AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was weird, but he’d been in the shadows so long that coming back to reality was unnerving, almost frightening. He knew they hadn’t caught the man who shot him, which was horrifying. Charlie hadn’t voiced his fears, but they were real. Since he had no idea why he’d been shot, in his mind, he was afraid the man would come back and finish the job.
The elevator jerked once as it stopped, and once again, his eyes flew open. He didn’t know any of the people around him and wouldn’t feel safe until he saw his parents’ faces again. Then they were rolling him offthe elevator and down the hall. When he finally saw his mom and dad standing in the hall outside a room, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Mom,” he said, and reached for her hand as they rolled him past.
“We’re right here, honey. We’ll be right in as soon as they get you settled, okay?”
“Dad, too?” he asked.
“Dad, too,” Ray said.
“Okay,” Charlie said, but when they pushed him through the doorway, he lost sight of them again.
Transferring him from the bed they’d brought him in on to the one in his room was painful. Moving hurt. It made him dizzy, and there were tears in his eyes by the time they had him settled in bed and hooked back up to all the machines again.
He closed his eyes to make the room stop spinning, and when he opened them again, his mother was on one side of his bed and his dad on the other.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered.
“We won’t, darling,” Betty said.
Charlie sighed as his eyelids closed over his eyes once more. “He might come back.”
Ray frowned. “Who, Charlie? Who might come back?”
“Man who shot me. I didn’t die. He might come back,” and then he was asleep.
Betty looked across the bed at Ray in horror.
“Oh, Ray!” she whispered, then started to cry.
Ray wasn’t shedding tears, and the rage on his face was real.
“I don’t know who the son of a bitch is who did this to our boy, but he better be running far and fast. If I ever get my hands on him, it won’t be pretty.”
Aaron Pope was on patrol when he got a call to return to base, so he headed back to the precinct to see what was going on.
As soon as he arrived, Walter, the desk sergeant, pointed toward the hall.
“Chief wants to see you in his office,” Walter said.
Aaron nodded and headed that way.
The door was ajar. He knocked.
“Come in,” Sonny said, then looked up from his desk as Aaron entered the room. “Thanks for coming. I just got word that Charlie Raines has been moved out of critical care and is in a private room. His doctor says we can talk to him, but not for long, and his parents are there with him, so we’re covered on that account.” Sonny picked up a copy of the composite sketch, slipped it into a folder, and handed it to Aaron. “I started to go do this myself, and thought better of it. I think it will be easier on the boy if he talks to someone he knows. Someone who’s family. Take a recorder when you get his statement. He’s in no shape to come in and give one.”
“Sure thing,” Aaron said.
“Report back to me in person when you’ve finished. I’ll share the info with Woodley at county.”
“Yes, sir,” Aaron said. He took the folder, picked up a recorder in Supply, and left the building.
Aaron was an old hand at being a cop, but he wasn’t a detective, and other than the day they arrested Clyde for murder, he’d never been personally involved with a case until now. He knew what to do, but that wasn’t the point.
This was Charlie, the kid who liked to fish more than anyone he’d ever known—the kid who liked his catfish fried and his hush puppies with jalapeños in them, and had a soft spot for the new litter of kittens up in their barn.
Aaron didn’t know what this had done to Charlie emotionally, but he didn’t want to make it worse. Whatever he had to ask, he had to be careful how he worded it.
