Hitting the Books Read online

The two women exchanged another glance, and Lindsey turned to Beth, who shrugged. She and Aidan Barker had gotten married just a few weeks ago, and she’d been walking on clouds ever since. In other words, she was useless.

  “All right, people, I have the craft supplies set up. Where is Ms. Cole? Isn’t she in charge of food today?” Paula asked.

  “The lemon—er—Ms. Cole was in the staff lounge last I saw,” Beth said. Ms. Cole was the newest member of their crafternoon group. During the first two years that Lindsey had worked at the library, Ms. Cole had been full of disapproval, and her puckered disposition had caused Beth to dub her “the lemon.”

  But they’d been through some dire times at the library, and Ms. Cole had softened toward her fellow librarians and had actually asked to join their book club and invited them to call her Ginny. The new name didn’t take, however, and she remained Ms. Cole to them—and occasionally, when she was being particularly rigid, she was still the lemon. But there was affection there now, too, which made all the difference.

  “She was loading up a cart full of food,” Beth continued. “I really hope she made her charlotte russe to go with the book. I love that ladyfinger, raspberry-gelatiny goodness that she made for the last holiday staff party.”

  “Should we start on our craft then?” Paula asked.

  Beth popped up from her seat first, and the ladies made their way to the craft table.

  “Are we late? I tried so hard to get here on time, but babies have their own schedules.” Mary Murphy, Sully’s younger sister, hurried into the room with a baby in a sling across her chest and a padded bag the size of a small car strapped to her back.

  As if she knew she was the topic of the conversation, the wee person strapped to Mary’s front shoved a tiny fist into the air and then let out a not-so-delicate wail.

  “Josie’s here!” Nancy clapped her hands in delight.

  Simultaneously, she and Violet rushed forward as if they were in a race to see who could get their hands on the baby first. Given that Violet was the taller of the two women and her stride longer, she beat Nancy by a grabby hand.

  Mary plopped the baby into Violet’s arms and dropped the bag onto the floor. She then collapsed onto the couch, looking like she didn’t intend to move for the rest of the hour.

  Both Beth and Paula moved forward to get in line for their turn with the baby. Lindsey did not. She loved little Josie Murphy—after all, she was Sully’s niece and hands down the cutest baby Lindsey had ever seen—but Lindsey was not really a baby person. She didn’t have any younger siblings, just her older brother Jack, and had never babysat while she was growing up. While a clean, sleeping baby was an adorable thing to gaze upon, when they got messy or wailed she found them somewhat terrifying.

  She backed up to allow the others access to the baby. Little Josie did not seem to mind being passed around like a hot dish at the dinner table, but still, Lindsey knew what was coming. Someone was going to try to hand her the baby, and Josie, knowing full well that Lindsey should never be entrusted with such a delicate being, would begin to wail, desperate to be rescued. And Lindsey could not blame her one little bit.

  She turned away from the group and studied the scene out the window as if she were tracking an incoming storm from the bay. Short of running out of the room, this was her best defense against having the baby passed to her. Just the thought of holding the infant made her hands start to sweat, which convinced her that she’d drop the baby and she’d smash like an egg. No, Lindsey figured she’d wait on the holding thing until Josie was walking or talking or, even better, driving.

  Big white fluffy clouds filled the sky. Lindsey scanned them for any distinctive shapes. She saw one that resembled a dragon, but she’d noticed that big cumulus clouds always looked like dragons. The early afternoon sunlight danced on the water in the bay. She gazed at the pier. Sully’s tour boat was out, taking visitors around the Thumb Islands, an archipelago of over a hundred islands of all sizes that filled this small coin pocket of Long Island Sound.

  She saw Dennis Greaves and Sam Holloway, two of Briar Creek’s retired residents, across the street in the town park that was on a narrow patch of land between the town beach and the main road. They were sitting at their usual picnic table, enjoying a game of checkers as they did every day around lunchtime.

