Three Wishes Read Online Free PDF

Panama’s police department, preceded it by seconds around the corner. Travis Fitch followed close in his own car. Both vehicles pulled in at either end of the Jeep, doors opening in tandem, drivers running through the snow in the crisscross of headlights.
    Travis, in his early thirties and beanpole long, wore dark pants and a dark hooded jacket. Eliot was a bit older, a bit shorter, a bit heavier. In his plaid jacket and orange wool cap, he looked more like a hunter than a police chief, which, given Panama’s minimal law enforcement needs, wasn’t far off the mark.
    Though Tom shifted to allow Travis access, he kept the back of his fingers against Bree’s cheek. “She hasn’t moved,” he said, giving in to traces of panic, “hasn’t opened her eyes or said anything.”
    Travis was feeling around under the coverings.
    The police chief hunkered down beside Tom. In a gravelly voice to match his beer belly, he said, “Jeep’s a mess. What happened?”
    Tom was watching Travis, wondering if he knew what he was doing. “A truck hit me. I hit her.”
    â€œMust’ve done it real hard, to throw her so far. Where’s the truck?”
    Tom twisted to look down the road. It was nowhere in sight. Swearing softly, he twisted back to Bree. “What do you feel?” he asked Travis.
    â€œNeck’s okay. Spine’s okay. I think the problem’s inside.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, inside?”
    â€œStomach, or thereabouts. Somethin’s hard.”
    â€œShe’s bleeding internally?”
    â€œLooks that way.”
    â€œWho was driving the truck?” the chief asked.
    But Tom couldn’t think about the truck yet. “Can she bleed to death?” he asked, as Travis worked his way down Bree’s legs.
    â€œShe could,” Travis said. “Nothing’s broken down here, leastways nothing I can feel.”
    â€œHow do you stop the bleeding?”
    â€œI don’t. Surgeons do.” He re-covered Bree and pushed to his feet. “I’m calling ahead. They’d better get in someone good.” He loped back through the snow to his car.
    â€œWhere will they take her?” Tom asked Bonner. He didn’t want Bree to die, did not want Bree to die. For the first time in seven months, he wished he were back in New York. There, she would have had top doctors, no questions asked. Here, he wasn’t so sure.
    â€œThere’s a medical center in Ashmont,” Bonner answered.
    There certainly was. Tom had been there. It had been just fine for stitching up his hand, but Bree hadn’t been cut by a saw. “She needs a hospital.”
    â€œShe needs fast care,” the chief replied. “No chopper’s taking off in this snow, so she’s going to Ashmont. They’ll get a surgeon up from Saint Johnsbury. If he sets off now, he’ll reach Ashmont by the time she’s ready.”
    â€œDoes Ashmont have operating rooms?”
    Bonner screwed up his face. “Hell, man, we’re not hicks. Our operating rooms may not be as state-of-the-art as yours, but they get the job done. We don’t like dying any more’n you do, y’know.”
    Tom straightened. He wasn’t the helpless type. Yet what he felt now ranked right up there with what he had felt all those months before, standing alone at his mother’s graveside with nothing to do but grieve. “Someone has to call her family.”
    â€œWell, there isn’t any of that to speak of,” Bonner advised, “not for Bree. Her mother left her when she was a baby. Her father raised her, but he’s been dead three years now. There weren’t any sisters or brothers. No husband. No kids.”
    That surprised Tom. He had watched Bree work. She had always seemed so self-possessed, so grounded, that he had assumed she had the solid backing of family. He pictured her with a husband and a child or two, maybe a mother or sister to