Miracle Woman (5 page)

She wandered inside the store, hoping to spot a manager or someone she could ask. It was quiet, and judging by the two bored-looking teenagers on the registers probably the crossover period between night and day staff. She asked the one with the name-tag Jeanette and the triple studs in her right ear if she'd heard of the accident a few days before.

‘Someone said something about a kid, I think,'
she shrugged vaguely, ‘but ya know I wasn't really listening.'

Lara tried to smile nice and friendly, hoping there was somebody left from the day staff who actually gave a toss about what went on in their place of work. Then she spotted an older man. He was standing over near the exit and had pulled a navy shirt on, but she could see he was wearing the store security uniform underneath it. Racing through the frozen goods aisle she managed to catch his attention.

‘Excuse me, sir!' she interrupted. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the accident here involving a child on Saturday?'

He looked up. The pale blue eyes which lurked under a clump of rough grey eyebrows were immediately suspicious.

‘You from the insurance company or something?' he replied.

‘No! No, sir. Nothing like that at all,' she assured him. ‘I'm a journalist on the
Boston Herald
and, well, I actually live in the neighbourhood and I was wondering what exactly happened.'

He stared at her for a moment or two, until she produced her ID.

‘Can't be too careful!' he murmured as she put it back in her black leather purse. He relaxed a bit and she followed him towards the door.

‘Just one of those things, a crowd of kids on bikes. You know what boys that age are like.
Racing and chasing all over the place, use the lot here for stunt riding sometimes. The parents can't keep watch on them every hour of the day. The lady pulled in too quick, wasn't watching I guess. Had one of those big fancy Jeeps, high off the ground. She couldn't have seen him. I heard the brakes and the crash. She rolled right over him and his bike.'

‘The kid?'

‘About nine or ten I guess. Well, he was hurt real bad. I did everything I could to help. The store gives us all a course on first aid. I done mine about six years ago when I came here first, but he was in bad shape. Myself and a few folk tried to help, but he was real bad, trouble breathing. Looked like he was dying, then this lady who was helping just kind of laid her hands on him. I don't know exactly what she done but she brung him back. Even the paramedics thought he was dead, but the lady she kept saying he was going to live. It was the strangest thing I ever seen in all my born years. She saved his life, gave it back to him.'

‘Where's the boy now?' Lara asked.

‘Ambulance took him to Children's Hospital. My boss Mr Williams phoned to check on him. Doesn't do a store no good for someone to die in the lot, you know. Hospital said he was critical but stable.'

‘The boy's name, did you get it?'

‘She knew him . . . Lewis, no – Lucas, that's it! Timmy Lucas, that was the boy's name.'

‘What about the woman? Do you know her name?'

The security guard shrugged.

‘I've seen her in here a few times but I don't rightly know her name or where she lives, but it must be somewhere local.'

Lara thanked him warmly for his help. Something about him reminded her of her late grandfather and she wondered what he had worked at before he had taken on the security job to bolster up his retirement pension.

At least she had some information to go on. She went back outside to place a call to the directory service for the hospital number.

The hospital staff would give her no information about the boy: it was hospital policy unless you were next of kin. Thanking them, she rang off and decided to drive back into town. The hospital was
en route
to the office and she'd have a try at getting a bit more out of them.

The staff on the door assumed she was a late visitor as, gazing straight ahead, she marched right past them. She had spotted the sign for the fourth floor. Trying to look like a parent, she slipped into the lift and pressed the silver-ringed button. The doors opening right in front of the nurses' station slightly spooked her, but forcing herself to be calm she walked slowly over to the plump nurse sitting near the phone.

‘Excuse me, I'm looking for Timmy Lucas. How's he doing?' she asked.

The nurse covered the mouthpiece with her chubby fingers and looked up.

‘You a member of the family or something?'

She smiled and nodded. Not agreeing or denying, just inclining her head in a way that could be seen as a positive.

