Olivia Clayton, a work-from-home book editor, and Alyssa Walton, a forest ranger in western Montana, have been best friends their entire lives. As close as sisters, the two have shared all their life experiences, including birthdays. This year, as they celebrate Alyssa’s, a black Humvee runs her down, and she is left to fight for her life in a comatose state.
Crushed by grief, Olivia tries to figure out who would want to kill Alyssa and why. She remembers conversations she had with Alyssa before the attempt on her friend’s life. Taking clues from their talks, she enlists the help of Detective Sheldon and figures out that Alyssa’s brush with death is the result of a chance meeting in the forest nearby.
As local man Joe Little Hawk comes under suspicion, Olivia fights her growing romantic feelings for Sheldon. Meanwhile, an attempt is made on Alyssa’s life at the hospital, thwarted by Olivia who now becomes a target, as well. A final standoff is coming in the deep, dark forest of Montana, and there’s a good chance someone is going to end up dead.
Olivia Clayton, a work-from-home book editor, and Alyssa Walton, a forest ranger in western Montana, have been best friends their entire lives. As close as sisters, the two have shared all their life experiences, including birthdays. This year, as they celebrate Alyssa’s, a black Humvee runs her down, and she is left to fight for her life in a comatose state.
Crushed by grief, Olivia tries to figure out who would want to kill Alyssa and why. She remembers conversations she had with Alyssa before the attempt on her friend’s life. Taking clues from their talks, she enlists the help of Detective Sheldon and figures out that Alyssa’s brush with death is the result of a chance meeting in the forest nearby.
As local man Joe Little Hawk comes under suspicion, Olivia fights her growing romantic feelings for Sheldon. Meanwhile, an attempt is made on Alyssa’s life at the hospital, thwarted by Olivia who now becomes a target, as well. A final standoff is coming in the deep, dark forest of Montana, and there’s a good chance someone is going to end up dead.
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Overview
Olivia Clayton, a work-from-home book editor, and Alyssa Walton, a forest ranger in western Montana, have been best friends their entire lives. As close as sisters, the two have shared all their life experiences, including birthdays. This year, as they celebrate Alyssa’s, a black Humvee runs her down, and she is left to fight for her life in a comatose state.
Crushed by grief, Olivia tries to figure out who would want to kill Alyssa and why. She remembers conversations she had with Alyssa before the attempt on her friend’s life. Taking clues from their talks, she enlists the help of Detective Sheldon and figures out that Alyssa’s brush with death is the result of a chance meeting in the forest nearby.
As local man Joe Little Hawk comes under suspicion, Olivia fights her growing romantic feelings for Sheldon. Meanwhile, an attempt is made on Alyssa’s life at the hospital, thwarted by Olivia who now becomes a target, as well. A final standoff is coming in the deep, dark forest of Montana, and there’s a good chance someone is going to end up dead.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781532001581 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 08/18/2016 |
| Pages: | 250 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.57(d) |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015
Olivia sat on the hard, straight-backed chair, with its metal arms and hard-as-a-rock vinyl cushion. She had come to believe, over the last few days, that it was meant to make visitors uncomfortable enough that they wouldn't want to stay too long. The geometric printed turquoise-and-brown curtains had been pulled open to let in what little light filtered down from the cloud-laden sky.
At least the walls, thank goodness, were not the ugly institutional green she had always, for some reason, associated with hospitals and prisons, but were an up-to-date, soft taupe, which had a quieting effect, while also lending an attractive background to the borrowed art work on the wall opposite the bed.
Wires and tubes ran from a variety of machines, all helping to keep the patient alive. One machine monitored her heart. Two IVs ran life-saving fluids through long, clear tubes, feeding her the nutrients and antibiotics she needed. Another tube was connected to the oxygen source on the wall behind the bed and looped around her head, the nasal cannula gently blowing pure oxygen into her nose.
The ledge above the heat register below the window, which spanned almost the entire wall, was nearly covered with cards, flowers, and balloons from well-meaning friends and acquaintances, who probably had no idea that their intended recipient may never even know they were there.
The rails were up on both sides of the hospital bed, making it hard to reach her best friend's hand. Nevertheless, Olivia held on to it, as though by grasping it firmly enough, by squeezing it every so often, by occasionally giving just the slightest tug, she could pull her friend up and out of whatever abyss she had tumbled into, and bring her back to the world of serene forests and awe-inspiring mountain views that were her life now.
