Keep Her
Part I
Lord keep her safe since you can't keep her sane.--Gloria Naylor
"Here's the paperwork you requested, Officer Saroyan." A large man walked up to her. The vertical stripes of his shirt didn't help his volume to appear any less and the buttons that held the two pieces of cloth together seemed to be so strained that Cam was almost afraid that one of the white plastic discs would shoot across the room and nail her between the eyes if she wasn't careful.
Cam took the paperwork in her hands, "Thanks, Tom." She began to thumb through the paperwork, skipping to the good parts--the fascinating parts. Homicide had always fascinated her to some extent, but after her mother was killed by a drunk driver, her interest had been piqued.
The opening line snapped her from the present: "The victim died from blunt trauma to the chest--" Stacy Wheeler, sixteen and full of life, had driven down 99 with three friends and dreams on their shoulders. Driving on the same side of the road in the opposite direction was David Saunders. David, full of booze and escaping from a pissed off girlfriend's verbal barrage, was too drunk to know that seconds later, he would end the lives of three of those teens and himself.
Cam was the first officer on scene.
Her feet hit the pavement, stones crunched beneath her feet. The headlights glowed eerily on the pavement. A low hum of the motor rumbled in her ears.
She took out her flashlight and squatted beside the shattered, inverted passenger side window. "Is anybody conscious?"
A low moan from the teenager directly in front of her.
Cam set the flashlight on the hill, pointing the beam at the window where the teen was dangling from her shoulder belt. She knelt once again. "Can you move? Are you in pain?"
The girl put her hand to her forehead and sobbed.
Cam's radio buzzed. She put it to her lips, "Twenty-two nine-teen. There are four individuals in the vehicle. One is responsive. Sixteen year old female. Lacerating injuries to her arms. Mobile."
"Get me out..."
"It's best that you stay where you are for now. What's your name?"
"Grace."
"How old are you?" Trying to keep her calm.
"Seventeen. Why isn't Stacy moving?"
"The ambulance will be here in a second. Can you tell me what day it is?"
"Saturday, why?"
"What grade are you in, Grace?"
"I'm a junior..."
The ambulance screamed around the bend in the road. Paramedics tumbled out of the back and ran up to the vehicle.
"There's a conscious patient. Her name is Grace and she's seventeen."
The man nodded, internalizing the information and squatted beside the vehicle. "Can you squeeze my fingers, Grace?"
A fire truck pulled up behind the ambulance. A man ran up with the Jaws of Life in his hand and within minutes, Grace was on the stretcher while her friends were being examined.
Cam knew what she was going through. At twenty-two, not young, but not old, she had been through the same thing. It was spring break and she was in her fourth year at the University working toward an eventual doctorate. She drove home, fresh-faced and full of hope.
She stopped at a gas station and fed quarters into a phone booth.
"Hey, baby."
"Hi, Mom." Cam smiled, glad to hear her mother's voice again. "I stopped for gas. I'm in--" She searched for a sign. "Rosaryville--wherever that is..."
A gas station attendant walked by and winked at the pretty college co-ed. Cam rolled her eyes. Dream on, she thought.
"Good. You'll be home in time for dinner, then. Your granny's bringing over sweet potato pie and I'm making my famous roast..."
"With biscuits?" Cam began to imagine the feast.
"Uh..." Somewhere outside of DC, Cam's mother, full-figured and jovial, bent to look in the refrigerator. "No biscuits."
"Well, that's just not the same, " her daughter teased.
"I'll just have to run out and get some then. I'm just so excited that I'll finally be able to see you, Camille. I've been missing my baby girl."
Cam snorted. "What? Felicia hasn't been keeping you busy?"
"Busy?" Her mother sounded incredulous. "If Felicia brings another dead-beat low-life into this house, your father's going to have a heart attack. After how many times of taking out the proverbial shot-gun does it lose its luster?"
Cam shrugged, "I'm not sure, Mom. What are you--Up to a couple hundred now?"
Her mother laughed. "I think we're in the triple digits, Camille."
Please insert twenty-five cents for thirty more minutes of talk time. "Mom, I should probably get on the road now." She kissed the air in front of the phone."
"Sure thing, sweetheart. I'm going out to get those biscuits."
"OK, Mom." Cam laughed, rolling her eyes, then hung up the phone.
Thirty minutes of road later, Cam pulled in front of her family's home. More cars than she had imagined were parked outside of the home. She began to imagine throngs of her family's church congregation coming just to taste her mother's famous roast and pretend to know her.
She got out of the car and walked up the walk. Her hand hit hte handle of the front door just as sobs from indoors hit her ears. She pushed the door open with curiosity. "Mom?" Something inside of her knew that something terrible had happened.
Felicia came into the hallway holding a tissue to her mouth. Tears streaked down her face, her eyes were the color of cherries. She ran into Cam's arms. Cam dropped her bags and wrapped her arms around her sister. "Felicia, what's going on? Where' s dad?"
"Mom... she's... she's dead!"
Disbelief.
Stunned.
Shocked.
No tears flowed. "What?" she whispered.
A knock on the door frame brought her back to the present date. One year after her mother died, but at least ten as far as change goes. After that, she never returned to college. She stayed close to DC and became an officer of the law, but always had the pathology dream on the back burner.
"Better get those forms filled out, or the Cap'n'll have your ass on a string, Saroyan." Tom laughed and walked off. One of his buddies patted his back. "Noobs," he chuckled.
Leave me some love if you're interested... Well, actually I will keep writing whether or not you are, but I'm just curious. ;) I thought we should write a little divergence from the regular B/B fic... I know how much everyone loved A Boy from Philly which was about Booth's childhood... so here's one about Cam's.