Chapter Two
"Has she been awake at all?" Steve asked, very quietly.
Chris shook his head. "Not yet."
"Chris, I never got the chance to say congratulations...to either of you. You make Jaime really happy, and I'm grateful to you for that." Williams raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Steve nodded. "I know that 'my' Jaime is gone, and since I know you're good to her – and good for her - that makes me happy, too," he said simply.
"I appreciate that." Chris slumped forward against the wall, barely able to choke out his next words. "She's...in bad shape, Steve."
"I know."
"You need some time alone with Jaime now," Chris allowed. "I understand that; I'll wait out here."
Steve didn't know him well enough to hug him, so he placed a quiet hand on Chris' arm. "Thank you." He returned to Jaime's side and, finding her left hand fairly unscathed, Steve clasped it gently in his own. "Hi there," he said in a near-whisper. "Jaime, I know how badly you'd like to see your parents again, but it isn't time. Not yet. See, I have to throw you and Chris the world's best engagement party. You don't wanna miss that, do you?" His voice nearly broke, but Steve struggled to keep his tone light...and loving. "You two are just getting started. He really loves you a lot, Jaime, and I know you love him, so you need to fight this and give yourselves a shot at happiness."
Steve leaned a little closer to Jaime's bed. "I love you, too, Jaime, and I want you to be happy. You deserve that and you darn well better get back here and claim it. Do you hear me?" Tears began to pearl on his cheek, and Steve could say no more. He bent down and tenderly kissed her hand before releasing it and rejoining her fiance in the hallway.
Oscar was there now, too, and as Chris returned to his seat by Jaime's bed, Steve embraced his boss/friend, still trying to rein in his emotions. "This must be doubly hard on you," Oscar began softly. "Seeing her like this, and not being the one sitting by her side..."
Steve nodded. As usual, Oscar had hit the nail directly on the head. "How did this happen, Oscar? Did she...fall asleep at the wheel?"
"Let's go down to the conference room, Pal; we need to talk."
- - - - - -
"...so even though there had to be another car involved," Jack Hansen summarized, "we have no physical evidence and no leads."
Steve stared in horror at the pictures on the conference table. "You've sure Jaime didn't hit the tree?"
"Her car was facing the wrong direction," Russ explained, "and the height of the gouge doesn't match the front of the Datsun."
"The gouge in the tree...was fresh?"
"Very. But Jaime was hit head on," Hansen continued. "By a vehicle; not by a tree. There were no skid marks before the point of impact, from either direction -"
"So Jaime never saw it coming," Steve surmised.
"The other car didn't skid into her lane or try to stop," Oscar added. "This could very well have been deliberate."
"You think someone did this to her – on purpose?" Steve's mind reeled with the awful possibility.
"This was a set-up, but whether Jaime was the target, we just don't know yet. Whatever it takes, we need to find that car...and the driver."
"Maybe I could find paint chips or debris...something..." Steve offered. "I wanna see the crash site."
Oscar eyed him sympathetically, a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure you're up to that, Pal?"
"No – I'm not up to it, but I need to do this...for Jaime."
- - - - - -
The car had been towed away for testing and inspection, but the large patch of torn and flattened grass clearly marked the spot where Jaime had nearly died. Steve shuddered and turned his attention to the gnarled old tree with a large, ugly impact crater in its bark. Focusing in as closely as his eye would allow, he immediately noticed much more than the inspectors could've ever spotted.
The depth of the gouge was obvious to the naked eye - the tree had very nearly been sliced through the middle with great force – but there was something else that only Steve's well-trained and finely-tuned eye could see. He stared mutely for a few minutes at the evidence of pure evil, then turned back toward Oscar and the others. "Black paint flecks and gold bits, probably from the front grille," he stated flatly. "The car didn't bounce off and it wasn't able to reverse its way out, either."
"What did you see, Pal?" Oscar prompted.
"Drag marks. This car was pulled out by force. Jaime was right over there...needing help...and someone thought it was more important to get this car outta here than to call for the ambulance."
"It was a set-up," Hansen agreed. "They must have had a truck ready and waiting to remove the evidence that quickly -"
Speculation suddenly halted when Oscar's car phone began to ring. Russ answered quickly, and returned looking shaken and grim. "That was Rudy at the hospital. We need to get back there fast...it's about Jaime..."
- - - - - -