Olivia picked up the Monday morning edition of Missoula Reports and read the headline at the top of the front page for the umpteenth time since she had picked it up two days ago: Ranger Hospitalized Following Humvee Hit-and-Run. The article that followed was accompanied by a picture of a smiling Alyssa in her ranger's uniform.
Montana Fish and Wildlife Ranger, Alyssa Walton, is hospitalized and reported to be in critical condition following a hit-and-run accident on the corner of Main and Higgins in downtown Missoula early Saturday evening, March 7. Doctors say Walton suffered multiple life-threatening injuries when a black Humvee careened around the corner, jumped the curb, and ran her down. She is in the Critical Care Unit at City Hospital, where doctors say they are unsure of her chances for survival.
Witnesses say when the driver of the Humvee reached the corner at Main Street, he appeared to suddenly speed up and turn sharply, hitting Ranger Walton and barely missing her companion, Olivia Clayton.
The driver of the Humvee was said to be wearing a faded denim jacket and a red plaid hunting cap.
Police are searching the area for a late model black Humvee, with a damaged right front bumper. Anyone with information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact Detective Sheldon at the Missoula Police Department. All identities will be kept confidential.
Olivia laid the paper in her lap and absent-mindedly rubbed her fingers over the fading bruise on her right thigh. In trying to push Alyssa out of the path of the Humvee bearing down on her, Olivia had lost her balance and fallen against the curb. She'd all but forgotten about her minor injury, except for the occasional moment when her leg started to ache a bit.
The article was so matter-of-fact, so impersonal. There had been no mention of who Alyssa was — what kind of woman she was, what she had endured in the last couple of years. Nothing was said about the fact that she had received three commendations for work well done in the Montana Fish and Wildlife Service. There wasn't even a hint of personal information about her friend in the article.
She's just a statistic, Olivia thought. No one cares. No, that's not right. I care. And I won't let that monster get away with what he's done to her.
She dropped the paper in the trash can. There was nothing more in it she needed to know. No matter how many times she read the article, none of the facts changed. All the information she wanted was with the doctors and nurses who were attending to Alyssa while she lay in her hospital bed, unmoving, unknowing.
Olivia thought back to the last time she had spoken with the doctor. He had cautioned her not to get her hopes up. Alyssa had suffered severe trauma to her brain, and the swelling was putting an alarming amount of pressure on it. In addition, the MRI and x-rays showed her pelvis was broken, as were both arms and her left leg. She had lost a lot of blood from a lacerated femoral artery. If she were to wake up now, there would be no way to protect her from the terrible pain she'd feel. In fact, he'd told her, they probably would put her into a drug-induced coma to give her whatever relief they could. He finished by telling Olivia that the chances of her waking were slim to none, and that if she did, there was no way of knowing what kind of condition she would be in, given the injuries she had suffered. He had warned her that Alyssa may be in a vegetative state for however long she lived, but that at this point, there was just no way to know.
"Please, don't sugarcoat it for me, doctor," Olivia said. "My best friend was run down by a drunk driver in a Humvee. She hasn't opened her eyes since she was brought here by ambulance three days ago. She hasn't so much as wiggled her finger, or grimaced, or ... or ..." She let her voice fade away and dropped her face into her hands, struggling to suppress the tears of fear and frustration she'd been holding back for so long.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just ... Did you know that March seventh, the day she was hit, was her birthday? She just turned forty-five. We'd been to dinner and were on our way to see a movie.
We've celebrated our birthdays with dinner and a movie ever since we were freshmen in high school. We'd just stepped off the curb to cross the street when ..." Once again, her voice died out with the horrifying memory of that huge vehicle plowing right over the limp body of her dearest friend, as though she were no more than a rag doll. That scene was one she would never be able to erase from her mind completely.
She felt the doctor's hand on her shoulder when he told her he didn't know it was Alyssa's birthday. But his attempt at compassion appeared false when, though he said he was sorry, the bland look on his face showed no sympathy at all. He came across as even more detached when he told her they would do everything they could to make her last days as comfortable as possible.
