She held her daughter's hand and felt for her pulse. It was steady. Samantha's eyelids fluttered.
“Samantha? Can you hear me?'
“Where am I, Mom? What's going on?' Samantha's voice started as a whisper, then got stronger. She looked about her in agitation. 'My head hurts. It was Duncan. His shoes. I saw his shoes. Duncan hit me' She reached her hand to the back of her head and pul ed it quickly away.
“Mom, I'm bleeding! I'm scared! Do something!' She began to cry.
“The ambulance wil be here soon. Try to stay stil .' Pix had not seen the blood. She lay down next to her daughter, with her arm over Samantha's body to keep her calm.
Where was the ambulance! With her other hand, she grasped Samantha's hand, wet with her own blood, tightly.
“Sssh, honey, don't worry. Everything's going to be al right.”
But it wasn't.
After what seemed like several hours, she heard the ambulance siren and tears streamed down her face in relief. Earl was right behind them. He ran toward them.
“What happened?' he asked as the rescue workers rapidly assessed Samantha's injuries.
“I don't know! Arlene Prescott cal ed and said she'd dropped Samantha off at the end of the road. When Samantha wasn't in the house, I came to look for her. She said it was Duncan. She saw his shoes!' The rescue workers were wrapping Samantha in a blanket and moving her onto a stretcher.
“She's had a concussion; we're treating her for shock,'
one of the squad said. 'And she has a scalp wound that's going to need some sutures, but nothing seems to be broken. You want to ride with her?”
Pix climbed in the back of the ambulance for the drive over the bridge to the mainland. Samantha seemed to be sleeping. Pix was on one side, a corps member, bless him, on the other.
Duncan Cowley had attacked her daughter. Intending what?
At the hospital, Samantha was taken away before Pix could get out of the ambulance. Earl had been fol owing and gave her a hand.
“I've been in touch with the state police and they're going down to the island to question the boy and his parents. You know she's going to get the best care possible here. I know how hard it is, but she's young and healthy. Everything's going to be fine, Pix.”
Pix did not trust herself to do more than nod and let him lead her into the waiting room, where a nurse promptly put a cup of coffee loaded with sugar into her hand. Arlene and Fred were already there. For a moment, Pix was in the peculiar position of having to comfort Arlene when what she was feeling was anger. Why hadn't she driven Samantha to the door!
“I shouldn't have let her walk home,' Arlene wailed.
Fred looked at Pix and told his girlfriend to be quiet.
'No one's blaming you. Now stop bothering Mrs. Mil er.'
Arlene took a mighty gulp and calmed down.
Then they waited.
Someone at the nurse's station offered them more coffee, but Pix didn't want any. The cup she had drunk was making her feel jangly. She had cal ed Sam soon after they'd arrived and he was waiting by the phone. She wanted him by her side. Hospital waiting rooms. She thought of al the hours she had spent in them: her father's last il ness, a friend's mastectomy, Sam's ulcer, Danny's broken arm. No one talked except in occasional hushed voices. Each was total y absorbed in the thoughts being directed toward the room you weren't al owed to be in.
She knew, as Earl had said, that Samantha was going to be okay, but the nature of the attack—and al that blood
—was taking her down these dark corridors in her mind.
Then, as it happened in hospitals, the time stretched out beyond anxiety into boredom, and final y numb fatigue.
Arlene suddenly got up. 'The knife! I forgot al about the knife. It's in the car.'
“What knife?' Fred asked.
“The one in Duncan's trunk. Thank God he didn't have it with him.”
Earl tuned into the conversation. He'd been off with Jil on the long white sandy beach out at the Point.
He came over to them and said, 'You better tel me al about it—and keep your voices down. We don't want to worry Mrs. Mil er.”
If Pix noticed that Earl and Fred left soon after, it didn't real y register, nor did Fred's return alone. Earl walked in later. What did capture her immediate attention was the entry of a man in a white coat.
“Mrs. Mil er?' Pix jumped up, for once unaware of the picture she presented. It was an odd one in these wee hours of the morning—she was in her pajamas, with Earl's jacket over them.
It was a young doctor, as most of them seemed to be these days. 'Your daughter would like to see you.' He was smiling.
“She's going to be al right?' Her tears flowed freely.
Earl, Arlene, and Fred gathered close.
“Yes, though she's going to have a very large lump on her head and we had to do a little embroidery on her scalp
—not much. The ambulance crew said from the way she was lying, she struck a tree root or a rock when she fel , which knocked her out cold. Samantha says someone pushed her and it must have been with some force. We also did a CAT scan and I don't see anything to be concerned about. We do want to keep her overnight to be sure, but she's a very healthy specimen and should be just fine.”
The news was overwhelming.
“When can I have a few words with her, Doctor?' Earl asked. 'There seems to be an assault involved and we need al the information she can give us'
“If you keep it very brief, I don't see why you can't do it now. But'—he looked back at Arlene and Fred —'that's al .
The best thing for her now is rest. She was pretty shaken up.”
They nodded solemnly.
“Tel her ... wel , tel her I'm sorry and give her my love.
And I'l be here as soon as she can have visitors.”
Pix gave Arlene a hug, her recent anger total y vanished. Samantha had been dropped off at the end of the road, as had al of them day and night, hundreds of times.
The sight of her daughter in a hospital bed threatened to unhinge her, but Pix took a firm hold of herself—and Samantha.
“I have to cal Daddy right away. He's waiting. Then I'l be right back. Earl wants to talk to you about what happened. Do you feel up to it?'
“They gave me something to make my head stop hurting and I feel a little dopey, but I can tel him what happened. It was so quick, Mom.' Samantha gave a little sob. 'Duncan must real y hate me!'
“Don't think about it, sweetheart. He's a very, very troubled boy.”
As Pix was leaving to get Earl, the nurse came in. 'You have a phone cal , Mrs. Mil er. You can take it out here.”
Pix fol owed her and soon heard her husband's familiar voice. She told him what the doctor had said. 'I just wish you were here, even though she's fine'
“Wel , I wil be in about three and a half hours tops.'
'What!'
“I couldn't simply sit home. I'm a little south of Portland and wil be at the hospital as soon as I can. Nobody's too concerned about speed limits at this time of night. If I do get stopped, I'l have them cal Earl.'
“Please be careful, darling.' Pix was thril ed that he was on his way, but one Mil er in the hospital was more than enough.
“Don't worry, I wil .”
She hung up and went back to Samantha's room, where she intended to spend the night.
Earl had finished questioning her.
