Free The Color of Destiny (The Color of Heaven Series Book 2) by Julianne MacLean

corner ahead of us. I instinctively gripped the door handle to hang on.
    o0o
    When we arrived at the scene—which was an apartment building parking lot in a rough section of town—the cops were clearing people out of the way. Bill and I hurried to get the stretcher out and wheeled it toward a man who was lying face down on the pavement next to a rusted-out white van.
    A woman was on her knees beside him, screaming hysterically. “Hurry!” she shouted at us. “He’s shot!”
    One of the cops helped pull her to her feet. “Move back, ma’am. You have to give them some room.”
    I knelt down and saw a blood stain at the man’s right shoulder blade. “Turn him over,” I said to Bill.
    We rolled the victim onto his back. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with long, thinning hair and a beard. There was another stain of blood on his chest. “The entry wound is here,” I said. I searched for a pulse. My gaze met Bill’s and I nodded. “He’s alive. Let’s get him on the stretcher.”
    Bill helped me lift him, and as soon as we started wheeling the victim toward the ambulance, another van pulled into the lot and a news team spilled out. The cameraman started filming us, while a female reporter plugged in a microphone and began interviewing witnesses.
    By that time, we had reached the ambulance and were sliding the stretcher into the back. I got in, and Bill shut the doors behind us. Seconds later Bill was back in the driver’s seat and we took off for the hospital, with lights flashing and siren blaring.
    This was my life now, and chaos felt as natural to me as breathing.

Chapter Thirty-one

    A full trauma team was waiting for us when we arrived. I quickly gave my report to the doctors as we wheeled the victim inside, explaining that the bullet had entered the right lateral chest and gone straight through. I stepped back when we reached the trauma room.
    A half hour later, after I finished filing my report, my shift ended. I was about to head home, but felt strangely compelled to take the elevator up to the seventh floor and ask about the woman from the lake, who I couldn’t seem to get out of my head.
    “How’s she doing?” I asked at the nurses’ station. “Any improvement?”
    “Afraid not,” the male clerk replied. “She’s had lots of visitors, though. There’s a guy who comes and plays guitar for her every night. Nice family.”
    I peered down the hall. “What room is she in?”
    “Second on the left. I think her sister’s in there now if you want to say hello. I’m sure she’d like to talk to you, since you’re the one who brought her sister back from the dead.”
    “It wasn’t really me,” I clarified. “It was the defibrillator that brought her back. I just warmed her up.”
    The clerk gave me a look as if to suggest I was being too modest, then gestured for me to go and pay a visit.
    I don’t know why I was so uneasy about it. I suppose I didn’t want to face the woman’s sister, who might want to ask me questions about what happened—or thank me, when I had just been doing my job.
    Besides, what was there to be thankful for? Life could be total shit sometimes. The woman had been down for at least forty minutes. Odds that she would ever recover, and live a normal life, were slim to nil.
    Nevertheless, as if by some irresistible force, I was drawn to that room.
    I knocked softly on the open door. When no one responded, I ventured inside to find the room vacant—except for the woman lying comatose on the bed.
    The heart monitor beeped a steady rhythm. Vases of flowers covered every available surface, and magazines were spread out on the windowsill. My gaze remained fixed on the woman, however, as I moved closer to where she lay.
    She looked far more alive than she had in the back of my ambulance, though she wasn’t exactly radiant at the moment. She was flat on her back with her hands folded across her abdomen, as if she were laid out for a funeral wake. Her lips were dry and