32
Kellen’s ATV swayed as she leaped in. She drove through a blistering cold wind and past the occasional snowflake toward the west wing, toward the suite Vincent Gilfilen had appropriated for his investigation, and all the time she prayed she was in time. Mr. Gilfilen had undertaken this mission because he believed he could make a difference. He should not die for his efforts.
She parked and grabbed the first aid kit. She used her pass card to open the outer door, pulled her pistol and proceeded cautiously into the empty living room. Across the eating bar, a light shone over the range top in the kitchen.
She listened but heard nothing, only her own breath, harsh and broken.
She looked but saw nothing. Then…a dark blot on the rug. A trail of wet crimson into the bedroom, into the bathroom. She followed that trail, pistol clutched in one hand, first aid kit in the other. The bathroom light was on. She stepped into the doorway. And saw him—Vincent Gilfilen, smeared with blood, unconscious, stretched out on his back. The throw rug was rolled and thrust under his neck, tilting his head back, revealing a dark throat bruised darker in a long thin line. Someone had used a garrote on him.
The cat, the mangy cat he had rescued, sat on the counter and growled at her.
“It’s all right,” she told it. “I’ll help him.” She stepped over his prone body, faced the door, dropped on her knees beside him. “Mr. Gilfilen!” She touched his cheek.
His eyelids flickered. He twitched as if fighting for breath, but his chest didn’t move. She adjusted his head, pinched his nose, put her mouth to his and tried to fill his lungs. No luck.
The swelling in his throat had obstructed his airway.
She had no time, and she had no choice. If he didn’t get oxygen soon, he would die, another victim of the Librarian.
Kellen would not stand for that. She understood the procedure for an emergency tracheotomy. She knew how…in theory.
She’d learn on the job. Right now. As she opened the first aid kit, she called Max. He answered, she said, “Nine-one-one to the west wing. STAT.”
“On my way.” He hung up.
She searched the first aid kit, found gauze, tape, a tube. Nothing to cut with. Very well. She popped open her pocketknife. It was sharp; she always made sure of that. But she had no time to sterilize. Hell, she didn’t have time to think.
The cat growled again.
“I’m hurrying,” she said. With her fingers, she located Mr. Gilfilen’s Adam’s apple, found the spot between it and the next hard ring, and without pausing for courage—he had no time left—she cut a slit through his skin and into the tough gristle of his trachea. Blood welled. She wiped it with the gauze, pinched the hole open and inserted the tube. “Okay, breathe.”
Nothing happened.
She pressed on his chest. “You’re supposed to start breathing.”
Nothing.
“You’re not going to die like this.” She took a hard, deep breath, leaned down and exhaled forcefully into the tube. Once. Twice.
His chest expanded.
“Mr. Gilfilen! Breathe!” she said firmly. She exhaled into the tube again.
His chest rose again.
“On your own this time!” She leaned down to do it again.
The cat yowled and jumped off the counter, landed close to his head.
Kellen jumped and gasped.
The cat raced out of the bathroom.
Mr. Gilfilen’s chest gave a great heave. And another. And another.
She wanted to collapse with relief.
He was breathing, but his rapid pulse and cool, clammy skin told her he was in shock. Shock would kill him.
She had no time for tears, but they trickled down her cheeks as she wrapped him in the second bath mat, then ran to strip the blankets off the bed. When she returned, his eyes were open. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes flicked at her.
“Honestly,” she scolded as she flung the blankets over his legs and went looking for the source of all that blood. “I tried to tell you. Let the big boys handle this. Did you listen? No, you did not. Now look what they did to you.”
He closed his eyes.
“Look what they did to—” she faltered “—your hand.” His left hand was half severed. He’d wrapped it in his handkerchief. How he had not bled to death, she didn’t know.
Outside in the suite, she heard a tumult as people crowded through the door, as Max called her name.
“In the bathroom,” she shouted.
He got there first, filled the doorway with his mass, took in the situation. He moved in and took over, pushed her gently out of the way. He wrapped Mr. Gilfilen more tightly in the blankets, called for warm packs, pressed the hand firmly onto the arm, said to Kellen, “They’ll try to reattach.” Then to the resort’s assembled first aid team, “Get ice packs for the hand.”
In moments, the team had stabilized Mr. Gilfilen, loaded him onto a gurney and wheeled him away.
When he was gone, Kellen sat on the toilet and did what she’d told Mr. Gilfilen to do. She breathed.
Max returned with a throw. He flung it around her shoulders, knelt and hugged her.
She let him. Philadelphia or not, she needed a hug.
“Helicopter is on its way,” he said. “You saved his life.”
“I hope so. Did you find the cat?” she asked.
“What cat?”
The one that saved Mr. Gilfilen’s life.
She turned to him. She had wondered what she should say when next she saw Max Di Luca, the questions she should ask, the explanations she should demand. But her private nightmares didn’t matter now. Instead, she said, “We’ve got to evacuate the guests.”
“And all personnel.”
She shook her head. “No. One of them is a killer. We have to find out who and end this thing.”