From behind an ornately carved altar, between two huge, still-standing brass candlesticks atop it, Skylar watched Danny hurdle the pews. The bulldog was back.
She had stopped trying to keep up with him moments before. It was the startling sight of a cop shouting at Jenna that froze her in her tracks.
Did Jenna know something? Did the police know something? Did they know Fin Harrod was there? Did they know that Skylar knew the bomber—
No! That was crazy. Nobody knew anything, including herself.
She held on to the table, wrinkling its linen cloth between her fingers. She inhaled deeply, fighting down a wave of panic.
The scene before her added up to nothing except that all of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Happenstance, that was the word. Pure happenstance.
Now the cop was screaming at Danny. What was going on?
Skylar focused on Jenna. She was speaking and moving, but her forearm was swaddled in some gauzy stuff. A paramedic was holding her good wrist.
Skylar felt ill again, nearly sick to her stomach. What was a Beaumont doing at that place, at that time? God, that’s not fair. That is so not fair!
Her mind in overdrive registered somewhere the odd fact that she was in church, talking to God.
And wanting to throw up.
The church was nearly empty. Some people were still in the same area where Jenna was, where the most damage had occurred. It was an enormous, old-fashioned church. The gaping holes where windows had been were larger than average.
Most of the people appeared in shock. Many had white bandages stuck to some body part. Medics and firefighters were gathered around them.
Was it a good sign that Jenna had been relegated to the end of the line? Did that mean her injuries were the least in terms of needing urgent attention?
The medic and Danny helped Jenna to her feet. She slid right back down.
Why didn’t they get a stretcher for her?
Danny whisked his sister up in his arms and followed the medic down the aisle, the cop dogging his heels.
Sirens wailed anew. Skylar hadn’t realized the relative quiet until now. Ambulances would be transporting the injured. A good sign. The dead didn’t need sirens, right?
Would one wait for Jenna? Danny didn’t have a car there. Skylar had Claire’s car. Should she go get it?
Skylar sank to her knees. Too many questions swirled in her head, making it too heavy to hold upright. She rested her forehead against the back side of the altar.
“Oh, God. Take care of her. Take care of them all.”
Now she was talking out loud to Him?
Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes.
She was in a sacred space. At least that was what the Sunday school teachers had told her long ago. The bema was for holy things, they said, for the bread and wine and water. It was for those who taught from the Word. It was where Christ lingered, where His broken body lay and His blood poured out. An atonement . . .
Was it true? Could it be true? How could it be true? She was look ing at polished wood and red carpet placed by human hands at one end of a room in a building.
Exhaustion coursed through her. She was so tired of fighting, so tired of the struggle. But if she let go, if she put down her guard . . . then what?
Lost in her thoughts, she felt a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. It grew stronger, increasing to a gentle but urgent pressure, nudging her downward.
Unable to resist, Skylar moved with it, folding, collapsing, bowing low, and still lower, until her face lay against the carpet.
And she wept.
Eventually Skylar’s tears stopped. She rose unsteadily to her feet behind the altar and stretched the cramps from her legs. Wiping her sleeve across her eyes, she glanced across the church. A few people still straggled at the main entrance. Police and firefighters inspected the holes in the wall.
She slipped quietly through a side door and down a hall that led to the exterior door she and Danny had used.
Outside she walked around the church. Order appeared to have been restored. Police guarded the front entrance. Firefighters were climbing into trucks. She wished she could find Rosie. She even almost wished she had a cell phone.
There was no question in her mind but that the thing to do was to find Jenna and be with the Beaumonts.
Skylar went to the nearest emergency person, a female cop, and asked her where the injured had been taken. The woman told her the name of a hospital and patiently gave her directions on how to get there as well as to the parking garage.
Huddles of people grouped here and there along the blocks she walked. There was the eerie feel of disaster all over the place, that weird sense of camaraderie that enveloped strangers after a tragedy struck.
Skylar hurried past them. Whatever had happened behind the altar was weird enough for her to handle. She wasn’t up for listening to wild rumors that must be flying between those hanging around.
“Hey, Annie Wells!”
She slowed and turned toward the voice.
Why did she slow? Why did she turn?
It was him. Fin Harrod. Six feet between them.
She felt her eyes bulge, her lips part, her throat close up, her heart boom. At least her sunglasses hid the most obvious reaction.
She turned back around and picked up her pace, like someone who’d figured out the “hey” wasn’t intended for her.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” he said.
She looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said, lilting a British twist to the word.
He laughed.
He knew.
And he knew that she knew he knew.
Keeping up the charade, she continued down the sidewalk, dipping slightly to add a swing to her stride. Before she reached the corner, she checked both ways for traffic. The light was against her, but the street was clear. She went straight across it, not turning where the policewoman said she should.
Resisting the urge to see if he followed, she walked another block, grateful for more clumps of people to wind through. At the next corner she turned right. There was a chain coffee store ahead. Centered between office buildings, it was the only place she might conceivably enter.
She’d be stuck.
She continued, almost jogging now. Holding firmly to the mental map she’d drawn of how to find the garage that held Claire’s car, she began a circuitous route. She went forwards, sideways, and back again. After a time she started checking over her shoulder every so often. No one followed.
Skylar ran and ran and ran.