Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Drugs? No. He’s a professional athlete.” I immediately thought of illegal drugs—heroin, cocaine, the type of stuff addicts used. But then it hit me that not all drugs that impaired a person’s ability to drive needed to be bought on the street. Some people went to a pharmacist to feed their addiction.
I covered my mouth and stood. “I need a bathroom. I’m going to be sick.”
The detective yelled for a nurse, and the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a sink and someone shoved a pink, kidney-shaped plastic bowl into my hands. The woman was kind enough to hold my hair back while I emptied the contents of my stomach. After, I splashed water on my face, and she walked me back to the glass enclosure. The police were no longer there. Instead, they were on the other side of the nurses’ station, along with Dr. Bruner. The three of them ushered a bearded man into an identical glass pod, and the doctor slid the door closed. He looked up and our eyes caught for a moment from across the room, before he turned to face the man.
The nurse who had helped me in the bathroom stood in the doorway of the treatment room. “I have to go check on a patient,” she said. “Are you going to be okay?”
I motioned to where Dr. Bruner stood. “Is that the family of the other people who were in the accident?”
The nurse’s face fell. “The little girl was only five.”
Tears streamed down my face for the first time. It was awful to watch, yet I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
The doctor motioned to a seat.
The man shook his head.
A now-familiar scene that had probably happened a thousand times here.
A regular occurrence.
Normal, even.
But not to us. Not to the families destroyed.
Detective Green shook the man’s hand.
Dr. Bruner rested a hand on the man’s shoulder and bowed his head while he spoke.
The man’s eyes widened in horror.
He collapsed, falling to his knees.
Sobbing.
Shaking.
A loud wail echoed through the glass.
Shattering the man.
And shattering me.
CHAPTER 11 Then
The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.”
I stared at the priest, hanging on to the words of Psalm 116, even though he’d moved on to swinging a chain with an ornate censer around the casket, blessing it with incense.
The Lord is gracious and righteous? The little girl was only five years old.
Full of compassion? For whom, exactly? For my husband? Who doesn’t deserve it?
I should’ve fought Connor’s mother harder to not have this big funeral service. It was disrespectful to the family he’d devastated. I wasn’t even sure why so many people showed up—teammates, coaches, friends, family—after the news broke last night with the final toxicology reports. My husband had been driving under the influence. I figured his friends would scatter like ants to footsteps, but no such luck. The church was full. Every last row, and some standing.
I just wanted to be alone.
To cry.
To scream.
To bounce back and forth between hating you for what you’d done and hating myself for not finding a way to stop you.
I knew you were in a bad place.
I knew.
This happened on my watch.
The mass finally ended. The graveside ceremony that followed was a blur. More crying. More useless words from a priest about how great God is. After it was over, the best I could do was put one foot in front of the other and walk to one of the waiting limousines. My brother, Jake, followed me.
He spoke to the driver standing outside the car as I climbed in. “Do me a favor? There’s enough room in the other two cars to fit everyone else. Stand in front of this door and tell people the car is full. My sister needs a break.” He extended his hand, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was a bill tucked into his palm. That was my brother—tip big and make it happen. He’d inherited the move from our father. Our father. Thinking of him made my heart heavy. It was the first time in my life I was glad both my parents were gone. They didn’t have to be publicly disgraced by what my husband had done. What I could’ve stopped.
Jake climbed inside the car and pulled the door closed behind him.
He unbuttoned his suit jacket as he took the seat across from me. “You looked like you were about done.”
I smiled sadly. “I was done before I left the house this morning.”
“I sat in that church today trying to think of something to say to you to make you feel better, but the only thing I could think of was that Aunt Francine looked really surprised to see me.”
“Why would she be surprised to see you?”
Jake used his fingers to pull both his eyebrows into Spock-like arches. “What the fuck did she do to her face?”