“It’s okay,” he assured her. “She can’t have visitors, anyway. Travis’ll come out to see us.”
24
“I hate these places.”
Dustin’s baleful sentiment seemed couched in bitter memory as they waited in the hall near Crystal’s room—this hall where she and other leukemia patients spent much of their lives chasing that ever-fleeting reprieve called remission.
‘‘Yeah, me, too,” Jamie mumbled. “Hospitals always remind me of when my dad died. It seems like we spent weeks in his room, talking, praying, hoping.”
“I remember,” he said. “It was rough on you.”
“You made it easier,” she said.
“Did I?”
“Yeah, you did,” she said as she remembered the quiet night they’d shared in his car, driving aimlessly, not exchanging a word. “You took me away from the relatives and condolence calls, and didn’t expect me to be strong.”
He gave her a faint smile. “You were strong anyway, though.”
“Well, it wasn’t as if I was the only one who’d ever lost a parent.”
He didn’t respond to that. She knew he never liked talking about his parents’ death when he was six. He looked back up the hall, saw a nurse coming with a tray of medications, and walked toward her. “Excuse me,” he said quietly. “Could you please take a message to Travis Grey in 413?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice low.
“Tell him Dustin’s here.”
“Would you mind waiting for him in the waiting room?”
“Sure.” Jamie followed Dustin to the small room where a game show blared on a television set, and she saw Travis’s kids with Wendy. “Wendy, hi.”
Wendy got up to hug both of them. The children giggled as they moved all over the couch, oblivious to the sadness and disease that surrounded them.
Dustin charged toward them and grabbed one of the twin boys. Clearly, he knew the child well. Both boys squealed.
“Dustin, they’re too loud!” Wendy said. “All of you boys hold it down.”
Dustin put him down carefully. “Shhhh. Let’s be vewy vewy quiet,” he said.
“Do you really think they appreciate the Elmer Fudd impersonation?” Wendy asked. “Because they don’t play Bugs Bunny on Nick Junior.”
“Well then, we’ll have to catch them up.”
The boys, too geared up to settle down, bounced around Dustin. “Do me, Uncle Dustin!” Dustin picked up the other child and put him on his shoulders, then dropped him on the couch next to his brother.
“So Jamie sprung you?” Wendy asked. “Dustin, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Jamie wants to ask Travis a few questions.”
“Maybe he can come out here and stay with these little rascals so I can go in,” Wendy said.
“How’s she doing?” Jamie asked.
A shadow fell over Wendy’s eyes. “Not very well.” She sat down again, and one of the twins crawled into her lap and pressed a surprise kiss on her chin, as if he sensed the sorrow coming over her. Wendy’s eyes filled up with tears, and she took his face in both hands and kissed him back. “Mason, you sweet boy. You love Nanna?”
“Nope,” he said with a teasing grin.
“Yes, you do. You and Miles take good care of me.”
Jamie couldn’t help laughing with them, but when she glanced at Dustin, she saw the pensive sadness in his eyes, as if at that very moment he was considering the possibility that the boys were soon to lose their mother, and that Wendy was about to lose her only child.
“Can you guys hold it down?” a man said from the doorway. “There are sick people up in here.” It was Travis, smiling down at the twins, who simultaneously abandoned their grandmother and launched themselves into his arms. He stooped and hugged them, then looked over at Dustin.
“Dustin!” He stood up, and the boys resumed rolling on the couch. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”
“I’m going back to Crystal now,” Wendy said. “You gonna keep them for an hour?”
“Yeah, just call me if . . . anything happens.” He turned back to Dustin and Jamie.
“I could watch them if you need to stay with her,” Dustin said.
“No, man. You just got out of jail. Let’s go somewhere and we can talk while they play.”
“Okay,” Dustin said. “We’ll follow you guys in Jamie’s car.”
25
The playground Travis led them to was on the lake where he’d fished with Dustin multiple times. The kids loved the area, and they could entertain themselves for a while here—as long as the grown-ups made sure they didn’t play too near the water.
As they parked, Dustin realized they were the only ones here. He’d better enjoy it, because this was probably the last time they’d be able to go anywhere without the press mobbing them. As soon as Travis unbuckled the kids from their car seats, the twins bolted out of the car and took off toward the fort on the playground.
Dustin and Jamie walked with Travis to one of the picnic tables near the play area. Jamie noted the pale cast to Travis’s skin, as if he hadn’t left the hospital in days. Weariness deepened the dry lines of his face.
“You okay, man?” Dustin asked him quietly.
“I’ll live.” He brought his bloodshot eyes back to Dustin. “How ’bout you? The night couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Dustin said. “Not compared to what you’re going through.”
“He’ll be better when we find out who could have set him up.”
Dustin looked at Jamie, sitting across from Travis. She was here for a purpose, and she wanted them to get to the point. He wanted that, too, but the urgency of his case didn’t negate the gravity of Travis’s situation.
But Travis wasn’t bothered. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “I might have some ideas.”
Jamie pulled a legal pad out of her bag. “Who?”
