LITMIR.BIZ

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rose to a squeak—not very professional of her, in J.J.’s opinion. “Are you telling me this is the nun?”

      J.J. grunted, being involved at the moment in helping the “nun” in question into the backseat of his patrol vehicle. He watched her sort of crumple onto her side and pull her knees up onto the seat before he closed the door. She was whimpering softly now. There was a knot forming in his belly as he turned his back to her and spoke to his radio mic. “Yeah, well, that seems doubtful. The nun part, not the labor. You got an ETA on that chopper?”

      “Uh…that’s the problem. Ridgecrest’s choppers are out on a multi-vehicle MVA up on 395. No idea how long they’ll be.”

      J.J. looked up at the sun-washed sky and swore. He was pondering his best course of action when his radio crackled to life again.

      “I could get you somebody out of Barstow, but it would probably be just as fast if you take her in to Ridgecrest yourself, that would be the closest. How far along is she?” Katie had three kids, which probably made her the closest thing he had to an expert at the moment.

      “In months? I’m guessing…nine.”

      “No, I mean the labor.” She didn’t say the word dummy. J.J. being her boss, but he could hear it in her voice just the same.

      “How the hell should I know?” he said. “Her water just broke.”

      “Yikes,” said Katie. “Well, that could mean…just about anything, actually. She could have hours yet. Or minutes.”

      “Well, don’t ask me,” J.J. growled. “I’m not a doctor.”

      “I…am.” That came, surprisingly, from the backseat.

      He jerked around to look at the woman, who he could see was now half propped up on one elbow. Her exotic eyes seemed huge in her chalk-white face. “You are what? A doctor?”

      She nodded, then closed her eyes and sank back onto the pillow of her folded arm. “Well…sort of. I never finished my internship. But I know enough—” she broke off for a couple more pants and groans, then finished with clenched teeth “—to know I haven’t got hours.”

      Grimly, J.J. relayed to his mic, “She doesn’t think she’s got hours.”

      “How far apart are the contractions?”

      “Hell, I don’t know. Seems to me they’re more or less continuous.”

      “Oh, Lord,” said Katie. “That’s not good.”

      “If you’re going to take me to a hospital, you’d better get going,” came the faint, gasping voice from the backseat, at the same time Katie’s voice on the radio was saying, “Well, you’d better hurry. I’ll let Ridgecrest know you’re coming.”

      “Ten-four.” He put the SUV in gear and made a U-turn, tires spitting fine gravel.

      “Okay, drive safe.” The radio went silent.

      He didn’t turn on his siren, since it would only make the dog miserable, and there weren’t any other vehicles in the immediate vicinity anyway. He brought the speed up to what he considered the maximum for safety, then glanced in his rearview mirror.

      “How you doin’ back there?”

      No answer for a moment. Then, “Just lovely, thank you.”

      He couldn’t believe he was even thinking of smiling.

      As he drove, although his attention was totally focused on the road ahead, part of his mind kept jumping and skittering every which way, so full of the questions he wanted to ask, his head felt like a nest of spooked jackrabbits. For a long time he didn’t ask any of the questions because he couldn’t decide which one to ask first. Finally, though, when it seemed one kept popping up more often and more insistently than the rest, he looked up to his rearview mirror and said, “Ma’am, if you’re not a nun, what’s with the habit?”

      Her voice sounded tired, out of sorts and groggy. “No…obviously…I’m not a nun. The habit—and the car—belong to a friend of mine. When I drove the car into that ditch…when I knew I was going to have to walk for help, I thought the habit might help protect me from the sun. You know, like the robes Arabs wear.”

      J.J. nodded. He was thinking, Okay, she’s no dummy. But he wished he could see her face, because to him the speech sounded a little too long, a little too glib, like something she’d practiced in her mind ahead of time. It sounded plausible, might even be true—as far as it went. But he had a feeling there was more—a good deal more—she wasn’t telling him.

      And it sure didn’t explain those bruises.

      He said, “You ready to tell me the truth about how you got those bruises on your face?”

      This time the only answer he got was some loud groans and whimpering cries, which he found both alarming and frustrating. Frustrating, because for all he knew she could be faking, or at least exaggerating her situation to evade the question. But if the sounds she was making were for real…

      His radio coughed and Katie’s voice said, “Okay, J.J.? I’ve got Ridgecrest on the phone. Just in case.”

      Just in case. Swell. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Copy,” he said on a gusty exhalation, but Katie wasn’t through.

      “Okay, I gave them what you told me, about the water and all, and the contractions. They want to know if she’s feeling the urge to push.”

      J.J. mashed the button to answer, but before he could get a word out, here came one of those gut-wrenching groans.

      “Wow,” Katie said, “I heard that.”

      Heart pounding, J.J. said, “Ma’am, are you all right?”

      What he got for an answer was a sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck—a primal sound somewhere between a growl and a scream. It even got to Moonshine, who whimpered and licked her chops nervously.

      “Ridgecrest says don’t let her push,” Katie’s voice crackled from his shoulder.

      “Ma’am, you got that?” J.J. was trying hard to keep his voice calm, and on the whole wasn’t displeased with the results. So far. “You’re not supposed to push. Try not to push, okay?”

      “Okay.” She said that in a thin, pitiful voice, like a scared child’s. And in the next second, sounding like someone trying to bench press a Harley, “I…can’t…stop!”

      “She says she can’t stop,” J.J. relayed to Katie. And he was shaken enough to add, “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

      There was a pause, and then, “Ridgecrest says get her to pant.”

      “Pant?”

      “You know. When she feels the urge to push, tell her to take in a breath and blow it out through her mouth in short puffs.”

      “Ma’am? You got that?”

      “Yeah. Okay…” Now she sounded like a little kid trying to stop crying.

      “Oh, and J.J.? Ridgecrest says that won’t work indefinitely. It’ll only slow things down, and unless you’re less than ten or fifteen minutes out, you might want to pull over sometime soon.”

      J.J. swore, muttering under his breath. The woman in the backseat was silent, for the moment, thank God. And for a moment, hope flared within him. Maybe…just maybe, she was slackening off this pushing business. Maybe things would ease up enough to give him time to get her to the hospital in Ridgecrest. Maybe…

      “J.J., you copy?”

      The woman in the backseat picked that moment to start with that awful noise again, causing Moonshine to whine and flop down on the seat with her head on her paws. J.J. bet she’d have put her paws over her ears if she could. He wished he could.

      “Don’t

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