“Where are we going?” Lily asked as the trail they’d been bouncing along disappeared into a rock-strewn gully and Chase veered off into the adjacent woodlands. The night abruptly darkened as tall pines closed in overhead, obscuring all but a few patches of sky. The headlights skittered off tree trunks and boulders in a dizzying parade of swiftly changing shapes. If Lily hadn’t ridden with Chase before, she might have been nervous about their speed over the wild terrain—make that just short of terrified—but she didn’t have the luxury of fear. She trusted Chase, and if anything, she wanted her to go faster. She wasn’t used to being the one en route to a trauma, when seconds might matter. The medics brought the injured to her by ambulance or helicopter, most already stabilized in the field and often with a preliminary diagnosis. She had time to plan a course of action, to ready herself and her team, so the instant the patient arrived they could institute treatment.
Tonight she was literally in the dark—worse, she was out of her element. She’d run more codes in the ER halls and even the parking lot outside the hospital in the last two years than she would ever likely run again, but even then she’d had all the equipment, all the meds, and all the personnel she’d needed. All they had now was whatever Chase had in the Jeep—and why hadn’t she ever thought to ask what that might be before now—and a portable defibrillator she hoped to heaven had a fully charged battery. Her chest tightened. She hadn’t been this uncertain since her residency days, at least not until the pandemic descended without warning. But this was not then. This was Chase’s world, not hers.
As soon as the realization struck her, Lily’s apprehension dissolved. She wasn’t the expert here, Chase was. In the ER she was the team leader—tonight, in the wilderness, she was the assistant.
“We can’t get up the hiking trail in this,” Chase replied, both hands on the wheel and her eyes straight ahead. “Too narrow, and there’s a rope bridge at one point—can only traverse that on foot. But we can get close to the reported location off-road.”
The route they took gave a whole new meaning to the term off-road. As far as Lily could tell, they were simply forging their way through completely virgin forest by some innate compass in Chase’s head. All around them, the wilderness lay untouched with absolutely no evidence of anything that resembled a trail.
“How far away are we? If they’re doing CPR, we don’t have much time.”
“We’re close,” Chase said.
“When we get there,” Lily said, “just tell me what to do.”
“You assess the patient—I’ll break out the gear. Just think of it like you’re in the ER, Lily.”
As if anything about this was remotely familiar.
Lily decided to stop thinking at all. She’d handled every kind of emergency there was at some point in her career. She’d just have to adapt. Less than a minute later, Chase halted the Jeep on the crest of a rocky ledge and shut off the engine. The canopy of trees thinned, and Lily picked out what must be the trail, just wide enough for two people in some places, wending up the mountainside.
“Come on,” Chase said. “We’ll have to get up to the trailhead on foot. Watch your step—don’t break an ankle.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” Lily jumped out, careful of her footing on the rocky track, and determined never to wear anything except hiking boots again. Possibly even in New York City. Chase yanked open the rear door of the Jeep, reached in, and pulled out a red backpack nearly as tall as Lily and shrugged it on with practiced efficiency. She handed Lily a red tackle box with a white cross on its side. “Meds and the defibrillator. Can you handle it?”
“Yes,” Lily said before she’d even gripped the handle. No matter how heavy it might be, she had no choice. “I’m good. Let’s go.”
Chase checked her red DEC vest with multiple pockets, donned a half helmet with a headlamp that she switched on, and started off. Lily followed Chase and the narrow beam of light as closely as she could, not bothering to search for any sign of the trail but concentrating on putting each foot down on stable ground. Somehow, Chase managed to pick her way with the ease of a mountain goat through clumps of boulders and densely packed trees, until as if by some miracle, the trail widened and the terrain became more level.
“This way, just another quick climb.”
“Go, go,” Lily said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Chase, of course, could sprint up the trail. Lily gave a fair showing, and by the time she reached the small circle of people standing around a young man and woman kneeling over a prone figure in khaki pants, boots, and a green T-shirt, Chase had the backpack open and was pulling out emergency supplies. She set a battery-powered lamp on the ground that added to the eeriness of the scene by illuminating the key figures in harsh white light while the surrounding forest receded into ominous gloom.
