Where Angels Tread (17 page)

Heidi chewed her lip. “That doesn’t sound like him, especially lately. I’ve never known him to turn down sweets. I better go check on him. Thanks for staying here, Josie. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Josie opened the front door and stepped outside, wrapping her arms around her body to guard against the chill. “See you at work.” She turned and disappeared into the night.

Heidi closed the door behind her and paced around the living room for a few moments, debating whether or not to check on Zachary now or wait until morning. She regretted not telling him about her date with Shane sooner; the last thing she wanted was for her son not to trust her.

She tiptoed to his bedroom door and pressed her ear against it, but was greeted by nothing but silence. “Zachary?” Heidi rapped lightly on the door with her knuckles. “Are you awake, sweetheart?” She turned the knob quietly and pushed open the door an inch, then squinted into the dark room. Panic filled her heart when she saw that her son’s bed was empty.

“I’m over here,” a small voice called.

Heidi whipped her head around and gave an audible sigh of relief. Zachary was sitting in a dark corner of the room, curled up in the squashy beanbag chair Heidi had given him on his last birthday. She flipped on the lights, then perched on the edge of his bed; Zachary slumped further in his chair and purposely avoided her gaze.

“Talk to me, Zachary,” she whispered. He turned his head toward the wall and curled up into a ball in his chair. Heidi took a few tentative steps across the room, then kneeled down in front of him and stroked the back of his silky hair with her hand. “No one is ever going to replace your father. Not Shane, not anyone else.”

A silent tear trailed down Zachary’s cheek; another wobbled dangerously on the end of his nose. He gave a hearty sniff and wiped them away. Heidi could feel tears forming in her own eyes, but she struggled to control them. She needed to present a strong front to her son, to show him that it was okay that the two of them were beginning to move on with their lives.

She wrapped her arms around her son, who suddenly looked much smaller than his ten years, and drew his head to her chest. They sat there in silence, rocking back and forth together, listening to the sound of the wind outside rustling the leaves on the trees. Heidi could hear the first few droplets of rain pattering against the window, just as they did on the night of the accident. Before long, they would morph into a steady pounding, soaking the ground and stirring up that earthy smell that Heidi used to love so much.

“Why did Daddy have to die?” Zachary turned his head and looked up at her with watery, red-rimmed eyes.

Her son’s question left Heidi gasping for air. “I don’t know. It wasn’t fair.”

“Do you think he would recognize me if he saw me now?”

Heidi stroked Zachary’s cheek, his skin still soft and dewy with youth. “Of course he would. You’re his son, and nothing is going to change that. Nothing.”

Zachary nodded and rested his head against Heidi’s chest once more. They sat like that for a long time, each lost in their own thoughts. Heidi’s chest was weighted down with sorrow, and conflicted thoughts chased each other through her brain. She would do anything to have John back, but the feelings she had for Shane were startlingly real. Was it possible, she wondered, to fall in love with one man while still being in love with another? She knew in her heart that John would want her to remarry, to be happy, and for the first time since the accident Heidi could picture a future where that was possible. Her date with Shane had reawakened in her something that had been dead for the past three years.

Zachary let out a soft sigh and wriggled out of her grasp, then turned and stared at her with bright eyes. “I like Shane,” he whispered, reaching out and clutching her hand. “He’s really nice.”

“He likes you, too,” Heidi said, planting a soft kiss on the little boy’s head. “And I like Shane very much. He’s a good man.” She took a breath, preparing to ask the question that she knew would make or break her budding relationship with Shane; because, above all else, she needed to know that her son would be happy. “Is it okay with you if I continue seeing him?”

Zachary nodded his head against her chest, then was silent for a long while. When he finally spoke, he asked a question that made Heidi laugh out loud. “Do you think he’ll come by and play basketball with me sometimes?”

