Silent Witness

Shields faced him squarely. “I saw a hellacious mess,” he answered. “That armoire weighed a ton—your son was lucky as hell he didn’t die, too.”

“Did it look like they’d been moving the thing?”

“Hard to say exactly,” the fireman answered with a shrug. “The bottom of the piece was out from the wall about a foot or two. I guess they could have been positioning it.”

“Had there been things on the shelves?”

Shields narrowed his eyes as he clearly thought over the question. “Yeah,” he said finally, “I think there might have been. I saw some broken dishes in the debris, a cup or something. Maybe a plate.” He nodded a little more confidently. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it had stuff in it.”

“Where was Vicki?” he asked quietly.

“Close to the base,” Shields replied. “She was probably right next to it when it fell. Kevin was about two, maybe three feet behind her.”

“On their backs or their stomachs?”

Shields frowned for a moment before answering. “Stomachs,” he said finally.

Grant registered the information in silence, then spoke slowly. “She’d had the piece retrofitted with wall brackets so it’d stay up in case of an earthquake. Did you see whether or not those had been unscrewed?”

“I didn’t notice,” the fireman said. “We had our hands full getting them out. I could call the Courage Bay Police Department and have the examiner phone you, though. I know they sent a unit to the scene so they could file a report.”

Grant shook his head. “I appreciate the offer but I’ll contact him myself a little later.”

He could feel the other man’s curiosity. Grant couldn’t satisfy it, though. Shields was too close to Andrea and anything Grant said would find its way back to her, he was sure.

“What else can I do?” Shields asked.

Grant met the fireman’s gaze. It seemed steady and honest and Grant had the fleeting thought that Alex Shields was just the kind of man a woman like Andrea Hunt would hook up with—good-looking, strong, a real all-American type. An unexpected pang of regret hit Grant, but he pushed it aside and shook his head. “I think I can handle it from here.”

THE EVENING PASSED QUIETLY, Andrea on one side of Kevin’s bed, Grant on the other. From time to time she looked at the man who sat in the shadows but for the most part, they each pretended the other one wasn’t there. For Andrea, that wasn’t an easy task.

Grant seemed to dominate the space—not because of his physical presence but because of his overwhelming intensity. She felt as if she could hear his heart beat and see his blood rushing through his veins. The reaction was weird and she told herself she was imagining things, but as the hours passed and the hospital became quieter, the feeling grew. After a while, she decided their bodies had synchronized in some strange fashion, her heart matching his rhythm, his breathing keeping time with hers.

The strident sound of the telephone brought her out of the bizarre thoughts. The unit was on Grant’s side and he answered it before the first ring stopped.

Andrea’s eyes went to the sleeping child in the bed. He was completely under. Nothing could have penetrated his exhaustion, or the painkillers the doctor had given him.

“Andrea?” Grant spoke her name in a whisper as he held out the phone. “It’s your mother….”

She nodded and came around the bed, taking the receiver from him. “Mom?”

“I had to call and see how Kevin was,” her mother said. “Is everything all right?”

“He’s sound asleep,” Andrea answered. “They put the cast on and brought him up after you guys left. He was too tired to do anything but zonk out.”

“That’s good,” she said with relief in her voice.

Andrea wished she could blurt out her concerns over Kevin’s future, but with Grant five feet away, she didn’t dare. The discussion would have to wait until she had her parents alone.

“Are you okay?” Andrea asked instead.

“It’s been tough,” her mother answered. “We…we took care of everything.” She made a sound halfway between a cough and a sob. “The services will be day after tomorrow. In the afternoon.” She recited the details with excruciating precision. Even though Andrea didn’t want to hear about caskets and flowers and music, she let her mother talk until everything was out.

“Are you going to stay there tonight?”

Andrea glanced at Grant. He’d switched places with her and was now sitting in the chair she’d abandoned. His cheeks were dark with unshaven stubble, the circles under his eyes darker still.

“Yes, I am,” Andrea said firmly. “I want to be here if Kevin wakes up and gets scared.”

“Good, good… I think that’s a good idea.”

The Hunts were a tough bunch but Andrea could hear the strain in her mother’s words. They said goodbye and Andrea hung up the phone.

GRANT WATCHED ANDREA. When he’d returned to the room after his conversation with Alex, she’d been quiet and subdued. He hadn’t tried to talk to her but sooner or later, he’d need to ask her some of the same questions—and probably more—that he’d asked the fireman. If something had happened in that house other than an accident, Grant had to know. Until he was sure, though, he wasn’t going to say a word to Andrea.

He stood and stretched, then looked down at Kevin. He was sleeping peacefully. He caught Andrea’s eye and spoke. “Is your mom all right?”

