Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline Page A

salt-and-pepper hair and earnest brown eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses. He wore a bunchy nylon jacket over his blue uniform, which bore a bright patch Nat didn’t bother to read. She had forgotten the EMT’s name. She had been here an hour, and her thoughts were still scrambled. She felt shaken, sad, and so exhausted she was almost sleepy.
    “One more minute.” The paramedic dabbed goopy Neosporin onto her cheek, his hands encased in latex gloves of pale purple.
    Ouch . “Thanks.”
    “How’s your head? Better?”
    “Yes, thanks,” Nat answered. The throbbing had almost stopped. Her knees and butt felt tender. She pulled the blanket closer, covering her torn shirt; the ambulance was drafty. The parking lot outside the prison was serving as a makeshift infirmary and staging area for the cops and press who swarmed the compound.
    “Okay, let’s cover this baby up.” The paramedic unlatched a stainless steel drawer, retrieved a box of butterfly bandages, and opened it. While he worked, Nat spotted Angus through the ambulance’s back window. A gauze bandage covered part of his forehead, and he still had on his bloody workshirt. He was talking with two tall state troopers in stiff, wide-brimmed hats set at a slightly forward angle. They wore gray uniforms with black insulated jackets and heavy gun belts. Angus gestured to the troopers, who squared off, arms folded identically, at a distance from him. He was clearly pissing them off, so he must have been feeling better.
    This is my lucky sweater.
    Nat sipped water from a Poland Spring bottle. Was it even the same day that Angus had said that? She tried to block out the image of the C.O. bleeding to death on the rug, blood hiccupping from his mouth. She hadn’t even known that was possible. She had never seen anybody die before. She couldn’t shake the memory.
    “Okay, you’re all done.” The paramedic pressed the butterfly bandage gingerly into place. “You’ll be sore for a while, but I don’t think anything’s broken. Like I said, just to be on the safe side, I’d get to the hospital and talk to a doc. Any concussion can be serious. You’re a little lady to be in such a big fight.”
    “Thanks.” Nat was only half listening as she watched Angus. He was gesturing more emphatically, and one of the troopers was gesturing back. It looked like a sixties rewind, the longhair vs. the cops.
    “Last point I should mention.” The paramedic closed the bandage box, slid it back into the drawer, and latched the drawer. “You should get yourself an AIDS test. The blood on your hands can’t all be yours.”
    Nat looked down at her hands, clutching the blanket. Dried blood stained the wells between her fingers, had found its way into her cuticles, and delineated the lines on the back of her hand, like a macabre ink drawing. Now she knew what fresh blood smelled and even tasted like, and she wished she didn’t. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe you don’t need to know everything.
    “You have any questions, about the dressing or anything?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, shoot.”
    “There was a C.O., a guard, inside.” Nat swallowed hard. “He had a knife in his chest…and another wound. I found him. There was blood…everywhere. I know CPR. I did CPR on him.”
    “Oh, it was a guard’s blood? Well, officially I’m telling you to get the test, but between us, you don’t have to worry. The guards are tested for AIDS in their annual, so you should be fine.”
    “No, it’s not that. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t.” Nat didn’t know why she was even telling him this. “I wonder if I could have tried something else, or done something better than I did—”
    “I see,” the paramedic said softly. “I know what you’re worried about, and you shouldn’t be. I saw him when they carried him out. He didn’t have a chance. That shiv in his chest, there was nothing you could have done.” He placed a hand on Nat’s arm to comfort her, but it reminded her of