The Book of Betrayal Read online

  “Mmm. I like the sound of that.”

  Malcolm backed out of the driveway and headed toward the freeway. We drove in silence; I felt too relaxed and full and happy for speech. It had gone well, my parents liked him—

  “You had a good time, right?” I said.

  “I did. You have a great family. You’re luckier than you know, I think.”

  “What makes you say that?” I tilted my head to look at him.

  “My family isn’t nearly so pleasant to be around. My mother is…difficult, and Ewan can never decide whether to be a dutiful son or his own man, and I’m afraid I get irritated and snappish and make things worse. And then there’s Andria.”

  Jealousy touched my heart. “I thought you dumped Andria.”

  Malcolm laughed. “Oh, love, Andria never came close to holding a place in my heart the way you do. But she’s my cousin—second cousin—and my mother has never given up the hope that Andria and I will marry. One unfortunate side effect from having to keep this secret is that my mother believes I’m unattached, and has no trouble pushing Andria on me at every opportunity.”

  “But Andria has to know you’re not interested.”

  A rueful smile touched his lips. “Andria knows. Andria is opportunistic and enjoys pushing my buttons. She is currently living with my mother rent-free and enjoying a lifestyle superior to what she would live at home in Quebec, so leaving doesn’t benefit her at all.” He accelerated up the ramp to freeway speeds. This close to the road, I could almost see the rain as a wave pushed up by our passage. It was the strangest sensation.

  “You’re not jealous, are you?” Malcolm added. “Because I promise you—”

  “I’m not jealous. Well, I sort of am, a tiny little bit, but more in the ‘I’ve never met her and I have some small insecurities about how much prettier she is than me’ way than anything serious.”

  Malcolm roared with laughter. “Helena, you are so much more beautiful than she can ever dream of being,” he finally said. “She’s pretty enough, but there’s an arch self-awareness to her that makes it difficult to want to be close to her over time.”

  “‘Arch self-awareness’? That’s a sweet way to insult someone.”

  He glanced at me, flashing his dimple. “I hadn’t thought—”

  The smile fell away from his face, replaced by a look of confusion. Then pain creased his features, and he grabbed his chest. The car swerved across two lanes, and I screamed. Cars beside us honked, long and shrill. Malcolm cried out and took hold of the wheel again, his face still contorted in agony. We straightened briefly, skidded, and then the car was swinging in a huge weightless arc across the freeway. I screamed again. Something low and dark rose up fast before us. I struck the dashboard and everything went black.

  2

  Something hissed beyond the darkness, a loud, ceaseless sound. Rain. I blinked water out of my face and tried to sit up, but was restrained by…what was it? The seatbelt. Right. The car—

  Memory returned. Malcolm’s agonized face, the car swerving, the crash as the car plowed into the freeway’s concrete barrier. One of the headlights was unbroken and pressed up against the concrete, making a white spot that illuminated the destroyed front end of the car. The windshield was shattered, and rain poured in on me. I wiped more water out of my face…except it wasn’t water, it was blood. I must have hit my head on the dash. My hands were shaking. I had to get out.

  Then I saw Malcolm. He hung limply in his seat belt, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. One of his arms, thrust toward me, was clearly broken, hanging awkwardly below the elbow. His face was bloody from a dozen cuts, all turning pink from the pouring rain. With trembling hands, I yanked at the seat belt, but couldn’t get it to release. “Somebody help me!” I screamed, yanking harder.

  Someone flung my door open. “Are you all right?” a man said.

  “Help him—he’s hurt—I can’t get out—”

  “Calm down, it will be all right,” the man said, but I looked at Malcolm’s still face and panic bubbled up inside me. The man managed to unhook my seat belt, and I flung myself at Malcolm, feeling for a pulse.

  “Call 911,” the man said to someone over his shoulder, then to me, “Come out of there, and we’ll see if we can get him out.”

  “No! You’re not supposed to move him, he might have a spine injury, you can’t—please help me!”

  “I’m trying to. Come with me.”

  “No. I won’t leave him.” My hair and coat were soaked. The endless rain made everything so much worse. The ambulance was coming, it had to be coming.

