The sound of wood crashing to the floor below came to her ears just as she managed to reach out and grasp hold of the nearest crosswise support beam. Her downward impetus was so strong that her desperate scramble for hold caused instant agony in her shoulder sockets, and yet, there was an instant of relief and incredulity when she realized that she had stopped herself.
For the moment.
For the moment, yes, only the moment, her grasp upon the crossbeam was so tenuous, and it already seemed that her fingers were slick with perspiration and slipping.
Another scream sounded, and not from her own lips.
It was Mrs. O’Hara, crying out from beneath her.
And it was then that she fully realized herself that she was dangling from the crossbeam, her legs swinging a good twenty feet above the floor below.
She rued the long-ago wealthy plantation owner who had designed such a library.
“Hang on! Hang on!” Mrs. O’Hara cried out to her. “I’ve called 911. Books! I’ll pile some books, the cushions from the chairs, just hold on dear, hold on!”
No other thought had occurred to Darcy, but even as the woman called out, Darcy could feel the terrible pressure on her arms and shoulder blades. She hadn’t really realized her own imminent danger until that minute—she had only congratulated herself on catching hold of the crossbeam.
But how long could she hold on?
Mrs. O’Hara had dialed 911. Darcy wasn’t certain that help could be there momentarily. And still….
It had been seconds, surely. No more than minutes. Her arms ached as if she had been stretched on a medieval rack. She wasn’t a total weakling, but neither was she ready for championship wrestling.
“Darcy, oh, dear! Hang on, dear! There’s help coming!” Mrs. O’Hara called to her.
Darcy looked down. She shouldn’t have. The distance between her and the ground floor seemed gaping. Looking downward seemed to create a greater burden on her arms. She winced, grated her teeth, and began to fear that her fingers would slip no matter how she strained to hang on.
“I can’t imagine how this has happened!” Mrs. O’Hara cried anxiously. “Please, please…hang on.” There had been no one else in the small library at that time. Too early for the school children, and perhaps too late for any legal assistants or local researchers. Darcy felt faint, looking at the distance between her own dangling body and the puny little cushion Mrs. O’Hara was trying to arrange beneath her.
She closed her eyes, in agony, wondering if she would just break most of her bones if she gave up her hold, or if she’d break her neck and die as well. Despite the pain in her arms and the fear that any second they were simply going to wrench from their sockets, it seemed as if a haze of blackness was beginning to take over. She wondered desperately if she still had the strength to try to swing her legs upward and find a hold with her ankles and calves on the torn-up floor above her.
“Darcy?” Mrs. O’Hara called.
“I always knew I should have trained for Cirque du Soleil!” Darcy tossed back, wondering why she felt that she had to sound light and okay even though she definitely wasn’t. She looked up at the hole in the floor. She’d have to kick through other boards to get back up. But if the one had given, then maybe…
Fingers, hands, and arms in anguish, she gave a swing, kicking at the boards above. She nearly broke her toes.
All the other floorboards were as tight as could be. The effort nearly cost her the tenuous hold she had on the crossbeam. Black dots were forming before her eyes. She clenched her eyes tightly, knowing she would lose her grip any second.
“Darcy!”
She was startled to hear Matt’s voice. So much so that she thought she was losing her grip on reality.
“Darcy, it’s me, Matt. Just let go. I’m going to catch you. Trust me.”
Trust him. Just let go.
“Darcy, I’m below you. Let go. I won’t let you get hurt.”
Trust him…it had nothing to do with trust. She couldn’t hold on any longer.
Her fingers were too stiffly wound around the crossbeam, but it didn’t matter. They were slipping. She never really let go.
She simply fell, because her fingers lost their grasp.
And a scream of instinctive terror tore from her lips.
In the split second in which she fell, she anticipated her bones crushing, her blood splattering across the floor, her head…
“Darcy!”
Chapter 8
8
M att didn’t fall, but staggered back as Darcy fell into his arms. The distance hadn’t been so great, but she was naturally trying to resist the impetus of the fall upon her body, and she flailed wildly, desperately grabbing him as he caught her.
For a moment, they wavered, then he lost his balance, even if he did so with a certain amount of coordination. He went down upon his knees, cradling her against him. For several seconds, she had a death grip on him, and then her eyes met his, wide, those of a startled rabbit, and a shudder of relief went through her.
