Tess Gerritsen - In Their Footsteps

That’s where he found her, sprawled among the leaves. Barely conscious.

He gathered her up and was terrified by how limp, how cold her body felt in his arms. She’s in shock, he realized. We have precious little time…

“Have to get her to a hospital!” he yelled.

Jordan ran ahead and yanked open the car door. Richard, clutching Beryl in his arms, slid into the back seat.

“Go!” he barked.

“Hang on,” muttered Jordan, scrambling into the driver’s seat. “It’s going to be a wild ride.”

With a screech of tires, their car shot off down the road. Stay with me, Beryl, Richard begged silently as he cradled her body in his arms. Please, darling. Stay with me…

But as the car sped through the darkness, she seemed to grow ever colder to his touch.

Through the haze of anesthesia, she heard him call her name, but the sound of his voice seemed so very far away, seemed to come from a distant place she could not possibly reach. Then she felt his hand close tightly over hers, and she knew he was right beside her. She could not see his face; she could not muster enough strength to open her eyes. Yet she knew he was there, that he would still be there when she awoke the next morning.

But it was Jordan whom she saw sitting by her bed. The late-morning sunlight streamed over his fair hair and a leather-bound book of poetry lay in his lap. He was reading Milton. Dear Jordan, she thought. Ever reliable, ever serene. If only I had inherited such peace of mind.

Jordan glanced up from the page and saw that she was awake. “Welcome back to the world, little sister,” he said with a smile.

She groaned. “I’m not so sure I want to be back.”

“The leg?”

“Killing me.”

He reached for the call button. “Time to indulge in the miracle of morphine.”

But even miracles take time. After the nurse delivered the injection, Beryl closed her eyes and waited for the pain to ease, for the blessed numbness to descend.

“Better?” asked Jordan.

“Not yet.” She took a deep breath. “God, I hate being an invalid. Talk to me. Please.”

“About what?”

Richard, she thought. Please tell me about Richard. Why he isn’t here. Why he’s not the one sitting in that chair…

Jordan said, quietly, “You know, he was here. Earlier this morning. But then Daumier called.”

She lay still, not speaking. Waiting to hear more.

“He cares about you, Beryl. I’m sure he does.” Jordan closed his book and set it on the bedside table. “Really, he seems an agreeable fellow. Quite capable.”

“Capable,” she murmured. “Yes, he is that.”

“He didn’t turn tail and run. He did look after you.”

“As a favor,” she amended. “To Uncle Hugh.”

He didn’t answer. And she thought that Jordie, too, had his doubts about their odds for happiness. And so did she. From the very beginning.

The morphine began to take effect. Little by little, she felt herself drift toward sleep. Only vaguely did she hear Richard enter the room and speak softly to Jordan. They murmured something about Helena and her body being burned beyond recognition. As the drug swept her brain toward unconsciousness, a memory suddenly flashed with horrifying vividness into her mind-the flames engulfing the car, engulfing Helena.

For loving too deeply, too fiercely, this was Helena’s punishment.

She felt Richard take her hand and press it to his lips.

And what punishment, she wondered, would be hers?

Buckinghamshire, England

Six weeks later

Froggie was restless, stamping about in her stall, whinnying for escape.

“Look at her, the poor thing,” Beryl said and sighed. “She hasn’t been run nearly enough, and I think she’s going quite insane. You’ll have to exercise her for me.”

“Me? On the back of that…that maniac?” Jordan snorted. “I’m much too fond of my own neck.”

Beryl hobbled over to the stall on her crutches. At once Froggie poked her head over the door and gave Beryl an insistent want-to-go-running nudge. “Oh, but she’s such a pussycat.”

“A pussycat with a foul temper.”

“And she so badly needs a good, hard gallop.”

Jordan looked at his sister, who was wobbling unsteadily on leg cast and crutches. She seemed so pale and thin these days. As if those long weeks in the hospital had drained something vital from her spirit. A bit of pallor was to be expected, of course, considering all the blood she’d lost, all the days of pain she’d suffered after the operation to pin her shattered femur. Now the leg was healing well, and the pain was only a memory, but she still seemed only a ghost of herself.

It was Richard Wolf’s fault.

At least the fellow had been decent enough to hang around during Beryl’s hospitalization. In fact, he’d practically haunted her room, spending every daylight hour by her bed. And all the flowers! Every morning, a fresh bouquet.

Then, one day, he was gone. Jordan hadn’t heard the explanation. He’d walked into his sister’s hospital room that morning and found her staring out the window, all packed and ready to go home to Chetwynd.

Three weeks ago, they’d flown back. And she’s been brooding ever since, he thought, looking at her wan face.

“Go on, Jordie,” she said. “Give her a bit of a run. It’ll be another month before I can ride her again.”

Resignedly, Jordan swung open the stall door and led Froggie out to be saddled. “You’d better behave, young lady,” he muttered to the beast. “No rearing. No bucking. And definitely no trampling your poor, defenseless rider.”

Froggie gave him a look that could only be interpreted as the equine equivalent of we’ll see about that.

Jordan mounted and gave Beryl a wave.

“Take care of her!” Beryl called out. “See she doesn’t hurt herself!”

“Your concern is most touching!” he managed to blurt out just before Froggie took off at a mad gallop for the fields. Jordan managed a last backward glance at Beryl standing forlornly by the stable. How small she looked, how fragile. Not at all the Beryl he knew. Would she ever be herself again?

Froggie was bearing him toward the woods. He concentrated on hanging on for dear life as the beast made a beeline for the stone wall. “You just have to take that bloody hurdle, don’t you?” he muttered as Froggie’s mane whipped his face. “Which means I have to take the bloody hurdle-”

Together they flew over the wall, clearing it neatly. Still in the saddle, thought Jordan with a grin of triumph. Not so easy to get rid of me, is it?

It was the last thought in his head before Froggie tossed him off her back.

Jordan landed, fortunately enough, on a large clump of moss. As he sprawled beneath the wildly spinning treetops, he was vaguely aware of the sound of tires grinding across the dirt road, and then he heard someone call his name. Groggily he sat up.

Froggie was standing over him, looking not in the least bit apologetic. And behind her, climbing out of a red MG, was Richard Wolf.

“Are you all right?” Richard called out, running toward him.

“Tell me, Wolf,” Jordan groaned. “Are you out to kill all the Tavistocks? Or are you after one of us in particular?”

Laughing, Richard helped him to his feet. “I’d lay the blame where it belongs. On the horse.”

Both men looked at Froggie. She answered with what sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Richard asked quietly, “How’s Beryl doing these days?”

Jordan began to clap the dirt from his trousers. “Her leg’s healing fine.”

“Besides the leg?”