Be the One by April Smith

Author:April Smith [Smith, April]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307816832
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-24T14:00:00+00:00

16

Cassidy becomes aware of lying on a gurney. Under two blankets. Inside a circle of closed white curtains.

A male voice says, “Knock, knock.”

The curtains fuss and pull apart and a short man wearing a jacket and tie comes through.

“Cassidy Sanderson? I’m Sergeant Nathan Allen, Detective Division, Vero Beach Police Department. Mind if I talk to you?”

Her throat is dry.

He perches on a stool, stubby hands loose in his lap.

“I’m the detective on call. The road officer asked me to respond because of the incident that took place outside the Coast Grill this evening. Could you please tell me what happened?”

For no particular reason she seems engaged by the polka dots on his tie.

“Feeling no pain, are we?”

In fact the Demerol is making everything smooth and beige and sweet as a coffee ice cream shake.

“Okay.” He appraises her. “But I’ll need to talk to you after you’re discharged. We need a statement while your memory is fresh.”

With effort she brings up a shoulder and wipes her lips on the hospital gown, leaving reddish drool. “I was jumped.”

“I know,” he says, interested. “You sustained what is called ‘great bodily harm.’ ”

“So did they.”

The detective sits back and the stool creaks.

“So we should be looking for a couple of crippled black guys?”

Her answer becomes a slow-motion fall over a cliff.

She is wearing her own dress again. After the hospital gown the satin lining feels sumptuous, caressing her hurting body as she walks slowly but unassisted out of the ER.

“It’s not that bad,” she says of her left hand, elevated in a sling inside a hot pink cast (what was she thinking?). “There was a time in my life when I got into a lot of accidents. In six months I totaled the car four times.”

“Drinking?”

“Being crazy, being a kid.”

“God watches out for children, huh?”

“Most of the time.”

Detective Allen steps along patiently at her side.

“I once went through a plate glass window. Dislocated an elbow during a game,” shamelessly boastful, even now.

“What kind of game?”

“Professional women’s baseball.”

“The Colorado Silver Bullets?”

“Right.”

“You play?”

“Used to.”

“Why not anymore?”

She smiles. “I’m old.”

“No way. You’ve got good years left. I can see ’em.”

“Sometimes the price for continuing is just too high, know what I’m talking about?”

“Yes,” he says. “My marriage.”

He holds the door. A restless wet tropical breeze assails them and Cassidy begins to shiver in the sleeveless dress. By the time she slides into the front seat of the unmarked tan Ford her teeth are chattering. Detective Allen reaches into the rear, picks up a blue nylon windbreaker with POLICE in block letters on the back, and drapes it over her shoulders.

A Christmas tree–shaped air freshener dangles from the mirror but the interior still smells dusky and male, and she has a stoned sense of being on a high school date with a nice guy from the tennis squad—smart (he’ll become an ophthalmologist), but likes her too much, is too short, driving his mother’s car.

In eleven minutes they are at the Vero Beach Central police station, a spiffy blue

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