Chương 5
“What were you going to do?” she asked. “Make me leave before somebody found me?”
Richard’s shoulders sank slightly.
“I thought you’d go to your sister.”
“My sister lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Phoenix.”
“You have people.”
“So do you.”
He looked at her.
She gestured at the house.
“All of them are standing in mine.”
Judith covered her mouth.
Lauren began crying quietly.
Hannah looked at her.
“Please don’t.”
Lauren wiped her face.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re crying.”
“My brother is dead.”
The words landed differently from everything else.
Hannah’s anger hesitated.
Lauren looked embarrassed by her own grief.
“He’s dead,” she repeated, quieter. “I didn’t know.”
Hannah turned away.
She could hate Lauren and still know that Daniel had once carried her home after she broke her ankle roller-skating at fifteen. He had told Hannah that story so many times she could picture a younger Lauren with mascara running down her face, furious because people were laughing.
The family had lost Daniel too.
That did not erase what they had done.
Both things could be true.
Mercer spoke.
“Mrs. Carter, I need to make a few calls.”
Hannah nodded.
“You also have a decision to make about whether you want local law enforcement here regarding the assault.”
Judith looked up.
Hannah saw fear.
Not remorse. Not yet.
Fear.
For a mean little second, it satisfied her.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s fine.”
Richard said, “This does not need police.”
Mercer looked at him.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Hannah walked to Daniel’s sedan and leaned against the hood.
The metal was cool through her shirt.
She had not driven it since he left. He kept the seat too far back, and she had refused to adjust it because that felt weirdly intimate, as if changing the seat meant assuming he was not coming home soon.
She looked through the windshield.
A pair of sunglasses still hung from the visor.
One lens was smudged.
Daniel had been dead twenty-four days, and his fingerprint might still be on that glass.
Her throat closed.
Mercer came near but did not touch her.
“Did you see him?” she asked.
He took a breath.
“Yes.”
“After?”
“Yes.”
“Was he alone?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“Was he afraid?”
Mercer waited long enough that she knew he was deciding whether to lie.
“I think he knew how bad it was.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
He swallowed.
“He was afraid.”
Hannah nodded.
That hurt less than hearing he had been fearless would have.
Fear meant Daniel had still been Daniel.
He hated turbulence. He refused to kill spiders because he said they were useful. He once admitted he was scared to hold his newborn nephew because the baby’s head felt “structurally irresponsible.”
Of course he had been afraid.
“Did he suffer?”
Mercer’s eyes lowered.
“Not for long.”
She stared at him.
He did not embellish.
She appreciated that too.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Not here.”
She looked toward the family.
Judith was crying now without sound. Mark stood against the wall. Lauren had gone inside for tissues. Richard remained alone near the boxes, the newspaper dangling from his hand.
“Here,” Hannah said.
Mercer studied her.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
He told it plainly.
Daniel’s unit had been moving from an observation position after intelligence suggested an attack was coming. The attack arrived earlier than expected. An explosion disabled the rear vehicle on a narrow route. Men were trapped beyond a wall and under fire. Daniel had already reached partial cover when he saw that a communications relay had failed.
“He went back,” Mercer said.
Hannah stared at the concrete.
“He restored the relay long enough for us to coordinate movement and supporting fire. Then he stayed behind with two others to cover the last group.”
“Twenty-three?”
“Twenty-three got out through that movement.”
“And the other two?”
“One survived.”
Hannah looked toward the soldiers outside.
The man with the scar on his jaw was watching the street.
“Him?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sergeant Luis Alvarez.”
Hannah looked at him for a long time.
Alvarez sensed it and turned.
Their eyes met.
He did not salute.
He put one hand over his heart.
Hannah almost collapsed then.
Not dramatically.
Her knees simply softened.
Mercer caught her elbow.
She let him.
For the first time all morning, she let someone hold her up.
The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later because Mercer insisted a pregnant woman who had been struck and nearly fallen should be checked. Hannah argued with the paramedic for thirty seconds before the baby kicked hard enough to frighten her into compliance.
She sat on the rear step of the ambulance while a young paramedic named Zoe took her blood pressure.
“This is high,” Zoe said.
“It’s been a weird morning.”
“I gathered that.”
Behind them, two police officers spoke separately with Judith and Richard.
Hannah had not decided to press charges.
She had agreed to make a statement.
The difference mattered to her even if she could not explain why.
Zoe shone a light briefly in Hannah’s eyes.
“Any dizziness?”
“Not anymore.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Contractions?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’ll know.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Zoe smiled despite herself.
Hannah almost smiled back.
Across the driveway, Lauren sat on the curb in her satin robe, bare feet tucked under her. A soldier had given her a bottle of water. Mark carried boxes from the garage back into the house one at a time.
Nobody had told him to.
Richard stood near the police cruiser with his arms crossed.
Judith sat inside the garage, staring at nothing.
Mercer was on the phone near the SUV.
Hannah watched him speak, then looked down at the envelope on her lap.
Daniel’s letter was inside.
She still had not opened it.
“Do I need to go to the hospital?” she asked.
May you like
Zoe checked the blood pressure cuff again.
“I’d like you evaluated because of the pregnancy and the fall risk. You can decline. I’d rather you didn’t.”