"Last days? Last days?!" Olivia angrily shoved the doctor's hand away and stood to face him. "You are never to repeat those words to me, or even in this room, again. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?" She shouted at the doctor, her face beet red and contorted with the fear and frustration she felt.
"I do," said the doctor, who remained calm in spite of the nearly hysterical woman's face a mere six inches from his own. "But I think it's better for everyone, including Mrs. Walton, if you face reality now. Her injuries are severe enough that —"
"I don't want to hear how severe her injuries are. I want to hear you say that there is hope. She's strong, and she's a fighter. She always has been. She loves life, and she's not ready to go yet. She's not ready. I'm not ready for her to go yet. Not yet."
Olivia had slumped back down in the chair and turned away. That was the last time she had seen the doctor today.
Now, five hours later, she gave her friend's limp, cold hand one more squeeze, rose and walked to the window. She stared at the rooftops of the darkening city without really seeing them. The monitors attached to Alyssa kept up their persistent beeping. The bleak sky offered her no answers. At the moment all she had were questions. Questions and memories ...
* * *
"Livvy! Livvy! Liv-veee!" Alyssa's voice was excited, high-pitched, as she tried to get Olivia's attention. It was the very first time she'd ever had the nerve to hang by her knees on the cross bars of the swing set without hanging on, and Olivia just didn't seem to be interested at all. "Livvy, look! Look, Livvy! Will you pul-leaze look before I fall and break my head!"
That finally got Olivia's attention away from the anthill she'd been studying so intently. She ran over to the swing set and sat down so that her right-side-up face and Alyssa's up-side-down face were nose-to-nose.
"That's great, Lissy," she said. "See, I told you there was nothing to be scared of. You just have to think you can do it, and then you can."
"Oh, that's what you always say," Alyssa replied.
The two ten-years old girls were in the fourth grade together. Actually, they liked to think of themselves as fifth-graders, since this school year was almost over, and they both were certain they would have good report cards. They didn't like to brag, but they considered themselves and each other the smartest kids in their class at Ben Franklin Elementary School in their small South Dakota town.
In fact, the two, who had been best friends practically since they were in diapers, thought that, given the opportunity, they could someday rule the world. Lissy and Livvy, an unbeatable team. But that was only if they wanted to. Who knew what would happen in thirteen or fourteen years? Of course, during the many long and decidedly serious conversations they'd had concerning their futures, they had already determined that college was an absolute must, if they were to meet the kind of men with whom they hoped to spend their lives and have huge families.
They both had dreams of fabulous, adventurous careers awaiting them, too. Olivia had decided six months ago that she wanted to be a doctor. She didn't know what kind yet, but medicine was in her future, for sure. Alyssa, had fallen in love with the mountains and the lush green forest when her family vacationed in Yellowstone Park the previous summer. She had decided to be a forest ranger and learn all about the forest and its wildlife.
"Well, it's true, isn't it? Look at you. Are you still scared? No!" Olivia clapped her hands with glee.
"I am doing it, aren't I?" Alyssa said, then added, "You know, you look funny upside-down."
"I'm not upside-down, you are," Olivia said, "and what do you mean, I look funny? You're the one with frizzy orange hair dragging on the ground. Not to mention that your crazy freckles look even crazier when your face turns all red like that."
Alyssa's upside-down smile suddenly turned into a frown.
"Now you're making fun of my hair and freckles, too?" She forgot, for a moment, how she was situated and started to cross her arms over her chest in defiance. In doing so, she lost her precarious toehold on the legs of the swing set and started to slip off the bar, head first.
Olivia, seeing what was about to happen, instinctively stuck her legs out in front of her and reached her arms up. When Alyssa dropped, Olivia was ready for her and caught her on her lap, her head cradled between her hands.
Olivia looked at her friend, who just lay there not moving for a long moment. Oh, no! she thought. She can't be. She can't be!
"Alyssa! Lissy! Please, please talk to me. I'm sorry I said your hair was frizzy and orange and you were covered with freckles. I'll take it all back, if you'll only talk to me! Please don't be dead!"
When Alyssa started to shake uncontrollably, Olivia was sure she was having a seizure. She had watched a dramatic episode about ambulance drivers on TV the night before, and the patient on the program had shaken the same way. She sat, terrified, trying to remember what the EMTs on the program had done. Then, as she watched, she realized Alyssa wasn't seizing, but was trying hard not to laugh.