Travis looked down at the table. “Well, there was that contractor, Jack Roberts. Didn’t he have a copy of the blueprint of our security system?”
Dustin shook his head. “When they questioned me about it right after the theft, they told me they’d already talked to him.”
“But that doesn’t rule him out,” Jamie said, writing down his name. “Travis, the explosives were planted in Dustin’s car the night before last when he was at the hospital. Is there anyone who came up there that night who might have done that?”
“No, we didn’t have any other visitors that night. Just Dustin. Wendy was at home with the kids.” He squinted in the breeze as he looked at Jamie. “Are you sure it happened there? How do you know that?”
“It’s on the hospital’s CCTV. It shows a white van pulling up behind Dustin’s car and someone opening his trunk.”
“There are security guards out there all the time. If someone was breaking into his car, wouldn’t they have seen him?”
“If they had a key, the guards wouldn’t have noticed.”
“A key? You think they had a key?”
“They got in my trunk without any problem,” Dustin said.
“Well, if you could see that, you must have been able to see their faces.”
“It was dark, and the cameras weren’t that close to them,” Jamie said. “They only prove that someone did it that night.”
Travis rubbed his face and gazed back at his kids. “I can’t believe they would be that brazen. How would they know you’d be there?”
“Followed me?” Dustin said.
“But why?”
“I wish I knew.”
Travis shook his head. “It’s insane. I can’t even get my head around it. But doesn’t that video let Dustin off the hook?”
“I would hope so, but we can’t count on it. They haven’t dropped the charges. I did show the prosecutor, so at least he knows.”
Travis rubbed his face and let his fingers slide to his chin. “How did we get here?”
“I don’t know, man.”
&nbs
p; “It’s like somebody took the world and turned it upside down.”
Mason fell down and cried out, and Travis shot off the bench and snatched him up. The heels of Mason’s hands were bleeding, and the sight of the blood sent his wailing into a higher pitch.
“I have water,” Jamie said, pulling a bottle out of her bag. She poured it over the little boy’s hands, and he screamed as if she was killing him. “I might have a Band-Aid. Do you like Elsa from Frozen?”
Mason’s crying settled to a whimper. “Do you have Paw Patrol?”
“Sorry, I don’t. I have a little girl who makes me buy Elsa.” She dug through her bag and found the Band-Aids.
“You like Elsa, bud,” Travis said.
“I like Olaf.”
“I bet I can find an Olaf in this box.” Jamie flipped through the Band-Aids until she found one with the snowman. “Let’s dry off these hands.”
Miles shouted from the slide, “Daddy! Look!”
Travis looked over his shoulder as Miles came down the slide. Dustin hurried to the foot of the slide to catch him.
“Team effort,” Jamie said, putting the two Band-Aids on Mason’s hands. “Now. All better.”
“I want to slide,” Mason said, squirming to get down. Travis set him on the ground and the boy ran off.
“Thanks for that. I shouldn’t go anywhere without their supplies. I have a diaper bag in the car, but I wouldn’t even know if we have Band-Aids.”
“It’s a little embarrassing all the mom supplies I carry around in my briefcase,” she said.
“Crystal carries things like that around, too. She always has what we need.” Travis’s eyes welled and reddened, and he looked away. “I probably need to get back, Jamie. I know you wanted to do a real interview, but if we can wait until tomorrow, they’ll be at preschool. I can text you the names of people I can think of, but right now I can’t think.”
Dustin squeezed Travis’s shoulder. “Let Wendy have some time with Crystal. You need a break.”
“A break?” Travis repeated, as if the words came close to angering him. “I’ll have time for a break later. Right now I need every minute.” His voice choked off, and he let the thought hang there.
After a moment, Jamie asked, “How bad is she, Travis?”
Travis sat back down. “We started her on a new treatment. It’s experimental, supposed to have a lot of promise. I hate that word . . . promise. It’s not a promise. It’s like a weak ‘maybe.’ Anyway, it’s not working yet.”
“It still could, man.”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t think she’s coming home,” he whispered. “We’re in her last days. Maybe her last hours.”
Jamie touched her heart. “Travis, I’m so sorry.”
“The thing is, as long as I’m there with her, reminding her that she has things to live for, I feel like maybe it could change things. Like keeping her engaged with me and our kids, and people who love her, and memories that make her laugh . . . I fantasize that one day she’ll wake up and be herself again . . .”
Dustin wanted to tell him he was wrong, that she was still herself, that she would beat this thing. But all the facts pointed in the other direction. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Oh, I wish.” Travis took a deep breath, steadied himself, and focused his eyes on a cloud overhead. “Typical Dustin. We came out here to talk about how to keep you out of prison, and you wind up asking me if there’s anything you can do for me. Life is not fair, man.” He shook his head. “I’m a miserable human being.”
“Why? Because you don’t have all the answers?”
“Because I should be there for you,” Travis said. “I should have been at the jail today bailing you out.”
“Come on, dude. You aren’t superhuman. You can’t do everything at once.”
