People around him gasp, and someone screams, “Gun!” and Mark realizes a second too late that the gun they are referring to isn’t his, the barrel of Frank’s pistol swinging around with him and the timing wrong—Mark’s shot firing half a second behind.
His first thought is of Shelly, her hand waving as she forgets to sing. His next is of Ben and the dog they were supposed to get. The last is of Hadley screaming as the bullet hits his chest.
50
HADLEY
Grace is screaming that they have to go. “Now,” she says as she pushes Hadley from behind. The crowd moves against them, straining to see what is happening—some sort of spectacle. Cell phones glow and are lifted high, trying to capture whatever it is, hoping to be a part of it.
Hadley cranes her head back as Grace continues to shove her forward. Mark is on the ground, people crouched around him, his head turned sideways and his eyes open.
Mattie is gone. In Tony’s car.
She stumbles, and Grace catches her by the arm. Miles howls in his harness from being jerked. Skipper has her hand and is tugging at her, tears streaming from his eyes and his face white with panic.
They were having such a good time, discussing what they were going to eat when they got inside. Skipper wanted a foot-long, the same thing he orders every time he goes to a game. Mustard only. A root beer to drink. Mattie wanted to try the Helton Burger, hailed as one of the best burgers in baseball, topped with grilled onions, pickles, and a special sauce.
“Hadley, please,” Grace pleads.
Frank. There. Suddenly. He appeared like a magic trick, out of nowhere. Tony beside him. Frank was saying something about a fantasy baseball trade.
Mattie was behind her; then she was gone, being pulled away toward Tony’s car.
But then Mark was there as well, almost as if she’d conjured him. And for a second, she thought it was going to be okay. But it wasn’t, because Frank had a gun. Bang. But it didn’t sound like a bang. The sound almost silent. Pffft. And Mark fell, his eyes open like he was looking at her.
It all ricochets around in her head, like marbles loose in her skull. Her body jerks, her knees buckle, and she nearly goes down, her legs catching her a moment before she falls.
“Come on, Blue, run!” Skipper screams, pulling with all his might.
Hadley narrows her eyes on the round button on top of his hat and allows herself to be pulled along.
51
GRACE
Grace’s breath wheezes in and out, and sweat pours down her face despite the late-afternoon chill. They are in the courtyard of a church, a dozen blocks from the stadium.
Hadley has collapsed on a bench, her tears slowed to a trickle, her mouth slack jawed and her pupils receded to pinpricks. Skipper sits beside her, rocking back and forth, his eyes staring at nothing.
She pulls a blanket from the backpack, lays it on the ground, takes Miles from the baby pack, and lays him on top of it. He kicks his feet in the air and pulls at his purple socks, delighted at the rush of running through the streets.
Grace kneels in front of Skipper. “You’re okay,” she says, taking his hands.
He pulls them from her and tucks them into his armpits, rocking harder.
She turns to Hadley, puts her hands on either side of Hadley’s face. “Hadley, you can’t lose it. Do you understand? I need you to hold it together.”
Hadley’s mouth glubs once, then remains open in a frozen gape.
“Hadley,” she says again, the warble in her voice belying her own fear.
Hadley blinks.
“Come on, Hadley, hang in there. Please,” Grace says.
Another blink, and then she watches as Hadley, with extraordinary determination, clenches her jaw and nods.
“Good,” Grace says. “Good girl.”
Hadley turns to Skipper, sees him rocking, scoots close, and wraps him tight against her. She turns back to Grace. “Grace . . .”
“Give me a minute,” Grace says, calling on every ounce of will she can muster to keep from falling apart. She focuses on her breathing as she scans around them. They are in a not-so-great part of town, a run-down commercial neighborhood, the sun and heat of the day disappearing quickly.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Hadley says.
Grace turns to look at her, and she wants to lie, tell her he’s not, but she honestly doesn’t know. She saw him fall but only realized he had been shot after, when everyone was screaming.
“He was trying to save Mattie,” Hadley says.
Grace nods. He was. He was a good man trying to do the right thing. The lump in her throat grows, and she turns away so Hadley won’t see her distress.
Pull yourself together, she urges, but it’s like trying to hold back a tsunami. It’s all so awful. The agent. Mattie. She takes three shuddering breaths and presses the heels of her palms to her eyes.
When she blinks them open, she looks around again. The stores and businesses are closing up for the night, steel grates being lowered, dead bolts and alarms being set. She shudders from the cold, squats down to bundle Miles in his sweatshirt, then wraps the blanket around him as she lifts him back into her arms.
