Three Wishes Read Online Free PDF Page B

help with the kids while she worked. He had envied her that, had envied her for belonging.
    Bonner rose. “Flash is as close to family as she has. I’ll give him a call.”
    He set off just as Travis returned. “The ambulance is three minutes away. No sense my moving her. They’ll have a long board.”
    Tom sat on his knees in the snow. He touched Bree’s neck, her forehead, her cheek, wanting to do something and feeling hamstrung. He brushed snow from her hood, for what good that did. She had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. So had he.
    Desperate for someone to blame, he looked skyward. The clouds were a dense night gray, still heavy with snow. “It’s October, for Christ’s sake. When’s this supposed to stop?”
    Carl, who continued to hold his flashlight on Bree, said, “Weatherman says morning.”
    â€œYeah, like he said this was gonna be rain.”
    â€œDifference of a few degrees, is all.”
    Tom might have said what he thought of that if the ambulance hadn’t circled the town green just then. Its engine was all business, giving it away even before it pulled around the corner, red and white lights flashing, and ground to a halt.
    Leaning over Bree, Tom felt a fast relief, a sharp fear, and something almost proprietary. He talked softly, telling her that help had come, that she was going to be all right, that she shouldn’t worry about anything. He wasn’t pleased when the ambulance crew hustled him aside, or when one of them threw a blanket around him and poked at his face. He was most bothered when they wouldn’t let him ride with Bree.
    â€œI’m all she has right now,” he argued, acutely aware of the “right now.” Bree might not have family, but she had friends. He had seen the way she had with people. Flash would be only the start. Once word spread that she was hurt, friends would rush to her bedside, and he would be the outsider, the villain of the piece.
    The grasp Eliot Bonner took of his arm said it was happening already. “We need to talk, you and me. We’ll follow in the cruiser. Unless,” he added dryly, “you were a doctor back in the city.” The ambulance doors closed. “You never did say what you were.”
    Soon after Tom had come to town, the police chief had stopped by. “Offering a welcome,” he had said, with a too wide smile, and a welcome might have been part of it. Tom wasn’t so untrusting as to deny that. But the bottom line had been curiosity about Panama’s newest resident.
    In the ten minutes that they had spent talking on the front walk, Tom had been vague. More than anything, he had wanted anonymity, and he still wanted it. But having been involved in an accident in which one of Panama’s own was badly hurt, he was in a precarious position. He might have a history of lying to friends and family—worse, of lying to himself—but he knew better than to lie to the law.
    â€œI’m a writer,” he said.
    Bonner sighed. “Ah, jeez. Another writer. Searching for inspiration, am I right?”
    â€œNot really.” There was so much else for him to seek before he sought that.
    â€œThen what?”
    Tom didn’t answer. He had come to Panama to distance himself from the arrogant, self-absorbed man he’d become. He had wanted time alone to think, to soul-search, to look inside and see what bits of decency were left—all of which was self-indulgent, none of it remotely relevant to what had happened that night.
    For the first time, watching the ambulance pull away, he felt cold. There was some comfort in the thought that Bree had his jacket—though he wondered if they had tossed it aside to work on her. He pictured her in a neck brace, strapped flat, being hooked up to monitors and IVs. He prayed she was holding her own.
    The chief ushered him toward the Blazer. “You’re shaking. Not goin’ into shock on