Free The Legend of Safehaven by R. A. Comunale Page B

became one steady, ominous tone.
    At usual, Diana watched her husband depart from the front window. Each time he left for work, she would recite the universal prayer of wives and husbands of all police and service officers:
    Dear God, let my loved one return safely .
    She knew as they all did that every phone call or unexpected visitor could be the one bearing the message of loss.
    Then she saw Lachlan dash toward the police cruiser and fling open the driver’s side door. She raced outside.
     
    “Tio Benny, Tio Benny!”
    He heard Faisal’s voice from the bottom of a mental well. He sensed vaguely that his face was pressed against the steering wheel, but he couldn’t move. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. A loud noise was roaring inside his head, reminding him of a childhood visit to the beach and the pounding surf that used to frighten him. Then he drifted away from what was happening around him.
    Lachlan gently grasped Ben’s shoulders and pulled him back against the seat, stopping the horn. The right side of his face was drooping, and his right arm hung loosely. His breathing was labored. Saliva dripped from the flaccid right side of his mouth.
    “Tio Benny, Tio Benny!” Faisal repeated.
    Douglass grabbed the car microphone and called in.
    “Central! Central! Sixteen-oh-eight. Officer down! Need Medevac now!”
    “Roger, sixteen-oh-eight. Who is your ten-five-three, and what is your ten-four-five?”
    “Central, it’s Sergeant Castle. He appears to have had a stroke. Please notify Medevac EMTs. We’re in front of my house.”
    Momentary silence from the radio voice.
    “Uh … Roger, sixteen-oh-eight. Dispatching Medevac. ETA your position ten minutes.”
    “Copy that, Central—tell ‘em to hurry!”
    “Will do, Lach.”
    “Sixteen-oh-eight, out.”
    He turned back to his partner, as Diana cradled the older man’s head and kept repeating, “It’s going to be all right, Ben.”
    Faisal and Akela sat next to her.
     
    The outside speaker for the phone was ringing—ringing insistently, it seemed.
    “Now what?” Nancy asked aloud, putting down her garden trowel and heading for the house. She had just finished changing the annuals in her bathtub plant holder. The resident chipmunk raced back and forth from under the tub, where it found safety from the hawks and other creatures that preyed on its kind. She had carefully begun placing small piles of peanuts and seeds near the tub, so that the frenetic little rodent could stuff its cheeks and safely bring the food home to its burrow.
    Edison and Galen were working about a hundred yards away. He had dragooned Galen into helping erect one of his antennas, and the two men were soaked with sweat, as they attempted to raise yet another part of the mountain communications array.
    “I’m too old for these shenanigans, you old goat. Why can’t you just listen to local radio stations?”
    Galen took off his workman’s gloves and massaged his hands, while Edison grinned back at him.
    “Do you good, you fat old couch potato. About time you got some real exercise like the rest of us.”
    Edison was younger by a year and a half, and he never let his friend forget it. But they both knew they weren’t spring chickens anymore, especially when their joints started acting up. The two limped back toward the doorway of the house, where Nancy was frantically waving them inside.
    “It’s Lachlan. Something’s happened to Ben!”
    She handed the phone to Galen, who listened for a few seconds.
    “Yes, it does sound like he’s had a stroke, Lach. If we’re lucky, and it’s the right type, it might be reversible. But it’s a race against time. How did they take him? By Medevac? Good. I’ll call the hospital, and we’ll meet you at the ER.”
    The three friends quickly changed, Edison fired up the van, and they rolled down the mountain in silence, each one thinking about the officer they had first met while trying to protect the wolves.
    They found the children