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She shook her head. There was definitely a time warp going on. Nothing seemed real to her.
Once on the highway, Sherri headed for home. Traffic flowed smoothly at this time of day, which was a blessing. She had to force herself to focus on her driving.
After a few miles of traveling at seventy, she realized that, once again, luck was against her. Brake lights showed up ahead of her and she began to slow down. There must be an accident up ahead.
Out of habit, she glanced in her rearview mirror and froze.
A tractor-trailer rig had suddenly appeared at the top of the rise behind her and was bearing down on her.
Couldn’t he see all the red brake lights ahead of him? Couldn’t he see that she had come to a complete stop?
Time slowed down for her as she watched him attempt to slow down his rig. She could hear his brakes screaming as he moved inexorably toward her.
Sherri felt a certain calm fall upon her as she waited for him to hit her. Maybe this was the way her life would end. At that moment, she really didn’t care.
The last thing she remembered was the sound of screeching metal as the rig plowed into her car.
Sherri roused at some point, wondering where she was. She felt as though she were floating. She vaguely heard voices that didn’t seem to have anything to do with her. Excited voices. She lazily wondered what they were excited about.
A voice near her head yelled. “This one’s trapped in her car. We’ve gotta get her out of here. Now!”
“Is she alive?”
“Can’t tell. I can see her, but can’t reach her.
She wondered who they were talking about.
Loud sounds echoed around her, which was irritating. How rude. Couldn’t they see she was trying to rest?
She faded away, the voices in the distance, until she felt a hand at her throat.
“There’s a pulse. Let’s get her out of there.”
The seat shifted. Why was she under the dash? Compact cars were too small to be playing games.
Then more hands touched her, moving her.
She screamed and blacked out once again.
Two
Greg Hogan was returning to the police station when dispatch called him to come in. As a homicide detective, he spent as little time at the station as possible. As it happened, though, today he needed to run some information through the station’s computer. He was investigating the murder of a young photographer, and evidence he had gathered pointed to a person who knew his victim well enough to have invited him into his home. He had a couple of suspects in mind. Now he had to follow up on some leads in order to get the necessary evidence for an arrest.
He wondered why he’d been called in. Maybe he’d irritated the captain. If so, it would only be the third time this week. The captain didn’t like Greg’s attitude toward work. He wasn’t a team player. He was a maverick. The problem was, Greg solved homicides and the captain had trouble arguing with his success.
Not that Greg’s success ever stopped the captain from griping at him. Greg had grown so used to it that he’d long ago tuned him out, figuring that while the captain was going after Greg, he was leaving the others under his command alone.
Last week Pete Carter had pointed out how altruistic Greg was, protecting the other men from the captain. Pete was a sergeant on the force and had been around longer than any of them. Greg promptly suggested that since all the men were better off with him taking the brunt of the tongue-lashings, they owed him a beer. And darned if they hadn’t taken him out one night and wouldn’t let him pay for anything.
Greg smiled at the memory.
He pulled into his parking space at the station and got out of his car. The parking space was one of the perks he’d received with his promotion to lieutenant a few months ago, despite the prickly relationship he had with the captain.
Life was good.
As soon as Greg walked inside, he knew something was wrong. There were more men standing around in the bull pen than usual. And all of them looked grim. Greg put his hands on his hips.
“What’s going on?”
Pete walked over to him and put his hand on his shoulder. “Greg, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
Greg looked around the room and frowned. “What happened? Did one of the guys get hurt? Who?”
“No. It’s Sherri.”
“Sherri? What about her?”
“She was in a multicar accident this morning. They airlifted her to the hospital…alive when they got her to the hospital, but I heard she was in critical condition.”
Greg was thankful there was a chair nearby. His knees shook so hard he sank into the chair before his reaction became apparent to everyone. He clenched his jaw.
“I figured that since the two of you had some history together that you’d want to know,” Pete went on, sounding sympathetic.
Greg shook his head, feeling dazed. He pushed his hand through his hair and forced himself to look at Pete. “They’re sure it was her?”
“Yeah. A semi jackknifed when he tried to stop on the freeway and he plowed into her. She was in the last car of a string of them that were stopped due to an earlier accident. Six vehicles were in the smash-up and there were serious injuries in several of the cars, but she caught the brunt of it.”
Greg closed his eyes. Sherri? Near death? Couldn’t be.
“What hospital?” he finally asked.
Pete told him.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Greg said, and left.
He drove to the hospital on autopilot. He parked near the emergency entrance and strode across the parking lot. Inside, the place teemed with people; doctors and nurses moved among patients with various injuries. It looked like a war zone, with some of the injured on stretchers and others in chairs. The Emergency Medical Technicians from the various ambulances outside were working on those victims not as severely injured as the ones they’d brought in.
He quickly checked each stretcher and when he didn’t see her, went over to the nurses’ station.
“I’m looking for one of the accident victims who were airlifted to this hospital. Sherri Masterson Hogan.”
The harried nurse said, “Sir, you can see that we’re overwhelmed with all the injuries here and—”
“Just tell me where they took her and I’ll be out of here.”
She hurried past him, shaking her head.
He turned around and faced the noise and confusion around him. He knew he wouldn’t get any answers here.
Greg continued down the hallway, ignoring signs that read Do Not Enter and shoving doors open, looking into each cubicle for signs of her. A member of the hospital staff stopped him. Greg checked his name tag, which read Dr. Luke Davis, and figured he was one of the doctors on duty.
“Sir, I must ask you to return to the waiting area. Someone will help you as soon as possible.”
Greg said as clearly as he could with his jaws clenched, “Dr. Davis. I’m looking for Sherri Masterson Hogan, who was in that six-car smash-up. I’m told she was airlifted here and I intend to find her.”
