The Last Widow. Karin Slaughter

Vale’s nose whistled as he tried to draw air into his collapsing lungs. He had seen what Sara was going to do but been helpless to stop her.

      “Slow down,” Carter muttered, oblivious. “Jesus fuck, my nuts are on fire.” He punched the back of Sara’s seat. “You’re the doctor. Tell me what to do.”

      Sara couldn’t speak. Her throat was filled with cotton. Where was her earlier resolve? Why did she care what happened to Michelle? She had to start thinking about herself—how she was going to get out of this, whether it was by managing an escape or controlling her own death.

      “Come on!” Carter jabbed the seat again. “Tell me what to do.”

      Sara reached up to the rearview mirror. Her hands were shaking so hard that she could barely find the right angle. The reflection showed Carter’s injury. The knife handle was sticking out of his right inner thigh. Will had driven in the blade at an upward angle. The muscle was holding it in place.

      Femoral artery. Femoral vein. Genitofemoral nerve.

      Sara tried to clear her throat. Her tongue was thick in her mouth. She could taste bile. “The knife is pressing against a nerve. Pull it out.”

      Carter knew better. The blade could also be damming a nick in the artery. “How about I use it to cut open your face? Turn right, then left at the light.”

      Sara hooked a right at the stop sign. The light was green when she turned left onto Moreland Avenue. Little Five Points. There were only a few cars on the road. The parking lots in front of the shops and restaurants were sparsely packed. People had probably been directed to shelter in place. Or they were at home watching the news. Or the police had set up a tight perimeter around the hospital—so tight that the BMW had managed to get outside the boundary before they had time to implement the plan.

      “Turn off that fucking noise,” Carter said.

      The seat belt chime. Sara had not noticed the dinging sound from the passenger’s seat belt being left undone, but now it was all she could hear.

      Vale didn’t try to stop the noise. He closed his eyes. His lips were tensed. His finger was still inside of the hole. Every bump, every shift, must have felt like torture.

      Sara scanned the road for potholes.

      “Shut it off!” Carter yelled. “Help him, God dammit!”

      Michelle reached through the split in the seats. She was moving slowly, painfully. The blood on her hands had dried to a burgundy film. She started to draw the belt over Vale’s lap. Her hand hovered a few inches away from the buckle.

      His gun was in the waist of his jeans.

      Sara’s body went rigid. She prayed for Michelle to pull the weapon and start shooting.

      The buckle clicked. The chime stopped. Michelle sat back.

      Sara let her gaze slip down to Vale’s lap.

      Her heart broke into a million pieces.

      Michelle had strapped the revolver against his stomach.

       Why?

      “Bro?” Carter sounded nervous, uncertain. “Should I use my phone?”

      Vale didn’t answer. His teeth were chattering.

      “Bro?” Carter kicked the back of his seat.

      Vale screamed, “No!” His hand wrapped around the grab bar by the door. He hissed air through his teeth. “Orders,” he said. “We can’t—” He was cut off by a spasm of pain.

      “Fuck.” Carter wiped blood from his eyes. He told Sara, “Keep going straight. All the way to the interstate.”

      He was taking them to 285. They were going to skirt the perimeter of the city. The direction didn’t seem arbitrary. If these men were really cops or military, then they would have a plan B—another getaway car, a rendezvous point, a safe house in which to lay low until the attention died down.

      Sara tried to focus her thoughts on how to stop the car before they reached the interstate. The Atlanta police cruiser she had watched turn left onto Lullwater was her only source of hope. If Will wasn’t able to, Cathy would relay the details to the police officer. He would call command. Command would blast out an alert to every phone and computer in the tri-state area.

       Three suspected domestic terrorists. Heavily armed. Two hostages.

      The BMW was fully equipped. Satellite radio. GPS navigation. There was an SOS button above the rearview mirror. Sara had never pressed it before. She knew it was part of the system’s telemetric roadside assistance, but did it send out a silent signal or would an actual human being’s voice come through the speakers asking how to help?

      “Dash?” Carter was trying to wake the man in the back seat.

      Not Dwight.

      Dash.

      “Bro, come on.” He reached over Michelle and patted the man’s cheek, trying to rouse him. “Come on, bro. Wake up.”

      Dash’s lips moved. He started to mumble. Sara adjusted the mirror again. She could see his eyes tracking back and forth under his eyelids.

      She scanned ahead again, but not for potholes. There were more cars on the streets the farther away they got from Emory. Could she flash the headlights? Should she swerve erratically? Would either of those things endanger anyone who tried to help?

      “Why isn’t he waking up?” Carter was turning Dash’s head side to side. “Vale, get that medical kit out of the glove box.”

      Vale didn’t move, but Sara saw the key was still in the lock.

       The gun.

      “Dash!” Carter yelled, slapping at his face. “God dammit.”

      “He needs a hospital.” Sara pried her eyes away from the key. “All I have in my bag is Band-Aids and disinfectant.”

      “Fuck!” Carter punched his fist into the back of her seat. “Dash, come on, bro.”

      Sara cleared her throat again. She pressed her palm to her chest. Her heartbeats clicked as fast as a stopwatch.

       Think-think-think-think.

      She told Carter, “He’s been out almost fifteen minutes. He’s probably in a coma.” Another lie. His brain was clearly trying to reboot itself. “We should leave him near a fire station so they can help him.”

      “Shit. This is Dash we’re talking about. We ain’t leaving him nowhere.” Carter reached over Michelle again.

      “No!” the woman screamed. She scrambled out of his way, pushing herself over the seat and into the cargo area. Her shoulders were pressed to the glass. Arms spread. She looked at Sara with a wild panic in her eyes.

      Sara stared back at her in the mirror. She let her eyes dart to Michelle’s right.

      Her medical bag was in the storage bin.

       Scalpels. Needles. Sedatives.

      Michelle broke contact. She crumpled in on herself. Legs drawn up to her chest. Head on her knees.

      “What’s wrong with him?” Carter snapped his fingers in front of Dash’s face.

      The man’s eyelids had slit open, but he wasn’t responding.

      “Dash? Come on, bro. Wake up.”

      Sara looked at the clock.

      2:08 p.m.

      Cathy would take care of Will. Make sure that he was taken to the hospital. Question the doctors. Be there when he woke up from surgery. She would advocate for him the same way she had for Jeffrey.

       Wouldn’t she?

      “Doctor?”