Chill Factor Read Online Free

on the opposite side of the road were steep drop-offs. She caught herself holding her breath through the hairpin curves.
    Inside her gloves, her fingertips were so cold they were numb, but her palms were sweaty as she gripped the steering wheel. Tension made the muscles of her shoulders and neck burn. Her anxious breathing grew more uneven.
    Hoping to improve her visibility, she rubbed her coat sleeve across the windshield, but all that accomplished was to give her a clearer view of the dizzy swirl of sleet.
    And then, suddenly, a human figure leaped from the wooded embankment onto the road directly in her path.
    Reflexively she stamped on her brake pedal, remembering too late that braking abruptly was the wrong thing to do on an icy road. The car went into a skid. The figure in her headlights jumped back, trying to get out of the way. Wheels locked, the car slid past him, the back end fishtailing wildly. Lilly felt a bump against her rear fender. With a sinking sensation in her stomach, she realized he’d been struck.
    That was her last sickening thought before the car crashed into a tree.

CHAPTER
3
    H ER AIR BAG DEPLOYED, SMACKING HER IN the face and releasing a choking cloud of powder, which filled the car’s interior. Instinctively she held her breath to avoid breathing it. The seat belt caught her hard across her chest.
    In a distant part of her mind, the violence of the impact amazed her. This had been a relatively mild collision, but it left her stunned. She took a mental inventory of body parts and determined that she wasn’t in pain anywhere, only shaken. But the person she’d hit . . . “My God!”
    Batting the deflated air bag out of the way, she released her seat belt and shoved open the door. As she scrambled out, she lost her footing and pitched forward. The heels of her hands struck the icy pavement hard, as did her right knee. It hurt like hell.
    Using the side of the car for support, she limped around to the rear. Shielding her eyes against the wind with her hand, she spotted the motionless figure lying faceup, head and trunk on the road’snarrow shoulder, legs extending into the road. She could tell by the size of his hiking boots that the victim was male.
    As though skating across the glassy pavement, she made her way to him and crouched down. A watch cap was pulled low over his ears and eyebrows. His eyes were closed. She detected no movement of his chest to indicate breathing. She dug beneath the wool scarf around his neck, beneath the collar of his coat, beneath the turtleneck sweater, and searched for a pulse.
    Feeling one, she whispered, “Thank God, thank God.”
    But then she noticed the spreading dark stain on the rock beneath his head. She was about to lift his head and search for the source of the bleeding when she remembered that an individual with a head wound shouldn’t be moved. Wasn’t that a strict rule of emergency aid? There could be a spinal injury, which moving could exacerbate or even make fatal.
    She had no way of determining the extent of his head injury. And that was a visible injury. What injuries might he have sustained that she couldn’t see? Internal bleeding, a rib-punctured lung, a ruptured organ, broken bones. And she didn’t like the look of the awkward angle at which he was lying, as though his back was bowed upward.
    She must get help. Immediately. She stood up and turned back toward her car. She could use her cell phone to call 911. Cell service wasn’t always reliable in the mountains, but maybe—
    His groan halted her. She turned so quicklyher feet almost went out from under her. She knelt beside him again. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at her. She’d seen eyes like that only once before. “Tierney?”
    He opened his mouth to speak, then looked as though he was about to throw up. He clamped his lips together and swallowed several times, containing the urge. He closed his eyes