The doctor nodded. “I see. Are you a family member?”
“I’m her husband.”
What difference did it make, anyway? He was determined to see her, regardless of their relationship.
“Hold on. I’ll see what I can find out for you,” Dr. Davis said, striding down the hallway, the tails of his medical coat flapping around him.
Greg paced back and forth, dodging carts, beds and medical personnel until the doctor returned.
“She’s in surgery.”
“What are her injuries?”
Dr. Davis shook his head. “You’ll need to speak to the surgeon about that.”
“Where can I find him when he gets out of surgery?”
“You can wait for him upstairs, in Intensive Care. He’ll look for family members when he finishes.”
Greg swallowed. “I want to see her as soon as possible.”
“The surgeon will discuss that with you.”
Greg nodded, turned on his heel and headed toward the bank of elevators.
“Good luck,” Dr. Davis said behind him.
Greg rode the elevator to the next floor where the ICU was located. It was quiet on the ICU floor, which was a relief from the pandemonium downstairs. He pushed through double swinging doors and found the nurses’ station.
“Sir,” one of the nurses said, “you can’t come in here.”
“I’m waiting for Sherri Masterson Hogan to come out of surgery.”
She looked down at the desk and riffled through some files. She read some of the files before saying, “We have a Sherri Masterson who has been recently admitted.”
So she’d taken back her maiden name. Why wasn’t he surprised?
“Are you family?”
He’d already lied once. “Her husband.”
She nodded. “Good. We need to get more information on her.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
She went down a list, asking questions. He knew her age, birthdate, even her blood type, but he had no idea where she lived these days, so he rattled off his own address.
After answering the rest of the questions, Greg wandered down the hallway to the ICU waiting room with the nurse’s promise that the doctor would be out to speak with him as soon as he was out of surgery.
Greg hated sitting around, but he had no intention of leaving the hospital until he knew more about Sherri’s injuries.
He wondered why he cared. He hadn’t seen or spoken to her in almost two years. Eighteen months, six days, to be precise.
She’d asked him not to contact her once everything had ended, and he’d determinedly followed her instructions. He’d almost convinced himself she was part of his past. He was so over her. Then what was he doing here? Why had he panicked at the thought that she could die?
For one thing, she was much too young, six years younger than his thirty-two years.
Just because she wanted no part of me didn’t mean she deserved to die.
The last six months they were together had been filled with so much tension that it had become a third party in their marriage. She’d withdrawn into herself. When he asked what was wrong, she told him that he was too secretive about his past and his background. She said she didn’t really know him at all.
Okay, so he wasn’t the most talkative person in the world…especially about his feelings. He’d never been good about opening himself up and sharing his innermost thoughts and emotions with anyone.
When they’d first married, she had asked him all kinds of questions…about his childhood, his family, why he’d chosen to be a cop. He never liked talking about his childhood or his family and admittedly he was less than forthcoming. As far as he was concerned, all of that was in the past and had no bearing on who he was today. He’d just had trouble explaining that to Sherri’s satisfaction. He’d finally stopped trying.
He shouldn’t have been all that surprised the day he got home to find every last trace of her presence in his apartment gone. She’d left the key to his place on the counter with a note telling him that she was getting a divorce and to contact her attorney—she also left the attorney’s business card—if he had any questions.
Hell yes, he’d had questions! How could she just move out like that? She’d kept asking him to talk to her about stupid things, but that was no reason just to walk out on him. He’d loved her and she’d thrown his love back in his face. Why else would she have hired an attorney before she’d even bothered to tell him she wanted a divorce?
He’d been furious with her. He’d waited three days to calm down enough to call her attorney, who had told him that since they’d acquired no property of significance during the three years of their marriage, Sherri wanted to keep what was hers and let him keep what was his.
He hadn’t argued because he knew there would be no point. She’d obviously made up her mind and his opinion didn’t matter.
He’d tried to be what she’d wanted in a husband, but he hadn’t really known what she expected a husband to be. He’d been alone for most of his twenty-seven years before they’d met. Of course there had been adjustments to sharing a place with her. However, he’d loved her and showed his love in every way he knew how, but his love hadn’t been enough. He knew, was absolutely convinced, that she’d loved him in the beginning. There was no way she could have faked her response to him. His off-duty hours had been spent in bed with her, making love to her, holding her, listening to her while she talked about her childhood and her family.
She’d had it tough and he’d told her that he would always be there for her, that he would never abandon her, or leave her to deal with life on her own.
And yet…
After a while she’d stopped talking to him as much and he figured that was because she’d told him everything about her past. She would ask him about his work, but once he was home he didn’t want to talk about his job. He just wanted to be with her.
He’d always worked long hours during an investigation, but she’d known that. He might have rushed her into marriage a little fast, but he had been afraid he would lose her if he settled for a long engagement. He’d lost her anyway.
Well, he’d come to terms with the divorce. There wasn’t much else he could do. He’d tried to console himself that cops had a higher rate of failed relationships than almost any other profession. Somehow, that hadn’t helped him get over the pain of losing her.
And now she was seriously injured. Regardless of the circumstances, he could not leave the hospital without knowing how she was.
Greg waited three more hours before a weary doctor wearing scrubs appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Masterson?”
“Um, no. Greg Hogan. Sherri uses her maiden name.” He had trouble talking around the knot in his throat. He finally managed to ask, “How is she?”
The doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “There was some internal bleeding and we had to remove her spleen. She’s in stable condition. I think she’s going to get through this with no problem. The airbag saved her life but there was some bruising. Her right arm is broken as well as her right leg, so she’ll be slowed down for a while, but otherwise, I think she’s in good shape, considering what she went through.”
