Page 2 of Relentless
“Hi,” she called. “Any idea what’s going on?”
The woman closest to her pushed away from the car and walked toward her. “Accident. A bad one. A couple of cars and a jackknifed semi,” she responded. Kara winced, knowing just how bad that could be. And unfortunately, there was nowhere to land a helicopter nearby. If anyone had been seriously injured, life flights weren’t an option.
“Any idea of the delay?” she asked, grabbing her go bag from the trunk.
“I think the seriously injured folks are gone already. The last time we asked, which was…” She turned and looked at the other woman, who answered.
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“The cops said at least another hour to get the less injured taken care of and the road cleared.”
The women looked remarkably unperturbed by having their trip interrupted. Then again, there was nothing like a sudden change of circumstance to make people appreciate what they had. They were safe. They weren’t being transported to local hospitals. They weren’t fighting for their lives or watching their children fight for theirs. In the grand scheme of things, a couple of hours out of the day to watch the boys play in the woods was something to be grateful for, not annoyed with.
“You a doctor?” the woman asked, eyeing Kara’s bag as she locked her car.
“I am. They probably have it under control, but I’ll go offer assistance in case they need it.”
The woman nodded and offered her a sad smile. “It was a bad one,” she repeated. “When we first stopped, I went up to see. Like I said, I think all the critically injured are gone by now, but at least six cars were involved.”
Kara nodded in acknowledgment and started walking past the line of waiting cars, her stomach knotting tighter with each step. Hundreds of people traveled these roads every day. The odds of her knowing someone involved were slim. Still, as she trekked up the road, her mind couldn’t help but go there. Had Sabina or any of the Warwicks planned to be on the road today? Was she going to walk onto the scene and find the car of someone she knew?
It had been less than a year since she and Sabina had reunited. Less than a year since they’d been able to have the relationship they’d had as kids. She didn’t want to lose that—not now, not ever. And the possibility of something happening to the large extended Warwick family was just as unthinkable. They were rowdy, filled with more testosterone than an Olympic-sized pool, and generally a hot chaotic mess. But they loved hard, laughed a lot, and were more loyal than any dog she’d ever met. She didn’t want to see tragedy touch them.
The flashing lights of the responders’ vehicles came into view. She slowed to a walk, not even realizing she’d broken into a jog. Crossing to the opposite side of the road to get a better look, her eyes scanned the scene for the EMTs and ambulances. Even as her gaze sought out the paramedics, she noted the cars involved. A semi-truck jackknifed across the road about two hundred yards up. A white truck—not one she recognized—crumpled against its side. From where she stood, she couldn’t see the point of impact. But given that it was the first to collide, the unfortunate driver, and any passengers, had likely suffered the most serious injury.
Behind the white truck were two sedans. Both cars were smaller than the truck and had crumpled on impact. But both also looked new. If they had the most up-to-date safety features, chances were, the occupants had escaped serious injury. The fourth vehicle in the pileup was a delivery van. A young man in uniform was sitting on the road leaning against the front tire talking on the phone. He appeared none the worse for wear, but injuries could be deceiving. She hoped the EMTs hadn’t overlooked him.
The next car—or truck—had her heart stuttering. It was a black SUV with tinted windows. Exactly the kind used by HICC, the private security company Chad and his cousin, Ethan, worked for.
Ignoring the butterflies swooping in her stomach, she jogged toward it. She didn’t slow as she passed the last car in the pileup, although the doctor in her noted that it had barely tapped the SUV. Its hood was bent at an odd angle, but that was the extent of the damage she could see.
Coming alongside the SUV, she braced herself with a palm on the window and peered inside. She didn’t know the license plates of the HICC vehicles—had never had any reason to—but she’d ridden in one and knew what they looked like. Leaning closer, her gaze swept over the interior. Her breath caught when she spotted a bottle of mandarin Jarritos in the cup holder. Ethan Warwick didn’t drink soda often, but when he did, the iconic Mexican soda was his drink of choice.
Fear lanced through her system, but she forced it aside and assessed the situation. The airbag hadn’t deployed, and the windshield was intact. In fact, except for the way the Jarritos sat tilted in the cup holder, the interior of the car was unscathed. Still, she needed to confirm Ethan, or whoever had been driving, was okay.
Stepping away from the SUV, she continued up the road. The knot in her stomach loosened a touch when she noticed the vehicle hadn’t connected at all with the car in front of it. All HICC employees—even her sister, who worked behind a computer—were trained in both defensive and offensive driving. It looked as though the training had come in handy and the driver had stopped before becoming the next car in the pileup. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case for whoever had been following, but she’d worry about that later.
Crossing in front of the SUV to the shoulder of the road, she spotted her first EMT. He was hunched over a patient who lay prone on a backboard, his body mostly blocking her view. Mostly.
Her heart tripped when she caught sight of the patient’s legs. Ignoring the ridiculousness of recognizing a man at just a glimpse of his feet and calves, she picked up her pace. The fact that everything about him was imprinted in her mind—and her heart—wasn’t relevant to the fact that an EMT was attending to Ethan Warwick. Which meant that despite the SUV looking relatively unharmed, he’d been injured.
Jogging the last few steps, she dropped onto her haunches as her bag fell to the ground beside Ethan’s hip.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to step away,” the EMT said. He was a large man, maybe in his early fifties. She looked up and held his gaze. Then his eyes lowered to her bag, and she saw recognition there. “You a doc?” he asked.
“I am,” she replied. At the sound of her voice, Ethan’s eyes fluttered open. He tried to smile but he seemed to have trouble controlling his lips. He looked like a cross between a jack-o’-lantern and a lecherous old man.
“You give him any pain meds?” she asked.
The EMT nodded and rattled off the type and dosage, explaining Ethan’s current state. The Warwicks did not handle painkillers well. She’d learned that ten months ago when she’d dosed her brother-in-law, Chad, after he’d been shot in the calf.
“She’s a doc. Best doc I know,” Ethan slurred.
“What’s the status?” she asked.
“You know him?” the EMT replied.
She nodded. “My brother-in-law’s cousin. I’m—”
