crimson oozed in the middle of her parka. Blood dripped onto the snow. It was the reddest red Judy had ever seen against the whitest white. She tore the hat from her head without knowing why.
'HELP!' she screamed. Judy looked wildly around. 'HELP, SOMEBODY, PLEASE!' she screamed again at the top of her lungs.
* * *
Sirens screamed as two paramedics exploded from the back of a fire rescue truck and set upon Mary. Red emergency lights bathed the falling snow in crimson. Snow like drops of blood showered Judy, who stood shivering with cold and fear. She held fast to Mary's skis, just for something to hold.
The rescue driver leapt from the front seat, raced to the back of the chunky red truck, and yanked a stretcher out. Its wheels bounced off the patterned steel of the vehicle's floor and vanished in the deep snow.
'She was shot in the back,' Judy called to the paramedics, her eyes blurry with tears. Mary had lost consciousness waiting for the ambulance and looked lifeless even though she was still breathing. Her eyes were closed and her face was pale in the lurid red light. Her head rocked to the side as the paramedics checked the wound on her back and covered her with a thin green blanket. They lifted her onto the gurney on a hurried three- count.
Judy couldn't bear to see it. She couldn't bear not to. She dropped the skis and hustled after the paramedics as they hoisted the front of the stretcher into the truck. One of the paramedics scrambled in beside the stretcher and the other paramedic rolled it in from behind. The driver dashed back to his seat and tore open the door. They were leaving. 'I'm coming,' Judy shouted.
'No riders,' the paramedic barked. He wasn't wearing a jacket and his short-sleeved uniform showed a knot of biceps as he tried to close the truck's thick door. 'This is a snatch and grab. We got rules.'
'She's my best friend!'
'I don't make the rules.'
'I have to go with her!' Before the paramedic could stop her, Judy jammed her arm inside the doors and climbed into the truck. 'I'm not moving,' she said, and crouched against the inside wall of the truck. 'Sorry.'
'Have it your way,' the paramedic snapped, 'only because I can't leave you in the friggin' snow,' He slammed the doors closed and twisted the lock. 'Rock and roll!' he yelled over his shoulder, and the rescue truck lurched off with its siren screeching.
Inside the lighted truck, the paramedics set to work instantly, a feverish team. The muscular one cut the sleeve of Mary's parka and sweater, felt with knowing fingertips for a vein, and stuck an IV into the crook of her elbow. 'Possible gunshot wound to the left lung,' he shouted to the driver over Mary's still, bundled form. 'Grade Two shock. She's losing one thousand to two thousand cc's. She'll need two, maybe three units when we get to the dance.'
The other paramedic checked Mary's vital signs. 'Respiratory rate, thirty. Blood pressure, ninety over fifty. Heart rate, one-thirty.'
The driver palmed a crackling radio and repeated everything into it. Judy couldn't make out the crackled response. She couldn't tear her eyes from Mary as the paramedics moved around her. The skin on her face looked rubbery. Whiter than snow. Bloodless.
Judy's teeth began to chatter and she folded her arms against her chest. She huddled in the corner of the speeding truck. It was heated inside, but Judy had never felt so cold in her life.
28
Long Beach Island looked like a witch's index finger on Marta's map and sheltered a stretch of New Jersey coastline from the Atlantic Ocean. The map's scale showed that the island was about twenty miles long and only half a mile wide at some points. Smaller and skinnier than Marta expected.
She followed the green minivan down a wide, snowy street that seemed to run the length of the island, north to south. The street was empty, though the storm had been lighter here, too. A blackish-gray sky shed only a dusting of snow. Marta guessed the island was deserted because of the winter, not the storm.
Marta's truck rattled down the street, trembling in the strong gusts from the Atlantic on the right and the bay on the left. The street must have been the main drag in summertime because it was lined with darkened stores advertising boogie boards, bathing suits, and suntan oils. Marta drove past shell shops, Laundromats, and restaurants. The signs were evidence of more food than any human could consume: BURGERS FRIES RIBS SHAKES PIZZA and the no-frills, BREAKFAST. A placard on a toy store simply said BUY IT, and Marta gave it points for honesty if not specificity. She kept the minivan in sight and drove through a town actually named Surf City.
The minivan and truck traveled up the island, due north. Steere's beach house was in Barnegat Light, and Marta checked the map with her flashlight. The town was at the northernmost tip of the island, where the minivan was heading so fast.
Marta accelerated to keep up. The traffic lights had been turned off. She passed easily through a commercial district and into an area that looked residential. Scrub pines reappeared by the roadside, their needles lined with snow. Evergreens lined the road like Christmas trees on display. Junky beach shops were replaced by houses of different shapes and sizes; saltboxes with weathered siding sat next to spacious modern homes on stilts, with multiple decks and large glass windows. Wooden signs in a snowy divider told Marta the towns she was passing through: NORTH BEACH, HARVEY CEDARS, LOVE-LADIES.
Marta traveled behind the minivan for ten minutes, then twenty. The truck was freezing without a working heater and she wiggled her fingers in her gloves to keep her blood circulating. The windshield wipers had finally met a snow they could handle and pumped madly in pride. Marta stretched her neck, aching from the accident, and felt her goose eggs, sore from Bogosian. She was as beat up as the pickup but somehow her senses felt alive. Urgent.
Marta watched the homes pass on either side of the street, illuminated only by the truck's headlights. They cast little light, and Marta figured she'd crunched a headlight in the accident. The houses loomed large in the darkness and almost all were empty. They were about four and five deep to the beach and fewer than that to the bay. The farther out Marta drove, the larger and emptier the houses.
In ten blocks the houses became mansions and more modern. There were showplaces with whimsical paint jobs, their pinks and yellows bright even in the dark. Stark white contemporary homes sat far from the road, directly on the beachfront. The construction looked new and the homes custom-built. One white one reminded Marta of her glass beach house on Cape Cod, except the lots were bigger here and dotted with snowy vegetation. She sensed she was getting closer. If Steere had a house on the island, it would be in the most exclusive location.
