THE SHADOWED ONYX: A DIAMOND ESTATES NOVEL by Nicole O'Dell Page A

escape
.
    Full speed for a wolf was a lot faster than Joy could go, so she watched
.
    Silas was at Austin’s heels in a matter of seconds, but Austin kept running. Joy could imagine how terrified he must be, but she couldn’t bring herself to cry out for Silas to stop. Would he if she did?
    Silas stayed at the heels of his prey, foamy saliva dripping to the pavement. Austin ran … and ran, and ran
.
    Joy heard a siren in the distance. Ambulance? Police car? It grew closer…
.
    Joy’s eyes were dry. Blinking. Opening to reality.
    Wait a minute. What
was
that sound?
    Oh. Six o’clock in the morning. The siren was nothing more than her alarm clock interrupting her dream.
    The dream had felt so real, almost like an out-of-body experience, which made no sense whatsoever. Joy shook her head. She was losing it. Hopefully it was nothing a hot shower wouldn’t cure.

    “Tell me about what happened after you found Melanie on her bed.” Mary Alice Gianetti put down her pen and notebook and leaned forward, her elbows pressing into the tops of her thighs.
    That day? The moments after she’d realized Melanie wasn’t sleeping had become blurred in her mind. Like watching a movie on rewind. “I … um … called for help.”
    “Tell me what happened, if you can. Take your time.”
    Joy couldn’t tell her counselor the details if she couldn’t remember them. She searched her mind for the painful memories.
    “I remember the dispatcher telling me help was on the way. She promised they would be there in about six minutes, but it seemed like it took a lifetime.” Maybe it was a lifetime. Melanie’s. “She told me to stay with Mel. Which I thought was odd. What? Did she think I was going to leave?” Joy shrugged.
    “She talked me through the steps to do CPR.” Joy’s fingers reached up to touch her lips. She had breathed into Melanie’s mouth, pounded on her chest. Sobbed. Shook her. Breathed into her mouth, pounded on her chest …
    Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
    It hadn’t helped.
    “The worst thing was when they wouldn’t tell me anything. They packed her up and sped off in an ambulance and left me behind to get in touch with her mom to tell her to go to the hospital.”
    “Tell me what’s wrong with my baby girl! Tell me! I have to know.”
    Joy shuddered.
    “What?” Mary Alice pressed. “What memory just repulsed you?”
    “The sound of Maggie Phillips begging me to tell her the fate of her daughter. It was horrible.” Joy bit her lip. “She was desperate for me to give details. I almost lied and said Mel was conscious when the ambulance drove away. Just so she’d let me off the phone. So I wouldn’t have to say the words.
    “I also remember they didn’t really do anything. They knew she was dead, so they loaded her in the back and went through the motions of their procedures. But there was no urgency. No hope.” Joy shrugged. “That’s when I knew for sure. That’s when I gave up.”
    Mary Alice nodded. “I know this is difficult. Let’s try to go a little further, but we can stop whenever you need to. What happened next?”
    “I got in my car and drove to the hospital. I think.”
    “You think?”
    Joy nodded and rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. I honestly have no memory of the time between when they drove away and when I saw the doctor. None.”
    “That’s actually pretty common. Those memories might come back or might not. It’s your brain’s way of sorting through the necessities and sloughing off the extra details that take up too much space and pain. At least for now.”
    Exactly what it felt like.
    “What about when you got to the hospital? What happened then?”
    “One nurse.” A single tear escaped and ran down Joy’s cheek. She let it fall.
    “What do you mean?”
    “One nurse. Melanie had a single person taking care of her. Waiting for us to come.” Waiting for the grief to descend on the hospital room. “The tubes were gone, or maybe they’d never tried any sort of medical stuff on