  Malcolm shifted. I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Malcolm, can you feel that?”

  He opened his eyes briefly, half-lidded, and looked at me with no recognition. Then he closed his eyes and sagged more deeply.

  “Malcolm!” I shrieked. “No, no, no, no!”

  Hands grabbed me, dragged me away. I fought them like a madwoman, clawing and shrieking, but they bundled me away from the car and into the passenger seat of a Suburban. “Let me go!”

  “He’s fine, he’s just unconscious,” the same man said. “Sit here and wait for the paramedics. It will be all right.”

  I gulped in rain-scented air and let out a sobbing breath. “How do you know?”

  “I was a Boy Scout,” the man said. “Is there someone you should call? Your family, maybe?”

  “No, I—” There was someone I should call, someone better than the paramedics, but I didn’t know how soon he could be there. “My phone’s in my purse. In the car.”

  “I’ll get it.” The man ran back to the Jaguar.

  I took a look around, pushing wet hair out of my eyes. Another car had plowed into Malcolm’s, driving it farther into the wall. Good thing those old Jaguars had such long noses, or it would have been us smashed into the wall. As it was, the front end had crumpled, trapping Malcolm inside—I made myself breathe slowly. I couldn’t help him by panicking.

  The man returned with my purse. “Thanks,” I said, digging through it for my phone. A couple of other undamaged cars had pulled up behind ours and had their hazard lights on, and the Suburban I sat in was parked across the lane in front of Malcolm’s car. There was no shoulder, no way to pull out of traffic, and it all looked so unsafe I feared someone else would come barreling along, unable to stop, and add to the crisis.

  I found my purse and dialed Derrick Tinsley’s number. Derrick was a member of Malcolm’s invader hunting team and a bone magus, capable of healing injuries, even severe ones. It rang, and rang, and I had to hold the phone with both hands because now I was shaking all over. Finally, Derrick said, “Helena?”

  “Derrick,” I said, then couldn’t think what else to say. “Derrick, there was an accident. A car accident. Malcolm is—he’s—”

  “He’s dead?”

  I shook my head, forgetting he couldn’t see me. “No, he’s alive, but he’s badly hurt, Derrick, I need your help—” Just in time I remembered my Boy Scout helper, standing nearby and watching me. “Can you come?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Somewhere on the Banfield.”

  “That could—”

  “Hang on.” Lights and sirens were approaching, and my helper ran toward the approaching vehicles. “The EMTs are here.” An ambulance followed in the fire truck’s wake.

  Derrick swore. “Nothing I can do about that,” he said. “Keep a close eye on him, and call me when you know what hospital they’re taking him to. Probably Providence, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  His words confused me—why wouldn’t he want the paramedics?—but I said, “All right,” to a dead line—he’d already hung up. I put my phone away and staggered toward the ambulance and the fire truck, nearly falling when I put weight on my left foot. It hadn’t hurt before, or at least I hadn’t noticed it in my preoccupation with not leaving Malcolm. If a sprained ankle and a possible concussion were all I was taking away from this, I was lucky.

  Three EMTs were cl
ustered around Malcolm’s car, and one had gone to check on the occupants of the second car involved in the crash. I hobbled over to that one, a uniformed woman who didn’t notice me until I tapped her on the shoulder. Then she looked at me, did a double take, and swore. “Where did you come from?”

  “From the car. Is he…he’s alive, right? I told them not to move him. Was that right?”

  “Come with me,” the woman said, and led me over to the ambulance, where she found me a blanket and urged me to sit inside where it was dry, or at least drier than everywhere else. “You took a bad blow to the head. Is that your husband?”

  “Boyfriend.”

  “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine.” The woman had a very reassuring smile, and despite myself I smiled back. She blotted my face with a cloth, then did something to my forehead that hurt. “That will hold it until it can be stitched up. Are you dizzy? Nauseated? Head hurt?”

  “My head hurts, especially when I move it quickly, but I don’t feel sick.”