  Lindsey knew Dennis was a big Tom Clancy reader, while Sam came into the library only if he was looking for car-repair manuals. He was always fixing up vintage cars, and the library had manuals going back into the nineteen-twenties. The only reason Lindsey hadn’t thrown them out was because Sam used them every now and again.

  Across from Sam and Dennis, Theresa Huston, the local tennis coach, was power walking through the park in her bright turquoise running suit. She was one of Lindsey’s favorite patrons, as they shared a love of poetry, particularly Emily Dickinson. Lindsey waved, but she doubted Theresa could see her.

  A pack of five bicyclists pedaled down Main Street, interrupting Lindsey’s view of the park, and her gaze shifted to a group of women down on the small town beach. They were having a picnic with their toddlers, who were racing up and down the sand, kicking inflatable balls almost as big as they were. Adorable. She recognized most of them from Beth’s story times and wondered whether they’d just enjoyed her portrayal as the Pigeon.

  Seeing all of the activity, Lindsey felt her sleepiness lift. Spring was here and summer was coming. The sound of tree frogs would fill the nights, and the days would get longer. It was hard to sustain a grumpy mood in the face of such happy activity.

  She started to turn back to the room when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. A car was speeding down Main Street, going way too fast for the pedestrian-friendly area. Lindsey glanced back at the park and saw Theresa step into the crosswalk, where pedestrians clearly had the right-of-way. Lindsey’s heart thudded in her chest. She had the sick feeling that the car wasn’t going to stop.

  She glanced to the right, thinking surely the driver would see Theresa and slow down, but he didn’t. Instead of hitting the brakes, the driver sped up. Horror flooded Lindsey as she realized Theresa was going to get hit. She cried out and slapped her hands against the glass window as if she could push Theresa to safety just by willing it. She couldn’t.

  With a sickening, bone-crunching thud, Theresa was struck by the car. Lindsey watched as she collapsed back onto the sidewalk and the car took off.

  Dennis Greaves and Sam Holloway abandoned their checkers game and raced across the grass as fast as their geriatric bones could carry them. The women on the beach gathered their children and stared wide-eyed at the park above them.

  Lindsey spun away from the window and ran from the room, yelling, “Call nine-one-one. Theresa Huston was just hit by a car.”

  2

  Lindsey dashed down the hallway. She was forced to take small steps since she was in her pencil skirt and heels, which was just as well, as she had to swerve around two patrons in a tug-of-war over the latest Stephen King novel and a mom pushing a stroller with twin babies. Then she was out the main door and running down the sidewalk with Beth on her heels.

  When they reached the street, they stopped to check both ways, and Beth, gasping for breath, asked, “What happened?”

  No cars were coming. Lindsey cut across the road, not bothering to use the crosswalk.

  “It was a hit-and-run,” Lindsey said. “Theresa stepped into the road, and a car came out of nowhere and hit her and then sped off.”

  “Oh my God!” cried Beth.

  Together, they reached Theresa. She was lying on her side, curled up into a ball and rocking ever so slightly back and forth. She was gasping and panting, and high-pitched moans were coming from her throat. Dennis and Sam were kneeling beside her, looking as if they were afraid to touch her but wanted to comfort her.

  “Theresa, we’ve called an ambulance. What can I do for you?” L
indsey crouched down beside the woman.

  “My leg,” Theresa cried. “Oh, my leg. It hurts. It hurts so bad. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  A sheen of sweat had beaded up on her skin, which was a sickly shade of gray.

  “I think she’s going into shock,” Dennis said. “I saw this when a buddy of mine had his arm blown off in Vietnam.”

  “Her leg is definitely broken,” Sam said. “Look at the weird angle of it.”

  Lindsey glanced at Theresa’s shin and felt her stomach lurch. It was bent forward. Shins weren’t supposed to go that way. She felt her own stomach roil and knew the pain Theresa was feeling had to be excruciating.

  “I think I’m passing out,” Theresa said. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her entire body relaxed.

  “Oh, crap!” cried Beth. She hunkered down beside Lindsey. “Is it okay if she passes out? What if she also hit her head? There could be a traumatic brain injury happening, and passing out would be a definite no-no.”

