By Your Side (8 page)

He brought the rifle to his chest, letting his eyes sweep what he could see of the attic in the dim light of the camp lantern. He’d have to be more careful this time. Be sure he counted the shell casings, kept out of sight. A part of him hated what he was going to do. But they caused it. They’d done the same and more to him. They were to blame.

He’d waited after the freeway, asked himself if that was enough. Taking down the gravel truck, popping some windshields
 
—scaring folks a little. But no, it wasn’t enough. He had to make them pay. Really pay.

“I’
M SORRY,”
M
ACY WHISPERED,
seeing the phone in Mrs. Holt’s hands. She was supposed to be on her way home; why had she come up here? “I wanted to peek in on you. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, you’re not
 
—I’m finished. Come in, please.” She rolled her eyes, pointed at the nasal packing. “Between this thing and the pain medication, Jessica said I sound like an Elmer Fudd cartoon.”

Macy smiled, pulling up a chair. The narcotics had definitely added another layer to the woman’s Texas accent. “Jessica?”

“Adopted daughter in Houston
 
—or that’s how we always think of her.” She lifted her phone and pulled up a photo of a couple in costume. Fletcher and a stunning young blonde wearing a glittery tiara. “It was taken at the Tacky Country Christmas Cotillion last year, a benefit for the Make-A-Wish
Foundation.” Mrs. Holt smiled. “Those costumes . . . astronaut and princess. It brings back so many memories.”

“She’s beautiful,” Macy admitted with a strange sense of disappointment. Though why she should care that Fletcher Holt had a girlfriend made no sense whatsoever.

“She and her sister, her family, are our neighbors in Houston,” Mrs. Holt explained. “Fletcher and the girls grew up together. Jessica Barclay was always a free spirit, a delight
 
—and a complete handful. The girl could whip up chaos like a tornado. Fletcher has always taken his role as a big brother very seriously.”

Macy glanced at the photo again, wondering if this mother had missed something. The way her son was looking at his princess . . .

“I think . . .” Mrs. Holt rested the phone against her chest, closing her eyes for a moment. “I think it was because Jessica was three when Fletcher first met her. The same age as his sister when we lost her.”

Macy’s throat tightened. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Mrs. Holt shook her head. “And I apologize for rambling on like this. I usually let visitors get a word in; that medicine is playing havoc with my manners.” A smile creased the edges of her lavender-blue eyes. “Any minute I expect to give way to a rousing rendition of the University of Houston fight song. Promise you’ll stop me.”

“I promise.” Macy smiled. “But I really should go. You’re tired, and I have a kickboxing class to get to.”

“Looks like my nurse has a touch of tornado too.”

“Probably.” Macy rose to her feet. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Mrs. Holt.”

“Please, it’s Charly.” She patted her heart. “And thank you, Macy. You were so kind to me in the emergency department
 
—a blessing, truly. My mother always told me that nurses were angels. You’re proof of that.” Her lips quirked. “Now go give something a good swift kick.”

“Absolutely.” Macy offered a hearty thumbs-up and headed for the door. She knew now why she’d climbed the stairs, come up here. Even in their dramatic, messy encounter in the ER, Macy sensed that Charly Holt was someone special. Even if she got it wrong about angels and blessings
 
—an effect of the medication, no doubt. Macy was nothing close to that. She was a tough survivor who’d learned to land on her feet
 
—no angel, for sure. Still, for that moment, from that mother, it had felt good.

“No more word on the blood tests. Maybe tomorrow.” Fletcher switched his phone to the other hand, shifting position on the chair in the last row of the empty and dimly lit hospital chapel. “She’s anemic, but I guess some of that is chronic. From the leukemia. No plans for a blood transfusion . . . yet.”

“Hang in there, buddy.” Seth raised his voice over some background chatter, making Fletcher think he was probably in Starbucks. Between chaplain duties, no doubt. “I can be over there in forty minutes.”

“No need. I’m okay.”

Seth chuckled. “We all wear that I’m-okay badge. Heavier than it looks. Sometimes we’ve got to unpin it and let a friend help out.”

Fletcher smiled. “Thanks. But I really am okay. Once I made the handoff to the ER staff. She’s in good hands here.”

“She’s always in the best hands. No matter where she is. You can trust that.”

“Right.” Fletcher glanced toward the chapel’s nondenominational altar decorated with a basket of white roses and a trio of candles. He knew what Seth was saying. God’s hands. Fletcher had said over and over that he was trusting God with this, with everything. But lately things had been going so wrong. And today he’d carried his unconscious and bleeding mother in his arms.

Are you really listening, Lord?

“Is your father flying in from Alaska?”

“Not yet. Mom’s fending him off; it depends on what we hear tomorrow.” Fletcher caught a glimpse of someone passing the chapel door and stood. “Hey, Seth, I need to go. I’ll give you a call later.”

