“Gram! Gram!”
Ears perked for the sound of the shotgun racking again, Josie squirmed from beneath Lisette. Her mind was overwhelmed. On some gut level she knew she had to choose between pursuing the threat in the woods—which could still kill her—or tending to Lisette. Her hands had already made the choice as they tossed her pistol aside and began to feel Lisette’s body for wounds.
“Gram!”
Lisette was on her back. Profound, visceral relief flooded Josie’s veins when her trembling hands reached up to touch Josie’s face. “Jos—”
Her breathing was ragged. Josie’s fingers traveled down her grandmother’s wrists to her shoulders, caressing her face, her hair. Nothing wet or sticky. No head or face wounds. Her chest and torso were another story. Hot blood clung to Josie’s fingers. Had the shooter used a slug or buckshot? The more her fingers explored, the more Josie was convinced it had been buckshot, which meant multiple wounds.
“Jesus,” she cried. “Gram! Hold on.”
She couldn’t see. Her hands scrabbled through the grass. She needed her phone. The flashlight. Or she could call her team.
“Gram!”
Every nerve ending in her body buzzed. She couldn’t find the phone. Lisette coughed. Josie turned back toward her and had the sensation of leaving her body. Suddenly, she was floating just over herself and Lisette. It was like looking through night vision goggles, both of them dark forms against a glowing green backdrop. Josie saw herself on her knees, hands gliding across the grass, finding nothing. Lisette lay on her back, eyes staring upward. One of her arms reached out, searching for Josie.
There was no time.
Josie snapped back into her body. Felt the terror choking the air from her lungs, the hot blood on her hands, the adrenaline making her entire body feel like a live wire. She heard noise in the distance. Someone moving away, through the woods. A motor whirring in the opposite direction. Then, as sure as if he were standing over her, whispering into her ear, Josie heard the voice of her late husband, Ray.
“Focus,” he said.
“I’m trying,” Josie cried, aware for the first time of the tears streaming down her face. Had she said it out loud? She didn’t know, didn’t care.
“Jo,” the voice said again. “You have to scoop her.”
Scooping was a term used in law enforcement. When a victim of violence—usually a shooting—was losing blood too fast to wait for aid, the police literally picked them up and carried them to their vehicle and then rushed to get them help.
Josie crawled toward Lisette, found her shoulders and hips and slid her arms beneath her, scooping her up. She stumbled to her feet, swaying, trying to find her balance on the grass with a swollen, aching ankle. Then she ran.
Twenty-Five
Sawyer pulled up along the path in a resort car as Josie reached the asphalt. Josie watched the emotions pass over his face in seconds: confusion, alarm, fear, and then his training took over. He threw the car into park before it even stopped moving and jumped out, running toward Josie. He met her in the grass and took Lisette from her. “What the hell happened? Were those gunshots I heard?”
Josie followed him as he ran toward the resort car. “Someone was in the woods. They shot at us. I couldn’t see, I—”
“You have to drive,” Sawyer said, cutting her off. He tried to sit Lisette up in the back seat of the car and then he slid in beside her. “Can you do it? They didn’t have the staff to spare, so they gave me the keys.”
“Yes,” Josie said.
In the low light of the path lanterns, Josie could see the blood. It soaked Lisette’s torso. It streaked over the gear shift and the steering wheel as Josie put the cart in motion and turned it around. She had never driven a resort car before but this one was just like an extremely large golf cart. It was similar enough to a car that her body went onto automatic pilot.
“Lisette,” Sawyer said. “Jesus. She’s bleeding everywhere. Everywhere, Josie. How many times was she shot?”
“It was buckshot,” Josie said.
“Oh my God. Lisette!”
Josie punched the gas pedal as hard as she could and zoomed back down the path to Griffin Hall, headed for the flashing red and blue lights of one of Denton’s police cruisers. She glanced briefly over her shoulder to see that Sawyer had pushed Lisette’s shirt upward in his attempt to find the wounds. One hand held pressure on the left side of her chest while the other tried to find a pulse in her throat. Josie hadn’t heard a sound from Lisette in what seemed like an eternity but was probably less than a minute. She tried not to think about what that meant.
Sawyer said, “She’s not going to make it if we wait for an ambulance.”
“I know,” said Josie. “We’re taking a police vehicle.”
In front of Griffin Hall, a crowd of people stood, many of them Josie and Noah’s own family members who had stayed for the weekend. They all looked nervous, eyes searching the horizon. They’d heard the shots, Josie realized. She heard several cries as they pulled up in front of the building, but the faces were a blur. People crowded her but she pushed through them. Behind her, Sawyer had gotten out of the car and now carried Lisette. The uniformed officer asked no questions. He took one look at Josie’s face as she approached and held out his keys. Josie opened the back door and helped Sawyer get Lisette inside, sprawled across the seat. While they were doing that, the uniformed officer popped the trunk and riffled around until he found a first aid kit. He gave it to Josie, who handed it over to Sawyer. Then she got into the driver’s side.
As she turned on the siren and backed out, she heard Lisette cough. The sound sent
