Where Angels Tread (21 page)

Shane peered around the room; many of his fellow officers sat with their eyes closed tightly, as though trying desperately to ward off the terrible news. Rumors had been swirling since he stepped into the station that night, which was filled with a frantic energy that Shane had never before experienced. He had known then that the worst had happened; one of his comrades was dead.

He had searched the sea of familiar faces for Buddy, who had been on patrol duty that night. When Shane finally spotted the top of his blond head, illuminated under the harsh light of the police station, he had rushed over and thrown his arms around his friend. “Who was it?” he asked anxiously, doing his best to suppress the wave of vomit that was forcing its way up his throat.

Buddy bowed his head, tightening his grip on Shane’s shoulders. “Kelly,” he whispered, his hands trembling with rage. “That bastard shot her in cold blood while she was parked on the side of the road, talking on her cell phone.”

“No,” Shane had whispered, sinking to his knees. He hadn’t known Kelly for very long; she had only joined the force nine months ago, but her sunny smile and pleasant disposition had made her very popular among the officers. She was also a young wife and mother, constantly showing off pictures of her one year old daughter. She delighted in dressing the baby up in frilly outfits, which caused the other officers to tease her good-naturedly.

Now, sitting in the conference room and listening to Palen paying tribute to their fallen officer, Shane’s knees began trembling uncontrollably as he imagined what it would be like for Kelly’s daughter, growing up without a mother to guide her. Thoughts that he had worked so hard to suppress for the last three years came hurtling back to him as he pictured the girl’s first ballet recital, shopping for prom dresses without her mother, and walking down the aisle at her wedding, careful not to look at the empty seat next to her father’s.

Ignoring the stares of the other officers, Shane pushed back his chair, and covering his mouth with his hand, rushed out of the room and through the doors to the station. He dropped to his knees outside and vomited onto the ground, then rocked back and forth on his heels, the tears that he had refused to shed for so long pouring out of him like rain.

He cried not just for Kelly, who would never kiss her husband again or see her daughter grow up, but for the man he, Shane, had killed. He may not know the man’s name, or what he did for a living, or his hopes and dreams for the future. But on that dreadful night, as Shane rushed toward the other car to try and save the man dangling lifelessly out of the window, Shane saw one thing that he had tried his hardest to suppress. Sitting in the backseat of the car was a little boy who bore witness to his father’s horrific death. Shane, unable to come to terms with what he had done, forced himself to bury the sounds and images from that awful night. But now, as he pictured Kelly’s daughter, the memories began flooding back to him, clearer than ever before.

*

“Can you believe that guy?” Buddy crowed, punching Shane playfully on the arm. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my day, but a half-naked man running through Hattner’s Vineyards stealing grapes has got to be one for the books. Wait 'til we tell the other guys about that one.”

Shane unlocked the doors to the cruiser, still shaking his head and chuckling. It had been an interesting night all right, he thought. Two burglaries, a domestic dispute, a fire in the back country, and that was all before the frantic phone call came in from the aged owner of Hattner’s Vineyards, one of the oldest and most distinguished wineries in all of the Santa Ynez Valley. The owner had been beside himself with anxiety when he phoned in to the station to report a man running mostly naked through the acres and acres of grapevines. Shane and Buddy had taken the call, and after a quick search found the man sitting cross-legged among the brambles wearing nothing but a pair of tattered boxers, his face stained red with the juice from the handful of grapes he had managed to gobble up. Hattner had declined to press charges on the man as long as he promised to never trespass on the property again, and so Shane and Buddy had let him off with a stern warning.

The vineyards were on the far end of town, and the prospect of driving all the way back to the station was daunting. Shane had been sick all day with a nasty cold, and he tossed and turned for most of the night before starting on a double shift. He thought wistfully of the warm bed waiting for him at home. He glanced over at Buddy, who was leaning his head against the passenger seat with his eyes closed. Shane stifled a yawn and rubbed his bleary eyes. He knew that he was taking a risk by driving, but Buddy and Maribel were dealing with a colicky baby, and Shane knew from Buddy’s frequent complaints that they hadn’t slept through the night in months. There was no way he could ask Buddy to drive, not at this late hour.