“No problem.”

Fletcher jogged to the door and peered down the hallway. “Macy?”

She turned, walked back his way. Once again he was struck by her. Hair down around her shoulders, that confident stride . . .

“Hi. I was just
 
—” he gestured toward the chapel
 
—“sitting for a minute.”

“Sure. That’s why it’s there. Quiet, away from all of this.” She glanced around the bustling hospital corridor. “Did you need something?”

“Not really.” He tried to remember why he’d run out here to catch her. “I just wanted to say thank you. For
opening that door from the waiting room and getting my mother back to the ER so fast. Helping her like you did. And for letting me stay there with her. I know there are rules and you didn’t have to do that. Especially since
 
—” He stopped himself.

“Since you pitched me onto a highway and tried to arrest my friend?”

“Yeah.” There was nothing coy about this woman. “I don’t suppose it helps that your Mr. Rush isn’t holding a grudge; in fact, he sent me some basketball tickets.”

“That would be Elliot.” Macy’s expression left no clue if the truce extended to their relationship too.

“Anyway,” Fletcher repeated, “thank you for helping my mom. It meant a lot to me. And to her.”

A hint of a smile crept across Macy’s face. “She’s pretty great. I just came from visiting her. She said the pain meds and nasal packing were making her sound like a cartoon character, and she might start singing football songs any minute.”

“That’s Mom.”

“Well . . .” Macy glanced at her watch. “I should go. I have a class.”

“And I need to get back upstairs. Thanks again.”

“Sure.”

He’d started to walk away when Macy called his name.

“Yes?”

“About the freeway . . .” She crossed her arms over her scrubs. “Even with all of that, I should be grateful. That bullet came really close. You might’ve saved my life. So . . . thank you, Fletcher.”

“You’re welcome.”

He watched her walk away, still not certain where they stood. Maybe they were just even now. If Seth were here, he’d probably say God arranged it: Fletcher kept Macy from harm out there on the freeway so she could be there to open that door for him today. If that was true, then a full truce wasn’t necessary.
Even
was more than good enough.

It seemed as if Macy’s old Audi drove to the little Tahoe Park house on autopilot. One minute she was stowing her hand and ankle wraps in her gym bag, taking a swig of her vitaminwater, and saying good-bye to her coach. Then, before she knew it, her car was picking its way down this street while she held her breath to see if the
For Sale Bank Owned
sign was still pounded into the sparse yard. It was.

Macy sighed and lifted her hair away from her neck; even half an hour after leaving her class and despite the cool evening, she was still perspiring. It had been a good workout: rope work, medicine ball, core work, and the bag work and sparring. She’d felt it, cardio and muscle. All toenails intact. So different from the ballet, but much more fitting to real life. Her current life.

She’d packed away her equipment, and then instead of a hot shower and a homemade veggie burrito
 
—if her roommates hadn’t eaten all the ingredients
 
—Macy ended up right here, parked across the street from a house she could in no way afford. Shouldn’t even want. But . . .

The porch light must have had a solar sensor because it blinked on in the deepening dusk, giving Macy a better
glimpse of the door
 
—painted red. Hadn’t she read somewhere that a red door meant “welcome”? Maybe even happiness . . . protection? She wasn’t sure. Nonni’s door wasn’t red, but her house had been the most welcoming, happy, and protected place Macy had ever known. And it was the first time she’d been given a key to someplace she lived. Been trusted with that.

Macy closed her eyes for a moment. There had always been tricycles on the patchy lawn, stepping stones cluttered with leaves in every season, and Nonni’s battered
Wipe Your Paws
doormat, stenciled with dog prints. Three steps to the porch. The tarnished brass door handle felt cool under her fingers, the latch worn shiny-like-new by the fingers of countless foster kids. There was a soft click when she pressed it down, a small and miraculous signal that always brought Nonni. She could count on that. The same way there would be the scent of oatmeal cookies or maybe shortbread and the sounds of praise music filling the hallway, and Nonni’s voice . . .
“Welcome home, Macy girl.”

She wondered now, as she had so many times before, if Nonni’s door handle set would fit this door. Then reached into her gym bag and pulled it out: heavy, still tarnished, the lever not so kid-shiny anymore. It had been wrapped in an old kitchen towel for more than a decade. Since the night Macy broke a window in Nonni’s vacant house, held a flashlight between her teeth, unscrewed the door set, and took it away. Stole it, people would say. But it hadn’t felt that way at the time, in the painful mix of grief and anger that followed her foster mother’s death. Macy had imagined standing on the porch, lifting a fist, and boldly telling the
bank that they couldn’t take the house because she had a key. Because it was the only real home she’d ever known. She’d imagined all that and, in the end, simply stolen the door hardware in the darkness.

She ran her thumb over the lever, heard the familiar click. Did Leah remember this the way she did? Macy had meant to ask her.