  “We’ll watch you for signs of concussion, but I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger. Now, wait here and let us help the others.”

  I nodded, which made my head hurt again, and watched her hop out of the ambulance and run back toward the second car. It was a Ford Explorer that loomed over Malcolm’s Jaguar. In the darkness, I couldn’t tell how badly it was damaged, but the driver and his passenger were standing next to it with their coats held protectively over their heads, and the woman who’d treated me didn’t look frantic. I hoped that meant they weren’t hurt.

  I clutched the blanket around myself and felt it grow damp from contact with my soaked body. Everything felt so distant, the headlights drifting past, the rain pouring down on the pavement, the Jaguar’s one unbroken headlight adding to the street lamps and the lights from the emergency vehicles’ headlights.

  “Miss?”

  I startled. A police officer stood nearby, growing gradually wet from the rain. “How are you?” he asked. “You look like you were injured. You were a passenger in the Jaguar?”

  “Yes—no, I wasn’t badly injured—is he all right?”

  “Don’t worry, he’s being cared for. I just have a few questions, if you’re up to it.”

  I nodded, regretted it when pain shot through my head, and said, “I guess so.”

  “Do you know what caused the crash?”

  I swallowed. “Malcolm…something happened to him, a heart attack or something, and he lost control. He tried not to hit anyone, I promise—then we hit the median.”

  “Neither of you were drinking? Malcolm wasn’t texting anyone?”

  “No, of course not!” I exclaimed. “I mean…sorry. I guess you have to ask those questions.”

  “That’s right.” The officer glanced over his shoulder at the wrecked Jaguar. “Did he say anything to you before he lost control? Anything to indicate he knew something was wrong?”

  “No. He just grabbed his chest and then swerved.”

  “All right. You just rest, and someone will talk to you again after you’ve been treated at the hospital.” He smiled. “Everything will be fine.”

  I tried to smile back, but he’d already turned away. I stared after him, feeling even more adrift now than before. The Suburban was gone, and I hadn’t even thanked my Boy Scout. I wondered what the other people thought, the ones in the Ford Explorer. Were they angry? Did they think Malcolm was a bad driver? He wasn’t, he was a good driver, but he’d…

  …what had happened, really? He’d been looking at me, and his face had changed, like he was in extreme pain, and he’d grabbed his chest like he was having a heart attack, just as I’d told the officer. But Malcolm was only thirty-one, surely not old enough to have a heart attack. Or was I wrong, and those could happen to anyone? I just didn’t know. But it sure looked like he’d suffered some kind of attack, something that would make him lose control of the car.

  A couple of EMTs came back to the ambulance to get a long, flat board like a giant tongue depressor and some other equipment my fuddled brain couldn’t recognize. I leaned against the side of the ambulance and tried to control my shaking. Maybe I was in shock. I couldn’t remember the symptoms or what you were supposed to do to treat shock, but lying down someplace warm was almost certainly part of it. I could lie down on the floor here, maybe. But I’d be in the way when they brought Malcolm back, and I didn’t want that.

  My eyes slid closed, and I forced them open. I remembered when Jake had had a concussion after some incident in football practice, how one of the things the doctor had said was that he needed to stay awake. Maybe I didn’t have a concussion, but I didn’t want to take chances. I shouldn’t sleep. I wanted to sleep. Maybe if I slept, all this would go away. I should call someone else and get them to talk to me, keep me awake, but who? My addled brain couldn’t think. I took out my phone and scrolled through the contact list, looking for inspiration.

  Viv.

  She answered right away. “Hey, sweetie, what’s up?”

  She was so cheerful it made my heart hurt. “Viv, Malcolm and I were in a car accident. He’s badly hurt. I don’t know what to do.”

  Viv gasped. “Helena, no. Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “Still at the accident. They said I might have a concussion.”

  “Talk to me, sweetie. Stay awake. Was anyone else hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. We spun out, and hit the barrier, and another car hit us.” Tears choked me, spilled onto my cheeks. “Viv, he’s hurt really bad.”

  “Did you call 911?”

  “The ambulance is here.”

