Carla Neggers - Cold Ridge

"Did you know Louis and Jodie Rancourt were having an affair?"

"Suspected." He stared out the side window as Ty turned onto the notch road. "I thought the police'd sort it out. I cooperated with them. I put you on Carine. I shut Val out. I figured Eric was safe at school." He was silent a moment. "I guess my plan didn't work out that well."

But North's focus was up the road, where an elderly man had jumped out in front of them, waving them down, a Ford Taurus with Maine plates was parked crookedly in back of him. There was a second car-it had veered off into a dry ditch, its front end smashed against a granite ledge.

Ty pulled over, but Manny was already kicking open his door. "That's Val's car."

He was out of the truck before they'd come to a full stop and charged down into the ditch. When Ty climbed out, the old man, decked out in a winter parka, hat and gloves, was on him. "She was coming from the other direction and crossed right in front of me-I knew something was wrong. I think she must have had a heart attack or something. I didn't know whether to leave her and go call an ambulance."

Manny ripped open the driver's side door. Val fell out into his arms. Ty shoved his cell phone at the old guy. "Call 911. When you connect, give the phone back to me." He grabbed his medical kit out of the back of his truck and ran down to Manny and Val. He could see the blood on her front, mostly on her left side. He opened up his med kit, setting it on the ground. "What's her condition?"

"She's been fucking shot."

"Manny-"

"Airway, breathing, circulation are okay."The ABCs, the basics. "Skin's clammy, she's shivering-she could go into shock."

Ty grabbed gauze and moistened it with IV fluid, then thrust it at Manny, who immediately applied pressure to the wound. It was his wife-he didn't bother with protective gloves. "Abs?" Ty asked.

"Guarding."

They both knew that was a positive sign. Manny checked for bowel sounds in all four quadrants, then nodded, satisfied. They needed to get Val to definitive care, the sooner the better. The "golden hour" rule. Every minute care was delayed, the patient's chances of recovery dimmed.

Ty handed Manny an Ace wrap to hold the dressing in place. "You okay?"

He nodded, concentrating on a task he'd performed hundreds of times in simulations and missions. The training took over, and if he was going to panic in a crisis, Manny Carrera wouldn't have lasted as a PJ for twenty years. Ty helped him put in a saline IV and let it run wide open-Val had suffered enough bloodloss that she needed fluid or she might not make it to the hospital.

Ty leaped back up from the ditch and got a blanket out of his truck, and he and Manny laid Val on it and wrapped her up as best they could to keep her warm. Then they elevated her feet, to keep blood flowing to her vital organs.

"Val," Manny said, "what happened, sweetheart?"

"White hair, missing fingers." She tried to sit up, clawed at her husband's arm. "He has Eric and Hank."

"How long have you been out here?"

"A few minutes. Not long."

The old man handed the phone down to Ty. "I've got the dispatcher. There's a lot of static."

Ty nodded and spoke to the dispatcher, explaining that he was a paramedic and knew local procedures- they needed to get an ambulance to pick up Val and take her to the soccer field at Mount Chester, and they needed to get a medevac helicopter there to fly her to the regional trauma center.

Val rose up and hit Manny in the chest. "Goddamn it, leave me out here! Go find Eric and Hank! He'll leave Eric to the elements. Manny, he'll die-"

"Val-Jesus, how can I leave you?"

Ty got to his feet. "Carine and Gus headed up to check the east ridge trail near the Rancourt place. I'm going up there. Ambulance will be here in a few minutes. Val, you hang in there. You're going to be okay."

But her eyes were locked on her husband, her teeth chattering as she shivered, even with the blanket over her. "Go, Manny, for God's sake. There's nothing more you can do for me here. I'll be fine."

She sank back, her breathing rapid, her color not good. Manny looked up at the old man. "You'll stay with her? Apply pressure to the wound. She's not going to die on you."

Despite his obvious confusion, he didn't hesitate. "Of course. I'll do my best."

Manny kissed Val on the forehead. "You hang in there, okay? I love you."

She didn't answer, and Ty could see how hard it was for Manny to leave her. He didn't look back as he climbed up the steep wall of the ditch and got into Ty's truck. "This fuck Turner wants us. It's payback for last fall. He and Louis must have been in cahoots. We put an end to their nice little smuggling operation. He doesn't want Eric. He can have me. He used my wife- my boy-"

"Don't go there." North thought about Turner on the back deck with Carine, talking to her about the pictures, asking about having dinner with him sometime in Boston. "Hell, he wants Carine, too."

"She's up by the Rancourts? We need to warn her. That fuck's out here somewhere."

Ty pulled out onto the road. "Knowing Hank, he'll have this all sorted out by the time the police get there."

"Yeah. Damn pilots."

"It's going to work, Manny. I gave the dispatcher the lowdown. The cavalry's on its way. If we find Turner first, we isolate the situation until a tac team can get in there. Right?"

Manny didn't seem to be paying attention. "Don't you have a gun?"

"No."

"Val did." He pulled a bloodied Glock out of his waistband, then shook his head. "It's unloaded. No ammo. That woman."

Ty manufactured a smile. "This is why she works in a bookstore."

Manny looked down at his wife's bloody gun, his wife's blood on his clothes and hands. He glanced out the window when they turned up the access road to the Rancourt house and the east ridge trailhead. "So, what happens if Callahan's elected president-he gets a mountain named for him up here?"

And Ty relaxed slightly. Manny was with him.

Gus narrowly missed a head-on collision with the Ran-courts'SUV as it careered out of their driveway onto the access road. He veered off to the side, almost plowing into a hemlock. "Jesus Christ! What the hell do they think they're doing?"

"Obviously they didn't expect anyone else to be on the road," Carine said, jumping out of the truck.

Sterling rolled down his window and gave her a cool, unfriendly look. "The sun was in my eyes. Is Gus all right? Is his truck hung up on the rocks?"

"He's fine. I thought you'd gone already." She shivered in a stiff gust of wind. "Have you seen Eric Carrera?"

"Up here, you mean? No, why? Is something wrong?"

"He left a note saying he was on a hike, but it doesn't all add up. The police and forest rangers are on the case, but we were hoping to catch up with him before he'd gone too far."

"I'm sorry. We just don't know anything."

Carine knew she'd been dismissed, but she didn't give up. "What about Gary Turner? Is he here?"

"I assume he's left, but I don't keep track of him. Goodbye-"

"How did you end up hiring him? Did he come to you, or did you go to him?"

"Carine, this isn't the time or the place for this discussion. I'm glad we didn't collide. Give your uncle our best-"

Carine straightened. "The Sanborn Dairy was before your time up here."

"I beg your pardon?"

Gus circled around the back of his truck and took her by the arm. "Come on, honey. We'll go back to North's, figure out what's next."

Jodie Rancourt jumped out of the passenger side of the SUV and came around the front, Sterling banging the steering wheel in frustration. Jodie ignored him. "My God, I wish we'd never met those bastards. Gary and Louis, Tony, whatever his name was. Louis was socharming and sexy. They came to me, separately. First Gary, months ago. Then Louis. I manipulated Sterling into hiring them, playing on his anxieties following our ordeal last fall." Her voice was hoarse, but her words were distinct. She shrugged, and said without sympathy or apology, without so much as a glance at he rhusband. "I was bored."