Taking a deep breath to steady her mind, Lily knelt next to a dark-haired young man who looked to be in his midtwenties who was doing chest compressions. Sweat streaked his face, leaving thin dusty rivulets down his cheeks. A woman about his age and half his size kept the unresponsive man’s airway open with her fingers supporting his flaccid lower jaw. From the sheen of sweat on her face, the two of them had probably been alternating compressions, a back-breaking and exhausting physical undertaking.
“I’m a doctor,” Lily said, thumbing open the latches on the med box. At a quick glance, the male patient appeared to be in early middle age—somewhere around forty—and fit looking. She saw no immediate signs of trauma to suggest he had fallen from any great height. All four extremities lay in a natural position with no evidence of blood loss on his person or the surrounding ground. His eyes were closed, his skin tinged a faint blue gray. She pressed her fingers to his neck and felt a faint pulse of blood each time the student compressed his chest. “What’s the situation here?”
“We were a hundred yards up the trail,” the young woman said, her voice tight but steady, “when we heard a man shout for help. We got here within twenty seconds, probably, and this gentleman was on the ground. He did not appear to be breathing, did not respond to commands, and we could not find a pulse. We immediately began CPR.”
“Good. Did anyone with him know anything about his medical status?”
“I-I don’t know. We didn’t—I didn’t ask.”
Lily called, “Chase, can you get the leads on?”
“Right here.” Chase leaned down, pulled a big pair of bandage scissors off her belt, and slit the man’s T-shirt down the middle. As she positioned the EKG leads and defibrillator pads, she said, “He was hiking alone, apparently. The guy who yelled for help just told me he came around the bend and saw this guy on the ground.”
Lily grimaced. “He didn’t see him fall?”
“No.”
“So we don’t know how long he’s been down.” She looked at Chase, whose grim expression matched what she was feeling. “Anything?”
Chase looked at the EKG readout and shook her head. “Flatline.”
Lily extracted the defibrillator paddles, slapped the moistened pads over his right chest and lower left side, and said, “Charge to 150.”
“Ready,” Chase said.
“Clear.” Everyone leaned away, and Lily triggered the charge. The body gave a faint tremor. “Rhythm?”
“Nothing,” Chase said.
“Charge to 300,” Lily said again.
“Go,” Chase said.
“Clear.” Lily shocked him a second time.
“Flatline,” Chase said.
“Intracardiac epi?” Lily glanced over her shoulder at Chase.
“I’ll get it.” Chase pulled the ampule, attached the five-inch needle, and handed it to her.
Lily felt for the landmarks. The patient was fit, and she easily found the lower edge of the sternum, angled the needle at forty-five degrees toward his left shoulder, and inserted it beneath the breastbone. She felt the faint resistance of the cardiac muscle, and then she was inside the ventricular chamber and pushed the epi directly into the heart.
“Flatline,” Chase said. As Lily had worked, Chase had managed to get an intravenous line into an arm vein.
“Push bicarb,” Lily said.
“Running,” Chase said. “Atropine?”
Lily ignored the pressing sense of impending defeat. They would try everything, per protocol, and then they would try some more. They were this man’s only chance. His last chance. “Yes, and let’s shock him again.”
“Ready.”
“Clear,” Lily said and discharged the paddles again.
“Nothing.”
Lily looked at Chase, who nodded. They ran through everything they had again, using every med to stimulate the heart, reduce the strain on the failing organ, and support blood flow to the brain. The heart failed to respond.
Finally Lily asked. “How long has he been down?”
The male student, his voice quivering, said, “Uh, almost twenty minutes since we got here.”
“And an unknown time before that.” Lily leaned back. She did not look at Chase. “Stop compressions. Time of death, 7:42 p.m.”
Chase stood and addressed the small circle of onlookers who had slowly congregated as they’d come down the trail upon the scene. “I’m going to need everyone to back away now.”
