The two uniformed officers had their backs to her when she entered the hospital room, but Olivia could tell right away from the look on Jake’s face that something wasn’t right.
When he looked up and saw her standing in the door, he adjusted his expression. “Oh. This is my fiancée, Olivia Cossette.”
The officers turned. The older one, with soft features and graying hair, smiled empathetically. “I’m Sergeant Baylor, and this is my deputy, Officer Cripky.” Cripky looked her up and down a moment too long.
“We’re trying to gather some information about the accident,” the older officer explained, as if her arrival commanded explanation.
“Should I go?” she asked. Though she did not want to. Something about Jake’s demeanor warned her not to. Her interest went beyond curiosity, even beyond a mother’s need to know. Something about the accident still didn’t seem right.
“That’s up to your fiancé,” Cripky said. He was attractive and direct, but there was a cockiness to his bearing that Olivia didn’t trust.
She looked to Jake, trying to gauge his expression. “She can stay,” he said, finally, fidgeting with the edge of his hospital blanket.
Olivia took a seat by the window, trying to make herself obscure. While this was likely all a formality, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Jake looked positively irritated.
Sergeant Baylor continued his line of questioning. “So, from what you’re saying, you were driving the boat along the shore just before the accident. Can you estimate the depth of water, or the distance from the dock?”
Jake’s brow furrowed. “I’d say we were one hundred feet off-shore. Maybe a little more.”
“Do you make it a practice of hugging the shoreline, or was there a reason you were close?”
“No, but there were a number of boats out on the water that day, some waterskiing. Since we were just going for a little sightseeing, I figured we’d get out of the way of traffic.”
Officer Baylor flipped through some notes he had on a pad. “It says here that it was estimated you were traveling at high speed upon impact. Would you say that was the speed you maintained along the shore, or did you suddenly increase speed for some reason?”
Jake shook his head. “High speed? I honestly don’t remember how fast we were going, but I never travel at a high rate of speed along the shore. It can be rocky with shallow pockets.” He looked to Olivia. “I had the girls with me.”
Cripky cleared his throat. “Do you know what the speed limits are on Candlewood?”
“Forty-five miles per hour,” Jake replied. “But there’s no way we were going that fast.”
“Twenty-five at night, sir,” Cripky added.
Jake narrowed his eyes. “It was daytime.”
“About how fast would you say you were traveling?” the sergeant asked.
Olivia leaned forward. Every time she and Jake discussed the accident, he got flustered. But he’d sworn up and down that they’d been traveling at a slow clip. That he couldn’t account for the sudden increase before the boat hit the dock.
“I don’t know exactly, but no more than twenty-five.”
“Do you have any idea what speed witnesses estimated you were traveling at just before the point of impact?”
Jake regarded the sergeant with sad eyes. “No.”
Sergeant Baylor flipped again to a different page of his notebook. Olivia had full view of his notes from where she sat, but she was too far away to make any of them out. “One eyewitness account guesses you were going at about fifty miles an hour.”
Jake looked at him. “Guesses.”
“Another guessed sixty-five.”
“There’s no way,” Jake snapped.
Olivia watched him pick at the blanket. She couldn’t blame him for being nervous, after all that had happened. But she knew Jake: this wasn’t nervousness.
“Mr. Goodwin, no one is trying to place blame. At this stage, we’re trying to understand what happened. We have three people in the hospital, and a privately owned dock that’s been ripped in half. Insurance will be asking the same questions.”
Jake didn’t look up. “And I’ll tell them the same thing.”