The nurse hesitated for a second. Lara looked her straight in the eye as the woman pointed down the hallway.

‘He's in room 14, but I think he's still very drowsy. Sue's gone to the day room for a nap but if you run you might just catch her.'

‘Thanks a bunch,' Lara said gratefully.

Passing the door she could see the sleeping shape of the boy hooked up to a monitor and drip and God knows what else.

The day room was right down the far end of the corridor and she pushed the door gently. An elderly man, concentrating on the sports section of the newspaper, had his back to her. Over in the corner she spotted a dark-haired woman rubbing her face with her fingers. She looked as if she had hardly slept the previous night. There were circles of grey under her eyes and her mascara had smudged under her lower lid.

Lara pretended to be busy and sidled over to the small counter where a pot of coffee was still hot. She got out a mug for herself and turned around as though absent-minded.

‘Anyone else for coffee?'

The old man studiously ignored her, the woman nodded gratefully.

‘Milk and sugar?'

‘Yeah, please, I could do with the energy boost.'

Lara carried the two mugs over and sat down near enough to the boy's mother. She looked wrecked.

‘That's good, thanks,' she murmured softly. ‘You got a kid on the floor too?'

Lara's eyes widened and she thought rapidly.

‘No, I don't. My cousin's on the fifth floor but the coffee machine's broken there.'

The other woman thought nothing of it.

‘Have you got a child here?' Lara asked.

‘Yep, a boy, Timmy. Got knocked down in Easton on Saturday. The car ran right over him.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, how's he doing?'

‘Not too good. They had to remove his spleen, bleeding everywhere, lacerations to his liver, a punctured lung, broken pelvis and fractured thigh and ankle bone,' she said, then shuddered. ‘Doctors thought at first he wouldn't make it and had him on one of those life support machines, but thank God he stabilized earlier today.'

‘I'm glad,' said Lara. ‘What about the driver?' she asked.

‘By all accounts she's fine! My kid's half dead, but there's not a scratch on her. Said she didn't see Timmy at all, that he just cycled out of nowhere.'

Lara nodded sympathetically.

‘My other boy Ralph was with him, he said that Timmy almost died out there, would have died too only that this woman – she's actually a neighbour of mine – apparently she just would not give up on him. The ambulance men, the nurse, the paramedics and my older boy all thought Timmy was dead, but Martha, that's her name, just kept on trying to help him, laying her hands on him, talking to him real slow, telling him he had to live, and then out of the blue he suddenly began to breathe again!' Her voice broke with raw emotion. ‘I owe my son's life to her. Whatever she did, it was some kind of miracle, I guess!'

Lara smiled easily, trying to hide the growing excitement she felt.

‘And you say she's a neighbour of yours?'

‘I don't know her that well but the McGills live on Mill Street just two streets away. Timmy's in school with one of their kids.'

‘Wow, this lady just came out of nowhere and touched your son and . . .'

‘I know, it's like some kind of miracle. My husband Paul and I can scarcely believe it ourselves, but lots of people saw it. She must have some kind of rare healing gift.'

Lara could tell Sue Lucas was being totally sincere. She didn't strike her as the kind of woman given to sensationalism or exaggeration; in fact if anything she was probably too honest and truthful. She was simply dressed, wearing
well-pressed denim jeans and a white T-shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail and her face without makeup except for a trace of mascara which accentuated her dark brown eyes.

The door of the family room opened and a sandy-haired nurse popped her head around the corner.

‘Mrs Lucas, I just came down to get you,' she said. ‘Mr Franklin, the orthopaedic surgeon, is up with your son at present and he'd like to talk to you.'

Sue Lucas jumped up immediately and Lara caught her purse as it tumbled to the floor. The boy's mother's face had drained of colour and she swallowed hard.

‘Lots of luck,' offered Lara.

‘And lots of luck with your cousin.'