“I’ve lost control,” Travis said. “I can’t do a thing about Crystal, and now you.”
“Look, don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself and Crystal. I’ll be fine. It takes more than a night in jail to get me down.”
Travis leaned forward and looked Jamie fully in the eyes, concern sharpening his steady gaze. “Are you going to get him off?”
Jamie inhaled a deep, unsteady breath. “That’s my goal. But we might have a long road there. Solving these crimes is the best way we have of proving his innocence. If they impanel a grand jury and indict him, he could be forced to go back to jail. Or if they come up with more serious charges, his bond could be revoked.”
“I gave her the names of the managers of the plant,” Dustin said, hoping to jog Travis’s memory. “A list of employees. The security guards.”
Jamie looked at Travis. “Any idea who would have been able to alter the security video at the plant? Who would know how to do that?”
“Again, the security guards,” Travis said.
“From what I can tell, I think they were the main suspects until the RDX was found in Dustin’s car.”
“I never had any kind of run-in with those guys,” Dustin said. “I don’t know why they would set me up.”
“You were an obvious scapegoat,” Jamie said. “Whoever did it thought they could get the heat off them if you got blamed. It may not have even been personal.”
Miles started crying and Travis stepped toward him. “You’re okay, bud.” The boy kept crying, so he went to pick him up and look him over. “Nothing broken or bleeding, but I think we’re done here,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to Crystal, and these guys need a nap.”
“Yeah.” Dustin grabbed Mason and they headed to the car. “Let me know when Crystal can handle visitors, okay? I’d really like to see her.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Travis said.
They reached the car, and Dustin put Mason into his car seat. “Keep me updated, will you?”
“Of course,” Travis said. “Same here.”
As Jamie followed Dustin back to her car, she said, “You buckled him in like you’ve done it before.”
“Yeah, we hang out sometimes.”
“You mean you babysit?”
“Sure. They’re like my nephews. I saw them like fifteen minutes after they were born.”
As he got into the car, fatigue settled over him, and he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Jamie got into the driver’s seat and looked over at him. “I’m sorry, Dustin,” she said. “I know it’s hard to hear how close Crystal is to passing.”
He couldn’t answer, just swallowed and nodded. They were quiet as they left the park.
26
The ride back to Dustin’s rental car was too quiet, but finally Jamie posed the question that had been plaguing her since they’d left Travis. “Dustin?”
“Yeah.”
“Travis told me earlier today that you swore you’d never call me—”
“He just says stuff,” Dustin said, shifting in his seat. “It didn’t mean anything.”
Jamie stared forward as she drove, unconvinced. “Why didn’t you want to call me?”
Dustin laid his head on the headrest again and stared up at the roof, not answering. After a moment, Jamie thought he’d discarded the question completely. “Dustin?”
“One time Travis and I were talking about those days when I lived with Aunt Pat, and I told him about you. He asked me why we weren’t still in touch. I might have said something like that.”
“But why?”
“Because I didn’t figure you needed Dustin Webb back in your life, okay?”
Jamie swallowed the knot in her throat and glanced over at him.
He looked out the window to the buildings they passed, his expression hidden from her. “But I did call you, after all, didn’t I?”
Jamie didn’t answer. There didn’t seem to be anything left to say. It had taken an emergency for him to call her. He never would have done it otherwise. She wasn’t sure why that disturbed her so much now.
“Hey, you okay?” Dustin asked after a stretch of tense sil
ence.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “I’m okay.” She pulled into the hospital parking lot. “Where are you going?”
“I thought I’d go by my house and get some things I need.”
“I can follow you there,” she said. “Then you can load my car, too, if you need to.”
“I don’t intend to get more than a suitcase. But you can come if that’s what you want, since you have to babysit me.”
“That’s not what’s happening here,” she said. “You’re not on house arrest. I can let you out of my sight.”
He sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty for this. None of it is your fault. Just meet me there. You remember how to get there?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s a nice area.”
“Surprised?”
She stared at him. “What is it you think about me, Dustin? That I expected you to fail?”
“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “It’s just that you know me so well. Probably better than anybody else. Most of the people who really knew me in my past, like Aunt Pat, consider me a loser who’s got prison coming to him.”
“Pat has never really known you,” Jamie said. “But I did.”
“I didn’t mean anything about you.”
“No,” Jamie said softly. “You meant it about yourself.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I did.”
He looked so uncomfortable that she wanted to give him an escape. “Go get the car and I’ll meet you there. If the press show up, you’ll need help getting away.” She watched him get out and walk toward his rental car. She put her car into reverse and pulled away.
The conversation weighed heavily on her mind. How could he think she had such low expectations of him? She’d always been his biggest fan.
She needed sleep, she thought. She shouldn’t be so irritated by that exchange. All her clients got testy. They were all on the defensive. But Dustin wasn’t just anybody.
She had to shove it out of her mind. There was too much work to do to dwell on her personal feelings. That was a luxury she couldn’t afford right now. She had to hurry Dustin up before the press got to his house. They didn’t have a moment to waste.
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