Chapter 2 - The Sound of SteelThe Grand Lake emergency response team did not care about the forty-thousand-dollar reclaimed pine floor.
Four paramedics, accompanied by two Grand County Sheriff’s deputies in tan uniforms, entered the house within ninety seconds of the siren cutting off in the driveway. The calm of the lake house vanished under the brutal, practiced efficiency of trauma medicine: the harsh scrape of hard plastic equipment cases against wood, the loud tear of Velcro cervical collars, and the metallic clatter of the scoop stretcher being unfolded.
“Grand County EMS. Don’t move, sweetheart,” a female paramedic with short, iron-gray hair said, dropping down beside Emily instantly. Her name tag read H. Miller, Paramedic. Her fingers were on Emily’s carotid pulse before Richard could even step around her. “My name is Hannah. What’s your name?”
“Emily,” she gasped. “Emily Reynolds.”
“Okay, Emily. Keep your eyes on the ceiling for me. Don’t shake your head. Tell me where it hurts the most.”
“My lower back. Right above the belt. It feels… like someone drove a burning spike into it.”
“Understood. Can you wiggle the toes on your left foot?”
Emily focused every ounce of will she possessed. Down at the perimeter of her awareness, the wool sock on her left foot twitched against the floorboards.
“Good girl. Left toes are moving. Now the right foot, Emily. Push against my hand like you’re stepping on the gas pedal.”
Emily squeezed her eyes shut. She sent the command down her spine, past the searing, blinding pain in her lower back, willing the muscles of her right calf and ankle to fire. Move. Please, God, just move.
Nothing happened.
“I’m trying,” Emily sobbed, her throat raw. “Hannah, I’m trying so hard. I can't find it. The whole leg feels like it’s made of wet concrete.”
Hannah Miller didn't change her expression, but her eyes flicked upward toward the second paramedic, a younger man holding a trauma kit. “Set up the backboard. Prepare the pediatric/small-adult rigid collar. We have an acute neurological deficit at approximately L1-L2, possible subluxation or fracture with canal compromise. Get the gurney up the front walk now.”
Deputy Vance, a deputy with a sun-weathered face and a wide-brimmed campaign hat, stepped forward, his notebook already out. “Who is the property owner?”
“I am,” Richard said, stepping into the deputy’s path with his hands thrust into the pockets of his tailored khakis, attempting to project the relaxed authority of an executive dealing with a minor municipal discrepancy. “Richard Reynolds. Deputy, this is an unfortunate domestic accident. My daughter simply slipped on the polished stairs while carrying laundry. My sister-in-law panicked and called your dispatch without consulting me. We have the situation entirely under control.”
“He’s lying,” Aunt Susan said loudly, standing up from the floor, her blouse stained with bourbon. “My name is Susan Reynolds-Vaughn. I witnessed the altercation from the living room archway. Her nineteen-year-old brother, Tyler Reynolds—that young man sitting on the third step—shoved her down the flight with both hands after a prolonged verbal argument. He used full force. It was an assault, Deputy.”
Deputy Vance’s eyes shifted from Richard’s stiff, smiling face to Susan’s rigid fury, and finally settled on Tyler, who had drawn his knees up to his chest, suddenly looking extraordinarily young and terrified.
“Is that true, son?” Vance asked, his voice deceptively mild.
“No, sir!” Tyler’s voice broke into a high, cracked register. “She was screaming at me! She came at me on the stairs, and I put my hands out to shield myself! She tripped on her own feet! Dad saw it! Tell him, Dad!”
“That is the precise sequence of events,” Richard corroborated instantly, his tone smooth, patronizing. “Emily has a documented history of emotional instability and attention-seeking behavior. We have been working with counselors for months regarding her dramatics. She threw herself into a rage, lost her footing, and now Susan is using this tragic accident to settle personal family grievances.”
Hannah Miller looked up from where she was securing the rigid foam collar around Emily’s neck. Her eyes were hard as flint. “Deputy, you can sort out the domestic investigation outside. I have a seventeen-year-old female with an acute, evolving spinal injury and motor loss. I need this hallway cleared immediately. Clear the room now.”
Deputy Vance nodded once. “Mr. Reynolds, step out onto the porch. You too, young man. Deputy Carlson is going to take your statements separately.”
“You have no right to question my son without our attorney present,” Eleanor interjected, her voice shrill with hysteria as she clutched Tyler’s arm. “He is a dean’s list student at the University of Colorado! He is an honors scholar! You cannot treat him like a criminal because of an accident!”
“Ma’am, step outside, or I will cite you for interfering with emergency medical personnel,” Vance said, resting his hand casually on his duty belt. His tone left zero room for negotiation.
Emily watched through a blur of tears as the paramedics slid the thin, rigid yellow backboard beneath her. The movement, though executed with textbook precision, caused an explosion of agony in her lower spine that turned the edges of her vision entirely gray. A low, animal scream tore out of her throat—a sound she didn't recognize as her own.
“Hold her head! Maintain inline manual stabilization!” Hannah shouted. “Emily, stay with me. I’m pushing 50 micrograms of fentanyl through the IV right now. The edge is going to come off in thirty seconds. Hang on to me, sweetheart.”
As they strapped her forehead, chest, and hips to the hard plastic board, Emily caught one final glimpse of the foyer through the open double doors.
Out on the gravel drive, under the harsh glare of the emergency floodlights, Richard had his arm draped heavily around Tyler’s shoulders, whispering urgently into his ear while Tyler nodded vigorously, wiping tears that Emily knew were not for her, but for himself. Eleanor was on her cell phone, pacing back and forth along the stone retaining wall, her hand gesturing wildly as she undoubtedly called their private corporate attorney in Cherry Creek.
Not one of them looked through the door toward the stretcher.
The only person who held Emily’s cold hand as the gurney rolled over the threshold and into the frigid mountain air was Aunt Susan.
“I'm going with her in the ambulance,” Susan told Hannah Miller.
May you like
“Are you her legal guardian?” Hannah asked, pushing the stretcher down the ramp toward the waiting rig.
“Right now,” Susan said, climbing into the back of the ambulance and staring down at Emily’s pale, sweat-sheened face, “I am the only person on this mountain who gives a damn if she ever walks again. Drive.”
Related Stories
