Dulcie started to cry. “What do I do?”
“Stop crying. I’m going to need your help. Go in the house and get some blankets. We have to warm him up.”
She rubbed her eyes with her fists like a child. “Okay.”
“Where’s the ambulance?”
“Coming.” She got up and started for the house.
“Run!” I yelled at her.
I tilted Harlan’s head back and put my ear against his chest. He wasn’t breathing. My hands were shaking too much from the cold to tell if he had a pulse. It had been years since I’d learned CPR and I’d never done it on anything except a dummy.
Dulcie returned with an armful of blankets that looked like they’d been pulled off someone’s bed.
“One for you, too,” she said. “You are shivering.”
She wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and we piled the others on top of Harlan.
“You push on his chest with both hands,” I said to her. “Like this. Do it when I tell you. I’m going to blow air into his lungs.”
I have no idea how long we worked together, me pinching Harlan’s nose and blowing into his mouth as hard as I could while Dulcie pumped his chest. She began murmuring in Spanish and I recognized the Lord’s Prayer. In spite of the blanket, I couldn’t stop shivering as my hands cramped up and I began losing feeling in my fingers.
It felt like I was losing Harlan, too, his life ebbing away in spite of our efforts. He had wanted to die. I needed him to want to live.
Finally we heard the sirens. Dulcie lifted her head and made the sign of the cross.
“Go around to the front and show them where we are,” I said.
This time she ran. I heard shouting and footsteps running toward the swimming pool. Two men in navy fire and rescue uniforms knelt on either side of Harlan. Around me voices swirled and colors flashed. Someone put her hands on my shoulders and gently moved me aside.
“We got him,” one of the paramedics said to me as he pulled off Harlan’s blankets and began tearing open his shirt. “How long have you been at it?”
“A couple of minutes I think.”
“Any idea how long he was in the water?”
“No.”
A blond woman in a yellow Loudoun County Fire Department jumpsuit helped me up. “Thanks, hon. Come on over here. Let them take care of your husband.”
Dulcie came over and stood next to me. She seemed calmer now, though she still looked pale. The blond showed me Ali’s pill bottle as the paramedics hooked Harlan up to a heart monitor and fitted an oxygen mask over his face. It took them about thirty seconds.
“I found these out front on the table next to an empty tequila bottle,” she said. “What’s he got in his stomach?”
I heard the man who had ripped open Harlan’s shirt say, “Body temp ninety-three point four. He’s got no pulse. Get the pads.”
Dulcie moaned and I put my arm around her.
“Half a bottle of tequila,” I said to the woman. “I don’t know how many pills.”
We watched a third paramedic unpack a defibrillator.
“Don’t look,” I said to Dulcie. She buried her head on my shoulder and I closed my eyes.
I heard the jolt as the machine went off and then someone said, “We got something. He’s back, but just barely.”
The blond said to me, “You can go to the hospital with him if you want. The battalion chief just showed up. He’ll drive you, but you ought to go inside and get out of those wet clothes first.”
“It’s not my house,” I said. “I’m just a friend of the family.”
She looked momentarily nonplussed, then turned to Dulcie. “Can you take her inside and get her something dry to wear, please?” To me she added, “Sorry. I thought you were his wife. Where is she?”
“The head groom is trying to find Señora Jennings,” Dulcie said.
“Jennings?”
“You don’t know whose house this is?” I asked.
“I’m new to the area. Sorry.”
“That’s Harlan Jennings lying there. Senator Harlan Jennings.”
“Oh, God. I read the paper this morning. That article on the front page.” She shook her head. “What a waste. Go change, hon. You’re shivering.”
I followed Dulcie as the two paramedics lifted Harlan, who now wore a cervical collar, onto a backboard. I wondered if they would put him on a suicide watch in the hospital. Would he try again to take his life?
I was changing into some of Ali’s clothes in the guest bathroom when I heard her frantic voice in the foyer. I finished dressing and went to find her.
She looked surprised to see me. “Why are you wearing … Oh, God! Dulcie told me you found him. I didn’t realize …”
“Sorry. My clothes were wet.” I fingered the buttons of her sweater. “I’ll return these later.”
“It’s okay, don’t be silly. Keep them. I’m so glad you were here. He could have died …”
“Don’t think about it,” I said. “He didn’t. Go to the hospital with him and everything will be fine.”
She laughed a mirthless laugh. “That’s so funny. Nothing will be fine. Not now, not ever. It’s over. Finished. We’ve lost everything.”
“Mrs. Jennings.” The battalion chief opened the front door and stuck his head inside. “We have to go. Would you like to ride in the ambulance or with me?”
“With you.” Ali laid a hand on my arm. “Good-bye, Lucie.”
I went outside as the ambulance pulled out of the driveway, sirens blaring. A Loudoun County fire engine followed and the battalion chief’s cruiser brought up the rear, first circling around the driveway in front of Dulcie and me. Dulcie clutched Harlan’s jacket against her chest like a shield. Ali never looked at either of us as the cruiser drove off.
“Thank you for saving his life,” Dulcie said.
“It was both of us,” I said. “We did it together.”
I got in the Mini and thought about Harlan and what Ali had just said before she left for the hospital. The latest—and probably not the last—casualty as the Asher empire continued its downward trajectory of destruction and ruin.
Chapter 26
Something slid around the cargo space behind the Mini’s rear seat as I took the turn off Atoka Road onto Sycamore Lane a little too fast. The Viognier. I’d forgotten to deliver it. Maybe I should void the sale and forget about it. Ali wouldn’t want the wine now.
It was just after noon when I pulled into my driveway. Quinn’s fifteen-year-old Ford Mustang, which seemed to spend more time at the mechanic’s than on the road, was parked in front of the house. Frankie said he planned to take today off, so I didn’t expect to see him here. I parked next to him and caught my shoe on the hem of Ali’s trousers climbing out of the car. I rolled up both hems to make cuffs and did the same to the sleeves of her fuzzy equestrian-themed sweater.
I called Quinn’s name, checking the rooms when I got inside. He wasn’t here. I knew, then, where to find him, though I didn’t know why. The summerhouse in the backyard by the rose garden. When Quinn first came to work for Leland, he’d asked permission to set up his telescope out there since the wide-open view of the Piedmont and the Blue Ridge was perfect for stargazing. Quinn’s fascination with the stars, planets, and anything else in the night sky had always intrigued me because it seemed so out of character with his brash, macho personality. But over the years—as I thought about it now—my sweetest and most memorable nights with him had been spent not
