I knelt beside her and probed gently at the upper arm. Here? I asked her. She shook her head. I moved my hand up, over the shoulder joint and to the collarbone, and I didn’t have to ask her if that was the place. She gasped, her eyes fluttered, and even through the mud on her face I could see her turn several shades paler. Your collarbone is broken, I said.

It can’t be, she said with a weak and raspy voice. I have to find Kyle.

No, I said. You have to go to the emergency room. If you go stumbling around like this you’ll end up right next to him, all tied and taped, and that won’t do anyone any good.

I have to, she said.

Deborah, I just pulled you out of an underwater car, ruining a very nice bowling shirt. Do you want to waste my perfectly good heroic rescue?

She coughed again, and grunted from the pain of her collarbone as it moved with her spasmodic breathing. I could tell that she wasn’t finished arguing yet, but it was starting to register with her that she was in a great deal of pain. And since our conversation was going nowhere, it was just as well that Doakes arrived, followed almost immediately by a pair of paramedics.

The good sergeant looked hard at me, as if I had personally shoved the car into the pond and flipped it on its back. Lost ’em, huh, he said, which seemed terribly unfair.

Yes, it turned out to be much harder than I thought to follow him when we were upside down and under water, I said. Next time you try that part and we’ll stand here and complain.

Doakes just glared at me and grunted. Then he knelt beside Deborah and said, You hurt?

Collarbone, she said. It’s broken. The shock was wearing off rapidly and she was fighting the pain by biting her lip and taking ragged breaths. I hoped the paramedics had something a little more effective for her.

Doakes said nothing; he just lifted his glare up to me. Deborah reached out with her good arm and grabbed his arm. Doakes, she said, and he looked back at her. Find him, she said. He just watched her as she gritted her teeth and gasped through another wave of pain.

Coming through here, one of the paramedics said. He was a wiry young guy with a spiky haircut, and he and his older, thicker partner had maneuvered their gurney through the chain-link fence where Deb’s car had torn a gap. Doakes tried to stand to let them get to Deborah, but she pulled on his arm with surprising strength.