AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I remember,” he said.
“No one was in reception when I entered, so I pushed through into the inner offices, but his body was in the way. I didn’t know what it was, so I just kept pushing and it gave way and then—” She drew a breath. “I saw him and I just . . . panicked a bit. I leaned over him. I didn’t know if he was breathing. Then I called nine-one-one.”
She’d already said as much, and now she was repeating herself.
Quin walked into the hallway from Emergency. Spying McCrae and Delta, he lifted his chin. McCrae looked at Delta. “I’ll talk to Quin, and maybe we can send you home for tonight.”
“That would be great.”
Delta wasn’t sure if she should follow after him as he met up with the older man, but she stayed seated. She didn’t want to engage with Quin. He was a decent guy, a fair man, and a loving family man. But he was no fan of Tanner’s. Tanner may have been beloved by most, but that was not the case for the Quintars.
She thought about Bailey, who’d been certain Tanner was somehow responsible for Carmen’s death.
McCrae came back her way. “Quin agreed that it’s fine to let you go home. You need a ride.”
“I can take an Uber. My car’s fine at the clinic for tonight.”
“Sure? I can drop you.”
She shook her head. McCrae was being nice to her, but she suspected it was part of his job, and she really didn’t want to be stuck in a car with him. What he really thought of her she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she wanted to get home to Owen.
He nodded his agreement, and when she walked out into the rain, she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath.
Half an hour later, she was relieving her mother, who tasked her with questions she couldn’t answer. She felt completely wiped out, especially when Mom asked worriedly, “Did you tell them you and Tanner were splitting up?”
“Well, it’s . . . nothing’s been decided.”
The lines of worry between her mother’s eyes were deep, and Delta’s answer didn’t dispel them.
“Have you talked to Dad?” Delta asked.
“He’s doing fine.”
“Sorry I had to keep you so late.”
“I just want everything to be okay.”
If only it could be.
Delta rallied the last of her strength and helped usher her mother out to her car. “You okay to drive home?” she asked, head ducked against the rain outside the car parked in front of her house.
Mom waved a hand behind the driver’s window. “You need a coat!”
Delta nodded. Too late for that now. Her mother rarely drove at night, and this was hours past the time she’d expected Delta to return. She held up a hand of good-bye in return and watched her mother’s taillights disappear down the road.
Some July, she thought, running a hand over her rain-dampened hair.
She could hear the croaking of a bullfrog in the pond at the bottom of the waterfall on the side of the house. It all seemed so . . . normal. Meanwhile her husband was fighting for his life. Her cheating SOB of a husband—the man she’d loved more than life itself, the asshole she’d been planning to divorce—was fighting for his life in a hospital ER.
McCrae had said that they, the police, would be in touch and hinted at the fact that she might be required to come to the station for more interviews.
She went inside and locked the door, shook the rain off herself in the downstairs bath, then checked all the other doors to make sure her mother had secured them all. Then she headed upstairs to the room halfway down the hall and looked in on her son. Seeing his sweet face relaxed in sleep in the illumination from the night-light, one arm wrapped around a Lego truck, the other around his much-loved fleecy bear, Delta headed inside the room. The truck was almost out of his grasp, slipping down the edge of the comforter, so Delta gently took it from him and placed it on the shelf above his headboard, part of a “track” that ran all the way around his room. She kissed him lightly on the forehead, then walked back into the hall, allowing herself one last look. She would do anything for Owen. He was the purpose she’d missed until his birth. The career-driven plow through life that had propelled Amanda and Ellie and Bailey had totally missed her. She’d found it in being Owen’s mom.
Downstairs in the kitchen, she walked through the unlit room to the butcher-block knife caddy with its array of carving knife, bread knife, paring knife, and utility knife fronted by its neat row of steak knives. Even in the semi-darkness, it was clear one slot was empty.
Delta picked up the entire block and carried it to her master closet. She pressed a button, and the automatic attic ladder in the ceiling hummed downward, unfolding slowly. Carefully, she climbed the ladder, balancing the knife block. She switched on the light as she straightened into the attic. Tomorrow she would go to Bed Bath and Beyond and buy a new set. Something similar, but not the same.
If Tanner recovered . . . She stopped herself. When Tanner recovered, he would know what she’d done when the knife didn’t match, but it wouldn’t matter because he would be able to identify his attacker. In the meantime, she wanted the police to stop looking at her and get on the right track and find whoever stabbed him.
