Chapter 1: “Not Through My Driveway!”
“NOT THROUGH MY DRIVEWAY!”
Karen Whitmore’s voice cut through the wail of the ambulance siren before the rear doors had even opened.
She stepped into the edge of the driveway, one hand raised, the other gripping the strap of her enormous fluorescent-pink handbag. Her bright orange blouse and hot-pink trousers looked almost surreal beneath the flashing red-and-blue lights, but there was nothing amusing about her expression.
A paramedic pushed an emergency stretcher toward the ambulance.
An elderly man lay beneath a blanket, his face only partly visible.
“Ma’am, step back,” the paramedic said firmly. “We’re transporting a patient.”
Karen pointed toward the garage.
“You’re blocking my driveway!”
“My name is Ethan Cole,” the paramedic said, keeping his voice controlled. “And this patient needs to get inside that ambulance now.”
Karen folded her arms.
“I need to get out of my house. Why does everybody act like that doesn’t matter?”
Ethan glanced toward the patient, then back at her.
“Your driveway can wait. He can’t.”
For a moment, Karen looked stunned.
Then her expression hardened.
“Oh, so now my property doesn’t count because you’re calling it an emergency?”
Ethan didn’t answer.
The stretcher wheels rolled over the pavement.
Karen finally stepped sideways, but she didn’t retreat. She watched the paramedics load the patient, her arms still crossed, her jaw tight.
The ambulance doors slammed shut.
Only then did Ethan notice something else.
The elderly man’s wallet had fallen beneath the stretcher.
Ethan picked it up and glanced at the identification.
“Walter Hayes,” he murmured.
Before he could climb into the ambulance, Karen called after him.
“And next time, find somewhere else to park!”
Ethan stopped.
He looked back at the driveway.
Then at Karen.
“Next time,” he said quietly, “there may not be another place.”
The ambulance pulled away.
Karen stood alone beside her driveway.
But across the street, an elderly neighbor named Margaret Lewis had watched everything from her front window.
And she knew something Karen didn’t.
Walter Hayes had not been a stranger.
He had been Karen’s neighbor for twenty-three years.