  “You’re supposed to raise a person’s feet when they pass out,” Sam said.

  They all glanced at Theresa’s leg. Lindsey shook her head. No one was willing to touch it and risk causing more damage or hurting her.

  “She’s breathing,” Dennis said. He moved closer so he could see the rise and fall of her chest. “I say we let her be, but maybe you should talk to her—you know, reassure her.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Theresa,” Lindsey said. She brushed back a hank of thick dark hair from Theresa’s forehead. “We’re here, and we won’t leave you until help arrives.”

  Theresa blinked twice, and Lindsey took that to mean she could hear her. A shudder rippled through Theresa’s body, and her teeth were chattering.

  “Here, she might be cold from the drop in her blood pressure.” Sam unbuttoned his wool cardigan and handed it to Lindsey to drape over the injured woman.

  The sound of a siren was just audible, and Beth said, “I’ll flag them down.”

  She jumped up and stood on the side of the road, shoving the hood off her head so she looked less like a pigeon and more like a person. She bounced up and down and waved her arms. The ambulance driver homed in on her and pulled over. In seconds, two EMTs, a male and a female, were out of the vehicle and tending to Theresa and her leg.

  Lindsey stepped back to give them room. She stood with the others as they watched the man and woman go to work checking Theresa’s vitals and preparing her to be lifted onto the stretcher.

  “What happened?” the woman asked. She glanced up at the group while she opened her medical kit. Her name tag read Annie.

  “Hit-and-run,” Lindsey said. The words fell like stones falling from her mouth. A hit-and-run, here in Briar Creek in the middle of the day. It seemed so unthinkable. So unlikely. She glanced up at the sky. The same fluffy white clouds she’d been admiring before were rolling by, but suddenly they felt ominous instead of pretty. She shivered.

  “Ma’am, can you hear me?” the male EMT said to Theresa. “I’m going to have to move you just a bit.”

  Theresa whimpered, and Lindsey turned her head away. She couldn’t bear to watch. She noticed the others did as well.

  “Keep everyone back!” The order was barked from the sidewalk, and Lindsey saw Emma Plewicki, the chief of police, directing one of her men, Officer Kirkland, to keep people away from the area.

  It was then that she noticed a crowd had gathered across the street. This was not surprising, given that everyone in the small town kept track of everyone else. This community closeness had seen them through hurricanes, blizzards, summer tourists, and property-tax hikes.

  “Lindsey, what happened?” Emma demanded as she joined them.

  “Theresa Huston was struck by a car when she stepped off the curb to cross the street,” Lindsey said. “It appears her leg is broken.”

  “And the driver?” Emma asked.

  “Sped off,” she said.

  Emma’s lips compressed to a hard, thin line. Emma Plewicki was a good-looking woman with a heart-shaped face, a head of thick, glossy black hair, and a curvy figure that distracted from the raw muscle beneath the swerves. And most of the time she wore a wide, warm smile that greeted the residents of Briar Creek even while she mediated their difficulties. That smile was gone right now, and in its place was a look of cold fury. Emma took crime in her town personally.

  “Can you describe the car?” Emma asked. She pushed her narrow-brimmed police hat back on her head and surveyed the scene, taking in the tire marks on the road and the bent iron fencing that encircled the park. Officer Kirkland was standing on the far side of the road, keeping the gawkers over there while asking questions and canvassing the crowd for any information.

  “It was a sedan, four doors, white,” Lindsey said. She glanced at the others. “Right?”

  Dennis nodded but Sam shook his head.

  “It was a two-door,” Sam said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Dennis argued.

  “Oh, what do you know?” Sam asked. “You were about to lose to me at checkers.”

  “I was not! I was about to triple jump you for a king.”

  “Puh.”

  The two men looked like they were about to square off for a shoving match. Lindsey eased her way in between them and sent Beth a desperate look. She gave Lindsey a slight nod to let her know her message had been received and slid in between the two men as well, creating a nice two person buffer.

  “I only saw the back of the car. It was definitely white,” she said. “Honestly, I just followed Lindsey when she ran out of the building. I wasn’t even sure of what was happening.”

