Mercer took on an exaggerated limp as they shuffled first past the snowdrifted lawn surrounding the science center and then into the parking lot, where the police had lined up.
“Hurry,” the female cop said as they approached, her hair tucked under her peaked cap and her eyes hidden behind mirrored shades. She directed them to the back of her car so that its bulk was between them and the building with its unknown number of shooters.
“I hurt my knee,” Mercer said as soon as they were safely behind the cruiser.
“What happened?” The cop ignored his claim of injury.
“I don’t know.” Mercer spoke fast and put a high-pitched manic edge to his voice as if he was barely keeping it together. “We were on the second floor. We heard something downstairs and then this big explosion. We had to run past the office that blew up and then we heard gunfire. Well, I think it was gunfire — it sounded weird, muted like. Well, then two big booms. Bang, and then a few seconds later bang again. We were in the stairwell by then. That’s where I fell and hit my knee. I tripped Jordan here. She says her shoulder’s hurt too.” He turned to her. “I am so sorry, Jord.”
“We’re out and safe,” Jordan said, rubbing his arm as if he needed soothing to calm down. “That’s all that matters.”
“Did you see anyone or anything?” the woman cop asked. She eyed Mercer as if he were a suspect. For his part, Mercer slowly unzipped his jacket so she could see the strange bulkiness underneath was caused by the batch of wet papers from Abe’s trash.
“No. Nothing.” Mercer acted as though he just realized the papers he had tried to protect were sopping. “Goddamnit. I need these.”
“Please, sir, stay focused,” the officer said.
Jordan piped up, “Um, like, my arm is freaking killing me.” She rubbed the joint theatrically.
“We’ll take care of you in a second, ma’am,” the cop said, and turned back to Mercer. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything? We have reports of a car chase across campus.”
Mercer kept his attention on the wet bundle of papers and answered distractedly, “Ah, no we didn’t see anything. Like I said, we were in a second-floor chem lab. There was some kind of disturbance downstairs and then this really loud explosion. Jordan and I ran for it as soon as the sprinklers put out the little bit of fire that was in the hallway. Then the gunshots and we fell in the stairs and now we’re here.” He looked at her with the innocence of a child.
For her part, the cop seemed a little less suspicious of this slightly hysterical man and the woman who needed to keep touching him so he’d stay calm. In her non — politically correct mind she figured he was gay and the woman had more balls than him. “Do you have ID, sir?”
“Upstairs in my briefcase,” Mercer said without hesitation.
The officer was about to ask a follow-up question when her radio blared. She listened to the acronym-laced call and spoke into her shoulder mic. “No, nothing since. Just students and faculty exiting the building.” She listened again. “Roger that.” She made a dismissive gesture in Mercer and Jordan’s direction. “Get back behind the fire engines. There are EMTs and ambulances to take you to Presbyterian if your injuries are bad enough.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said. She looped her good arm under Mercer’s shoulder, pressing up against his body so she could help him walk behind the police barricade.
“You’ll get an Oscar for sure,” Mercer whispered into her ear as they struggled another block away from the science center.
“I played Mrs. Higgins in high school,” Jordan told him.
“Who?”
“My Fair Lady? Mrs. Higgins? Henry Higgins’s mother?” Seeing she wasn’t getting anywhere, Jordan gave up. “Your acting wasn’t too bad, either,” she said.
“I was channeling my inner Harvey Weinstein from Independence Day.”
“That was Harvey Fierstein,” Jordan corrected him. Her face was pale and not from the cold. She couldn’t stop herself from cradling her bad arm with her good. “Harvey Weinstein is a movie producer.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” By the time they reached the rows of ambulances and fire engines swarming with emergency personnel, Mercer had all but abandoned his fake limp so that he wasn’t drawing attention to himself. Jordan shivered against him, and even he had to admit the chill was creeping into his bones. They needed dry clothes.
A pair of EMTs saw them coming and marched to them with blankets ready to throw over their shoulders. “Are you two okay?” one asked. He was short, with a cheesy mustache but a genuinely concerned expression.
“Hit my knee,” Mercer said quickly, “but it’s feeling better. Jordan’s the worst off. She has a sore shoulder. Not sure why.”
At that the two paramedics all but ignored Mercer and bustled Jordan to the ambulance’s open doors, where heat blasted from the vents in an almost visible wave. They sat her on a gurney, and the medics peeled back the blanket and started manipulating her shoulder joint, asking her over and over what hurt, where, and how badly. While they worked on her, Mercer found spare scrubs in a locker next to the emergency vehicle’s side door. No one was paying him any attention, so he sat on the threshold and pulled off his boots and jeans. Even exposed to the cold air his skin felt warmer being out of the wet denim. He slid on two layers of the thin cotton pants, drawing the waist strings tight. He used a pair of ACE bandages to fashion himself some socks and soon had his boots back on. Moments later he had a scrub top on under his sweater and jacket and felt almost human again. The scrubs had been sealed in a clear plastic bag. He wrapped the still-wet papers inside it before sticking them inside his coat along with all the stuff he’d had in his jeans pockets. The jeans he folded into a bundle around his damp socks.
He approached the EMTs still huddled over Jordan. “What’s the verdict?”
“If she’d let us cut away her jacket we can confirm,” the mustached paramedic said, “but I think her collarbone is broken.”
“Hospital, then?” Mercer asked.
“Most likely.”
Jordan chimed in, “Listen, guys, I don’t doubt that it is broken, but I don’t want you wasting your time on me.”
She looked past the two hovering EMTs and gave Mercer a wink. He could have kissed her. She intuitively knew they couldn’t be taken to the ER in an ambulance because there would be no escape once they were logged into the hospital’s system.
She went on, “After an explosion like that there are probably a lot of hurt kids in there, and the gunmen are still on the loose. I don’t want to be responsible for some injured cop or gut-shot student not making it to the hospital because I took his or her ambulance.”
The men were obviously torn between helping an attractive, though mildly injured woman and the possibility of saving a life during a crisis. In the end, many EMTs are adrenaline junkies and want to be there for the dramatic rescue, so after exchanging a knowing look with his partner the spokesman of the pair said, “As long as you promise to go straight to the hospital.” He glanced at Mercer. “You have a car?”
“Two-minute walk from here,” Mercer assured him, not adding that it was currently half submerged in the pond, and cops were probably approaching the stranded rental as if it were John Dillinger’s getaway car.
“Okay. You know where Presbyterian Memorial is?”
“I was born there,” Mercer lied.
The EMT nodded. “Take her straight there. If she thinks her arm’s sore now, give it more time and it’ll get worse without treatment.”
They swaddled Jordan in several blankets and helped her out of their ambulance. “Thanks,” she said. “You guys are wonderful.”