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Show 223 "I didn't bargan for this," she said. "I didn't need this at all. Especially after the last few days." "Well, it won't be much longer now. Traffic's coming through from the other side now." The tenseness, the anger, seemed to have dissipated out of him. It was almost as if she had absorbed his tension-through some kind of emotional osmosis-had absorbed it from him into herself. But in the oncoming lanes, the traffic had been released now that the fire was extinguished, the cars were moving hestitantly out into the open lanes, detached, as if wary of each other. And ahead, on their side of the freeway, an open lane was being cleared around the burned truck, the patrol cars and the fire trucks jockeying about. Robbie started the car. "Well, it's about time," he said glancing into the rearview mirror. Down the open left lane floated an ambulance-a gold and white Cadillac-red lights flashing, but without the sound of the siren. It did not seem in any particular hurry as it made its way through the patrol cars and fire trucks, nestling in beside the rescue truck. From the rear door of one of the patrol cars-near the ambulance - a patrolman emerged. And then another man with a canvas jacket draped over one shoulder. He walked stiffly, as if that arm-the one covered by the jacket-had been injured. The ambulance driver came around and opened the rear door, and then followed both the man and the patrol officer up Into the vehicle. "That must be the driver of the truck," Robbie said. "He didn't look in such bad shape." |