  “We’re about ready to roll out,” Annie, the medic, said to Emma.

  They loaded Theresa onto a stretcher. Her right leg had been braced, and she was strapped down. Annie held up Sam’s sweater, and he took it from her with a nod.

  “That was quick thinking,” she said.

  Sam shrugged like it was no big deal, but Lindsey could tell he was pleased to have been able to help.

  “I’m going to follow them,” Emma said. “Lindsey, can you give me a quick rundown of what you saw?”

  “There’s not much to tell. It happened pretty fast. Theresa was walking through the park. She stepped into the road to cross the street, when out of nowhere this car appeared, and before she could get out of the way, it sped up and hit her.”

  Emma frowned. “You’re certain it sped up when Theresa stepped into the crosswalk?”

  “Positive,” Lindsey said. “I was standing in the back room of the library, looking out the window, and I had just turned away when I saw the car out of the corner of my eye. That’s what made me look. While I was watching I heard the engine rev as the driver sped up.”

  “I saw it, too,” Dennis said. “I even said to Sam, ‘What’s that fool doing?’”

  “He did,” Sam agreed. He pushed back his baseball cap and scratched his head. “Is Ms. Huston going to be all right?”

  “I don’t think we’ll know for sure until she’s had some X-rays,” Emma said. “Back to the vehicle—was there anything distinctive you remember about it? Dents, mismatched tires, broken windows, bumper stickers, anything?”

  Lindsey shook her head. The others did the same.

  “Did anyone get a look at the driver?” Emma asked.

  Lindsey glanced at Sam and Dennis. They’d been closer than she had, but they were elderly and she had no idea how good their eyesight was. Plus, like her, they had probably focused on Theresa and not the car.

  “Sorry. I didn’t get a good look,” Sam said.

  “Me neither,” Dennis said. “Hell of a thing to have happen.”

  “We’re taking her into New Haven,” the male EMT said to Chief Plewicki. He looked as if he was about to say more and then thought better of it. Instead, he helped lift the stretcher i
nto the back of the ambulance and shut the doors.

  Lindsey suspected he’d been about to tell them how badly her leg had been broken. He didn’t need to. She doubted she’d get the visual of that weirdly bent leg out of her mind for a long time to come.

  “I’m right behind you,” Chief Plewicki said.

  She turned and strode toward her squad car.

  “Theresa! Oh my God, Theresa!”

  They all turned toward the street to see Liza Milstein pushing through the crowd with two students about the same age running beside her. She was a petite young woman in her early twenties with light brown hair that she wore in a ball on top of her head. She was clutching a stack of textbooks in her arms, and her backpack was unzipped and hanging off one shoulder as if she’d been interrupted in the middle of her studies and hadn’t bothered to put her books away. A set of headphones dangled around her neck, but she seemed oblivious to all of it as she ran toward them, looking frightened.

  Meredith Lane and Zach Stoliwicz were right behind her. Lindsey had come to know all three of these college students, along with Toby Carter, who wasn’t with them at the moment, as the four students had formed a study group that met in the Briar Creek Public Library two years ago when they began commuting to college in New Haven.

  “Theresa—is Theresa Huston in there?” She waved her hand at the ambulance. Liza was panting for breath, and Zach grabbed her backpack before it fell to the ground.

  “Maybe,” Emma said. She paused beside the distraught young woman. “Are you family?”

  “No, maybe, sort of. Is she all right? What happened?” cried Liza.

  Emma gave her a hard stare. “Unless you’re family, I’m not at liberty to—”

  “She’s my tennis coach, and she’s engaged to my father. That makes me soon-to-be family. You have to let me see her!”

  “She has a right to know,” Meredith said. She supported her friend by putting an arm around her shoulders.

  Emma hesitated. Larry Milstein, Liza’s father, was well known in town, as he owned one of the largest furniture franchises in the country and was always good for a donation whenever the town was having a fund-raiser for new school equipment or a new cruiser for the police department. Emma nodded at the driver, and he opened the doors.