Shane steered the car onto the winding country roads, fiddling with the volume of the radio while Buddy snored lightly beside him. Shane counted the mile markers as they drove by; the road stretching ahead seemed endless. He felt his eyes beginning to close, so he blasted the air conditioner on high, shivering as the shock of cold air hit his skin.

Rain began to fall, lightly at first and then more heavily, coming down in torrents and bursts. Shane leaned forward and squinted through the fog beginning to form on his windshield. Damn it, he thought. He normally loved listening to the patter of the rain against the dusty roads, but tonight he was already fighting his own exhaustion.

Soon the rain settled into a steady rhythm, providing a lulling backdrop to the sound of his tires on the road. Shane’s eyes felt heavy; he began to wonder if he should pull over for a while and explain to Buddy that he wasn’t able to make it back safely. As the car rumbled past a small farmer’s market, now closed for the night, Shane realized that they were only a few miles from the station. He could make it.

He could make it.

The next thing he remembered was the flash of headlights coming toward the cruiser, the sound of the other car’s tires squealing as it tried to avoid hitting Shane. He tried to veer right, but he was too late; his tires skidded on the rain-soaked roads and careened directly into the other car, hitting it head on and causing it to spiral into the metal guardrail. Buddy’s yells filled the air as the cruiser rolled over and came to a stop upside down, pinning both men inside.

Shane unbuckled his seatbelt and squeezed his way through a hole in the twisted wreckage of his car, ignoring the blinding pain in his head, which had slammed off of the steering wheel upon impact. He gasped for air as his hands hit the pavement; at that moment, the sky burst open, sending sheets of rain onto his head. He shook the water from his eyes and stumbled over to the other car, his heart frozen with fear. As he approached it, he saw a man hanging lifelessly from the window, his body dragging on the ground, his head lolling strangely on his shoulders. From inside the car he heard the heart-wrenching screams of a woman, and watched helplessly as she clawed desperately at the body.

“John! John! Wake up! Oh my God, John!”

From the backseat of the car came the cries of a young boy, no more than seven or eight, his eyes wide and terrified. The woman, her long hair matted down against her head with a sickening combination of blood and rain, forced her way out of the car and scrambled to his side. “Zachary, are you hurt? No, don’t try to get out. Stay where you are.”

“Where’s Daddy?” the little boy screamed. “I want Daddy.”

Before Shane could take another step, he blacked out, his ears still ringing with the sounds of the little boy’s agony as he wailed louder and louder into the night. His life, thanks to Shane, forever changed.

*

Shane lay sprawled across the sidewalk, ignoring the tears still streaming down his cheeks. He thought of Heidi, how his whole body came alive when he pressed his lips against hers, how the sound of her laughter filled his soul with the type of happiness that he had never before known. And Zachary, who had been spiraling out of control before he met Shane, lost in a cycle of grief that had left the little boy drowning and gasping for air.

He loved them both, more than he ever thought was possible. They rekindled in Shane a light that he thought had been lost forever. And what had he done in return? Before tonight, he had hoped that his presence in their lives had done something to ease the sorrow of losing a husband and a father. He wanted, someday, for the three of them to become a family.

Had he known, on some level, that it had been them all along? Perhaps the reason why he had been so drawn to Zachary in the first place was because a part of Shane knew that he was the reason the troubled boy was about to enter his pre-teen years without the strong guidance of a father’s hand.

And Heidi, his Heidi. Shane had confided to Jaime the other night that he planned to ask for her hand in marriage. So what if they had only known each other for a short time? Shane knew better than most how brief life could be, and he was certain that he wanted to spend whatever time he had left on this sweet earth with her beside him.

Now, it could never be.

