Angelica!
Sliding down the side of the car, Tricia sank back into the arcticlike stream, fumbled for the door handle, pulling with all her strength, but the rushing water was too powerful-she couldn't yank it open.
"Help-oh, please help," came the voice, sounding fainter.
Grasping the window frame, Tricia took in a lungful of air, sank down, and pulled her upper body into the black interior. In only a minute or so the car had filled with water; just a pocket of air remained along what had once been the car's floor. Fumbling fingers captured Tricia's hand and she pulled with all her strength, trying to keep her head above water. "Be careful," she gasped. "Come on. I've got you!"
The hands clamped around her forearms in a death grip.
Muscles straining in the numbing-cold water, Tricia pulled and tugged and eventually a dark, bulky figure emerged from the car, coughing and sputtering.
"Thank you, oh, thank you," Doris Gleason cried, clutching at the car to find a handhold.
"Where's my sister?" Tricia demanded, steadying the woman.
"I don't know-I don't know," Doris wailed, inching away from her and toward the car's front tire.
Panicked, Tricia pulled herself back into the driver's compartment. The cockpit's air bubble was half the size. Tricia took a gulping breath and plunged into the black water, fumbling behind the driver's seat, searching, searching for her sister. Angelica was claustrophobic-she'd be terrified! But suddenly the midsized car's backseat area seemed to have expanded.
The back of her hand scraped something sharp and Tricia grabbed, capturing the chunky stone of Angelica's diamond ring. She pulled the hand and the body attached to it toward the driver's compartment with all her might, but Angelica was a dead weight, too large to drag under the driver's seat.
Fighting panic, Tricia groped for a lever, to make the seat recline.
Where in God's name was it?
Finally, her fingers clasped a plastic handle. She pushed it, yanked it.
Nothing happened.
Come on!
She had to let go of her sister, wrenched the lever with one hand while she beat on the saturated seat with the other.
With lungs ready to burst, she was forced to seek out the air pocket, took several painful gulps, and plunged down again.
More seconds flashed by as she struggled with the lever. At last it moved, and so did the seat, but only by inches. It would have to be enough.
Angelica had slipped back into the black abyss. Maddening eons passed as Tricia's frozen hands once again probed the icy darkness.
Her fingers were nothing more than pins and needles from the cold when something brushed against her. She snatched at it-Angelica's sweater. Hanging on, she maneuvered her legs out the driver's window.
Tricia pulled and tugged and jerked until she dragged a lifeless Angelica around the seat and out through the window. She slipped on weedy rocks, plunging into the water, gashing her knees on the rocks. Skyrockets of pain shot through her, but she managed to grab her sister as she tumbled into the torrent. Angelica's foot caught on the window frame and she hung suspended, with most of her body underwater. Tricia captured Angelica's arms, yanking her free, and the force of the water smashed them against the side of the car.
Nearing exhaustion, Tricia struggled to keep her own and her sister's head above water. Mike was still in the car-probably near death, and yet Tricia wasn't sure she had the strength to keep Angelica from drowning, let alone look for another victim.
"Get away! Get away! You'll push me in," Doris screamed.
If she'd had the energy, Tricia would've gladly slapped Doris, the cause of all their problems. Instead, she looked down at her sister. It took a long few moments for reality to register in her brain.
Angelica wasn't breathing.
"Ange. Ange!" Tricia screamed, panicked. She didn't know CPR, had never bothered to take a class.
Why hadn't she ever taken a class?
"Breathe! Breathe!" Tricia commanded, slapping Angelica's cheek, but Angelica's head lolled to one side.
Not knowing what else to do, Tricia shoved her sister's body against the car, pressing hard against her back.
Again. Harder.
Again! Harder still!
"Come on, Ange! Breathe!"
Once, twice, three more times she slammed Angelica into the side the car until she heard a cough, and a gasp, then choking sounds as Angelica vomited.
"Stop, stop! You're hurting me," she cried weakly.
Tricia threw an arm around her sister to hold her up and rested her head against Angelica's shoulder, allowing the pent-up tears to flow.
"Need help?" came a voice from the bridge, one that sounded vaguely familiar.
"She tried to kill me!" Doris cried. "Get me out of here. She tried to kill us!"
Tricia craned her neck to look. From the safety of the bridge above them, Russ Smith tossed Doris a rope. "Tie it around yourself. I'll pull you over to the bank."
"Call nine-one-one. There's still someone trapped in the car!" Tricia called.
"Already called." Something flashed repeatedly. Tricia glanced over her shoulder to see Russ lower a little digital camera. "This is going to make a great front-page story for the next edition of the Stoneham Weekly News," he said with zeal.
"Who cares about that? Get me out of here!" Doris demanded, again, already tying the rope around her chest.
"I want to go home," Angelica sobbed.
Tricia's cheek rested against her sister's shoulder once more and she closed her eyes, ready to collapse. "Me, too."
Twenty-Four
Tricia bowed with theatrical aplomb, holding the polished silver tray in front of her guest. "Care for a smoked-salmon-and-caviar bite? They're absolutely delicious."
Juggling a martini in one hand and a china plate already heaped with hot hors d'oeuvres in the other, Russ Smith shook his head and laughed. "I already feel like the fatted calf. I'll need to go on a diet after this feast."
"Nothing is too good for the man who saved my life." Ensconced in the plushest chair in Haven't Got a Clue's reading nook, her leg resting on the south edge of the nook's large square coffee table, Angelica toasted Russ with her own glass. Her ankle, encased in a pink fiberglass cast, had been broken in three places, but she'd been getting around in a wheelchair for the last few days. Despite her near-death experience, she looked fabulous in a little black cocktail dress, one black pump, a string of pearls around her neck, and nails polished to match her cast. In comparison, Tricia felt positively frumpy in her usual work clothes.
She handed the tray to Ginny, who took a crab puff and placed it on the table, which had been cleared of its usual stacks of books and magazines. "Excuse me," Tricia said, "but I believe I'm the one who pulled you out of that car and kept you from drowning."
"Yes, but I would've died of hypothermia if this darling man hadn't used his cell phone to call nine-one-one. Never complain about paying your taxes, Trish, darling-not when the county employs such cute paramedics."
Tricia wasn't likely to complain at all. Her own cuts and bruises were nothing compared to Angelica's assorted injuries. Crutches weren't likely to be in her future until her two cracked ribs healed-an injury caused by Tricia's clumsy but successful attempt at resuscitation. Makeup had done a reasonable job of covering up Angelica's blackened eyes, but it was the defensive knife wounds on her arms she'd received fighting off Doris that had finally convinced the law that they'd been the kidnap victims-and not the perpetrators. By comparison, Tricia's aches and pains were of little consequence.
Miss Marple sashayed around the nook, her little gray nose twitching at the aroma of salmon and caviar. "Shoo, shoo!" Angelica admonished, and the cat reluctantly retreated to a spot several feet away, her gaze never leaving the food on the table.