Sue Lucas was gone from the room before the flush of embarrassment tinted Lara's face. She hated deceiving people and lying to them, but it seemed to be a prerequisite of her career. She needed to develop a thick skin if she wanted to make her mark in journalism and track down good stories. With this one there was obviously the interest in the Lucas boy but there was more to it than that.

Lara checked back in with the office over an hour later, running through the proofs of the famous and would-be famous at the art opening. She confirmed two of the photos to be used in the
gallery piece, as there was always hell to pay if names got mixed up, before starting to work up a few lines on her computer about the Lucas boy. The local police department had confirmed the accident with her and had said there would probably be a charge against the driver who had hit the child.

She read it back, following a spell-check, and knew that somehow she had managed to make the awful minutes that had almost robbed Sue Lucas of her child into something boring. She cursed and decided to hold it over and look at it again in the morning. She pored over her notes again. Funny, the security guard and the mother had both mentioned the woman, the neighbour, the Good Samaritan who had helped with the child. Even Sergeant Kostick had said how lucky the boy was.

Lara's instincts told her to sit tight, that in twenty-four hours with a little bit of research back in Easton about the McGill woman she might have more worthwhile copy to show her editor. Grabbing her purse and keys and switching off her computer, she waved goodbye to the night staff as she set off home, thoughts of a truculent feline high in her mind.

MARTHA AND EVIE
watched as a passer-by stared in the window of Evie's embroidery store, both of them waiting for the shop bell to jangle and announce the arrival of a customer. Martha was almost glad when the woman decided to move on and not disturb them.

She had fetched two large cappuccinos to go from the donut store across the street, and licking the frothy top off her own one she lowered herself into one of Evie's hand-decorated chairs.

‘God, it's so hard to get back into work after having such a great break! That's the worst of vacations, you get to almost dread coming home.'

Martha smiled. Herself and Mike never managed to ever get more than about seven or eight days away as Mike always pleaded having too much work to do and acted as if the other software engineers up at CPI couldn't be trusted to keep things running smoothly without him.

Evie rooted about in her bulging leather purse
and drew out a wad of freshly developed photos. She passed them over to Martha to peruse, explaining the ins and outs of their holiday in Maine, and the picnics and expeditions they'd enjoyed. Martha admired them but was glad to have her closest friend back home.

They sat in companionable silence drinking their coffees and gazing around the small store. Martha had to admit that opening an embroidery store off the corner of Centre and Lime Street hadn't really seemed a good idea when Evie had first mentioned it to her. Evie had been bursting with excitement at the idea of taking over the old hat and glove shop and opening a store dedicated to embroidery, the fiddly craft that she enjoyed so much. Martha had thought she was mad, guessing there were probably only a handful of people in the Easton area with a similar interest to Evie's. Luckily her friend's enthusiasm and innate good sense had prevailed and Golden Threads, named after a line in the poem by the famous Irish poet W. B. Yeats that they had all learned in school, had come into being. New England must be full of needlewomen, judging by the amount of custom that Evie had already built up.

‘Martha, look at this amazing sampler I discovered in an old secondhand store.'

‘It's fine work, Evie. Whoever made it must have spent days and nights working on it, to get that intricate stitching right.'

‘Just look at those colours – all hand-dyed. I
know they've faded but can you imagine it reworked?'

‘Will you sell it?'

Evie vehemently shook her head. ‘Never. This is too good a piece of work!'

Martha agreed.

‘It'll hang on the wall.'

Martha smiled to herself. All Evie's favourite samplers and precious pieces that she collected ended up on the display wall, there to be admired and commented on and even copied, but most certainly not for sale.

‘So I've told you my news, now what about yours?'

Martha laughed. Evie and herself had known each other ever since kindergarten, two little Catholic convent girls who had grown up only two streets from each other and had been close friends all their lives. College and marriage had separated them for a while but Mike's move to work in software development and information systems at CPI in Cambridge had found them back living only five miles from each other and ready to pick up their friendship again.