Macy’s phone rang, startling her. Taylor.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” she asked.

“No.”
You just caught me with stolen goods.
“What’s up?”

“Have you seen the news?”

“I’ve been at the gym. What’s going on?”

“Another sniper attack, they’re saying
 
—this time he shot a police dog.”

“F
OUR NEWS VANS,”
T
AYLOR REPORTED,
peering through the Starbucks window toward the veterinary hospital across the street. “Almost as many as there are patrol cars now. Titus is making national news. I wish it was for a happier reason. Like an amazing litter of puppies.”

“Puppies?” Seth peered at her through the steam rising from his Bold Pick of the Day. “The tabloids would chopper in for that one. Our heroic K-9 is a male.” His expression sobered. “I’m afraid the odds aren’t good that Titus will survive this second surgery.”

“I hate the thought of that. It’s tough just watching our golden retriever getting old and slow.”
Greg’s dog, outliving him.
“I can’t imagine losing a pet that way.”

“Bad enough without imagining what could have happened with all those kids at the grammar school.”

Taylor winced. The incident had shaken the whole community. A K-9 officer making a goodwill school visit. Shots ringing out as he walked the veteran German shepherd toward the building. Though the officer had been unharmed, his dog was seriously injured with wounds to his head and jaw. There had been critical blood loss. All the adjacent schools were immediately put on lockdown. And remained closed today. The crisis chaplains would make visits next week. “Have there been any more leads?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Only that report of a suspicious white van seen in the neighborhood. You want to take a guess how many white vans there are in the Sacramento area? My dad owns one. So does the mobile dog groomer who visits half a dozen homes in my neighborhood.” Seth patted his breast pocket and pulled out a packet of antacids. He never seemed to be without them. “I don’t know the details, but they’re saying the probability is high that this is the freeway sniper.”

“I heard.” Taylor battled a chill despite the warmth of the skinny cinnamon latte in her hands. “I can’t understand that. To knowingly inflict such terror and pain . . .”

Seth was quiet for a moment, then met her gaze with compassion in his eyes. “How are you doing, Taylor?”

“Good
 
—better.” Her quick smile was followed by a more honest shrug. There was a good reason Seth had been appointed “chaplain to the chaplains”
 
—or C2C, as the senior chaplain liked to say. This coffee date was Seth’s way of checking Taylor’s emotional pulse. He’d been a rock for her after Greg’s death, and many times since. And would occasionally stop by the hospital when he was in the area,
prompting one of the high school volunteers
 
—perhaps because Seth’s hair had a hint of red too
 
—to ask the chaplain if he was Taylor’s father. Ridiculous since he was only seven years older than she was. But he’d handled it with gracious humor.

“I’m hanging in there,” she assured him. “Work helps. The chaplain work too.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

When she’d applied as a volunteer, Seth expressed concern that she was opening herself up to too much stress. That it was too soon.
“There’s a big difference between a scab and a scar, Taylor.”
From the look in his eyes right now, he still wasn’t convinced.

“Really,” Taylor assured him. “It keeps my focus off myself. It makes me feel needed. And if I’m busy, I don’t worry that something will make me slide back into
 
—” She stopped, swirled the stir stick in her coffee, irked at herself for giving him an opening.

“What does that?” Seth asked gently. “Makes you feel like you’re ‘sliding back’?”

She wasn’t going to cry. “Random things
 
—ridiculous things. I mean, I can look at our wedding photo and be okay with that. But hearing some great news, like a friend who’s expecting a baby . . .”

“Those emotional trip wires.” Seth nodded. “At home, we know where the land mines are buried. We can avoid them, learn to dismantle them, even. At home we’re wearing full body armor. But out here
 
—” he glanced around the Starbucks
 
—“in the real world, we can’t control things as well.”

We. Meaning me.
But then Seth would understand. His wife had died of ovarian cancer several years ago.

“I suppose it’s the things that come out of the blue that shake me the most,” she admitted. “Like getting that letter from the Sac Fire human resources department last week
 
—addressed to Greg.” Her lips tensed. “You know how many times he was in and out of that office over the years? He coached two of those women’s sons in Little League. They
knew
him, Seth
 
—they know what happened. How could someone make a thoughtless mistake like that?”

Seth stayed quiet; it wasn’t a question that needed an answer.

“And the label,” she added with a sigh. “That’s hard too.”

Seth’s brows rose a fraction.

“
Widow
. It’s like I’m not Taylor anymore, I’m ‘Greg Cabot’s widow.’ You can’t imagine how many times I’ve been introduced like that at department functions. To the new hires, new spouses. I either need a name badge or an exit strategy.” Taylor took a slow breath. “I guess it’s time to wean myself away.”

“Hard to say good-bye to family. Firefighters, cops, medical people, chaplains
 
—we hold on to each other. Tight knit to the last stitch.”

