Read Shadows for Free Online Page B

the window.
    The look of puzzlement in Josh’s eyes; the dazed expression on his face.
    For a long moment mother and son stared at each other in silent horror. It was Josh who finally spoke, his voice quavering.
    “Mom? I—I’m scared.”
    The words galvanized Brenda. She rushed to the crib, snatching up the blankets with one hand as she laid the startled Melinda, now wide awake again and screaming with outrage, on the mattress. Ignoring the cries of the baby, Brenda flung herself on Josh, grabbing first one wrist, then the other, and wrapping them tightly in the blanket.
    “Help!” she screamed. “Someone help me!”
    Josh flinched away from her shout, but she hung onto him, fumbling with the blanket. His right wrist slipped free, and a shower of blood sprayed across her pink uniform. Ignoring it, she half carried, half dragged Josh into the bathroom, threw the blanket aside and began wrapping his wrists with the small hand towels that hung next to the sink. Even as she worked, she heard the front door open and Mabel Hardwick’s voice calling out.
    “Brenda? What’s wrong? Was that you yelling?”
    “Call 911, Mabel,” Brenda shouted. “It’s Josh! He’s cut himself.”
    A split second later Mabel had appeared in the doorway and elbowed Brenda aside. “From the blood, it looks like arteries,” she said. “You call the ambulance. Let me take care of this.” Before Brenda could protest, Mabel had pushed her out of the bathroom and shut the door. Alone with Josh, she unwrapped the towel from his right wrist, twisted it into a thick rope, then placed a bar of soap on the inner side of his right forearm. Looping the towel rope around the arm to cover the bar, she twisted it tight. As the makeshift tourniquet pressed down on the artery, the blood suddenly stopped flowing.
    “Hold that,” she commanded Josh, her tone leaving no room for argument. As he grasped the towel with his still-bleeding left hand, she grabbed the belt from a robe that was hanging inside the bathroom door and made a second tourniquet to stem the flow of blood from the boy’s left wrist. “There,” she said as she finished. “Now you just hold still a minute while I take a look at this.”
    Turning on the water, she rinsed the blood away from the wounds on Josh’s right wrist, and felt a wave of relief. At least he’d cut across, and the bones of his forearm had prevented him from cutting too deeply. Just a nick, really. “Where’s the adhesive tape?” she demanded, and Josh mutely nodded toward the medicine cabinet.
    As she began taping up the wound on his right wrist, the door opened and Brenda, her face almost as pale as Josh’s, wriggled into the cramped space. “They’ll be here in five minutes. Is—Is it bad?”
    Mabel Hardwick kept working as she talked. “Not so bad as it could be. Looks a lot worse than it is. When they get here, you go with him in the ambulance, and I’ll stay with the baby and start cleaning up.” Looking up for the first time, she saw the shock and panic that seemed about to overcome Brenda. “Don’t you even think of falling apart, Brenda MacCallum. Lots worse than this has happened to me, and nobody ever saw me getting ready to faint. Now you go throw some water on your face, and get your purse!”
    The sharp words cut through the fear that had gripped Brenda. They set her in motion, automatically doing precisely as Mabel Hardwick had commanded. By the time theambulance arrived a few minutes later, Brenda was ready, her wits gathered around her once more. The medics insisted that Josh lie on a gurney, despite his objections. As Brenda followed them down the stairs to the waiting ambulance, she called back to Mabel.
    “Call the café, will you, Mabel? Tell Max I won’t be back today.” Not waiting for a reply, she ducked into the ambulance and crouched by the stretcher as one of the medics slammed the door. As the ambulance screeched out of the parking lot, its siren wailing, she gazed down