Everyone did, and she thumbed her radio. “This is Fielder. We need a recovery team with a stretcher. Alert the local authorities and the ME.”
Natalie’s voice came back over the radio. “Baxter and Rodrigues are already en route. ETA ten minutes.”
“Roger that.”
“What now?” Lily murmured to Chase.
“It’s now an undetermined death, and we have to investigate it that way. I’ll get the interviews with this group started. Someone may have seen him earlier. We’ll try to recreate what happened if we can. It would help if you talked to the two med students.”
“I’ll record it,” Lily said, lifting her phone. “Will that work?”
“Perfect. Thanks.” Chase paused. “This might take a while. If you want to go down with the retrieval team, you can catch a ri—”
Lily smiled for a fraction of a second. “I’m staying if you’re staying.”
Lily pulled the two students aside, asked their names, and asked if they consented to her recording their recollection of the event. They did.
“Josh Petrie,” the young man said. “I’m a fourth year at Albany Med. I will be, I mean, in September.”
“Ada Marinda,” the second student said. “Me too.”
“Can one of you go over everything you saw and did one more time?”
Josh looked at Ada, who nodded. Their story was still the same—no one was sure how long the man had been lying there before the second hiker came upon him. Both agreed that when they found him, he showed no signs of life.
“You did all that could be done,” Lily said when they had finished.
Ada repeated what they’d both already said. “We got here as quickly as we could. We didn’t wait more than twenty seconds before starting CPR, and we never let up.”
Lily nodded. “I’m certain of it. We won’t know what happened until there’s a postmortem, but I suspect it was a massive coronary. There was probably no chance of resuscitating him even if you’d been standing beside him when he occluded.”
“Will someone call us when the post is done?” Josh asked quietly.
“I will. One of you put your number into my phone. I’ll text you.” She handed it to Ada to enter the information just as two rangers and a sheriff’s deputy arrived with a stretcher. While the deputy talked to Chase, the two rangers covered the deceased with a blanket, carefully transferred him to the stretcher, and strapped him in for the trip down the mountain.
“I’ve got the interviews here,” Chase said to the female ranger, a young blonde about Chase’s age who lingered a moment to say something to Chase in a low murmur.
Lily looked away.
“Thanks for the assist,” the blonde said, engaging the lift on the portable stretcher. She and her male partner each took a side to guide it on the trek down the trail to where they’d left their vehicle. The deputy followed them a minute later.
“Do you two need a ride?” Lily asked the two students. “We’re not too far from here—it would be crowded, but we can get you down the mountain.”
“I’d rather walk,” Josh said.
Ada nodded. “Me too.”
“Thank you for everything that you did,” Lily said.
The two of them still looked uncertain and discouraged, but she knew that would pass. She understood their feelings. Losing a patient never got easier.
“They okay?” Chase asked quietly.
“They will be.” Lily sighed. “As well as they can be. This is probably their first time losing someone.”
“How about you?” Chase asked.
“Not my first time,” Lily murmured, “and it still makes me sad and damn angry.”
Chase cupped the back of Lily’s neck. Her grip was firm and warm, comforting in its certainty. “It’s a rough ride back to the camp in the dark. There’s a faster route down but it takes us a bit out of the way.” She shrugged, her fingers lightly stroking Lily’s neck. “Goes pretty close to my place. It makes sense to stay there, if you don’t mind plain accommodations.”
Lily looked around. All the onlookers had left. They were alone with only Chase’s flashlight to push back the dark. That, and the warmth of Chase’s palm against her skin.
“I like plain just fine. As long as there’s plain coffee involved in the morning.”
Laughing, Chase said, “That’s a promise.”
Lily looped her fingers around Chase’s belt at the base of her spine. “Then I accept.”
* * *
“Hey,” Chase murmured softly. “Lily. We’re here.”
Lily came awake with a start and shifted to face her. “Oh, I can’t believe I fell asleep. I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Chase said. “If you could sleep on that ride, you needed it.”