  “So they’re taking care of him. Don’t worry, it will be all right. Do you know where they’re taking him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell me when you do, and I’ll come for you. Now, stay with me. Tell me about your night.”

  I let out a shuddering breath. “I can’t. It was so nice, and now it’s not, I just don’t want to remember.”

  “Then I’ll tell you about mine. I played a great gig, and Jeremiah came. You know, I don’t think he’s ever going to get my music, but it’s so sweet that he tries.”

  “I know. You’re so lucky.”

  “I feel lucky. You know why else today was a great day for me? This is officially the longest I’ve ever been with one man.”

  “Viv, that’s so great!” I wiped tears out of my eyes, clearing them so the blur of EMTs huddled around the car turned into individual men and women and a stretcher that— “Viv, they’re bringing him back. I can’t believe they got him out of the car, it was so crushed—”

  “Don’t cry, Helena, it’s going to be all right. Ask where you’re going.”

  I moved back and out of the way so they could trundle Malcolm into the ambulance. He was immobilized on the big board and covered from the chest down with a heavy blanket. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Providence,” the woman who’d helped me said. “Sit back. We’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

  “Did you hear that?” I said to Viv.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Viv said.

  I found a bench seat and strapped in, gripping it hard with both hands, feeling tremendously unsafe despite the seat belt. With a couple of squawks, the siren went off, and the ambulance accelerated until it felt we were flying along. I looked at Malcolm’s still, horribly damaged face and prayed for the driver to go faster.

  Malcolm’s eyes flew open, and he convulsed against the straps. “Watch out,” another woman said, and followed it with a string of instructions I couldn’t understand. Once again blind with tears, I pulled out my phone and texted Derrick our destination. Trying to converse with someone felt like an impossible exertion. I put my phone in my pocket and wiped away tears, trying to make myself as small as possible in the corner so I wouldn’t distract them. Malcolm would be all right. He had to be.

  By the time we reached the hospital, I’d started pinching the fold of skin between my thumb and
forefinger to keep myself awake. I’d begun to, not hallucinate exactly, but make bargains with God. If I could stay awake, He’d save Malcolm. If I could keep count of my breaths, He’d save Malcolm. My religious beliefs were so unformed, I had no idea if it worked that way, though I felt it probably didn’t. But there was nothing I could do for Malcolm but pray and make irrational bargains.

  The ambulance came to a stop. The EMTs slid the stretcher out with practiced efficiency, popped the wheels down, and ran with Malcolm through the doors into the emergency room. The woman who’d helped me guided me out of the ambulance, and I followed the others more slowly, leaving my sodden blanket behind. My ankle throbbed and felt like it was twice its normal size. Maybe somebody here could take care of that.

  I hadn’t been in very many hospitals in my life, and never in the back rooms of the ER, which was what this looked like. At least, the ambulance had pulled up at a door marked AMBULANCE ONLY and I could see the driveway went on up a slope to where I guessed the front of the hospital was. It was bright, too bright to my dark-adjusted eyes, with fluorescent lights lining the ceiling and walls painted some light color that made everything brighter. Probably the doctors needed all that light to see their patients clearly, but it just made my head hurt. I knew people always said hospitals smelled of antiseptic, but I couldn’t smell anything but rainwater and blood.

  A woman in hospital scrubs came toward me and put a gentle hand on my shoulder, nodding at my helper. “Let’s get you fixed up, shall we?”

  “Wait, where’s Malcolm? I need—”

  “Your husband will be just fine. You need to let the doctors take a look at him.” The woman steered me toward one of the doors and into a small room with an adjustable bed and a curtain on rails half-circling it. “You’ve taken a bad blow to the head and it looks like your ankle is damaged. Let’s just check your eyes, all right?”

  She shone a penlight into my eyes without waiting for my assent. “Hmm, I don’t think you have a concussion. Do you feel dizzy? Headache? Maybe double vision?” I confirmed all but the last. “Let’s get this cut taken care of, and we’ll check that ankle, make sure it’s nothing more serious than a sprain. Then you can rest, and in a little while they’ll take you to be with your husband.”