He reaches for her nose, and she shifts him to her hip. He wrestles against her, not happy about being ignored.
She looks at the church, which not only is bolted tight but also has a chain on the door—a looming edifice rather than a harbor of mercy—and a wave of déjà vu washes over her, so strong it knocks the air from her lungs. Eight years ago, the church was smaller and Baptist rather than Catholic, but the desperation she felt was the same. That day ended tragically, and Grace wonders if history will repeat itself, her life once again unraveled by her choices, and those she loves most ruined by her mistakes.
Miles rails against her, trying to wriggle free. Hadley reaches for him. “Give him here.”
Grace hands him over, and Hadley stands him on her lap, where he does little squats, waves his arms around, and babbles, immediately content.
“I’m cold,” Skipper mumbles, still huddled against Hadley, his meltdown spent.
Grace realizes Mattie was holding the bag that held Hadley’s and Skipper’s sweatshirts. She pulls her own sweatshirt from the backpack and hands it to him, then takes a quick inventory of their supplies. None of them are dressed for a night at the base of the Rockies. Grace is in a T-shirt and jeans. Miles is in his onesie and has his sweatshirt and blanket. Hadley wears a skirt and a sleeveless tank. Skipper is in his uniform.
“Hadley, how much money do you have?” she asks.
“I don’t know. My wallet is in my bag.”
By “bag,” she means the canvas grocery sack she’s been using as a purse. Grace rummages through it, past the useless contents of gum, cigarettes, a hairbrush, makeup, and Skipper’s game console to find Hadley’s wallet. It contains sixty-two dollars.
She pulls out her own wad of cash, which she stuffed in her pocket this morning, and curses herself for not thinking to take more money with her. One hundred twelve dollars.
Together they have one hundred seventy-four dollars to get them through the night and to Omaha. Her heart sinks. A hundred seventy-four dollars won’t get them out of Denver.
For a long moment, she looks up at the stained glass window of the church, the ruby-and-emerald glass depiction of Christ in his final moment of martyrdom staring down at her.
“Maybe we should go back for the car,” Hadley says, her words chattering from the cold.
Grace shakes her head as she continues to look at Jesus, wondering what He is thinking and if He is laughing, finding their mortal predicament amusing.
“Grace?” Hadley says.
“No,” Grace says, looking away from the window. “The stadium will be swarming with cops, and I’m sure Frank grabbed the money before he left. He knows it’s evidence against him, so he wouldn’t have left it. I’m sure he made Mattie tell him where it was and went back for it.”
With the mention of Mattie, Hadley
’s features melt, and Grace watches as she digs deep to realign them, the muscles in her face clenching.
“Stay here,” Grace says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Where are you going?”
“To make a call.”
Without waiting for a response, she slings the backpack onto her shoulder and walks to the front of the church. The reception was fine where she was, but she needs to be somewhere she won’t be heard.
52
HADLEY
Gone. Hadley blinks. Mark. Mattie.
Each time she thinks of what has happened, it strikes like a blow—her mind not able to hold on to it.
Skipper saw him first. “Coach,” he said, smiling and pointing.
Hadley followed his finger, her brain a second behind her eyes. Frank. Tony. Here. In Denver. All of it registering in delayed time.
Skipper stepped toward him, but Hadley pulled him back, wrapping her arm around him as Mattie shifted behind her.
Frank was smiling. “Hey, Champ.” He reached out and tousled Skipper’s hair. “I got your trade offer and thought I’d accept it in person. Wolters is yours, but I want Posey in return.”
Skipper nodded and held out his hand for Frank to shake on it, which Frank did, and Skipper looked back at Mattie, a wide smile on his face like he did good.
Frank looked up from Skipper to level his eyes on Hadley’s. “Hey, babe,” he said. “Or should I call you Thelma? Or are you Louise? I’ve got to say, I didn’t see this one coming. You and Grace? Looks like I underestimated that girl.”
Ice prickled Hadley’s spine, and she hugged Skipper tighter against her.
“Did you really think you could steal from me?” he asked, almost as if amused. “Take my money, my daughter?”
She reached her arm back to shield Mattie, a wasted gesture more instinct than anything real.
He leaned in close, his lips against her ear. “Bad move, babe. You should know better than to screw with me. If you come anywhere near Mattie again, even so much as breathe in her direction, I will hunt you down and squash you like the traitorous roach you are.”
