Marie Ferrarella - Once a Father

“The correct term,” she informed Malloy tersely, “is hearing-and-speech impaired, and Jake Anderson wasn’t—until the accident.” She looked back at the still, bandaged body in the bed, giving Jake a reassuring smile he didn’t seem to notice or acknowledge. She looked back at the two policemen. “He can hear you, but he doesn’t speak.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?” Bancroft asked hesitantly. He fumbled when Tracy looked at him strangely. “I mean, there’s no chance that he had any brain damage or anything, right?”

She couldn’t read the other man’s tone. Was that concern or disappointment she heard? Or something else?

“None that any of the tests have revealed. But he’s been through a great deal of trauma caused by the bombing and the fire. He’s sustained burns to over thirty percent of his body, not to mention the fact that he’s suffered personal loss.” She looked from one man to the other, assuming that the two policemen were both sensitive enough to understand the reason for the euphemism she was employing.

Malloy frowned, negating all thoughts of even cursory sensitivity being in the man’s arsenal. “Right, it’s too bad, still, we’ve got this investigation and we need to know what he saw, if anything.”

Moving past Tracy, Bancroft approached the boy. “Did you see anyone maybe running from the scene, or anything unusual at all?”

“Maybe the two of you should be checked out for hearing problems,” Tracy suggested angrily, getting in between Bancroft and the bed. “I just told you, Jake Anderson can’t talk. He hasn’t uttered a single word since they brought him in yesterday.”

Malloy smirked at her, as if he thought that she was being simpleminded. “Maybe he’s just playing a game, honey.”

Tracy instantly felt her back going up. As far as she was concerned, she had put up with as much as she intended to.

“My name is not ‘honey’ and even if it were, you don’t have a right to call me by my first name unless I tell you you do.” Her eyes darkened dangerously. Having to fight her way up to her position had taught her how to stand up to narrow-minded bigots. “Now I’d like to ask you to please leave—”

Afraid of arousing suspicion and creating waves that might draw too much attention, Bancroft tapped Malloy’s shoulder. “Maybe we’d better.” He began to leave, but Malloy dug in.

The policeman took a step around the bed toward her. “Look, honey, this is official business. So whether you like it or not—”

“You heard the lady, officers. The boy can’t help you.” Adam strode into the room, his eyes as dark as the day was outside. The package he’d brought with him dangled from his hand as he addressed the other two men. “The paramedics brought fifteen other people to this hospital yesterday. Some of them had to be admitted for overnight stays. Now, why don’t you go and question some of them to see what they might have witnessed and get back to Jake later, when he might be more able to tell you something?”

Tracy stifled a sigh of relief, glad that she didn’t have to be put in the sticky position of calling security to escort the policemen out, especially since, as with the Lone Star Country Club, some of the men who worked security here were off-duty policemen moonlighting at second jobs. There would be a decided conflict of interest.

Bancroft exchanged glances with Malloy. “He has a point.”

The older officer looked as if he needed little excuse to go off on Adam. He’d boxed while in the service and had progressed up through the ranks before he’d joined Stone’s police force.

But after a moment, common sense prevailed and he relented with a shrug of his wide shoulders.

A resigned smile replaced the frown. “Okay, right.” He looked at Adam. “I guess I got a little carried away, but the chief’s been giving everyone a hard time about this thing happening on his watch and I just thought that since the boy was there—”

Adam cut him short. “You thought wrong.” And then he allowed, “At least, for now.”

“Sorry, kid, didn’t mean to scare you.” Malloy leaned over the bed in an attempt to seem concerned and friendly.

Jake’s eyes shifted back to the ceiling.

“He’s gonna come out of this, right?” Malloy asked Tracy.

She thought of what Lydia had told her this morning. “Hopefully. Time will tell, though.”

This could be a break for all of them. If the kid remained like some stiff department-store dummy, it didn’t matter what the hell he saw. Nobody would ever know.

“You mean there’s a chance that he’s going to stay like that?” he pressed the uppity witch in the white lab coat. “Like a zombie?”

Eager to withdraw, Bancroft took the lead. “Let’s go, Kyle,” he urged. He looked at Tracy. “Sorry to trouble you, Doctor. Maybe you can give us a call if and when the boy’s up to talking.” He took out a card and handed it to her.

This one, she thought, was at least trying to be decent. Tracy took the card, slipping it into her pocket after glancing at the officer’s name. “I’ll be sure to do that,” she assured him.

Tracy turned to Adam as the two officers finally withdrew from the room. She had no idea that he was coming back, or what would have made him. But then, she wouldn’t have thought a firefighter would stand out in the hall for over an hour, waiting to find out what happened to the boy he rescued, either.

She smiled at him, grateful for the timely arrival. “Is this the part where I flutter my eyelashes at you and call you my hero?”

He hadn’t liked the way the other policeman had looked at her, as if she was just something for his amusement. And he definitely didn’t like the way he was attempting to strong-arm her out of the way. Most of all, he hadn’t wanted Jake to get upset.

It was a lot for Adam to digest about himself, seeing as he normally experienced the emotional involvement level of a piece of paper.

“You can do whatever you damn well like with your lashes, Doc,” he told her. “I brought you something, kid.” He placed a badly wrapped package on the boy’s bed well within the boy’s reach.

Jake continued staring at the ceiling.

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