Taylor nodded; words were too much of a risk. It was so true
 
—and another loss.

She was relieved when Seth’s phone buzzed with a text.

“Titus is out of surgery,” he reported. “The officer’s kids are there, and if there’s bad news, I should be with them.”

“Then you’d better go.” Taylor began rising from her chair. “I wanted to check on Charly again anyway.”

He stood, waited while she gathered her things.

“Thank you for the coffee,” she told him. “And the ear.”

“Two ears.” Seth tugged at an earlobe. “My knee may be shot for basketball, but God made sure this man is fully equipped for listening.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“And we’ll do this again. You’re a good excuse to feed my Starbucks habit.” Seth’s eyes softened. “Greg was a great guy. He’s missed by a lot of people. But you’ll always be Taylor to me
 
—no labels. Except
friend
.”

Taylor made it into her car before the first tear slid down her face. She smacked her palm against the steering wheel, anger warring with sadness. The insensitivity of a letter addressed to Greg had sickened her. Anonymous neglect from trusted “family.” And any day now Taylor half expected to log on to her computer and see one of those intrusive Facebook pop-ups prompting her to change her status from “married” to “widowed.” The combination of all that
 
—plus what was going on with Charly Holt
 
—had almost made her cancel her coffee with Seth.

No. That wasn’t the truth.

Taylor swiped at the tear and stared across the street at the patrol cars parked at the veterinary hospital. The chaplain’s SUV was among them now. The reason she’d almost canceled on Seth Donovan was because she was afraid she’d be tempted to revisit the questions that refused to stop replaying in her head, even after two years. Taylor didn’t want to press that good man for answers he didn’t have, draw him into her . . . obsession? Had it become that?

On the night Greg was killed, he’d told Taylor he was going to help a buddy install a home theater system. In Roseville. Why would she question that? Trust was at the very core of their relationship. But the rural road where he was struck by that car was several miles south of Elk Grove
 
—not even in the same county as Roseville. In the painful aftermath, Taylor had endured raw, guilt-ridden condolences from the family Greg had stopped to help that night
 
—as well as the retired teacher who’d accidentally run him down. She’d struggled to accept it all. But no one ever explained what put Greg in that place at that moment in time. Somewhere he wasn’t expected to be. She’d asked and asked
 
—expressed her concern to Seth, too
 
—trying to understand even one small part of her husband’s horrific and senseless death. But no one had an answer. Or a new home entertainment system.

“It’s done.” Fletcher rolled his sleeve down over the cotton ball the lab tech had taped to his forearm. “We’re good to go. Though they said it could be a couple of weeks before we get the official results from the HLA testing.”

“There’s no certainty of a match.” Charly held his gaze as she smoothed the hospital blanket across her hips. “Even with a parent or sibling, it’s only a one in four chance of being a marrow donor, at best.” She watched as he settled onto the visitor’s chair, close enough to take hold of her hand. There was a small, uncharacteristic quaver in her voice. “You shouldn’t count on it, Fletcher.”

“We don’t even know if you’ll need a transplant,” he
reminded her, reassuring himself that the tiny red spot
 
—“a superficial hemorrhage”
 
—marring the white of his mother’s eye hadn’t grown larger. It was a common occurrence, the nurse told him, though he’d found no comfort in that. “I only did this because the doc said it’s advisable to have family members tested to stay ahead of the game. There’s no evidence you haven’t responded to the chemo. And even if that changes, they sometimes start off with a transplant of a patient’s own stem cells.”

She gave his fingers a squeeze. “Someone’s been studying.”

“I’ve been doing some reading.” He couldn’t let her see how much it disturbed him, every word and each statistic. But the bleeding had responded well to the packing and cautery. His mother’s anemia wasn’t critical. She’d been given a transfusion of platelets
 
—cells that helped blood to clot. And there had been no new bleeding. She was being discharged home in the morning. All of that was encouraging. “You know me. Got to stay on top of things.”

“Yes. I know you, Son. And how hard you try to fix things. I don’t want you to pin your hopes on being a match.” She wiped an eye, tossed him one of her teasing smiles. “We should leave a few things on that to-do list for God. It’s his job, after all.”

“Right,” he told her, knowing with certainty that his prayer would be answered this time. If his mother needed a transplant, it would come from her son. He hadn’t been able to save his sister’s life or fix his mother’s heartbreak all those years ago. But this time things would go the right way.

Fletcher’s cell phone buzzed. He slipped his hand away from hers, read the text. And frowned.

“Something wrong?”

“Good and bad.” He slid the phone back into his pocket. “They recovered the bullet from that grammar school. Passed right through the dog and lodged in a fence post.”

“And Titus? Wasn’t he having another surgery today?”

Fletcher wanted to lie, spare her . . . “He had to be put down.”