"Easy…easy…just hold still."
Kneeling on the asphalt, Mike held his partner's head steady while keeping the terry cloth in his other hand firmly pressed against the bleeding gash on his temple. Steve had slowly been coming to for the past few minutes, giving the Lieutenant hope that their vigil against the driver side door of the Galaxy in the middle of the night might come to an end soon and they could head over to the doctor's office.
"Mike…", the young Inspector groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, then blinked against the headlights and emergency flashers lighting up the scene of the crash.
"I am here…", he answered mantra-like and carefully raised the cloth, satisfied to see that the bleeding had slowed down somewhat, "You got your bell rung a little bit, I see. We had to get you out of the car to elevate your head. Just hold still."
Behind them, he could hear Barry talk to dispatch and request a wrecker to pull the Galaxy back onto the road. Although the damage to the passenger side was relatively minor after the grassy shoulder had slowed the vehicle down considerably before it slammed into a row of trees, it still left the red sedan deeply buried in muddy ruts and unable to get out.
Once again thanking his sixth sense for waking him up when he heard the Galaxy speed away from the hotel, Mike couldn't help but shudder at the thought of how events could have turned out had nobody been on that stretch of road for hours.
After apologizing to the Front Desk Clerk for hijacking his private car to rush to the scene, Mike finally managed to convince the thoroughly shaken man to return to the Hotel and that everything was back under control, all things considered.
They'd blocked the east bound lane of the road with Deputy Sanders cruiser and an assortment of emergency triangles but thus far, no other traffic had passed the crash site.
"Looks like you hit the dashboard head-first and then tumbled onto the bench seat when the car came to a halt. Did you hurt anything else besides your head?"
"My ego…"
When he finally managed to keep his eyes open, Steve tried to reach for his temple, only to have the Lieutenant guide his hand back to the ground.
"Well, I am glad that's all. You had me worried for a moment. Do you remember what happened?"
Sensing movement behind him, Mike glanced around in time to see Barry approach with his medi-case in one hand, and another terry cloth in the other.
"This one's wet. You can use it to wipe the blood off the side of his face and neck…Inspector…glad to see you awake again. You took a good hit to the head there. You're going to want to have Doctor Walters check you out."
Gratefully accepting the damp cloth, Mike took a moment to wipe some off the dried blood off his partner's neck, waiting for an answer to his most pertinent question.
Instead, he received one in return.
"Where's…the horse?"
Raising his eyebrows and exchanging a worried glance with Barry, Mike replaced the blood-soaked cloth with the damp one, before looking deep into his partner's unfocused eyes.
"What horse? What are you talking about?"
"He's got a pretty bad concussion. He might be seeing things…", Barry mumbled, but fell quiet, when Steve carefully shook his head.
"The accident…there was a horse and buggy in the road…Amish…"
Reaching for his chin and carefully tilting his head up so that he could look into his eyes, Mike could tell that despite the injury and dinner-plate sized pupils, his partner was lucid enough to be speaking the truth.
"A buggy, you say?"
"Mhm hm…", Steve replied and leaned his head back against the driver's side door, "Check the road…I hit it with the passenger side back fender, I think. Never seen it coming, it just appeared out of nowhere. I swerved to avoid it and lost control."
"The Amish don't travel this late at night…", Barry interjected, frowning in deep confusion, "And if they do, they have a lantern they use on their buggies. You sure you didn't overlook that?"
"Positive…", Steve reiterated firmly, "I drove to town when I heard the sirens and suddenly, this buggy appeared out of nowhere. The horse…it spooked, I steered to the left and then the car came in contact with the buggy…I crashed and whoever was in the buggy took off."
"An Amish Hit and Run. Now I've seen everything…", Mike grunted tensely, before facing the Deputy again, "Barry, what happened in town anyways?"
Swallowing hard, the young cop bit his lip and glanced down, before mustering the strength to speak up again.
"From what I heard so far, somebody set Jacob's house on fire while he was asleep. They got him out but he's pretty badly burned. The house burnt to ashes before the fire department could even attempt to extinguish the flames. I am afraid to say this but I think somebody tried to kill him."