I, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 16)

Everything seemed quiet from where I sto

pped to listen in the middle of the stairs. I could just see the sky going to blue outside, but it was still dark in the house.

“Nana?” I called in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

There was no answer.

Bree was up now too, and at the top of the stairs, only a few feet away. “I’m right here.”

When I came down into the front hallway, I could see straight back to the kitchen.

The refrigerator door was open, and there was just enough light from it that I could see Nana lying on the floor. She wasn’t moving.

“Bree! Call 911!”

Chapter 22

NANA LAY THERE on her side, in her favorite old robe and slippers. The pieces of a mixing bowl were on the floor around her, and her face was contorted, as if she’d been in terrible pain when she fell.

“Nana! Can you hear me?” I said as I hurried into the kitchen.

I knelt down and felt for her pulse.

It was weak, but it was there. My own was spiking like crazy.

Please, no. Not now. Not like this.

“Alex, here!” Bree ran in and handed me the phone.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“My grandmother has just collapsed. I found her unconscious on the floor.” My eyes scanned her face, her arms, her legs. “There’s no sign of injury, but I don’t know what happened before her fall. Her pulse is very weak.”

Bree started timing Nana’s pulse off the kitchen clock while the operator took my name and address.

“Sir, I’m dispatching an ambulance to your house right now. The first thing you want to do is make sure she’s still breathing, but try not to move her. It’s possible she injured her spine when she fell.”

“I understand. I won’t move her. Let me check.”

Nana’s face was angled toward the floor. I leaned down and held the back of my hand to her mouth. At first—it seemed like forever—there was nothing, but then I felt a faint movement of air.

“She’s breathing, but barely,” I said into the phone.

A soft rattle came from Nana’s chest.

“Please hurry. I think she’s dying!”

Chapter 23

DISPATCH TALKED ME through something called a “modified jaw thrust” to help open Nana’s airway. It was all nightmarish and surreal, in the worst way I could imagine. I took hold of the curved part of her jaw and pushed it forward and up, using my thumb to keep her lips open.

Her breathing picked up, but only slightly, and not a regular cadence.

Then Ali’s voice came from behind me, soft and scared. “Why is Nana on the ground like that? Daddy, what happened to her?”

He was standing in the kitchen door, holding on to the frame as if he didn’t want to be pushed any farther into the room than that.

Bree put a hand over mine on Nana’s cheek. “I’ve got her,” she said, and I went to talk to Ali.