"I'm alive, silly," Alyssa said, struggling to suppress her giggles.
"You just saved my life." She sat up and faced Olivia.
"Oh! You scared me so much." Olivia wrapped her arms around Alyssa's neck and gave her a huge hug. "Don't ever do that to me again. Promise!"
Alyssa pulled away from Olivia. "Now, wasn't there something you wanted to say?"
"What? Oh, okay. I take it back. You know I really don't think your hair is frizzy and orange. I love your hair, and I think it's a beautiful shade of red, and it's not frizz, it's curls. And your freckles just make you look cuter. I'd give anything to have freckles like yours. All I got was this stupid birthmark," she said, pointing to the small, heart-shaped red spot on her left arm.
"You're forgiven," Alyssa said, "I love your beautiful blond hair, too, and that birthmark looks just like the kiss of an angel."
The two girls giggled and, forgetting how close Alyssa had just come to having, at the very least, a bad headache, stood up and started dancing around the swing set. After a few minutes of cavorting like a couple of mischievous pixies, Alyssa came to an abrupt stop and faced Olivia. Seeing the sudden transformation on her friend's face, Olivia stopped, too. "What?" she asked.
"I just happened to think." Alyssa's voice sounded very serious.
"You really did save my life just now. Oh, my gosh! I could have died!
I really could have fallen and broken my head or my neck or ... I don't know. I might have been paralyzed for the rest of my life." She flung her arms around Olivia's neck dramatically and practically sobbed, "Oh, Olivia! You are my hero! I owe you my life. I'll never forget this."
"Oh, come on, Alyssa. I didn't do anything so great. You were slipping, and I just happened to be there."
"No, seriously, I think you're a hero."
"Well, okay, if that's what you want to think," Olivia said, "but you know what I think? I think I'm hungry! Let's go see if Mom has any cookies for us." She grabbed Alyssa's hand and pulled her toward the house.
CHAPTER 2Saturday, March 7, 2015
"And do you remember when Mr. Johnson made Marty Kale stand for an entire class period with his nose stuck to a piece of gum on the wall?" Olivia laughed at the memory of the class clown, who was struggling to keep from laughing while maintaining contact between his nose and that concrete block wall.
"Oh, gosh, yes! Just because Marty smarted off to him about needing to chew gum because it helped him concentrate." Alyssa laughed with Olivia.
They were at a favorite restaurant in downtown Missoula, where they could enjoy a delicious meal in a fun atmosphere, without having to worry about being hit on by lonely men who used tired pickup lines to try to win them over.
It was Alyssa's birthday, and they were celebrating it in their customary fashion, with dinner and a movie, as they had done for thirty years.
They looked at each other across the table and simultaneously blurted out, "Miss Persons!" A giggle found its way out of Alyssa's mouth, followed by a snort from Olivia, and then an out-and-out belly laugh from them both, as they remembered some of the antics of their sophomore geometry teacher.
"Do you remember the time she was sitting on the corner of her desk, and when she stood up, she stepped into the trash can and got it stuck on her foot?"
"And when she couldn't shake it off, she just clomped around the room with it still on her foot, pretending it wasn't there," Alyssa said. "I swear, I thought I would die trying not to laugh! She looked so ridiculous!"
"Oh, I know!" Olivia said. "Then there was that time she had a hole in her pocket, and the cap on her Tic-Tac packet was open. She left a trail everywhere she walked."
"Oh, and don't forget about the time ..."
The two women continued reminiscing about fond and funny memories of their high school years as they devoured their meals of Caesar salad, seafood crepes, fluffy croissants, and the house wine.
When they had finished their entrees, all six of the waitresses gathered around their table, specifically selected for its location in the center of the room, with a birthday cake. They encouraged all the patrons to join them in singing Happy Birthday to Alyssa, who promptly turned bright red and lightly slugged her best friend on the arm.
As they enjoyed the rich German chocolate cake and a cup of coffee, talk turned to Alyssa's work. "I had kind of a strange experience the other day," she said. "I was way up by Lone Man's Road. I had to put up a surveillance camera so we could keep an eye on the activities of some early-rising bears. This, mind you, is in early spring and it's clear out in the middle of nowhere."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Into the Dark Forest"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Jeanine Fricke.
Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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