Tears of happiness filled Heidi’s eyes, and this time she didn’t bother trying to hide them. “I think he’d like that very much.” She stood up and pulled Zachary to his feet, then led him by the hand to his bed. “It’s late,” she whispered, “and time for you to go to sleep.” She reached out and tucked the covers under his chin, then padded to the bathroom and filled a cup with water for him and placed it on his nightstand. “Goodnight, sweet boy,” she said, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he mumbled, turning over and wrapping the covers tighter around him, his eyes already heavy with sleep. As Heidi crossed the room and reached out her hand to switch off the light, she caught sight of John’s photo, which Zachary kept on the bookshelf across from his bed, smiling down on his son while he slept. Watching over him, protecting him. With one last look at John’s face, Heidi switched off the light, closed the door softly, and tiptoed from the room.

“Well?” Cody asked, sidling up to Shane as they stood in front of the television set in their parents’ living room, cheering on Joshua, who was in the middle of pitching a no-hitter against the Diamondbacks. Joshua, the athlete of the family, now spent his days as a pitcher for the New York Mets. With his blond hair and brooding dark eyes that stared down his opponents from the pitcher’s mound, it was no wonder that every time Shane saw his brother there was a new model-gorgeous woman clinging to his arm. Joshua had a reputation as a playboy, but Shane knew that underneath it all, his brother longed to settle down with a woman who would love him for him, and not because he was a star athlete.

Robert let out a whoop after Joshua’s latest strikeout that was so loud it caused Jaime to throw her book in the air in alarm. “That’s my boy!” he yelled, red-faced, into the screen. “Show ‘em what you’re made of.” He pumped his fist in the air victoriously and drained the bottle of beer he had been clenching in his fist. Shane laughed; his father was always a bundle of nerves when he watched his son play. The last time they had been to a game, Robert had screamed himself hoarse, causing the spectators around them to throw him dirty looks that he purposely ignored.

When Robert’s yells died down, Shane turned back to his brother, who had taken a rare afternoon off from the restaurant to join in on the Sunday gathering at their parents’ house. “Well what?”

“How was the end of your date? From what I could see, it looked like the two of you were really enjoying yourselves.” Shane paused before answering, remembering the sweet taste of Heidi’s skin beneath his lips. Cody punched him playfully on the arm. “Wow, you have it bad, don’t you? She’s a beautiful woman, that’s for sure.”

“That’s only part of it,” Shane said, a smile spreading across his face. “She’s smart, hard-working, an amazing mother. Kind, good-hearted. I could go on and on.” He took a sip of the scotch he was nursing. “I can’t believe my good luck in finding someone like her.”

Holly, overhearing their conversation, came up behind Shane and wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist. “As a woman, I can’t tell you what it means to hear you describe her like that. With so much respect.”

“It’s nothing more than she deserves,” Shane said seriously.

“So when do we get to meet her?” Holly looked at Shane eagerly. “I’m dying to know the woman who put the light back in your eyes.”

Shane frowned. “What do you mean by that?” He thought he saw Cody throw a warning glance at their sister, who hesitated. Shane stared back and forth between the two of them. “Come on, you can say whatever it is that you’re thinking.”

Cody opened his mouth to speak, but Holly interrupted him. “You’ve been like a zombie for the past three years, and it’s nice to finally see you happy again. I was worried that you would never come back around. We’ve missed you, Shane.”

Shane studied his glass. “You’re not wrong. I feel like a new man. Did I tell you I’m back on patrol duty?”

Robert swung around at his son’s words. “Palen’s finally letting you back in the car?”

Shane nodded. “I don’t know if you heard about the officer shooting a few days ago, but two of our guys, Nick and Kevin, got hurt pretty badly.”

Holly covered her mouth with her hands. “Did they catch whoever did it?”

“Not yet, but it’s all hands on deck right now. We have to be careful whenever we take a call, obviously, in case whoever this guy is tries to ambush anyone else.”

Michelle chose that moment to walk into the room, carrying a plate of fried mozzarella sticks. The grin slid from her lips as she heard her son’s words, and she pinched her face up anxiously. “I don’t like the sound of this, Shane. What if you get hurt?”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom.” Shane crossed the room and planted a kiss on his mother’s cheek; she reached up a hand to stroke his face, her eyes filled with concern. “That’s why we’re trained to deal with situations like this. Besides, now we’re even more on our guard than ever.”

