Warrior (First to Fight #1)(60)
The officer has me send the photo to his phone and he distributes it to God only knows who. I remember to tell him to get in touch with Logan and then I mentally check out. Fear and hopelessness feed a sucking black hole inside of me where my heart used to be.
I watch numbly as Ben talks with the officer and a small crowd of them gather around the stroller. I’d fooled myself into thinking the shooting and the breakin weren’t related. I was an idiot to think we were finally safe in our own little family bubble. If nothing else, the catastrophic events of the past year should have taught me to expect the worst.
I go to Ben on auto-pilot, reaching out for a hold in a world which has begun to spin unsteadily underneath my feet. He turns to me, his face a mask of pain that pinches the areas around his eyes.
“Anything?”
I don’t even need to hear his answer.
The look on his face says it all.
I let myself into the house. Grimly, I go into my bedroom and unpack Cole’s baby bag. It’s a mindless, numbing task that I do without any real thought. I take my time, losing myself in the motions, hanging what was clean or unused back in the closet and separating Cole’s little clothes into two piles, one to put away and the other to wash. I spend a lengthy amount of time crying into his favorite stuffed dog, the one we found in the dirt ten feet away from his stroller.
I feed Hank, start a load of laundry, then I call the school. I’m sure someone has already told them, but the empty house feels like it’s pressing in around me and I need something to do to keep my mind preoccupied.
The receptionist answers, a temp that had started working there a few weeks before I’d taken off. “Lindsey, hi. It’s Olivia Walker. I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to come into work this week after all. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“I wouldn’t let you even if you begged!” Lindsey McIntosh exclaims. She’d had her own fair share of drama, I recall numbly. According to the rumor mills, she’d even been married to a genuine rockstar, until recently. “Sweetheart, I’ve been watching the news for the last hour, and I can’t believe you even considered it. No one would ever hold you to that. You don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say. What else was there to say?
“You don’t have a thing to be sorry about. You don’t worry about any of it. We’ll cover you until things are settled. Get some rest, you sound dead tired. Call me when you have word.”
“Of course. The detectives on the case were able to get a license plate and they’ve put out an APB and an Amber Alert. Ben, Cole’s father, has some contacts, so he’s doing whatever it is guys do in an emergency…”
When I trail off Lindsey clears her throat and says with false cheerfulness, “It’s good you have him on your side then. And we are all willing to help in any way we can.”
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am, thank you.”
With that taken care of, I look around for something else to keep my mind and hands busy. If I had even the barest second to think about things, I would fall into a blind panic. My eyes land on a stack of bouncy toys I had yet to open and put together. Cole would like them when he gets back, I think. He is much more active these days, and I’d been meaning to set the toys up in his room for him to experiment with.
That’s where Sofie finds me four hours later, except I haven’t managed to do a damn thing other than cry a river of tears as I cling to his toys.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, falling to her knees beside me and enveloping me in her arms. “Where’s Ben?”
I wipe my face with her proffered tissues. “He’s with Logan and Jack and the police, I think. There wasn’t much I could do, they said, so they told me to go home until there’s word.” I hiccup through my tears. “I couldn’t stay there and listen to them talk about statistics and have all their eyes on me, wondering. No doubt grateful they weren’t in my shoes, that their kids were safe. I couldn’t stand to watch Ben shut down right in front of me after we’d finally grown so close. I thought being here would make me feel better, but Sof, I don’t think anything will ever make me feel better.”
I SIT ON the couch in a drugged stupor. Sofie had fed me sleeping medicine, but even though she’d passed out hours ago, I wasn’t able to succumb to sleep. So I sit, waiting, feeling oddly numb and my brain is so sluggish I can’t manage to form a coherent thought.
The door opens and I can see Ben walking in, his head low. If I could feel, hope would have stirred in my chest, but it’s probably a good thing that I can’t, because when he looks up, the ravaged look on his face would have dashed those hopes right away.
“They’re interviewing all of the carnies now. They’re still working on people that were there or that may have seen something.”
My voice is raw and scratchy. “So they don’t have anything?”
“They will, Liv. Logan was still there when I left.”
“Ben, I don’t know what to do. What am I supposed to do here? I don’t think I can handle this.”
He brushes the rain off of his hair and I spot his hearing device as he shucks his jacket and boots. I remember his story about what happened to him overseas, the nightmares he’s prone to having after rough days. He’s been through things like this before. I don’t even know how he’s handling it—if he’s handling it at all.