Just Before Midnight Page 5

  Is it safe for me to drive?

  She half walked, half stumbled to her car. A sheet of ice covered the windshield. She would have to scrape it. She wasn’t sure she could. She felt so weak. She began to cry. She needed help. Move forward or backward?

  I can’t get back up those stairs.

  A shiver of panic ran through her.

  You can do this.

  She sat clumsily in the front seat, her legs still out the door and on the frozen ground. She fumbled with her phone. She googled taxi companies and hit the first phone number she got to. Acme Cabs. A dispatcher picked up on the third ring. She gave her address and destination.

  “I think we have someone close, hold on.”

  “I’m not doing real well and I have to get to the hospital.”

  “We’ll be there quick as we can.”

  Please be close.

  17

  Forty-five Minutes Earlier

  He pulled into the parking lot. All the spaces were filled with cars at every angle. It was getting treacherous on the roads. People had slid home as best they could, even if they couldn’t accurately aim and land between the white lines.

  Yep. Dennis owes me big time.

  The makes and models made up a veritable used car lot. They just weren’t in perfectly straight rows. The dispatcher said the lady was waiting for him out by her car.

  That didn’t make sense to either of them. And he didn’t see anyone standing around.

  It was getting crazy tonight. Too crazy to be on the road. Sirens filled the air in the distance. Huge fire downtown.

  He looked around some more. Nope. No one was standing by a car.

  Is this a prank call?

  The apartments had seen better days. Probably government subsidized. And someone probably thought it would be funny to call for a cab to meet in a parking lot on a freezing cold night—and not be there. That part about needing to be at the hospital was a nice touch.

  He drummed his fingers on the dash, humming along on Feliz Navidad.

  “I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas,” he crooned.

  I’m trying to get control of my life and wish everyone a merry Christmas, but it’s probably not from the bottom of my heart.

  Two minutes ticked by.

  He drummed his fingers some more, clicked his tongue, and let out a long sigh.

  At least he wasn’t furious. Not for the moment anyway. He needed to make this a habit. He shifted the car in reverse, rested his arm on the seat behind him, craned his neck as close to a 180-degree angle as he could, and started backing out. The lot was too full and pinched to turn it around and pull out while driving forward.

  As he got to the main street in the apartment complex to back out, he stopped for a second, looked down, and hit one of the preset buttons to get away from a jewelry commercial.

  “Nothing tells her you love her like a diamond.”

  He finished the turn and shifted into drive and started off.

  What a waste of time. But don’t get mad now, Joe. Why should you care? You weren’t busy anyway. Bars closed at ten. Flights are all in. Anyone that needs a ride to the airport has already scheduled it. You were just gonna drive in circles and feel sorry for yourself anyway.

  He got to the entrance of the apartment complex and braked hard.

  Something was niggling at the back of his mind.

  You didn’t see anything. You were looking for someone. Hard. You were paying attention. Forget it.

  He pulled onto a major thoroughfare and headed for an all night diner. No one was around so when he hit the brakes again, he hit them hard, then accelerated to do three full 360 donuts on a usually busy thoroughfare. He actually laughed at that.

  When was the last time I laughed?

  He drove up the slope and pulled back into the lot, just so he could satisfy whatever was gnawing at the back of his mind. He stepped from the car and left the door open. He’d be back inside in a second anyway. His head was on a swivel as he looked left and right between parked cars. He was almost to the last one when he saw her.

  Oh God.

  18

  Forty Minutes Earlier

  “Douglas, if you don’t call me back, we may be past having Christmas together, much less a merry Christmas. I am so tired of this. I am the only one in this household that works fulltime. And I still do everything around the house. We had the police at our house this morning. The police! And you leave Donny alone. And now you are out trying to find him. This isn’t right. This isn’t right. I’m blaming you as much as I blame him for this. You are not being a good role model. You need to wake up and do the right thing.”

  She hit off.

  “You okay?”

  It was Eduardo’s mom.

  “Yes, of course, I’m fine.”

  Wide, coffee colored eyes just looked at her.

  “Okay, maybe not so good.”

  “We are going over to the children’s wing now. I wanted to come thank you and tell you how wonderful you are.”

  “You’re the wonderful one, Maria. And your little boy is such a sweetheart.”

  “May I give you a hug?”

  “Would you please?”

  When Maria hugged her, she whispered in her ear, “It’s Christmas Eve. Almost Christmas. Just about midnight. Miracles happen. My baby boy is okay. Yours will be okay too.”

  “How did you know about my boy? Was I that loud?”

  “No. But a mother knows.”

  She hugged her back as hard as she could. “I hope you are right Maria. Thank you. I needed that.”

  The moment was interrupted by the squawk of the PA. The wounded from the fire department were coming in.

  “Dude, you are such a wimp. Ain’t no one else on the road. Let’s see what this thing can do.”

