2 Sisters Detective Agency(4)

I made my decision. I spun as Mr. Jones shoved past me and launched myself toward him, barreling into his back. He was a big man, but I was bigger. We slammed onto the courtroom carpet together. I heard a wave of gasps and yowls of surprise all around us. Mr. Jones reached for his gun, and I grabbed the hand that was reaching as he squeezed off a bullet, our fingers mutually scrabbling for the weapon, the shot smacking harmlessly into the ceiling above us.

I ripped the gun from his hand and threw it aside, then sucker punched him as he tried to roll underneath me. When he doubled over, I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back.

“Bailiff!” I cried, looking up. Everyone in the big room had frozen, including a group of bailiffs near the row of defendants. “Little help here?”

They rushed to my assistance. I handed off to them a sweating, swearing Mr. Jones, protesting, “He raped my daughter! That boy raped my daughter!”

I stood watching as the courtroom guards dragged the furious father away. Someone handed me the gun I had gotten away from him, as though in confiscating it I had claimed responsibility for it.

Thad Forrester was laughing his head off. I realized my finger was resting gently on the weapon’s trigger. All I had to do to stop that evil laughter was point, aim, and shoot.

Instead I handed the gun to one of the bailiffs.

My phone rang in my pocket. I walked out, ignoring the uncomfortable congratulations I caught on my way. I waited until I was outside the courtroom to pull the device from the pocket of my torn blazer.

“Hello?”

“Uh, is this Rhonda Bird?”

“It is. What do you want?” I said more sharply than intended. I realized the hand holding my phone was shaking.

“I’m calling about your father, Ms. Bird,” the voice said, obviously cowed by my tone. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this over the phone, but he’s dead.”





Chapter 4



He couldn’t look at her. That’s what scared him.

Jacob stood at the windows of his daughter’s hospital room and gazed out at the parking lot, watching nurses arriving for the morning shift, toting coffees and chattering happily as they exited their vehicles. He saw a man in a blue sedan skid to a halt in the emergency parking bay, leap out of the vehicle, and run to the passenger-side door to help his heavily pregnant wife waddle in to triage. Jacob tried to focus on the activity outside because he couldn’t look at his daughter, Beatrice, lying stiff in the bed behind him.

All her life, he’d spent every possible minute watching her. Those early days when she would sleep on his chest, her full lips moving in dream, her tiny hand gripping his shirt. Watching her had always been his greatest joy, but now he feared what he saw would be the last memory of her burned into his brain.

And it was all his fault.

The doctor and Neina were sitting on the edge of Beaty’s bed. They always sit with you when it’s bad news, Jacob thought. It was as if by sitting they were telling you they had an extra moment just for you, before some other crisis drew them away, because this patient was special. As though doctors didn’t deal in death the way garbage collectors deal with used kitty litter and bags of diapers.

“The severe asthma attack caused respiratory failure that starved Beatrice’s brain completely of oxygen for a very dangerous period,” the doctor was saying now behind Jacob. “Essentially, to protect itself, the organ shut down. We’re not getting any brain activity showing up on our scans. But that doesn’t mean—”

“She’s brain dead?” Neina’s voice was quivering. “Is that what you’re saying? How do you know that?”

“She’s not brain dead. We can’t rule that out, but we’re not ruling it in either. Not enough time has passed for us to…Look, Mr. and Mrs. Kanular, you need to maintain hope. The best think you can do for your daughter is to be here with her, talking to her, letting her know you are a united front.”

Jacob turned away from the window. He went and gathered his wife into his arms. He said words he didn’t believe. “We’re gonna get through this, Neina. All three of us. We’re going to be fine. She’ll come back to us, I promise.”

When Jacob had found Neina, when he’d decided to marry her and have a child, he’d wanted only the best for her and the baby. The big house. The fancy cars. Vacations in the Bahamas. It had all been for them. For years he’d traveled the world with only what he could carry in a bag. He’d done bad things in those years. Caused a lot of pain. A thought pushed at him, that the things he had done during those years had caused this. That this was his punishment.

But no. He gripped his wife tightly. Punishment was something you submitted to. He finally looked at Beaty in the bed. She was fighting her way back from the darkness. He knew it. He’d fight too.

When the doctor left, Jacob put the first step of his plan into action.

“Neinie,” he said. “We’re not going to report the break-in to the police.”

She stared up at him, her mouth falling open. “What?”

“We’re going to tell them Beaty had a nightmare, that she woke and the asthma attack was already upon her. It worsened as we drove to the hospital. We won’t mention the home invasion.”

“How can you…” Neina was lost for words. “Are you insane? These monsters attacked us! They nearly killed our child, Jake!”