“Well…okay,” she said, setting the platter of appetizers carefully down on the coffee table. “Just be careful, Shane. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She turned to her husband, whose eyes were fixed on the television set, watching as Joshua faced down the opposing team’s best player. “I just heard from Lacey,” she said, and Shane could sense the excitement in her voice. “She had an audition this week for the lead in a new movie!”

“Come on, Joshua, you can take him…what’s that, honey? Did you say Lacey had an audition?” Robert pulled his eyes away from the game just long enough to listen to his wife describing the role.

“It’s for a lead in a romantic comedy—you know how perfect Lacey would be in a role like that! And some of the most famous actors in Hollywood are up for the lead opposite her, including Carson Moroney!” Shane’s sisters squealed at the sound of Carson’s name, and even Shane, who only barely kept up with the latest news from Hollywood out of respect for Lacey, could understand why. Carson burst onto the scene last year, and since then had graced the covers of every magazine Shane passed in the grocery store. Always shirtless, of course. Shane didn’t know how he would feel if his youngest sister ended up starring alongside a man who Shane assumed was a big-time playboy.

He listened vaguely as his sisters chattered on and on about the finer points of Carson’s physique before draining the last of his scotch and plopping down on the couch beside his father, whose attention was back on the game. Shane squinted to read a local news bulletin that was flashing across the bottom of the screen, then gasped so loudly that the rest of the family turned toward him in alarm.

“What’s going on?” Cody asked, crossing the room to read the bottom of the television. “Oh, no.” He looked at Shane, and Shane could see that his brother was worried. “Do you have to go in?”

“What’s going on?” Michelle asked, fear in her voice. “What does it say?”

“There was another shooting,” Shane said briskly, hopping up off the couch and dashing across the room to grab his coat. “Two more officers down.” Shane could feel his pulse quickening as his mother gasped. Not again, he thought desperately, wracking through his brain to try and remember which of his fellow officers were on duty that day. Buddy, he knew, was safely in San Francisco, visiting Maribel’s family.

“Sorry Mom, I have to go to the station. I’m sure Chief Palen wants to get as many patrol cars out as possible tonight.” He kissed his mother on the cheek, gave his sisters a hug, and shook hands with his father and Cody.

“Be safe, son,” Robert said, grasping Shane’s hand longer than was necessary. Shane nodded curtly and hurried outside to his car. His heart was racing with adrenaline as he steered onto the highway for the short drive to the station. Normally such a safe town, the Santa Ynez police officers regularly joked that they were mostly on parking ticket patrol. Shane could count on two hands the number of times he’d responded to a potentially dangerous dispatch since joining the force ten years ago, and the murder rate was one of lowest in the state. Why, he wondered desperately, did someone have it in for him and the other officers? They put their lives on the line day in and day out to protect their community, and that included the person who was responsible for carrying out these heinous shootings.

As Shane swung his car into the parking lot, he could see that the station was buzzing with activity. Through the front windows, he spotted Chief Palen standing in the middle of a crowd of officers, barking directions. Shane switched off his car and hurried inside. “Kensington!” Palen called. “Glad you’re here. I take it you heard about what happened?”

Shane nodded. “How can I help?”

“We have a description of the shooter this time, thanks to a witness who called in when she heard the shots. A male, appears to be in his early fifties, gray hair and a beard. He’s driving an older model car, green, but she didn’t know the make or model. I want everyone out in their cruisers looking for this guy. He’s armed, and he’s incredibly dangerous.”

“Are the officers who got shot okay?”

“I don’t know yet. There’s no word from the hospital. Apparently they were just sitting in the squad car talking when the guy came up beside them and fired through the window. They weren’t even responding to a call.” Shane could see that the chief, normally stoic in the face of danger, was rattled by the recent chain of events. Palen took it personally when his officers were injured.

Grateful that he kept a spare uniform in his locker, Shane tore off his civilian clothes and emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, pinning his badge to the pocket of his shirt. He wound his way through the crowd of officers who were receiving their orders and jogged outside to his squad car. A few minutes later he was speeding through the winding roads that crisscrossed up and down the hills that surrounded the valley. Shane had a hunch that whoever was responsible for the shootings would hightail it out of the city the first chance he had, and head for one of the many rural areas that could easily hide a killer.