  A bottle of cherry flavored vodka made another round from front left to right, from front seat to back seat, from back right to left, and then back up front left where it started.

  The heater was on full blast. The sound system with subwoofers in the trunk was up as loud as it could go. The windows were down. The four teenage boys laughed and yelled at the top of their lungs as they hurtled down the city street in a snaky pattern that looked like the path of a downhill skier.

  “Turn it up,” someone shouted from the back.

  “It won’t go any louder,” the driver screeched back.

  “Then drive faster—I’m bored!”

  19

  Thirty-five Minutes Earlier

  “Tell St. Elizabeth’s emergency room we got a situation,” he said to the dispatcher. “Tell them they might want to send an ambulance to meet me. Give them my number. And Frank.”

  “Yeah Joe?”

  “Do it quick. I’m not sure I can get this little lady to the hospital in time. It’s not just the baby coming. She fell and I don’t know what’s hurt or how bad. I was afraid to pick her up.”

  “Roger that, Joe. You know it’s against regs to put an injured person in the cab don’t you?”

  “Just call Frank.”

  “I’m on it Joe. And don’t worry about me ratting you out. It’s a bad rule.”

  With his luck, he’d probably get canned for doing a good deed. Acme Cab was strict on what he was allowed to do due to legal liability issues. Made it hard to be a Good Samaritan.

  No good deed goes unpunished. At least not for me.

  How had all this happened anyway? Why did he go back? He really didn’t think he had seen anything. But something urged, then dragged him back to the lot. And how could it be that he would see the same pregnant girl in such dramatically different circumstances in the same day?

  The roads were wet and based on the drop in temperature were definitely icy in spots.

  Would Dennis have seen her when he pulled in? Would he have gone back if he hadn’t?

  Was I supposed to be working tonight?

  When he found her slumped by her car door he was terrified she was already dead. He shook her by the shoulder
gently. She didn’t respond. He shook her a little harder and she groaned and rolled into a fetal position as if to protect her baby. That’s when he saw the blood on the back of her coat and pants, and streaked on the ground.

  He called 911 immediately. The operator that answered let him know there was a five-alarm fire downtown, something he already knew, and it would be at least twenty minutes if not longer before she could dispatch an ambulance; something he didn’t know and hadn’t anticipated.

  “Ma’am, I’ve got a life and death emergency here.”

  “I can move her up in the queue but I simply don’t have anyone to send at this moment. No one.”

  City budget cuts. He was all for them until a moment like this.

  “If I help, can you stand?”

  “I’ll try,” she mumbled. At least that’s what Joe thought she said.

  He got his back door open, glad he had kept the car running and the temperature up. He squatted down beside her as low as he could go and got her arm over his shoulder. She wasn’t much help but she was such a small thing he was able to lift her from the ground using his legs. He slouched and lurched, half dragging her, as he got her to the backseat. He got her situated with her legs on the ground. He had to go around to the other side, open the door, and pull her back until she was close to lying down.

  When she looked up and saw his face he saw a glimmer of recognition. Maybe the whisper of a flinch. She was in pain so maybe the grimace was not personally directed at him. But maybe it was.

  I didn’t know she was pregnant but I still deserve anything I get.

  He slipped and slided out of the parking lot. Need to stick to main roads he thought at the time.

  It’s Christmas Eve. I’m not with my kids. There’s a fire downtown. I yelled at a woman earlier today and now I’m the one taking her to have a baby. Life is strange. But I did ask God to make this Christmas count. Is that what this is?

  He braked at the red light and drummed his fingers waiting for it to turn green. Then he turned left through the intersection and accelerated. He looked right down a side street.

  No!

  He swung the wheel violently to the left, keeping the front bumper of the charging car from hitting the back door next to where her head rested. No way she would have survived if I hadn’t got this thing turned, he thought, as everything continued in slow motion. Blaring music, yelling, and laughter. The car plowed his cab in the back right bumper. The guy came off a side street doing at least fifty miles an hour.

  Joe was light headed and knew he was bleeding from his head banging the side window and front windshield in rapid succession. He felt the car spin. Once, twice … he wasn’t’ sure how many total times. Not quite as fun as the 360-degree donuts he did earlier.

  There was nothing to do but pray they didn’t hit or get hit by anything else and wait for the car to stop spinning.

  It did. And to his amazement, the car that hit them drove off.

  How is that possible?

  His car was undriveable. Dead. He was afraid to look in the backseat but he had to. She was breathing. That was good.

  He had to figure a way to get her to St. Elizabeth’s.

  20

  Thirty-Five Minutes Earlier

  “Dude, you gotta stop. Someone might be hurt.”

  “You push me out the door and get behind the wheel if you want us to stop. I’m not going to jail for this.”

