0778318370 by Paula Treick Deboard

Author:Paula Treick Deboard [Deboard, Paula Treick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2016-04-25T23:00:00+00:00

JUNE 19, 2015

6:21 P.M.

LIZ

The ambulance gone, I closed the front door behind us and leaned against it, my heart racing. Danielle and I stared at each other.

“You need to tell me,” I said. “Right now, before we get in that car, before we—”

“What do you mean? I already said—”

I grabbed her by the arm. “You’re going to tell me now.”

“I told you!”

“From the beginning.” I shook her arm and she pulled away.

“Fine. We were upstairs in my room. I was looking for a CD. And then we came back downstairs and I saw Kelsey in our pool. I had no idea she was out there. I thought—”

“What?”

Danielle was a messy crier, a trait she’d inherited from me. Her face was instantly blotchy, red patches appearing like a rash of poison ivy. “I thought it was some kind of joke. You know, something dumb, like she was pretending she’d fallen into the pool. So at first I didn’t do anything. And then I saw the blood.”

I was struck by how small she was, how young. With everything that had happened in the past few months, I’d managed to forget she was still a teenager, not even old enough for a driver’s license.

“Did you invite her here?”

“No! Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, Danielle. I’m trying to figure out why she was in our backyard in the first place, and how she ended up unconscious in our pool with a gash on her head.”

She turned away, but I caught her words. “Maybe if you hadn’t been so drunk, you would know why.”

“Excuse me?”

“I smelled it on you, Mom! When you came downstairs.”

“I had a glass of wine.”

She snorted.

“There’s no messing around here, Danielle. We’re going to the hospital, and there will be all kinds of questions for us. The Jorgensens will demand answers. The police—”

“I told you. I don’t know anything!” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Anyway, she’s going to be okay, isn’t she? They said there was a pulse.”

“I don’t know.”

Danielle sobbed, “But she had a pulse!”

I reached out, touching her on the shoulder. For once she didn’t pull away. “I don’t know,” I repeated. I couldn’t shake the feeling of Kelsey’s body beneath my hands, settling like a dead weight between compressions. “Come on, we have to get going.”

Instead of moving, she pointed at my foot.

I was bleeding all over the floor.

* * *

In the master bathroom, I sat on the edge of the tub, wincing while Danielle made tentative dabs at my foot with a wet washcloth. She was still wearing her blue bikini, and when she bent over, the bony ridge of her spine was exposed.

My toenail was only attached to one side, where it hung on like a little red flag, bearing the remnants of an old strip of polish. I bit my knuckle, forcing down the pain. When Danielle got up to rinse out the washcloth I asked, “Can you find some gauze for me? I think it’s in one of the boxes in the hallway.

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