“Not a word. Let’s lift him on two, okay? One, two…”
They hoisted him up. Mitch was heavy, close to two hundred pounds. But not nearly as heavy as when she’d first met him. He’d taken off a good forty pounds of man-blubber since then. Which was a mighty good thing. It wasn’t easy horsing him back through that deep snow, step by step by step.
“How you doing at your end?” Yolie panted as they worked their way slowly back across the beach.
“Okay…” Her shoulders and back were already starting to scream. “But I think he’s unconscious.”
“Probably just as well. Another ten seconds and he was going to be proposing to both of us.”
They made it across the beach and started their way up the narrow, twisting path. By now every single muscle in Des’s body was in agony.
“Need a break?” Yolie asked her when they reached the main path.
“No, I’m good,” she gasped. “Let’s get him in my front seat. I’ve got blankets in my trunk. I’ll run him straight to Shoreline Clinic. Faster than waiting for an EMT.”
“Deal. I’ll secure this scene, then run those two pieces of human filth in.”
They could see their cars now. Just another fifty yards and they’d be there. Not so far. Not so far at all. Not when her man’s life depended on it. And, hell, the last twenty feet was plowed pavement. Easy-peasy. They set him down gently on the passenger side of her front seat. Des pointed all of the heater vents in his direction and got the blankets out of the trunk and wrapped them around him. He was still unconscious. Also exceedingly pale-except for his ears and nose, which were bright red. She jumped in behind the wheel and slammed the door.
He stirred, blinking at her from inside of his blanket cocoon. “Y-You found me.”
“Of course I did.” She backed the cruiser up, spun it around and took off. “Think I was going to let you freeze to death out there?”
“H-How?…”
“Rut called from the Rustic to tell me you’d vanished. We followed your trail from there to the Yankee Doodle, where we found a whole lot of blood in Bungalow Six.” She eased off of the gas as she dipped under the Amtrak trestle, not wanting to jar him, then hit the gas again. Also her siren. “I was afraid it was yours, to tell you the truth.”
“It wasn’t.”
“After that we convinced Tommy the Pinhead to tell us where you were. Two large, angry black women with semiautomatic handguns can be very persuasive-especially if one of them is Yolie.”
She made a left onto Route 1 and punched it, veering around anyone and everyone in her path.
“Why’d they take my clothes?”
“Gigi thought it would be funny.”
“She needs to work on her sense of humor.”
“She’ll have plenty of time at York Correctional.”
“They teach comedy there now?”
“That was a joke, mister.”
“Sorry, I’m not … real with it.”
In fact, he’d passed out again.
She hit ninety mph as she tore across the Baldwin Bridge and then up Route 9 to the clinic. Night was settling in as she pulled up at the ambulance entrance with a screech.
Mitch awoke with a startled yelp, his eyes wide with fright.
She put her arm around him. “You okay?”
“I–I thought I was back in that trunk again with Casey. It was like that scene in
She smiled at him. “You’re jabbering. Have I told you recently how much I love it when you jabber?”
“Des, my head hurts.”
“I know.”
“And my toes really, really ache.”
“Good. That means the nerves are still working. You won’t lose them.”
“
She got out, charged through the double doors to the ER and hollered, “Get some help here!”
A doctor and a nurse started toward her at once. Des had been in and out of the clinic a million times and was acquainted with the doctor, a brisk, efficient Asian woman named Cindie Tashima.
“What have we got here?” Dr. Cindie asked as Des and the nurse hoisted Mitch into a wheelchair, his eyes blinking from the entrance’s bright lights.
“This man’s suffered a head wound and is in and out of consciousness. He was left for dead out at Breezy Point with no clothes on. We’re talking possible frostbite, especially to his feet.”
“Take him into room four and start re-warming him,” Dr. Cindie ordered the nurse, who promptly wheeled Mitch away. “Since they took his clothes I’m assuming he had no ID on him.”
“Probably threw his wallet in a Dumpster somewhere.”
“So he’s a John Doe?”
“No, he’s a Mitchell Berger.”
Des provided an administrative aide with Mitch’s address, date of birth and the name of his insurance provider. Dr. Cindie checked his body temperature and blood pressure while the nurse and an orderly unzipped the parkas Des and Yolie had covered him with and peeled off the bloody sweatshirt and shower curtain. Des watched them through the open doorway as they started re-warming his hands and feet in disposable basins filled with warm water. Not hot. Hot water could be such a shock to the system that it caused heart damage.
When the nurse handed Des the parkas Des said, “I’ll need the sweatshirt and shower curtain, too. How is he?”
“Conscious. And real anxious to talk to you about something.”
Des went into the room and said, “What is it, baby?”
“I–I forgot to tell you,” he murmured as Dr. Cindie examined his head wound. “When I was in Tommy the Pinhead’s trunk with Casey…”
“Is this about J-Lo again?”
“No, the tranny.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Which tranny?”
“Tommy drives a beat-up old black Trans Am, okay? And if you’re trying to find it here’s what to look for-he needs a new tranny real badly.”
“And you know this because?…”
“It kept revving and revving before it shifted into second with a real lurch. I smelled burnt rubber, too.”
Des didn’t bother to tell him they’d already located Tommy’s Trans Am. Just nodded and said, “A beat-up old black Trans Am with a bad tranny. Got it.”
“His Trans Am is toast, you know. When that tranny goes it’ll cost more to replace it than the whole car’s worth.”
She stared at him in disbelief, her pulse quickening. “I swear, sometimes you terrify me. You’ve got frostbite and a possible concussion.…”
“Definite concussion,” Dr. Cindie interjected.
“And yet you did it again.”
He frowned at her, his gaze slightly out of focus. “Did what?”
“Cracked my case.”
“I think I cracked a tooth. They were chattering so hard.”
“I’ll have a look at it in a second,” Dr. Cindie promised him.
Des bent down and kissed him. “I have to leave you for a little while. I’ll be back soon, okay?”
He didn’t answer her. Couldn’t. He was unconscious again.
The house was dark except for one light on inside. The porch light was out. Des rang the bell and stood there in the dark for a long time before she finally heard footsteps and the front door swung slowly open.