  “You heard the cop today. We’re all going to jail. It’s not just you. We’re in this together.”

  “Or maybe they’d send us to juvenile center,” a third voice chimed in from the back.

  “Just as bad,” the driver said.

  “This thing ain’t going very far. Look at the steam from the radiator. And your bumper is dragging.”

  “I’m driving this piece of junk as far away from here as it will go. But we aren’t stopping except to get some water to put in the radiator.”

  No one else protested.

  Regina longed to call Douglas to find out if he had found Donny. Not possible. It was just before midnight and officially a crazy night in the ER.

  21

  Twenty-Five Minutes Earlier

  “What is that guy doing in the middle of the road?” Margaret asked.

  Roger sighed and slowed down. He looked at the clock on the dashboard. They might make their flight still, but not if there was going to be a delay every mile. He thought he could take the midtown express but they were detoured onto busy streets because everything downtown was closed off. Apparently every police cruiser, fire truck, and ambulance in the city had been summoned to an inferno in the warehouse district that had already forced the evacuation of one neighborhood as a precaution if the fire spread.

  Where are they going to put all those people? What a way to spend Christmas. We’ve been so blessed. We just haven’t had many problems.

  “What do you think is wrong with him Roger?”

  “Probably drunk. You’d think people could stay away from the bars one night a year.”

  “He looks crazy. Be careful.”

  “No doubt. A lot of people are crazy.”

  “Steer around him. I don’t care if we do miss our plane.”

  “I am steering around him and I do care if we miss the plane.”

  “Farther. He looks like he might want to attack us.”

  “Maggie, if I pull to the side any further I’m going to be on the sidewalk.”

  “Then drive on the sidewalk,” she said sharply.

  What was eating her the past few days?

  Margaret looked sideways at the man one more time. Their eyes met. He no longer looked crazy. He looked sad. Desperate. Tearful. She couldn’t look away until they were twenty yards past him.

  She turned her head for one last look backward. He was mouthing something.

  “Help! Help!”

  “Roger, stop!”

  “I’m not stopping, Margaret. We’ll never make it to the airport.”

  He was back in his own lane and picking up speed.

  “Roger, you have to stop and go back. That man needs help.”

  “You’re the one who said he looks dangerous.”

  Margaret was silent and Roger drove on.

  “Roger!”

  “Okay, okay,” he sighed. “I’m going back. But if things don’t look right, I’m driving on.”

  “Agreed. But I think we need to stop. I feel it.”

  He was beginning to accept that they would miss their flight. Guilt gnawed at him. When was he going to tell Margaret he couldn’t use his flight miles for first class tickets this close to departure time? He really had paid a small fortune for the tickets. He didn’t like to keep things from her.

  22

  Twenty Minutes Earlier

  Regina looked at her phone. Six missed calls. Apparently Douglas had finally tried to get back to her when she no longer had a spare second to talk.

  All she could do was assume he was with Donny and everything was okay.

  Dear God, let it be so.

  Saying goodbye to Eduardo and his mommy had been hard. The heart attack victim had been moved to the heart center as well. Then things got crazy. Someone started a fire downtown. At least arson was suspected. No civilian injuries, but already there were first responders being pulled out of the blaze that needed medical attention. Not everyone was being sent to St. E but they were getting their share. Six firemen with a range of burn and smoke inhalation injuries were under her watch.

  The phone at her station rang. She picked up and listened for a full minute. She hung up.

  “I need you to wheel a bed to the front entrance,” she barked at a nurse assistant walking by. Another assistant was in earshot. “I need 124C prepared for a delivery right now—and I need an OB-GYN, any OB-GYN in this hospital down here right now,” she yelled to the receptionist. “Right now. Move it people.”

  When Regina got her drill sergeant voice going, people moved.

  The switchb
oard had transferred the call directly to her station. The woman was clear and concise. What she described was an injured woman minutes from giving birth. She only added one extraneous detail and that chilled her to the bone:

  “A group of teens were in a white Pathfinder. The cab driver they ran into is pretty sure they were drunk. Those kids just about killed her. Can you believe it?”

  Duane, Donny’s best friend—and the friend that made her most nervous—drove a white Pathfinder.

  23

  Fifteen Minutes Earlier

  He unlocked the door quietly and set his duffle down. She was going to be so surprised. Forty-eight hours earlier his CO came to him with glorious news.

  “You’re going home.”

  He was instructed to get his butt on a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy—the largest transport plane in the world—that was leaving in three hours and go be with his expectant wife.

  “Yes sir!”

  “Dismissed.”

  He gave the shocked but smiling colonel a big hug and said, “Thanks boss. You’re the best.”

  He didn’t want to scare her. What if she was sound asleep? Maybe he should have called ahead. But he wanted to surprise her. He didn’t have a present but he thought this would be a gift she would appreciate most.