“Carolyn!” he shouted. “Get back into your lane! Do it now!”

Instinctively, Lou clenched his teeth and readied himself for impact. They were going sixty.

Lou couldn’t hold back. He leaned as far to the left as his seat belt would allow, grabbed the wheel, and pushed it counterclockwise. The Volvo skidded into a left turn and fell behind the car Carolyn had been trying to pass. Perhaps instinctively, she slammed on the brakes. The front two tires dragged along the grassy shoulder, kicking up dirt and rocks. The sign slammed into the hood and sheared off, vanishing upward into the mist. Then, in a full spin, the car left the road. Lou saw a tree materialize from the fog. He shut his eyes tightly and raised his arms to his face for protection. The impact wasn’t as violent as he had expected.

Lou’s head snapped against the window beside him as the Volvo spun viciously. Splintered glass exploded into his face and cut his neck. The rear of the Volvo was still in the center of the road. Then, without warning, the coaster ride was over.

“Carolyn, are you all right?” he said, wiping at his forehead and seeing blood on his hand.

“Did you see that?” she asked him, her breathing not far from normal. “Did you?”

“You mean the taillight?”

“Yes, the taillight. Drivers never fix them until the vehicle-inspection people tell them they have to. That guy could have caused an accident.”

CHAPTER 10

Throughout most of the bizarre chase to overtake the driver with one working taillight, Lou remained in what he called “emergency calm”—a state of heightened awareness and preparedness, cloaked in an external composure. It was a reaction to crisis shared by those caregivers whose business often revolved around sudden changes for the worse in their patients—intensivists, anesthesiologists, surgeons, physician assistants, nurses in the ER and various units, EMTs, and paramedics.

Now, with the immediate danger over, it was as if whatever had been blocking the surge of adrenaline through his body had been removed. His pulse had doubled—or tripled, he was breathing heavily, if not hyperventilating, and when he opened the dashboard compartment looking for tissues, his hand was shaking.

The cut to his brow did not look like much, and pressure with a wad of Kleenex quickly stopped the bleeding.

“Carolyn, can you get us out of the road?” he asked, his voice louder than he had intended.

John Meacham’s widow nodded weakly and drove the Volvo farther onto the roadside’s muddy shoulder. She appeared dazed, though to Lou’s relief, uninjured. Still, he checked her head, neck, and extremities and palpated her chest and abdomen for areas of tenderness. His blood pressure cuff and other instruments for emergencies were in a large medical bag, which he kept in the trunk of his car, but he assured himself that her cardiac rhythm was under a hundred and regular, and her radial and carotid pulses were strong.

Finally, using a flashlight from the dash, he did a crude neurologic exam, including eye movements and pupillary response.