shape. She’d been a good athlete, too. The bar where she’d worked had fielded a volleyball team that played on Sunday afternoons, and he’d loved watching her. So graceful yet she could jam the ball down an opponent’s throat.

Now she had one arm out, patting the shoulder of Mrs. Hardy, who was talking a mile a minute. She had her other arm tucked into her side.

When she heard him moving down the aisle, she stepped aside.

The elderly woman stared at him. “My husband says it doesn’t hurt, but he can’t move. Please help him. You have to help him. We’re on our fiftieth anniversary trip. He’s—”

“I’m going to do everything I can,” Brody said. He looked at the woman’s cheek. She had a cut that was bleeding, but it didn’t look deep. “But here’s what I need from you. I want you to stand up and move to the other side of the plane. I’m going to need your spot.”

The woman shut up now that she had some direction. She got out of her seat and stood next to Elle. That’s when he realized that Elle also had blood on her face. And her eyes held the look of someone in pain.

He reached for her.

She jerked back.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“It’s nothing. Help the others first.”

He gave the cut on her forehead another look. Head wounds always bled a lot, and this one was no exception. But it appeared to have stopped bleeding. Still, there could be glass in it. He took a quick glance at her very brown eyes. Pupils were the same size.

“Him first,” she said.

“Okay. But I’m going to look at that arm, too.”

She nodded.

He stepped into the seat that Mrs. Hardy had vacated. It was awkward, but he got a good hold of the debris and shoved it away from her husband. He put a hand on the man’s back, assuring him. “Don’t move just yet,” Brody said. He ran his hand down the man’s spine. “Are you in pain?”

“No. Damn thing didn’t hit me hard, thank goodness.”

“Okay. Then try to sit back.” The man had been very lucky. He was at an age when it became difficult to recover from severe injuries. When the man was upright, Brody took his pulse and used the flashlight to check his pupils. Both okay.

Brody stepped back. It was quite frankly amazing that everyone on board had survived the crash. He’d seen enough aircraft-crash-scene victims over the years to know that there were common injuries caused by the pressure of rapid descent. Vertebrae compression. Or a ring fracture at the base of the skull caused by force traveling through the spinal column. Sometimes even internal injuries caused by the jerk of the lap belt. Lower-limb injuries were common as legs flailed around and struck things, so Angus’s fractured tibia didn’t surprise him.

He’d set the leg as best he could. Unfortunately, however, what might be a relatively minor injury in a fully equipped operating room became potentially life threatening when there were nonsterile conditions and delayed treatment. And the humidity in this part of the world was a virtual breeding ground of bacteria.

He turned, only to realize that Elle had returned to the cockpit. She was talking to Angus, obviously trying to comfort him.

It was difficult to tell how badly the captain was hurt. Angus definitely needed the most immediate treatment, and there wasn’t any room in the cockpit area to do that.

Elle saw him start back down the aisle and met him halfway. “What do you think?” she asked.

“On the plus side, I think Mr. and Mrs. Hardy are fine. They’re probably going to be stiff and sore as the night wears on. The biggest risk for Pamela is to keep her from running off into the rain forest. You, I’d like to see that shoulder.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

He shook his head. When she’d moved out of the way earlier so that he could get to Mr. Hardy, he’d seen enough to realize that it wasn’t her arm that was injured, but rather her shoulder. “Elle, please don’t be stubborn about this. It’s just wasting time. I’m going to need help with Angus and you’re the only logical person to do it. I need you to have two arms and hands that are working.”

It was the right approach. She clearly didn’t want to impede the others receiving medical care.

She put her flashlight down and moved so that she stood in front of him. They were just inches apart and he was reminded of how nicely her head used to fit under his chin. He took a deep breath, put his hand on her shoulder joint and probed gently. “You dislocated your shoulder,” he said.

“My seat belt broke,” she said. “I got tossed out and hit the back of another seat with my shoulder.”

“When you hit it, your humerus popped out of the shoulder socket. I can pop it back into place, but it’s going to hurt. Maybe a lot.”

She nodded. “Just get it over with.”