Bracing herself, through sheer determination, Elizabeth somehow managed to turn the man over onto his back.
His eyes were closed and there was blood flowing from a hole in his chest.
It took everything Elizabeth had for her not to back away. Another scream bubbled up in her throat. She pressed her lips together to keep it from emerging.
Taking a deep breath to brace herself, she searched for any sign of life. A panicky feeling was only inches away from erupting.
“Mr. Adair, can you hear me?”
For exactly sixty seconds, it felt as if every single thought had fled her head, leaving the entire area of her brain completely empty.
And then, because she’d been independent and on her own for most of her life, Elizabeth snapped out of the encroaching malaise.
Searching for his heartbeat, the only thing Elizabeth felt was her own as it went into overdrive, thundering madly against her rib cage.
“Think, damn it. Think!” Elizabeth frantically ordered out loud, desperate to keep it together. But what could she possibly do to save him?
Splaying her hand across her boss’s bloodied chest, she thought she detected just the faintest whisper of a heartbeat. At first she was afraid to push against it, afraid to make it beat any harder than it was because she was concerned that the pressure would make Adair lose more blood that much faster.
Tugging her cardigan off, she wadded up the sweater and then pressed it against the hole in Adair’s chest, frantically trying to stop the flow of blood.
Her own heart almost stopped when she saw his eyelids flutter.
“Oh, thank God. You are alive,” Elizabeth cried. “Stay with me, Mr. Adair, stay with me,” she begged.
She saw the light of recognition enter his vividly blue eyes. His lips began to move, but he made no audible sound.
Bending over him, Elizabeth brought her ear closer to Adair’s lips, trying to make out the words he was saying. He was so weak she could hardly feel his breath on her face as he attempted to tell her something.
Was it the name of his attacker? Had he seen who had done this to him?
Straining, Elizabeth still couldn’t make any of the words out.
“What? I’m sorry, sir, I can’t hear you,” Elizabeth told him.
He struggled again to say something, but still nothing came out.
She needed help.
Adrenaline racing through every fiber of her being, Elizabeth continued pressing on Adair’s wound with one hand as she searched for her cell phone in her purse with the other.
Her phone was in her shoulder bag. It had to be, Elizabeth thought as the phone continued to avoid her questing fingers.
Finally, in frustration, she took the strap in her teeth to facilitate keeping the purse open while she used her free hand to upend it.
Wallet, keys, her AdAir ID badge, along with her cell phone, came raining down beside her. Grabbing the phone, Elizabeth quickly dialed 9-1-1.
Within a couple of seconds, a cheerful, competent-sounding female voice declared, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
A torrent of rambling words threatened to pour out of her mouth all at once. Elizabeth struggled to sound coherent. “I need an ambulance. Now.”
“Are you hurt, ma’am?” the voice asked calmly.
“No, no, it’s not me. It’s for my boss. Someone shot my boss.”
The woman wouldn’t know who her boss was. Elizabeth knew she had to elaborate, but she had trouble finding the words and slowing her breath enough to speak.
She tried again. “Reginald Adair’s been shot. Executive suite, top floor of AdAir Corp.” She all but gasped out the words. “Please hurry!”
Elizabeth dragged in a ragged breath, doing her level best not to sound like someone having a meltdown. Breaking down now wouldn’t help save Mr. Adair.
“Do you know who shot him?” the woman on the other end asked.
The routine question, asked so calmly, filled Elizabeth with unreasonable anger.
“No, I don’t know who,” she snapped. “Don’t you think that would be the first thing I told you if I knew who did it?” Her hostile words echoed in her brain. Elizabeth forced herself to calm down. “He’s still breathing. Please. Send someone quickly.”
Everyone knew where the sleek six-story chrome-and-glass building was located, but she rattled off the address anyway.
“Please, I don’t know how much time he has left. There’s blood everywhere.” Elizabeth could almost swear she felt Adair slipping away from beneath her hand even as she spoke to the 9-1-1 operator. “You need to send an ambulance now.”
“They’re already on their way, ma’am,” the woman told her. “Stay on the line with me until they come,” she coaxed.
Elizabeth was about to tell the 9-1-1 operator that she’d stay on as long as she could when she saw Reginald’s eyes begin to glaze over.
No, no, no, no! Please don’t die, Elizabeth silently pleaded.
“His chest isn’t moving,” Elizabeth cried out loud, panic mounting in her voice again. “I can’t feel his chest moving. He’s not breathing!”
Dropping the phone, she began to do chest compressions using both hands. “Open your eyes again, Mr. Adair. Please! Open your eyes for me.”
But no matter how hard she pushed on his chest, she could barely detect that faint whisper of a heartbeat she’d initially felt.
Doubling up her fist, she began to pound on Adair’s bloodied chest, remembering something she’d once witnessed being done in a documentary.
The distant sound of a siren penetrated the wall of panic and heavy breathing, both coming from her.
“They’re coming, Mr. Adair. I can hear them. They’re coming. Just hang on a little longer and they’ll save you. Just a little longer, please,” she begged.
The man on the rug, his body partially outlined in a growing pool of his own blood, remained very, very still. There was no longer any indication that he was alive.
Refusing to accept that the man she had worked for so faithfully for the past five years was beyond hearing her, Elizabeth continued to pound on his chest.
She was still pounding when the paramedics arrived at his office.
“Come on, come on, you can do this. You can cheat death. You’re larger-than-life, Mr. Adair. Work with me here! Please!”
But a few seconds later there was no rhythm of any sort beating beneath her hands.
An hour ago, Elizabeth Shelton had been driving out of AdAir Corp’s underground parking facility and on her way to her weekend.
It was eight o’clock on a Friday night and the rest of the employees who worked at AdAir Corp, one of the country’s leading cell phone providers, had already left for their weekends. Today the mass exodus had taken place at five o’clock, because that was when the building’s surveillance cameras had all been turned off. They’d had to leave, for safety reasons. A memo had gone out, and everyone knew that the existing system was being upgraded.
Elizabeth had stayed behind in order to catch up on some last-minute work. Work she needed to have prepared and at her fingertips for a meeting she was attending on Monday morning in her boss’s