Turbulence. Dana Mentink

it. Thank You, God, for sparing her life. Above all things, he did not want to find her dead or dying in the wreckage. And now she knelt next to him, cheeks pink, breath making puffs in the cold air.

      Maddie was alive. When he brought the pilot back, there would be only one fatality from the horrific crash. They’d wait for rescue. They would all survive.

      He was so lost in the feeling, he didn’t hear her at first.

      “Still no heartbeat.”

      Paul blinked. “What?”

      Maddie gestured to the pilot. “No heartbeat, Paul. Nothing.”

      Jaden joined them. “Took me a while to find you. What can I do?”

      Paul waited to answer until Maddie was giving the rescue breaths. “Do you have any medical training?”

      “No, I’m just a Heartline rep.”

      Paul nodded. “Can you find a tarp or piece of plastic? Anything we can use to get him off this snow?”

      Jaden hesitated a moment before he disappeared over the rise.

      Maddie touched Paul’s arm. “Paul, I don’t think you’re going to save him.”

      Paul shook his head. “Hasn’t been down that long. I can get him started.” Though his arms were aching with fatigue, and each movement aggravated his ribs and made the wounds on his back sting, Paul kept on. “One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand,” he counted with each thrust of his hands on the man’s chest.

      Maddie gave the next set of breaths, though the urgency seemed to have gone out of her. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t know the wildly persistent quality of human life. He’d seen people in comas suddenly wake up when doctors said there was no hope. He’d known small children to survive inhuman conditions with smiles on their faces.

      A part of him filled in the rest.

      And you’ve also seen plenty of people you couldn’t save with any amount of effort.

      Not this time.

      The pilot’s name was N. Fisher. The man thought he had been drugged, if he’d heard right, yet somehow the guy had managed to get them down alive. Paul recalled the scuffle he’d heard in the cabin and wondered about the copilot’s part in the crash. He steeled his arms and did the compressions more aggressively.

      The next time he looked up, Jaden was there, and Dr. Wrigley.

      Dr. Wrigley looked at him from behind glasses that sat slightly cockeyed on his face. “Dr. Ford, your patient is gone. You need to call it.”

      “No,” Paul said, feeling his stomach clench. “I can get him back.”

      “Four-one-thousand, five-one-thousand.” His shoulder muscles screamed at him, his injured ribs stabbing at him with every movement. The end of the cycle came and he looked to Maddie. Her face was damp with tears.

      “It’s over, Paul.”

      Anger surged inside him. “I’m a doctor. I know when it’s time to quit. I say I can save him.”

      He pushed past her and administered the two rescue breaths himself. When he returned for compressions, Dr. Wrigley took a step forward and gripped his upper arm with surprising strength.

      “Dr. Ford, the pilot is dead. There is no hope of resuscitation, in spite of your efforts.” He looked at his watch. “The time of death is ten-fifteen a.m.”

      Paul looked at them and read it in their faces. He knew they were right. He was not going to make a save this time. Despair rose inside, along with a deep fatigue. He slowly got to his feet and Jaden stepped forward with a blanket he’d retrieved, draping the body against the falling snow.

      Paul stood, hands on hips. “His name was Fisher. I saw it on his ID tag. He saved us.”

      Maddie looked at the ground when she spoke. “You did your best.”

      The irony cut deep. I did my best for your nieces, too.

      Had he?

      The question that had tormented him every day since the crash surfaced again. Had he done everything medically possible for the children? Was there something he’d overlooked because he’d been distracted by another accident victim, his brother? He’d replayed the events second by painful second in his mind, without achieving any clarity. The bald facts were that today the children were gone, Bruce Lambert was hanging on by his fingernails and Paul’s brother, Mark, was in perfect health.

      A cold wind struck at them and he saw Maddie shiver. “We’ve got to get some shelter and wait for a rescue team.”

      Jaden looked around. “The cabin is unstable, and there’s a fire burning in the electrical system. I salvaged what I could, but we can’t take cover there.”

      Wrigley took a few steps toward the top of the hill. “There must be something nearby. A cave, a cabin—something.”

      Paul considered. “I think the best bet is to move to the bottom of that rock wall. If we can find some debris to stand on, maybe some wood to make a fire, we can at least be out of the wind.”

      “I’ll get the gear that survived and see if there’s anything else.” Jaden zipped his jacket up to his chin, against the biting wind.

      Maddie nodded. “I’ll help. I’ve got to make sure the Berlin Heart is safe.”

      An odd look crossed Jaden’s face, but Paul could not read it before the man turned and headed quickly up the hill. Maddie followed, struggling to keep up.

      The Berlin Heart. He’d forgotten all about it. The rescue team might still be able to fly it to Bruce’s hospital. He looked ahead at the smoke rising from the downed plane. Had it been damaged? He didn’t allow his mind to continue the thought. One catastrophe at a time, Ford.

      Before he followed Maddie up hill, he bent to one knee again and said a prayer for N. Fisher.

      Dr. Wrigley stayed with the pile of singed carry-on bags while Jaden and Paul approached the plane, Maddie following. Her thoughts were fuzzy as she moved to climb on the wreckage. She’d just seen a man die, and though all she knew about him was his last name, she couldn’t ignore a feeling of loss. She wondered if Paul felt it every time he lost a patient. Maybe he felt it more keenly when he’d sacrificed one patient for the next, as he’d done with her nieces. Her father’s words rang in her memory.

      He let them die, Maddie. He let the girls die.

      Thinking of her dad drove all thoughts about Paul away.

      Her face was stiff with cold, and she reached carefully to hold on where the metal was not sheared off razor-sharp. Smoke continued to blossom out of the shattered windows and the crackle of flames was louder now.

      She was about to haul herself up when Paul stopped her.

      He put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t go in there.”

      His face was calm again, unmarked with the same frustration and anger she’d seen a moment before.

      “I’m going, Paul.”

      “Not a good idea. The smoke is toxic, you know that.”

      She yanked out of his grasp. “I’m not going to let my father die.”

      Jaden appeared in the opening. “Fire’s getting closer to the fuel tanks. We’ve gotta clear out.”

      Maddie called over the crackling. “Did you get the heart?”

      She didn’t hear his reply as a whooshing noise filled the air.

      Paul grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the wreck.

      She fought him, twisting and jerking. “Let go of me.”

      She thought he’d listened for a moment, until she found herself draped like