TOMMY
in so many pillows and blankets, I’d hardly need the airbags if they went off. He kept glancing between the road and me as if he were taking a newborn home from the hospital. Well then, why didn’t he just put me in a car seat?
Worried as he was about my health, he looked positively terrible, like he hadn’t slept in a week. He’d been at a funeral last night and another one the day before that. I wasn’t sure he had any business picking me up from the hospital today. He’d lost an officer, Mike Schultz. Bill Gallagher, the chaplain, had died, too. Maybe that was why Wade was worried about me. There’d been a lot of death lately.
A lot of death. And somehow, I was still alive. I wasn’t sure why I’d been the lucky one. If this was luck.
“You comfortable, Tommy?” Wade asked for the third time.
I sighed and turned to gaze at the grass and the trees flying past the passenger-side window. We’d barely gotten on the interstate ten minutes ago.
“I’m fine,” I grumbled. “Quit treating me like I’m made of glass.” I didn’t tell him the half-healed bullet wound in my side ached with every vibration of the car.
Wade narrowed his eyes at me, upset that I’d taken offense to his concern. “You’re a seventy-five-year-old man who took a bullet to the gut. I’m not even sure how you’re alive right now.”
Because I need to be, the answer flashed through my head. And maybe it was true. My son Jason was dead. I’d buried him alone, then waffled on whether or not to tell my mail jumper, Bailey, that she was my granddaughter—a fact I had only just learned. And then some renegade had pulled a gun on me. The reason was as blank to me as any memory of his face. I’d almost died before I had the chance to tell Bailey the truth. I’d dragged my carcass through drifting consciousness and crazy dreams for no other reason than that I needed to tell her. I’d never had the right to keep the truth from her.
I pictured vividly the day I’d finally woken up in the hospital after a thousand crazy dreams, fantasy and horror mixed with reality. And then the light was finally real, and there was Bailey sitting in a chair beside my bed. She smiled, as thrilled as the day she’d become a mail jumper. She smiled as if she were happy to see me. As if she were relieved. And then I finally—finally—told her the secret only I knew.
And I hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
Not one word.
I still had no idea what she thought of having me as a grandfather. Maybe she recognized a flunky when she saw one. I hadn’t done that great with her dad…
Wade broke into my thoughts. “Lindsey and Jon wanted to be at the house to greet you, but I told them we should wait. The kids can be pretty active, and I figured the drive might wear you out.”
“Hm,” was all I said. If I had my way, Wade would drop me off at my own house instead of holding me captive at his place for the foreseeable future. But the doctor had backed him one hundred percent, and not just so Nancy and Wade could assist with my recovery. Whoever had put a bullet in me, he was still on the loose. My own home was the last place I should be. The fact I was going to Wade’s house instead was known to only a select few, and I was under strict orders not to share that info.
I struggled to admit it was better this way.
“The grill-off is next Sunday,” he rambled on. “You’ll see everyone then. I have to defend my title against Jon. Lindsey had no business marrying a man who can grill a tenderloin as good as he can. The competition’s stiff, but I still have the best steak for two years running. Oh, and the kids are at summer camp this week. Brace yourself; you’ll be required to be amazed at a literal mountain of badges and crafts, all at the same time.”
I sighed, anger simmering. Above all, this was why I didn’t want to stay at Wade’s. I didn’t need to be constantly reminded that his life had turned out better than mine. That he still had a wife and children. That his son had a sparkling career in the Air Force. That his daughter was a beloved teacher and was happily married to a hard-working welder. That Wade had a pair of beautiful, vivacious grandchildren and a third on the way. That they were all happy and healthy.
My wife was dead. My son was a fugitive, and he had been murdered. His girlfriend, whom I thankfully never met, had been a drug addict who died of an overdose. And my granddaughter—the one I didn’t even know I had until now—was stuck in foster care with a man who sent her to work with bruises on her face and arms.
I closed my eyes. What had she said when I told her? What did she think? Why couldn’t I remember her reaction? I’d spent my remaining weeks in the hospital wracking my brain for the memory, but it was gone. My mind had chosen random information to delete. Like anything that could help Wade identify the person who had shot me.
Maybe Bailey hadn’t answered at all. Or maybe I already had her reply: Three weeks of silence. Complete and total silence.
I leaned deeper into Wade’s pillows and sighed, but shallowly so as not to trigger the pain in my side. The fact that Bailey had a grandfather didn’t necessarily mean she needed one.
It didn’t mean she even wanted one.