LITMIR.BIZ

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flipped the visor down and stared at herself in the mirror. “So. What do you intend to do now?”

      The image in the mirror, with its dark-brown hair, green eyes and pasty white skin stared back blankly.

      “Try not to panic. You can do this.”

      She flipped the mirror up and eased the car forward. As she pulled out of the parking lot, Sherri thought of one positive…at least her car was paid for. That was one less worry. It was a few years old but she took good care of it. She only prayed nothing major broke down until she had a steady income once again.

      She glanced back for a moment before getting on the access road of the freeway. Happiness was not looking in your rearview mirror to see the building where you no longer worked.

      Sherri followed the access road until she could merge with traffic on the highway. She glanced at the car clock, amazed to discover it wasn’t even noon yet. Had it only been a few hours ago that she’d been home sipping coffee and reading the paper?

      She shook her head. There was definitely a time warp going on. Nothing seemed real to her.

      Once on the highway, Sherri headed for home. Traffic flowed smoothly at this time of day, which was a blessing. She had to force herself to focus on her driving.

      After a few miles of traveling at seventy, she realized that, once again, luck was against her. Brake lights showed up ahead of her and she began to slow down. There must be an accident up ahead.

      Out of habit, she glanced in her rearview mirror and froze.

      A tractor-trailer rig had suddenly appeared at the top of the rise behind her and was bearing down on her.

      Couldn’t he see all the red brake lights ahead of him? Couldn’t he see that she had come to a complete stop?

      Time slowed down for her as she watched him attempt to slow down his rig. She could hear his brakes screaming as he moved inexorably toward her.

      Sherri felt a certain calm fall upon her as she waited for him to hit her. Maybe this was the way her life would end. At that moment, she really didn’t care.

      The last thing she remembered was the sound of screeching metal as the rig plowed into her car.

      Sherri roused at some point, wondering where she was. She felt as though she were floating. She vaguely heard voices that didn’t seem to have anything to do with her. Excited voices. She lazily wondered what they were excited about.

      A voice near her head yelled. “This one’s trapped in her car. We’ve gotta get her out of here. Now!”

      “Is she alive?”

      “Can’t tell. I can see her, but can’t reach her.

      She wondered who they were talking about.

      Loud sounds echoed around her, which was irritating. How rude. Couldn’t they see she was trying to rest?

      She faded away, the voices in the distance, until she felt a hand at her throat.

      “There’s a pulse. Let’s get her out of there.”

      The seat shifted. Why was she under the dash? Compact cars were too small to be playing games.

      Then more hands touched her, moving her.

      She screamed and blacked out once again.

      Two

      Greg Hogan was returning to the police station when dispatch called him to come in. As a homicide detective, he spent as little time at the station as possible. As it happened, though, today he needed to run some information through the station’s computer. He was investigating the murder of a young photographer, and evidence he had gathered pointed to a person who knew his victim well enough to have invited him into his home. He had a couple of suspects in mind. Now he had to follow up on some leads in order to get the necessary evidence for an arrest.

      He wondered why he’d been called in. Maybe he’d irritated the captain. If so, it would only be the third time this week. The captain didn’t like Greg’s attitude toward work. He wasn’t a team player. He was a maverick. The problem was, Greg solved homicides and the captain had trouble arguing with his success.

      Not that Greg’s success ever stopped the captain from griping at him. Greg had grown so used to it that he’d long ago tuned him out, figuring that while the captain was going after Greg, he was leaving the others under his command alone.

      Last week Pete Carter had pointed out how altruistic Greg was, protecting the other men from the captain. Pete was a sergeant on the force and had been around longer than any of them. Greg promptly suggested that since all the men were better off with him taking the brunt of the tongue-lashings, they owed him a beer. And darned if they hadn’t taken him out one night and wouldn’t let him pay for anything.

      Greg smiled at the memory.

      He pulled into his parking space at the station and got out of his car. The parking space was one of the perks he’d received with his promotion to lieutenant a few months ago, despite the prickly relationship he had with the captain.

      Life was good.

      As soon as Greg walked inside, he knew something was wrong. There were more men standing around in the bull pen than usual. And all of them looked grim. Greg put his hands on his hips.

      “What’s going on?”

      Pete walked over to him and put his hand on his shoulder. “Greg, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

      Greg looked around the room and frowned. “What happened? Did one of the guys get hurt? Who?”

      “No. It’s Sherri.”

      “Sherri? What about her?”

      “She was in a multicar accident this morning. They airlifted her to the hospital…alive when they got her to the hospital, but I heard she was in critical condition.”

      Greg was thankful there was a chair nearby. His knees shook so hard he sank into the chair before his reaction became apparent to everyone. He clenched his jaw.

      “I figured that since the two of you had some history together that you’d want to know,” Pete went on, sounding sympathetic.

      Greg shook his head, feeling dazed. He pushed his hand through his hair and forced himself to look at Pete. “They’re sure it was her?”

      “Yeah. A semi jackknifed when he tried to stop on the freeway and he plowed into her. She was in the last car of a string of them that were stopped due to an earlier accident. Six vehicles were in the smash-up and there were serious injuries in several of the cars, but she caught the brunt of it.”

      Greg closed his eyes. Sherri? Near death? Couldn’t be.

      “What hospital?” he finally asked.

      Pete told him.

      “Thanks for letting me know,” Greg said, and left.

      He drove to the hospital on autopilot. He parked near the emergency entrance and strode across the parking lot. Inside, the place teemed with people; doctors and nurses moved among patients with various injuries. It looked like a war zone, with some of the injured on stretchers and others in chairs. The Emergency Medical Technicians from the various ambulances outside were working on those victims not as severely injured as the ones they’d brought in.

      He quickly checked each stretcher and when he didn’t see her, went over to the nurses’ station.

      “I’m looking for one of the accident victims who were airlifted to this hospital. Sherri Masterson Hogan.”

      The harried nurse said, “Sir, you can see that we’re overwhelmed with all the injuries here and—”

      “Just tell me where they took her and I’ll be out of here.”

      She hurried past him, shaking her head.

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