Lily rubbed her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Just checked out.”
“Maybe because there was always someone else waiting for you to take care of them.”
“It wasn’t always like that,” Lily said, half to herself. “I wish I could remember that.”
“Give yourself some time, Lily. And maybe for tonight, just let it all go.”
Lily nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” Chase came around the side of the Jeep and opened Lily’s door. “Sorry there’s no outside lights here. Too much animal activity. If I had motion sensor lights, they’d be going on and off all night.”
She held out her hand. Lily grasped it and stepped down from the Jeep, pausing when she reached the ground. She didn’t take her hand away, and Chase held on. Nothing could have felt more natural. The moon was high and bright, and only a few clouds streaked the otherwise clear sky. Lily’s face was illuminated in the nearly bright-as-day silvery glow, and Chase’s chest tightened with unfamiliar longing that eclipsed even desire. Lily was so beautiful, Chase had a hard time believing the moment was real.
Lily slowly turned and took in her surroundings. Chase tried to imagine it as Lily saw it: a small clearing in the otherwise unbroken forest, her sprawling single-story cabin, the chimney at one end and the small rectangle of garden surrounded by deer fence out behind the other. A porch just big enough for her to sit on with her coffee at dawn, along with an extra chair for visitors she never had.
Chase cleared her throat. “I told you simple—I guess I forgot to say rustic and secluded.”
Lily laughed. “I think both of those terms are a slight understatement. Honestly, is there anything anywhere around us at all?”
Chase’s gut tightened, this time for a different reason. What had she expected? Of course this place—hell, probably even her now that Lily could see what her life looked like—would seem foreign and unappealing to Lily. “Not for a good twenty-five miles to the nearest road. There’s plenty of wildlife out there—deer, of course, and bear, the occasional moose. All the small animals, and there’s been a few mountain lion sightings, but mostly the cats are bobcats. Sorry, but it’s perfectly safe here.”
Lily tilted her head and regarded her quizzically. “I wasn’t worried about safety. I was just marveling at how amazing it is to be standing in a place like this.”
“Oh,” Chase said, feeling as wrong-footed as she probably sounded.
“Sometimes in the city,” Lily went on as if she hadn’t noticed, her voice pensive, as if she was drifting in the memory, “I’d look around me and at all the buildings soaring so high above me, filled with thousands of people, and the streets packed with thousands more, and feel completely alone. My smallness was unsettling and disorienting.” She turned slightly to Chase, still holding her hand. “This is nothing like that. Out here, I don’t feel apart from all the life around me.”
Chase carefully clasped Lily’s waist and kissed her, as softly as she could manage and far more briefly than she wanted. “I had to do that. You’re not only beautiful, Lily, but you see what I love out here, and that makes me ache.”
Lily drew in a sharp breath and gently touched Chase’s cheek. “You, Chase, are the most beautiful thing that I see.”
Chase muttered a half-hearted curse. “I really didn’t bring you here to seduce you, but damn, I want to.”
Lily’s brow rose. “Oh?”
“I brought you here to get some sleep. That was tough, up there on the mountain, more for you, I imagine, than me.”
“Why?” Lily said. “Why me more than you?”
“I wanted that guy to live every bit as much as you did, I think,” Chase said. “I want all of the ones we find to live.”
“But?” Lily prodded.
“But…it’s not personal for me.”
“And it is for me,” Lily said distantly. “Or it’s all become personal, and maybe that’s part of the problem. Somewhere in the past few years, I’ve lost my professional shields. And that’s what’s made it so hard for me to do my job.”
“Lily,” Chase murmured. “Come inside. For tonight at least, forgive yourself.”
“Is that what you think I need to do?” Lily asked curiously, her tone still slightly distant, as if her mind was working on some other problem, somewhere else.
“I think you must’ve done every single thing that could be done, but there was much that couldn’t be.” She tugged on Lily’s hand, and Lily followed her across the clearing, up onto the porch, and inside. “This summer you’re supposed to be getting away from all of that, and when you do, you’ll see it more clearly.”
