Wishing for a Miracle Read Online Free PDF

their watch.
    Then he stooped and picked something up from the debris that had been pushed into piles to make way forthe stretcher. Julia focused on what he held. It was a soft toy animal of some kind. Probably well loved and shabby to start with but it now had stuffing coming from a ripped-off leg and it was covered with bloodstains.
    â€˜Carla’s, do you think?’
    â€˜Probably. We didn’t have any other children in the carriage, thank goodness.’
    For a long moment, she held Mac’s gaze. Watching the wheels turning in a brain shrugging off how tired it was. For a moment she wondered if he was thinking her statement was another indication of her aversion to working with paediatric cases but then she saw the grim lines in his face deepen and a haunted look appear in the way he frowned. There was another possibility.
    They both turned to look back at the space the dead man had filled.
    At the door that had been blocked by the body.
    It was Mac who moved to open it. He had to put his shoulder against it and push because it was blocked from the inside. And then Julia heard him curse, softly but vehemently, as he dropped instantly to a crouch.
    Her view was limited to what she could see over his shoulder because Mac filled the narrow doorway. She could see narrow shoulders and the back of a head covered with long, blonde hair. A woman, then. Had she been thrown to hit her head against the basin during the violent change of direction as the carriage had tipped? Except that there was no obvious injury to be seen from this angle.
    Mac had his hand on her neck, searching for a pulse.
    â€˜She’s too cold.’ Mac’s voice sounded raw. ‘Been dead for a fair while.’
    At least there hadn’t been a child in here as well. Julia still had to swallow hard as she reached for the portable radio clipped to her belt. ‘I’ll let the guys know to bring the stretcher back.’
    â€˜Wait!’ Mac was examining the woman, looking for an indication of what might have killed her. He found nothing.
    â€˜Pelvis?’ Julia suggested.
    Mac put his hands on the woman’s hips and pressed. Julia knew it would have been a gentle test but she could see the movement. There were major blood vessels running through that area. If one was cut it was quite possible to bleed to death in a short space of time.
    It was also possible they might have been able to save her if they’d got to her first.
    Mac was pressing a hand to the woman’s abdomen now. It was distended. Even more distended than they might have expected from all the internal bleeding.
    â€˜Oh, God !’ Mac groaned.
    Julia didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. The shape was too regular and obviously too firm to be simply an accumulation of blood. The woman had probably only been in the early stages of her pregnancy but there had been two lives lost here.
    Mac straightened. He didn’t meet Julia’s horrified gaze.
    â€˜It’s time we went home,’ he said heavily. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here.’

CHAPTER THREE
    S OMETHING wasn’t right.
    They should have been able to debrief and put things into perspective on the long road trip back to headquarters courtesy of a military vehicle. They could have talked through how impossible it would have been to save that young woman. Even if they’d known she was there, they would still have had to evacuate all the mobile people and the time needed to shift the dead man and then extricate her would have put Ken in more trouble. And they couldn’t have known. There wasn’t even a window that Julia could have looked into from the outside.
    These were things that should have been said aloud. Dissected and come to terms with. And maybe then they could have congratulated themselves on a job well done. The fact that ten people had made it out alive when it could have gone in a very different direction and claimed even more victims.
    But