Chapter One
Trinity knocked on Mr. Crawford’s door for the fourth time and still got no answer. She didn’t usually walk into other people’s homes, but this seemed like an emergency. What if he was too sick to make it to the door? What if he’d fallen and hit his head? She imagined any number of things keeping him from answering her knock when he knew she was coming to deliver his order. And the food she’d brought with her needed to go in the fridge before it spoiled. So she tried the knob, found it unlocked—people didn’t worry about locking their doors out here—and pushed open the door.
“Mr. Crawford,” she called out loud and clear, hoping he heard her and she didn’t frighten him. “It’s me. Trinity. I brought your order. Are you ready to go to urgent care to get that nasty cough checked out?”
She walked into the entry and noted the dirty plates and glasses on the coffee table in the living room. The TV was on, but Mr. Crawford wasn’t sitting in there watching from the blanket-covered sofa.
“Mr. Crawford, I’ll just put the food in the fridge for you.” She hoped he’d come out soon, because her heart was racing and her mind spun a dozen bad scenarios for why he didn’t answer. She went with the ordinary, most logical reason, that he was probably in the bathroom, and clung to that thought.
She loved the old ranch house. Single story with wide-plank hardwood floors throughout. The wide, tall windows off the back let in a ton of natural light. The place needed new paint and maybe some modern touches, but it felt homey.
Except for the quiet vibe that made her uneasy, because Mr. Crawford still hadn’t appeared as she entered the kitchen.
A few dirty dishes sat in the sink, but the rest of the space looked clean. The garbage needed to go out. She smiled at the Almost Homemade containers in the trash. She needed to remind Mr. Crawford they should be recycled.
She set her heavy, insulated bag on the floor by the fridge and unzipped it. It only took her a couple minutes to stow all the food in the fridge and freezer, restocking his Almost Homemade favorites. He’d have plenty to eat over the next two weeks.
She retraced her steps and started down the hallway, calling out, “Mr. Crawford,” one more time.
She passed an office and an empty bedroom, then turned a corner and caught her breath. She ran down the hall, dropping to her knees beside Mr. Crawford. Sprawled on the floor, he lay on his belly, head turned to the side as he wheezed in and out, struggling to get an easy breath.
She looked him over to see if anything appeared broken, but it simply looked like he’d fallen to his knees and then onto the hardwood with his hands by his shoulders. She pressed her hand to his too-warm head and leaned down to his ear. “Mr. Crawford, what’s wrong?”
He moaned but didn’t open his eyes. He looked like he’d lost ten pounds since she’d seen him last week.
She needed to get him to help. Now.
It would take the ambulance too long to get this far out of town. She didn’t know if Mr. Crawford could wait that long for help. And air. So it was up to her to get him to her car and the hospital.
She gently rolled him onto his back. He seemed to breathe a bit easier, but then the coughing started, racking his body.
She knelt, lifted him so she could scoot her bent knees under his head and shoulders, and held him up to ease the coughing fit. His eyes fluttered, but didn’t open. “Mr. Crawford, can you hear me?”
“Trini . . .” The rest of her name got lost on another round of coughs.
“Don’t talk. Can you stand? I need to get you to my car.”
He pressed his hand to his chest as he settled down again and shook his head.
“Okay. Try to stay calm.” She wished her heart would take that order, but it thrashed in her chest as she tried to think of what to do.
She could call one of her brothers. They were only ten, maybe fifteen minutes away. Still too long to make Mr. Crawford lie here struggling to breathe.
It had to be her. It had to be right now.
She hoped all the standing and walking she did at work combined with the squats she did at the gym were enough to move Mr. Crawford. “I’m going to have to drag you out. I’ll try to do it quickly and without too many bumps along the way, but I can’t promise this isn’t going to be difficult.”
Mr. Crawford moaned and opened his mouth, trying to breathe in more air.
Decided, she hooked her hands under his arms and linked her fingers on his chest. She pulled him up and against her breasts, his head back against her shoulder, her cheek pressed to his hair. “I’ve got you. Let’s go.”
She kept her hold locked and got her feet under her. In the crouched position, she had to take small steps backward to drag him down the hall and to the entry. It took every ounce of strength she had to get him that far; she had to lay him down so she could open the door.
Trinity stood over him, sucked in a few deep breaths, reset her position to drag him again, and pulled him out of the house. As gently as she could, she maneuvered Mr. Crawford down the three wide stone porch steps. She hoped she wasn’t scraping up his backside, but she couldn’t worry about that now. He lost a sock on the path to the driveway. She wished she hadn’t parked in front of the garage but on the circle drive by the lawn.
Silly to think about that now when she was so close to getting him to her car. It took a lot of grunting and muscling through the pain in her back and thighs to get him there, but once she did, she leaned him up against the back tire and opened the passenger door. She needed to get him inside.
She knelt next to him and rubbed her sore thigh muscles. “Mr. Crawford, I can’t lift you into the car on my own. I need you to help me. Can you try to stand while I lift you, so I can get you to sit on the seat? Then I can gently lay you down back there. Okay?”
She bent each of his legs and planted his feet firmly. He lifted his arms and she hooked them over her shoulders. She put her hands in his armpits and lifted him while he did his best to put weight on his feet and stand with his back braced against the car.
“That’s it. You’re doing it. Almost there.” Once she had him standing, she pinned him in place with her shoulder, then used her foot to help him scoot his foot over toward the open door. “Okay, now shift your weight over.”
Mr. Crawford gave a huge effort and not only shifted to his other leg, but stepped sideways and kind of fell into the opening, hitting his butt on the seat. She caught his arms before he completely tumbled back and gently lowered him. Bent like a bow, he lay with his feet still on the ground. She picked up one and then the other and placed them on the doorframe. One slipped off, so she tried again. She pushed against his knees to keep his legs in place this time.
“Try to hold your legs here. I’m going to run around to the other side and pull you in.”
She felt the tension and shaking in his whole body and hoped he had enough strength to get through this.
She ran to the back of the car, spotted the SUV barreling down the drive toward them, dismissed it because she had other things to worry about, and opened the other passenger door just as the vehicle came to a jarring stop and someone leaped out behind her.
The timing sucked as usual, but she flashed back to when she’d been knocked over the head, stuffed into a trunk, and kidnapped by her brother Tate’s girlfriend’s stalker ex, who wanted to use her to lure out Tate and Liz.