Once a Father. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ Jenny Foster’s findings. She’d been at her job over ten years and knew the system inside and out.

      The system.

      That’s the way that lady doctor had referred to it. The system. He didn’t want the boy to be eaten up by the system, with no one to care for him, no one to make the night terrors go away, the way he had for Bobby when his son had woken up in the middle of the night, screaming and shaking.

      Adam sat down at his small kitchen table, picking up the roast beef sandwich he’d haphazardly thrown together for lunch just before his phone had rung. He bit into it, his mind reviewing the meager facts. The only relative Jenny had come up with was a distant cousin on Meg Anderson’s side. A forty-three-year-old twice-divorced anthropologist who was currently on a dig somewhere in Africa, nobody knew exactly where.

      Maybe he could be persuaded to take the boy, but Adam doubted it. It was a long shot at best and besides, Jake needed someone now. Mayonnaise leeched out of Adam’s sandwich on one side, taking a piece of lettuce with it. It fell on his paper plate with a glop, but he didn’t notice. He was too busy thinking.

      He didn’t like the idea of the boy facing all this alone.

      This was Adam’s downtime. Like any firefighter, he worked two days on, two days off. What he normally did during this time was unwind, put his professional life as far out of his mind as possible. But Jake’s eyes wouldn’t let him. Try though he might, Adam couldn’t seem to separate his thoughts, couldn’t shove them into the neat little cubicles where he always pushed them in. Despite his best efforts, it had happened.

      His professional life had seeped into his private life.

      There was no denying it. The boy he had rescued from the Lone Star Country Club fire had gotten to him.

      He needed to do something to work this out of his system. With no set plan for the day, Adam decided it might be a good idea to pay a visit to the hospital to see how Jake was coming along.

      Maybe if the boy was mending well, he could stop thinking about him so much.

      Stone paced around his office. He was beyond angry. It had been a simple, simple plan. Nothing was supposed to have gone wrong. And yet, everything had. And it threatened to continue to go wrong, bringing down everything around him. It was like when you pull an apple out of the bottom row of neatly arranged fruit—an avalanche resulted.

      He couldn’t have that. Wouldn’t have that.

      Swinging around, he looked at the man who was the latest recipient of his foul mood. Ed Bancroft. The man responsible for leaving the security room door ajar while they were transferring the sacks of money. The sacks were normally retained in the back closet of the security room after the money arrived from Central America, but before the purchase of non-traceable money orders.

      Simple. Yet in jeopardy now.

      He’d had his doubts about bringing Bancroft on. The man was weak enough to be malleable, but he had the one thing that had made many a scheme run afoul: the remnants of a conscience.

      He just had to see to it that he kept Bancroft too intimidated to even think of allowing that conscience to dictate any of his actions.

      “I want to know what that kid saw, understand?”

      Bancroft had been the one to look up and see the boy peeking into the security office just as the green canvas bags were being loaded onto the truck.

      “The bags were closed, Chief. There’s no way anyone could have known what was in them. Besides, I saw the kid before the ambulance took him away. He was in pretty bad shape. He might not make it. And even if he does, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see him.”

      It was the wrong thing to say. Anything beyond “Yes, Chief” would have been. Stone’s eyes reduced to small, malevolent slits.

      “What are you, a complete cretin? We’re talking about some six-year-old kid—”

      “Five,” Bancroft corrected automatically, then instantly regretted it. The chief didn’t like being corrected.

      “Five,” Stone spat out. “You’ve got a badge. That gives you access to anybody. We’re supposed to be investigating the bombing, remember? I’m heading up the task force.” Which was the ultimate joke, seeing as how he’d been the one to set the wheels in motion. But that was what made his position so sweet. Since he had control over everything that went on in and around Mission Creek, he could squash anyone who might interfere with his operation.

      Like he should have been able to squash that damned aging commando, he thought darkly.

      Gathering his thoughts together, he tried to remember which of the men in the Lion’s Den were currently available. He didn’t trust Bancroft going out alone.

      “I want you to take Malloy with you and go question the kid.” He nailed the tall, narrow-chested man with a look. “And don’t scare him, just get him to tell you exactly what he saw. Maybe things aren’t as black as they seem.” But Stone doubted it. He’d been born a pessimist and hadn’t been disappointed yet. “And next time, make sure the goddamn inner door is closed before you start moving the bags out.”

      Bancroft made a fruitless attempt to absolve himself. “It wasn’t my fault, Chief. I wasn’t anywhere near it and I wasn’t the last man in—”

      “Doesn’t matter whose fault it was.” Other than the fact that he was going to make the miserable bastard pay, whoever it was, Stone thought. Taking a step, he got directly into the other policeman’s face. “Know this. If one of us goes down, we all could go down. Do I make myself clear?”

      Like a newly recruited marine trying not to buckle before his drill sergeant in boot camp, Bancroft squared his thin shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

      “Good, now get going.” Stone pushed the other man toward the door. “The sooner I know where we stand, the better.”

      In the doorway, struck by a bolt of either duty or momentary insanity, Bancroft hesitated, then said, “Chief, Westin’s gone.”

      The dark look Stone gave him told Bancroft the chief was already aware of this salient piece of information. Bancroft quickly darted out the door before the second wave of fallout began.

      The boy had been on Tracy’s mind all night. She didn’t think of him as another burn victim, or even think of him by his name. She thought of Jake as the boy with the sad eyes.

      She didn’t think she’d ever seen eyes that sad before.

      All things considered, it was a routine enough procedure for her. She’d sedated Jake yesterday before treating his wounds. He’d been bathed in cool water and moist bandages had been applied to the burned skin. Pumped full of antibiotics to prevent any infections from setting in, there was every reason in the world to believe Jake Anderson would make a full and complete recovery, given time.

      Still, she’d sat by his bed after she’d returned from feeding Petunia, waiting for Jake to wake up. She didn’t want to have him open his eyes to an empty room. When he’d finally woken up, hours later, she’d gently talked to him, but there had been no response. He’d just lain there, staring at the ceiling.

      At first, she’d thought he was disoriented, or frightened, СКАЧАТЬ