There was, Shane knew, a possibility that he was wrong. Perhaps in the stress and turmoil of the past few hours he was simply imagining that Heidi was the one who had emerged from that mangled car, her auburn hair streaming like rain down her face. Could he be sure, over the pounding of the storm, that it was John’s name she had screamed into the night? Shane had been in shock, mere seconds away from passing out from the pain that was searing through his own body.

When he awoke the next day in the intensive care unit, his family gathered around his hospital bed, his strong, silent father had been the one to break the awful news to him. The man in the other car was dead. And it had been Shane’s fault. Even though no one said it, Shane knew from the way they turned away, unable to witness his grief.

From that day on, Shane would live a half-life, suppressing every image and sound from the accident that threatened to disrupt the shaky wall he had built around himself for protection, immunity from the pain. Until he met Heidi, that is, and his life once more regained its purpose.

Shane knew that the answer lay hidden in a file mere steps away from where he was now sitting, his head in his hands, his body quaking uncontrollably. If he wanted to, he could march inside the station right now and finally, once and for all, learn the name of the man whose life he had unwittingly stolen.

His world, Shane knew, was about to come crashing down around him, and this time, he would probably never be able to pick up the pieces. But first, he needed to pretend that everything was okay. Just for one more night.

Heidi almost didn’t hear the quiet knocking at her door at first. The empty ice cream carton lay strewn at her feet as she gazed open-mouthed at the television set, where the somber newscaster was now flashing pictures of Officer Kelly Rookwell across the screen. “An unimaginable tragedy,” he was saying, “that will surely continue to rock the Santa Ynez Valley for years to come.”

Holding a tissue to her eyes to stem the flow of tears, Heidi glanced at her phone. She hadn’t heard from Shane yet that night, and it was close to midnight. Her pulse quickened as she thought of him slinking through the dark, winding roads that snaked through the hills outside town, his hand clenched around the handle of his gun, waiting to be ambushed at any minute.

The tapping at the door, quiet at first, turned into a steady pounding. Her heart hammering in her chest, Heidi leapt up from the chair and pressed her eye against the peephole. When she saw who it was, she left out a soft gasp and yanked open the door. “Shane! What are you doing here?”

He looked awful, like someone who was carrying all the misery in the world on his back. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, his cheeks were ruddy and tear-stained, and his shoulders slumped pitifully. “Heidi,” he whispered, reaching out to touch the ends of her hair.

“I heard what happened,” she said, swallowing hard. “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head roughly back and forth. Fixing his eyes on hers, he opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. He took a step forward, and without warning, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to his chest. Reaching down, his trembling mouth found hers, and he was kissing her like he had never kissed her before. Every nerve in her body was on fire as he teased his tongue along hers, and she melted against him, her legs weak beneath her.

He trailed his lips over her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, leaving hot moisture wherever his mouth touched. While he kissed her, he moaned her name softly again and again. Still pressed together, they stumbled inside and Heidi kicked the door closed behind them. With one fluid motion, he lifted her into his arms, burying his face between her breasts. She wrapped her legs around his waist and lifted her shirt over her head and unhooked her bra, letting it fall to the floor. She guided his strong hands toward her nipples, gasping at the jolt of pleasure that ran through her body when he grazed his fingers over them. She grabbed the back of his hair with clenched hands and held on tight.

He carried her into the bedroom, their hot mouths still desperately seeking each other, and laid her gently on the covers. Climbing onto the bed beside her, he kneeled before her and played his tongue along her breasts, her stomach, and beneath the waistband of her jeans as she moaned with pleasure. She lifted her hips slightly, and he slid off her pants, stroking her legs lightly up and down. He stopped then and stared at her body, lying naked beneath him. “I’ve waited so long for this,” he whispered, stroking her skin lightly with his fingers. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

Locking her eyes on his, Heidi reached up and began undoing the buttons on his shirt, stopping after each one to softly caress the muscles of his chest, which was hot beneath her touch. As she watched through hazy eyes, he stood up, unbuttoned his pants, and slid them down past his waist. He reached out his hands for her and pulled her to her feet. She stood beside him, enjoying the heady sensation of their bodies pressed against each other.