Си Паради - Dancing With Shadows

Slowing as she approached the exit, the vehicle that had merged behind her pulled even and swerved into her lane. Tony jerked the steering wheel to the right moving the car onto the berm while simultaneously depressing the horn and thinking, damn idiot. He never even looked.

But the thoughts barely had time to cross her mind before it registered that he was continuing to crowd her, forcing her further off the road.

Suddenly the truck driver jerked hard to the right, violently slamming the heavy pickup into her car before bouncing off and continuing down the street. The sound of the impact echoing in the still night.

Tony fought to regain control of her car. The force with which the pickup hit her car propelled it through the snow fence. The wildly spinning tires of her car could not find purchase on the grass and it began slipping over the lip of the embankment.

While fighting fiercely to keep the car to the left, Tony’s mind processed the fact that if the car slid over the incline, it would most likely flip.

She instantaneously made a decision to try and stop the car against one of the two trees on a slight incline that her car was rapidly approaching.

The wheels of the car fought against the direction she was attempting to steer the car, and with only seconds to spare, her desperate efforts were rewarded when her car impacted with one of the trees.

Before her body had finished its momentum forward, she was thrown violently back against the seat, her head banging the headrest when the air bag deployed.

SHERMAN STRUGGLED FOR a moment before regaining control of the pickup truck. He heard the loud and satisfying bang from the impact of her car against the tree. Smiling, he exited at Clifton and made his way to a nearby bar where he planned to leave the truck. It was close to a bus stop that ran all night and it was an anonymous way of traveling back to his hotel.

Standing at the bus stop, he thought about the accident. His timing had been perfect. Sherman had selected the site the day before. It was the only stretch along her route home that had an embankment.

Sherman smirked. He would have rather her car gone over the embankment. But her car had hit the tree with such force it was unlikely she had survived. If Viglioni was alive, she would be seriously injured, and he would just visit the hospital and finish the job.

Getting on the bus, he walked to the back and sat down. The police scanner in his room would furnish him the information he needed.

Back in his room, he turned on the scanner and picked up the disjointed conversation between the dispatcher and the police. There had been little traffic and it might be a while before she was discovered.

The scanner clicked to life. "Dispatch to Unit 28 and Ambulance 1. I have a motorist on the line calling from a cellular phone relaying an accident at the Route 2, Edgewater exit. MVA versus tree. Condition of occupant unknown."

"Unit 28 copy."

"Ambulance 1 en route."

Smiling, Sherman thought, so far so good.

The whirling sound of a siren cut through the night. The ambulance slowed at each intersection before proceeding, the driver intent on arriving at the hospital safely. Pulling into the emergency entrance to the large community hospital well known for its trauma center, he swung the ambulance around, backing up to the emergency room doors. Getting out of the ambulance, he walked quickly around to the rear and began assisting the other paramedic by helping her move the portable gurney to the edge of the ambulance, allowing the legs to drop and lock into place.

The emergency room personnel met them at the door and the driver gave the following report while the gurney was rolled into the trauma room. "This is a 30 year old woman who was driver of MVA versus tree. C-spine precautions, vital signs stable, no obvious blunt trauma, no

LOC, extraction time was 30 minutes."

Megan woke up feeling uneasy. She opened her eyes and looked into the green eyes of a purring kitten lying contentedly on her chest. Not fully awake, her mind processed several things, and one of them was anxiety. Automatically sensing that Tony wasn’t in the bed, she looked at the clock before sitting upright alarmed. Huggy meowed in protest at the sudden movement and loss of her comfortable bed.

It was 1:30am. Tony should have been home. She said she’d be home by midnight or 12:30 at the latest. Throwing the sheet off, Megan got up and walked into the living room and kitchen before proceeding to the bathroom wondering why Tony wasn’t home. It was possible she could have gone out with guys after work or something. People did that all the time. Yeah, but she would’ve called, her mind answered. Not if she didn’t want to wake me. Really? And she would take the chance of worrying you instead? Not likely. She is only an hour late. Maybe the report took longer than normal, or maybe they moved in on the surveillance site. That was probably it. But Megan didn’t believe that. The internal argument she was having had little impact compared to the feeling in her gut. She knew something was wrong.

Megan thought over her options and realized there was little she could do. But she wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing either. What if

Tony needed her? Trusting her instincts, she decided to call the only person she knew who might be able to find out something quickly. She knew if this turned out to be a false alarm, she might be laughed at later, but she didn’t care. The feeling that something was wrong was too strong to ignore.

"Hello," the deep sleepy voice answered.

"Hi, Brian. This is Megan. I’m really sorry to bother you and it may be for nothing, but Tony’s over an hour late and I have a bad feeling,"

Megan paused, knowing she probably sounded ridiculous.

Brian wakened fully as he listened to Megan. He liked the young Coroner and knew she was a sensible young woman. If she thought something was wrong, then he would check it out. She was not prone to hysterics.

"Megan, stay by the phone. I’ll make a few calls and get back to you."

Megan paced back and forth in the kitchen. Tony, where are you? Are you ok? She was startled out of her thoughts 10 minutes later, when the phone rang.

Wasting no words, Brian said, "I’ll pick you up in 15 minutes. Tony’s been in a car accident. She’s at Metro."

Megan went through the motions of putting her clothes on, occupied with trying to keep terrifying images from appearing in her mind.

Shutting her eyes tightly, her hands balled into fists, she finally won the battle. She would accomplish nothing by panicking.

Megan stood in the lobby of the apartment building waiting for Brian to arrive. What could have happened? Tony was an expert driver.

Trying to focus her thoughts elsewhere, Megan looked at one of the pictures in the lobby. It was a portrait of a woman from the Victorian era, but the picture began transforming and in her mind’s eye she saw Tony sitting across from her, smiling the special smile that Megan knew was reserved only for her. Scenes from the last time she saw her lover continued to play through her mind in slow motion. She saw incredibly blue, mirth filled eyes, shinning out of a perfectly sculpted face, and the quirky little half smile when Tony learned the kittens’ names. She felt the strong, soft hand gently squeeze her own and heard the softly spoken words, "See you later, Love," when Tony dropped her off after lunch. Choking back a sob, Megan thought, she has to be ok. She just has to.

The reflection of headlights against the lobby doors drew her attention from the picture, and she hurried out the doors and got into Brian’s car.

Megan was already asking, "What did you find out?" before the door was even shut.