This is her car, right?
Then he sends a short video. Someone else must’ve been driving him because it’s shot from the passenger side as he passes an ambulance, Abby’s car, and some kind of utility trailer that’s attached to a van.
I’m immediately relieved when I see Abby standing next to her car talking to a policeman. Thank God she’s okay.
But then I see her car.
It’s shredded, like someone took a can opener and sliced open the driver’s side panel.
What the fuck happened? She and Hazel could’ve been killed.
My breath shallows. I’m not sure I can handle losing anyone else I love in another car wreck. The lights flicker, and I realize it’s me, not the lights.
Hazel. I told her I wouldn’t be gone long.
I stagger toward the nurses’ station, but stop short when I see Abby talking to a cop a few feet away down another hallway. Her back is to me.
“Miss, the driver behind you says you were driving erratically,” the policeman says.
She was driving erratically? My jaw tightens.
Abby shakes her head and mumbles something, but I can’t make it out. The cop jots down notes. “So you think your car was jerking back and forth because of your transmission? How long have you known you had a problem?”
She looks down. “Several weeks.”
Fuck. Abby drove Hazel when she knew her car was having trouble?
“And you didn’t think you should get that fixed?”
“I couldn’t afford it. As long as I kept it in first or second gear, the clutch didn’t slip.”
Her clutch was slipping? Why the hell didn’t she mention that?
The cop frowns at her. “If you couldn’t afford it, you shouldn’t have been driving the vehicle.”
My thoughts exactly. It’s bad enough that she drove it, much less picked up Hazel.
Her shoulders slump, but she doesn’t say anything.
“What about the utility trailer?” he asks. “You didn’t see it? Because the van had the right of way.”
Jesus, Abigail.
Her voice wavers, like she’s about to cry. “I was afraid the little girl I take care of, Hazel, was going to throw up.”
I don’t hear the rest of what she says, but the cop says, “So you thought she was going to vomit, and then you turned around to look at her—in the middle of an intersection?”
I almost don’t hear her response because blood is pounding in my ears.
“That’s—no, that’s not how it happened. You’re twisting around my words.”
“I’m trying to figure out why you would hit the gas and ram a utility trailer in the middle of an intersection when he had the green light and the right of way.”
Her voice rises. “I didn’t see the trailer. Just the van, which I thought had cleared the intersection. Why would I deliberately hit it?”
“Look, bystanders say you darted into the middle of the intersection after driving erratically and struck the trailer. Fortunately, you passed the field sobriety test, but after talking to everyone involved and witnesses, I’m going to have to write you a ticket.”
“What? No. I swear I didn’t see the utility trailer, and my transmission is why my speed wasn’t consistent.”
