Old Chaos (9781564747136) Read Online Free

fairy chains, and everything shone silver. “Silver thaw” was the local term for ice storm. Meg shivered with alarm and delight.
    As she watched, an old pickup with a camper edged around the cedar. Freezing rain slashed the beams of its headlights. Moments later a blue Civic started to pass, slid, overcorrected, and headed like a demented billiard ball toward the left rear end of the pickup. Neither vehicle was going fast, but the result was inevitable.
    “My garage!” Meg shrieked.
    The car hit and slid slowly around, stopping in the middle of the street. The heavier pickup, with the driver hunched in a futile effort to maneuver, oozed sideways up Meg’s short new concrete drive. Rear-end first, the truck smacked into the door of her garage. The new door buckled. Plumes of exhaust from both vehicles streamed in the icy rain.
    Meg stuffed her feet into her boots, yanked her coat on, and dashed out. That was a mistake. She skated across the porch and saved herself at the last moment on the rail. Icicles tinkled and fell. She clung to the post and watched as the driver of the pickup opened his door and jumped down. He took two long strides, then both feet went out from under him, and he fell flat on his back on the slick asphalt of the street.
    Kayla Graves got out of the Civic and walked toward her victim, flat-footed. She was shouting something. The pickup driver didn’t move.
    Still clutching the rail, Meg let herself down the steps and onto her flower-bed, which was covered with two inches of snow and a scum of ice. Her boots crunched through to solid dirt. “Is he all right?” she called.
    By the time she had picked her way to the street, Kayla was on her haunches examining the man’s head. Kayla was an RN, head night nurse at a large care facility on the River Road. Her patients were elderly, and many of them died, which went some way toward explaining her hot pursuit of life on her nights off. Meg wondered why Kayla was up and driving around when she ought to be asleep.
    “Is he okay?” Meg repeated as she reached Kayla’s side. It was raining hard now, and the rain froze on everything it struck, including Meg, Kayla, and the man on the street.
    “Out cold.”
    More ways than one, Meg thought. Kayla brushed ice from the man’s face.
    “I don’t think his skull is fractured. Big bump, though. He’s probably concussed.”
    “He’ll freeze!”
    Kayla was taking her coat off. “Go to my car and bring my purse. I need the phone.” She made a tent of the coat, shielding the man’s face. “Open the back, too. My medical bag’s there and one of those aluminum emergency blankets.”
    “Right.” Meg made for Kayla’s Civic with her feet flat and her arms out for balance. The engine was still running. Very gingerly, she drove the car to the curb in front of Kayla’s house, popped the hatchback, grabbed the purse, and turned off the lights. She found the medical bag and the blanket as well as a plaid stadium rug, all of which she carried back without falling down or dropping anything.
    Kayla whipped the phone from her purse, and the number she dialed was not 911. While she waited for an answer, she retrieved her coat. Meg substituted the plaid rug.
    For the first time, she got a look at the man who had fallen. He was about Kayla’s age, early thirties, and had red hair, tousled and in need of a trim. He had strong bones that were a little too prominent and a nice mouth. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. The bristles were orange. He seemed oddly familiar, as if she ought to recognize him, but she didn’t.
    Kayla was mumbling medicalese to the cell phone. Meg had long ago given up translating doctor-speak, so she whisked ice from the man’s body. He wore jeans and a jacket over a faded flannel shirt. His heavy boots pointed at the sky. They had a coating of ice, too. Meg brushed them off and stuck her hands into her coat pockets. Move him? How?
    Kayla handed her the phone and took