“Shit!”

Just beneath the opening to the upper floor was the crumpled, naked body of a man. Trent hurried around the body to examine the face. Prescott. One of the TAs, Andrew Prescott. Blood had pooled around his head, and he wasn’t moving.

“No. Ah, Jesus!” Bending on one knee, Trent felt for a pulse and found the faintest of beats at the kid’s neck. He was breathing, his heart beating, but he was in bad shape, the gash on the back of his head gaping, one arm bent at an impossible angle from his fall. “Hang in there, kid,” Trent said, and scooped up the wireless phone cradled near the stalls. He punched in 911 and hoped to God help would arrive in time to save the boy’s life.

“Come on, come on,” he said, praying the connection would go through.

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“Send an ambulance!” he ordered. “Better yet, life flight. I’ve got an injured student at Blue Rock Academy, and I’d say it’s critical. We need to airlift him to the hospital. He’s unconscious, a lot of blood, maybe bleeding internally.” He rattled off the address of the school, gave the operator his name and position, then barked out, “Tell them to hurry!”

“Sir, stay on the line and—”

“I can’t. Just get a medical team to the school, fast!” He hung up and punched the number of the clinic, and the call was forwarded to a groggy Nurse Ayres. “It’s Trent. Get to the stables ASAP. Drew Prescott’s been injured, bad.”

“Have you called Reverend Lynch?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

“Hell, no! I’ve called nine-one-one and now you, so haul ass with your medical supplies over here, now. He’s fading fast.”

Trent hung up before she had time to argue, then hovered over the boy. He knew first aid and CPR and various emergency procedures, but he also recognized death when he saw it coming, and Prescott was damned close.

“Hang in there,” Trent said to the injured kid as he found a saddle blanket to cover him. “You just hang the hell in there. Come on, Drew. You can do it. I know you can.”

But he was lying.

The kid was slipping away. Fast.

Within minutes, Ayres arrived, toting a hefty first-aid kit. She was on her knees at Drew’s side in an instant. “Did you find a pulse?” she asked Trent.

“Very slight, but it’s there.” Trent watched as she gloved up and set to work examining the student.

A moment later, Lynch’s long strides carried him into the stable. His clothes still looked pressed, his damned hair combed, though his beard shadow gave his usually neat soul patch a ragged appearance. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, seemingly outraged at the sight of the injured student.

Trent shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

“Why in the world is this boy out here? And where are his clothes?” Lynch turned his face away from the unconscious student, his gaze scraping the interior of the stable. “What’s this?”

“What?” Trent looked up from Drew Prescott’s bloodless face to see the spot where Lynch was looking, a smear of blood mixed with straw. In his concern for the boy, he hadn’t noticed the stain that was separate from the wide puddle of blood beneath Drew’s head. “Don’t touch it,” he said to the director, who was bending low over the stain. “Leave it for the police.”

“I could use some help here!” Ayres said. Kneeling beside the boy, she was lifting Drew’s arm from under the saddle blanket to take his blood pressure. Trent took the corner of the blanket while Lynch, worry lining his brow, closed his eyes and, lips moving silently, appeared to pray.

“What happened here?” Ayres asked.

“I found him when I came to check on the horses.” Trent gave her a quick rundown of what he’d discovered.

“Why were you out here so early?” the director asked as he opened his eyes again, his prayer finished. Silent accusations hung in the musty air.

Hell! Trent didn’t have time for this, not now. “Look, our first priority is to take care of this guy, get him the medical attention he needs.” Trent wasn’t afraid of being a scapegoat. Let the reverend, so quick to point blame, think what he wanted.

“He’s breathing at least.” Nurse Ayres talked through her inventory. “ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. Wound seems to be clotting, but he needs oxygen. More blankets. Hydration. I need the neck brace in case there’s spinal injury, and the backboard. We can’t move him anywhere until his cervical spine is immobilized.”

The stable door banged open.

Bert Flannagan, all five feet ten inches of suppressed fury, swept inside with a rush of wintry air. Rifle in hand, he marched down the aisle between the stalls. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked. “I saw the lights—” His breath whistled between his teeth as he caught sight of Drew Prescott’s motionless body. “For the love of Saint Jude, what happened here?”

“We don’t know,” Trent said.

Flannagan’s hard expression didn’t alter. “Is he alive?”

Tags: Lisa Jackson Mercy Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net