“Not yet.”
“Dad?” Allison sounded nervous.
“What do they want?” Ethan stuck his head between the seats, and Moonie barked, the harsh sound reverberating in the car.
“Don’t worry. Lucinda, lock the doors.”
“Okay, but be careful.”
I climbed out of the car and closed the door behind me, hearing the reassuring thunk of the locks engage. The men reached me, and I straightened. “Gentlemen, is there a—”
“We’re taking the car.” The driver pulled a handgun and aimed it at my face. “Get everybody out.”
“Okay, fine. Relax. Don’t hurt anybody. This is my family.” I turned to the car and spotted Lucinda’s phone glowing through the windshield. She must have been calling 911. The carjackers saw her at the same time.
“Drop it!” The passenger pulled a gun and aimed it at her.
“No, don’t shoot!” I moved in the way, raising my arms. “Honey, everybody, out of the car!”
Lucinda lowered the phone, the screen dropping in a blur of light.
Allison emerged from the back seat, her eyes wide. “Dad, they have guns.”
“It’s okay, honey. Come here.” I put a hand on her shoulder and maneuvered her behind me. Lucinda was coming around the back of the car with Ethan, who held a barking Moonie, dragging his leash. They reached me, and I faced the men.
“Okay, take the car,” I told them, my chest tight.
“Wait.” The passenger eyed Allison, and a leering smile spread across his face. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
No. My mouth went dry. “Take the car and go.”
Suddenly Moonie leapt from Ethan’s arms and launched himself at the men. They jumped back, off-balance. The driver fired an earsplitting blast, just missing Moonie.
My ears rang. I whirled around.
Allison had been struck. Blood spurted from her neck in a gruesome fan. She was reeling.
No! I rushed to her just as she collapsed in my arms. I eased her down to the street. Her mouth gaped open. Her throat emitted gulping sounds. Blood poured from her neck. My hand flew there to stop the flow. The blood felt hideously wet and warm.
Allison’s lips were moving. She was trying to talk, to breathe.
“Honey, you’ve been hit,” I told her. “Stay calm.” I tore off my shirt, breaking the buttons. I bunched it up and pressed it against her neck. I couldn’t see the wound. It scared me to death. “Lucinda, call 911.”
“My phone’s in the car!” Lucinda grabbed Allison’s hand, beginning to sob.
Suddenly the gun fired again behind us, another earsplitting blast.
We crouched in terror. Lucinda screamed. I didn’t know who had been shot. I looked around wildly, shocked to find that one carjacker had shot the other. The driver stood over the passenger, who lay motionless on the street, blood pooling under his head. The driver dropped the gun and ran to the pickup. I spotted his license plate before he sped off. A sudden brightness told me another car was coming up Coldstream.
“Dad, here’s Allison’s phone!” Ethan thrust it at me. My bloody fingers smeared the screen, which came to life with a photo of Moonie in sunglasses.
I thumbed to the phone function and pressed 911. The call connected. I held the phone to my ear to hear over the dog’s barking.
The 911 dispatcher asked, “What is your emergency?”
“My daughter’s been shot in the neck. Two men tried to carjack us on Coldstream Road near the turnpike overpass.” I struggled to think through my fear. Allison was making gulping sounds. She was losing blood fast, drenching my shirt. My hands were slick with my daughter’s lifeblood, slipping warm through my fingers.
“Sir, is she awake and responsive?”
“Yes, send an ambulance! Hurry!”
“Apply direct pressure to the wound. Use a compress—”
“I am, please send—”
“An ambulance is on the way.”
“Please! Hurry!”
Allison’s eyelids fluttered. She coughed. Pinkish bubbles frothed at the corners of her mouth. “Daddy?”
My heart lurched. She hadn’t called me that since she was little.
I told her what I wanted to believe: “You’re going to be okay.”
Chapter Two
The waiting room of the emergency department was harshly bright, and the mint-green walls were lined with idealized landscapes of foxhunts. Green-padded chairs had been arranged in two rectangles, forming rooms without walls. The front section held a handful of people, but we had the back to ourselves. Wrinkled magazines lay on end tables, ignored in favor of phones. There was a kids’ playroom behind a plexiglass wall next to vending machines.
I had been in this waiting room so many times over the years, for so many reasons. Allison’s broken arm. Ethan’s random falls. Once, a moth flew into Lucinda’s ear. Every parent knows the local emergency room, but not like this. Never before had I seen anyone look like us, right now.
The three of us huddled together, shocked and stricken. Allison had been taken to surgery. My undershirt was stiffening with drying blood, and Lucinda had spatters on her Lady Patriots sweatshirt and bloody patches on her jeans. She had stopped crying and rested her head on my right shoulder. Ethan’s T-shirt was flecked with blood, though the fabric was black and it didn’t show except for the white N in Nike. He slumped on my left, and I had an arm around each of them.
“She’ll be okay, right?” Lucinda asked, hushed.
“Yes,” I answered, but I was scared out of my mind. “How was she in the ambulance?”
“Okay. She didn’t panic. You know her.”
“Yes.” I nodded. Allison had a high pain threshold. At lacrosse camp, she broke her arm in the morning and didn’t tell her coach until lunch.
“The EMT was in the back, I had to sit in the front. He was nice. He talked to her. He called in her vital signs.”
“How were they?”
“Her blood pressure was low.” Lucinda started wringing her hands. I remembered her doing that when her sister Caitlin was dying of breast cancer, five years ago. I hugged her closer.
An older couple shuffled in together and took a seat in our section, glancing around. The husband had a walker with new tennis balls on the bottom, and he walked ahead with concentration. His wife noticed us, then plastered her gaze to the TV, showing the news on closed-captioning.
Lucinda wiped her nose with a balled-up Kleenex. “Jason, do you know what she said to me in the ambulance? She told me not to worry.”
Tears stung my eyes. “What a kid.”
“I know.” Lucinda sniffled. “I wonder how long the surgery will be.”
“They have to repair the vein. I think it was a vein, not an artery.”
“How do you know?”
“If it were an artery, like the carotid, the blood would have pulsed out.” I hoped I was right. Any medical information I had was from malpractice depositions, of which I’d done hundreds. I was a court reporter, which made me a font of information about completely random subjects. It wasn’t always a good thing.
“We were supposed to look for a homecoming dress tomorrow. She found one she liked at the mall. She saw it with Courtney.”