Chapter 1
Holder looked over at Linden's unmoving form in the vehicle, still slumped against the car window in a dead sleep, as she had been since she'd followed him into the car.
"You ok, there?" He paused and leaned toward her to look closer. His heart jumped as he couldn't easily make out the rising or falling of her chest and her head was tilted at an angle that looked uncomfortable even to someone who was sleeping deeply.
"Linden? You with me? Wake up, your neck is going to be so sore sleeping that way."
There was no response and his mind began to race in a million directions. Pull over. He had to find somewhere to pull over to make sure that she was all right. After all, had anyone at the hospital done a thorough examination of her real wounds before going along with the casino owner's concocted story about a suicide attempt? Linden had belonged in a hospital bed, not a psych ward. She should still be in that hospital bed, barely more than twenty-four hours after she was attacked. Not in a car, driving away from the scene of her undoing.
At long last, he was able to pull into a gas station and park the car opposite the pumps. He sprang out of the driver's side and ran to the passenger side.
"Linden? Sarah?" He hoped that using her given name would surprise her enough to get her to open her eyes. He opened the door and found his partner's limp body tumbling into his arms.
For a few seconds, Holder couldn't tell if she was breathing or not. Her head lolled upon his shoulder and he felt a tiny puff of air coming from her lips as his fingers located a very weak pulse in her neck.
"Linden, thank God," he breathed. "I thought I'd lost you. Can you open your eyes?"
As he tilted her head back and brushed her coppery hair out of her face, he saw that her eyes were half open but unseeing. Holder felt sick to his stomach as he brushed a hand over the top of her head, noticing a large knot where she'd obviously been hit over the head on the tenth floor. As he continued to examine her head, Linden moaned quietly.
"Can you hear me?" Holder couldn't keep the desperation out of his voice. "Sarah!"
Her head dropped back to his shoulder and she gave no answer.
Holder fumbled for his phone in his pocket while struggling to still keep her from hitting the ground. He was crouched at such an awkward angle that it seemed nearly impossible to do both at once.
"911, what's your emergency?" The dispatcher's voice came over the phone line after a ring or two.
"This is Detective Stephen Holder," he began. "My partner won't wake up. She has a head injury but she was released from the hospital anyway… she won't wake up. They put her in the psych ward because of a mix up and gave her a lot of drugs and I don't know if she should have had all of that with her injury." He looked back at the sign above the building behind him and gave the dispatcher the name of the gas station.
Even though the dispatcher told him to stay on the line until the ambulance arrived, he turned his attention to Linden as soon as he was assured that help was on the way.
"Hang in there, Linden, please, I can't lose you." She was still unmoving but he thought he might have seen a little change in her eyes. Were they more open than they had been a minute before or was it his imagination? She made no sound but he continued to talk to her as if she were totally alert.
"I'm going to tell you what's going on so you ain't scared," he said softly. "I'm so sorry, Linden. I should have made them break you our of there, gotten you checked out before we left, something. Thought they had done that but I guess not."
"Detective?" A medic came up behind him but he had been too absorbed in talking to Linden that he hadn't noticed the man approach. "You can give her to us now," he said. "We'll take very good care of her. You can ride up front or do you want to follow us?"
"I'll follow," he said. "I have to call Jack!" Holder dreaded telling her son anything until he knew what was going on, but the little man had a right to know that his moms was in the hospital. The first stint in the psych ward had been different; Holder didn't know if Linden would want her son to know about that, but this was serious. He swallowed hard. "I'll turn my lights and sirens on."
Sarah was floating in total darkness but kept trying to surface. There was someone calling to her, someone who needed her to wake up even though her body felt sluggish and it was impossible to open her eyes. She wanted to go toward the voice but it was fading with every moment.
Next, she was being pulled away from the voice that sounded like home and ended up in a tunnel, no, a hallway, but it was impossible to tell in the dim light. Sarah's eyes hurt and her head was pounding as she realized that she was once again five years old, abandoned in the apartment in which her mother had left her. It was dark and she tried to call out but no sound surfaced from her throat.
As if a wave was crashing into her and crushing her head and torso, she was crumpled against the dark walls. Then she knew no more.