Lily drew in an audible breath. “Yes. I didn’t consciously think of it that way, but this summer is a chance to find my perspective again.”
“So doing something totally different is just what you need.”
Lily laughed. “I think so far I’m succeeding in that.”
“Hold on for a second.” Chase found the propane lantern on the small table next to the door and turned it on.
Lily laughed, and the lightness that had returned to her voice made Chase’s heart swell. “No electricity?”
“There’s a generator out back for when I need power. The freezer is solar powered. Most everything I actually need in the way of food is canned or dry goods. Plus fresh, in season.”
“I don’t suppose any of those necessities include a bottle of wine?”
“As a matter fact, they do. I think the only thing I’ve got is red, though.”
“Red would be perfect.” Lily glanced past Chase’s shoulder to take in the rest of the cabin—a large main room with a stone fireplace at one end taking up most of the wall, a neat stack of cut lumber piled beside it, and a sofa facing it. A low pine table sat in front of that, and off to the left, a galley kitchen with a few cabinets above a sink and two-burner stove, counters to either side, and a plain round wooden table with two chairs in front of a window. On the far side facing the door they’d come through, an open door to a bedroom and another to the bath.
In the flickering light of the propane lantern, she couldn’t make out the details, but a number of landscape paintings hung on the walls.
Chase must’ve followed her gaze. “My mother painted. Those are hers.”
“I can’t wait to see them in the daylight,” Lily said.
“Make yourself comfortable on the sofa. I’ll get the wine. I’ve also got some crackers and a vacuum-packed container of cheese. As I recall, now that I think of it, we didn’t have any dinner.”
“I’m not actually hungry, but the food is probably a good idea with the wine, if you don’t want me seducing you after a glass or so.”
Chase shot her a look. “I don’t think you’d hear me complaining, but I’d rather you not regret it in the morning.”
While Chase opened cabinets, Lily settled on the sofa and leaned her head back, willing the tension and the memory of what had happened up on the mountain to fade a little. When Chase sat down beside her and handed her a glass of wine, she sipped it and sighed. “I’m so glad we came here. Thank you.”
“You’re the only visitor I’ve ever had, other than Sarah,” Chase said. “My hospitality skills might be a little rusty.”
Lily took the cracker with the cheese spread on it that Chase offered and took a bite. She didn’t think she’d ever tasted anything quite as delicious. “Believe me, all your skills are superb.”
Chase’s hand rested on the back of the sofa, her fingertips very lightly touching the top of Lily’s shoulder.
“I know this place must seem strange to you.”
“I can see why you’d think that, but it doesn’t. Not knowing you. It seems perfect.”
“Knowing me?” Chase asked.
Lily waved a hand to take in the cabin. “Efficient, sturdy, solid, and practical—in a wild way, beautiful.”
Chase’s expression went from amused to intense in a heartbeat. “If we’re going to keep this civilized,” Chase said, “you might want to ease up on the compliments.” Her words were rough with desire.
Lily smiled over the top of her wineglass. “Civilized. I might have to give some thought to what uncivilized might look like.” She laughed when Chase groaned and finished her wine. “Do you have anything resembling a shower here?”
“I do. At the moment, however, it would be pretty chilly. In the morning with the generator running, I can get you lukewarm.”
“Then in the morning, I’d like a shower and that coffee you promised.” Lily rose and poured another half-glass of wine. “Right now I need some sleep.”
“Take the bedroom, Lily,” Chase said. “I’ll sleep out here on the sofa.”
“You know what?” Lily said. “I’m going to take you up on it, because otherwise there’d be an argument over it, and you’d still end up sleeping out here.”
“I’m not sure I like how well you know me,” Chase said with a wry smile.
“Really?” Lily said softly. “I’m sorry, then, because I really want to know you a whole lot better before the summer is over.”
Chase swallowed, need so tight in her throat the words wouldn’t come.
Lily rose and set her wineglass on the table. “See you in the morning.”