“She’s tired,” Andrea answered. “They went to the funeral home and made all the arrangements.”

“Your parents are good people,” he said. “And strong. They’ll come through this just fine.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “You will, too.”

She seemed surprised by his words of praise but she didn’t comment.

“When are the services?”

She told him then fell mute again. The stillness between them could have been awkward, yet it didn’t feel that way to Grant. It felt right. And that, in turn, seemed strange. In all their years of marriage, he and Vicki had never shared a silence like this.

He sat down again and leaned his head against the leather chair. On the other side of the room, Andrea did the same. A moment later, their eyes met over Kevin’s bed.

Andrea looked away first.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE WOKE TO THE SMELL of coffee. For half a second, Andrea thought she was back at the fire station, then she opened her eyes. Grant stood before her with a mug, steam rising from the top as he held it out. The coffee was black and hot and she drank it down, her eyes going to the bed and the small boy who still slept.

“He didn’t wake all night,” Grant said. “Barely moved. A couple of times, I actually got up and made sure he was still breathing.” His expression immediately turned sheepish as if he’d said more than he’d intended.

“It’s the painkillers,” Andrea replied. “They have strange effects on kids—they either sleep like a rock or get wired.”

Outside the room, the nurses were talking and laughing, the sound providing a sharp contrast to Grant’s next question. “Does he know Vicki’s dead?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I didn’t bring it up because I—I wasn’t certain how to explain it,” she confessed. “Or if I even should.” She raised her eyes, her throat constricting. “How do you tell a kid his mother is gone?”

“I’ve done it,” he said, “but it’s not something I want to do again.” He paused, his voice heavy with dread and the knowledge of what was to come. “He’s got to know, though. One of us has to do it.”

“Let me.” She could tell her words surprised him. They surprised her, too, but all at once she wanted to spare Grant that horrible task. Her reaction might have had something to do with the way he looked. Sometime during the night, he’d gained a haunted look.

Being the man he was, he started to object. “That’s not what I meant! I think—”

She interrupted him. “It’ll be easier for Kevin if I do it. If you tell him, he’d want to be tough and not cry. This isn’t the time for that.”

She could see he wanted to argue but couldn’t because he knew she was right.

When Kevin finally woke up, he was groggy and fussy but he calmed down as Andrea talked to him, his gaze returning continually to the corner where his father sat.

Andrea reached over and smoothed Kevin’s hair after he finished his late breakfast. “Do you know where I work, Kevin?”

He shook his head.

“I’m a paramedic,” she said. “I work at the fire station and ride in the ambulance. When someone gets hurt, I take care of them. It’s a pretty important job.” She stopped briefly as if just now considering the idea. “Maybe when you’re feeling okay, I could take you down there. You could meet the firemen and see the trucks. Would you like that?”

A tiny smile broke out and he nodded again.

“All right, then,” she said. “We have a date.” The explanation of her job brought her momentarily back into the real world. She glanced down at her watch. It was almost noon on Wednesday, the second day of her forty-eight hours off. By now, everyone at the station knew what had happened, but protocol was protocol. She should call in. Immediately she realized she could use the opportunity to phone her mother, too. She looked down at Kevin again.

“In fact, I have to tell my boss where I am, just in case he might need me. The call might take a while so I’m going to step outside to make it. While I’m gone, you can visit with your father, how’s that?”

Kevin’s reaction was instantaneous. He grabbed her hand and began to scream.

GRANT JUMPED to his feet and lunged for the bed, but instead of making things better, this had Kevin shrieking louder. Within seconds, every nurse on the floor had arrived and Grant and Andrea were both pushed into the hall.

Grant turned on Andrea in fury. “What in the hell did you do to him?”

“What did I do to him?” She looked at him with an incredulous stare. “What did you do is the question.”

“What did I… What are you talking about? One minute you were standing there talking to him and the next thing I know, he’s screaming his head off.”

“You didn’t hear what I asked him?”

“No.” He wasn’t about to explain that his mind had been exactly where it’d been the day before—on his growing concern that Vicki’s death hadn’t been an accident. “I…I was thinking of something else. Something to do with…with work.”

She gave him a withering stare, then repeated what she’d said to Kevin. Grant’s mouth fell open and he blinked in confusion.

“Are you sure he understood you?”

“He understood completely. What’s confusing about ‘visit with your father’?”

Grant shook his head in disbelief. He didn’t want to believe Vicki would have poisoned Kevin against him but what other conclusion could he reach?

“Why is Kevin scared of you, Grant?” Andrea asked with suspicion.

“He isn’t scared of me, dammit! I’ve been in the room with him all night long and he didn’t have a problem. You saw us talking yesterday—did he look scared of me then?”

His question stopped her. “No,” she admitted, “he seemed fine at that point.”

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