“You all right?” he asked quickly.
She nodded. Then her fingers went through his hair and she smiled. “You’re covered in dust.”
“Your shirt is ripped and your arm is bleeding,” he told her.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!” Mrs. O’Hara said, hovering over them both. They could hear a siren then. A car from the station. “This was all so impossible! We have building inspectors in regularly! I walk on that floor all the time and I know that it’s sound. Was sound. Oh, my God, I had thought that it was sound. The schoolchildren go up there when they’re studying. Lord, it could have been a child, a little boy or girl who couldn’t get a grasp to save themselves…oh, Darcy! I am so sorry! Matt, thank God that you arrived when you did.”
Thank God that he had arrived when he did.
Strange chills ripped through him, and he stared at Darcy, still in his tense grip as they both lay sprawled on the floor.
Darcy eased her hold from around Matt’s neck, stumbling to her feet, offering him a hand to rise as well. He took her hand, but stood up on his own power. She was still shaking. She might be smiling, ready to make light of the whole thing, but it wasn’t an incident that could be dismissed.
“Go ahead and put a Closed sign on the door, Mrs. O’Hara,” Matt said.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mrs. O’Hara said, but still stood looking at Darcy. “The police car is coming but we need an ambulance.”
“No!” Darcy protested. “I’m fine.”
“Your arm is bleeding,” Matt informed her firmly.
“A scratch. I’m all right, honestly. I just hope I didn’t break any of your bones, falling on you as I did.”
She, too, was covered in dust, or sawdust, whatever had given with the flooring. As he stared at her, Matt heard the car outside screech to a halt; Thayer Martin and Jimmy Tyson came bursting into the library.
“It’s all right!” Matt called out quickly, still staring at Darcy. But it wouldn’t have been all right. By the time they would have arrived, Darcy would have been on the floor. Maybe not dead, but surely, severely injured.
“What the hel—heck happened?” Thayer demanded, staring at Matt and Darcy and the debris, and then Mrs. O’Hara.
“Flooring collapsed,” Matt said briefly. He turned to look at his two officers who were surveying the damage with amazement. “Get the building inspector in here right away.”
“Will do,” Thayer told him, pulling out his radio. Matt was dimly aware that Thayer was calling the situation in, and that Jimmy was walking carefully around the downed boards. He couldn’t take his eyes off Darcy, and he was suddenly feeling chilled and strange himself. What in God’s name had suddenly convinced him that he needed to come to the library? If he hadn’t been here. But he had been. He never just drove to the library in the middle of the day. But despite being determined to head for the Wayside Inn, he had come here.
Another siren, and then, Jenkins and Smith from fire rescue were coming through the door. Thayer briefed them, and Smith headed for Darcy.
“We’ll get you to the hospital, miss,” Smith said politely, looking her over with a trained eye.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital, please!” she insisted.
“Show him your arm, Darcy,” Matt said curtly. Too curtly. He saw her frown, but then she opted to turn with Smith and allow him to take a look at her.
“Let’s get you into a chair and take a look,” Smith said. Fifty-five, gray, bearded and bushy, Harry Smith was as competent a man as any to be found anywhere. He had a manner about him that was calming under the worst of circumstances, and Darcy accepted his pressure on her arm, taking a chair by the library desk.
Matt could hear them speaking softly as he strode the stairs up to the loft himself to take a look at the spot where Darcy had gone through.
Moving carefully along the floorboards, he got down on his hands and knees as he neared the faulty area. It looked as if a section of the boards had rotted right through. Only a section. The library was hundreds of years old, he reminded himself.
So were half the buildings in the town. They were also sound.
“Matt!”
He walked carefully to the railing to looked down. Smith was staring up at him. “Miss Tremayne refuses to come to the hospital. She says she’s fine. We’re going to drive her back to Melody House. She wants to drive herself. Penny’s car is here. Can someone take it?”
Darcy had jumped up beside Smith. “I am fine!” she called up to him. “I fell on you!”
“You’re still shaken up,” Smith informed her.
“Really, I’m just fine. My arm is just scratched!” Darcy protested.
“I’ll get Penny’s car back,” Matt said. “That’s not a problem. Darcy, let them give you a ride. I’ll be along in a bit. I want to be here when the building inspector shows up.” He offered her a grimace and a wave.
“Honestly, I can drive,” Darcy protested.