She reached back again, but it was too late. Mattie was already gone, being pulled away. Then Grace was holding Hadley back, and Mark was running after them.
And now, here they are, in the courtyard of a church. Mattie, gone. Mark, gone. Her and Skipper, Grace and Miles, here.
A grate being lowered on a storefront makes a great clanging noise, and Hadley startles. Skipper jolts with her, his arms gripping her tight. “It’s okay, Champ,” she lies.
Miles fusses. It is getting seriously cold now. She wraps his blanket tighter around him as she hugs Skipper closer and shudders away her own chills. A hundred yards away, Grace paces on the sidewalk, the phone no longer held to her ear.
53
GRACE
The phone is tight in her grip. She hung up with Jimmy’s brother, Brad, a few minutes ago. He was very calm. She supposes for an ex-marine with shrapnel in his hip and a Bronze Star, a little sister-in-law fugitive action is no big deal. He took down her number, repeated it back, then told her to sit tight.
She’s been pacing nonstop since, her arms goose skinned with the cold and the thought of how she’s going to explain everything that’s happened to Jimmy. Until this moment, none of it felt embarrassing. Horrible as it was, she wasn’t really all that conscious of how awful it would be to have to confess what she has done and to own up to the calamity she’s made of her life, their life, and Miles’s future.
The phone buzzes, and she jumps.
“Jimmy?”
“Grace?”
And with that single utterance, she loses it, all the emotions she’s held in check for the past four days spilling out to stream from her eyes and down her face faster than she can wipe the tears away.
“Grace? Please . . . babe . . . tell me you’re okay.” His voice is frantic, and she feels bad for the panic she is causing him, but there’s nothing to be done. Her voice is lost, swallowed by the gulping breaths she’s taking in an effort to calm herself.
“Grace, where are you? Tell me where you are.” His distress vibrates through the line. “I’m on my way.”
“No,” she manages, more a grunt than a word. She swallows air and uses her arm to blot away the tears as she pushes down the emotions deep as they will go, burying them in that dark place where all her other demons are tightly locked away. With a shuddering breath, she says, “Jimmy, I need your help.”
“Babe, where are you?” he repeats.
“Jimmy, please, just listen, and do as I ask.”
“Anything.”
“Whose phone are you using?”
“I borrowed it from a trucker who’s at the diner where I’m at.”
She blinks several times. “You’re not in Afghanistan?”
“No, babe. I came home. As soon as the FBI called, I took an emergency leave and came home.”
She closes her eyes to process what he’s saying. Of course the FBI contacted him, which means he knows most of the story, same as the rest of the world. A wave of relief and humiliation washes over her. At least she no longer needs to explain it.
He says, “I’m sorry, babe. I’m so sorry. I screwed up—”
She cuts him off. “Jimmy, stop.”
He stops, and she can see his face—his mouth clamped shut over the words he desperately wants to say, his gold eyes frantic as they dart around, hoping for an idea, some spark of inspiration that will change things, fix what he has done and everything that’s come after as a result.
“Is the FBI following you?” she says.
“I don’t think so. Though you were smart not to call me on my phone.”
“Where are you?”
“Chicago.”
She nods. Chicago is where a lot of soldiers fly into when they return.
“I need you to wire me some money,” she says.
“I’ll bring it to you.”
“No.” The word comes out harsher than she intended. She softens her tone. “Jimmy, you need to stay out of this. For Miles. You understand?”
“But—”
“No buts. Please, just wire me what you can. Send it to the Western Union on Broadway in Denver. Use the name Blaire Butz. B-U-T-Z. You got that?”
“I got Blaire Butz and I cannot lie,” he raps to the “Baby Got Back” tune, the humor falling flat, their old repartee of singsonging to each other like salt in an open wound.
After a long empty pause, she says, “Can you get some money?” Then, not intending to be cruel, but the remark brutal nonetheless, she adds, “Our account is empty.”
“I know, babe, I—”
She cuts him off. “I just need to know if you can get some money and send it to me.”
“Yes. I can. I will. It will be there when the station opens.”
“Okay.” A pause. So much unsaid and yet nothing really left to say. “Thanks, Jimmy. Take care of yourself.”
“Grace—”
She disconnects and returns to where the others are waiting, hollow as a ghost, as if the wind can move right through her.
54
HADLEY
It was the most miserable night of Hadley’s life. The only night that even came close was the night her mother died, but that night was only full of sadness, while last night was full of all sorts of other horrible emotions as well.
Mattie. Mark. Mattie. Mattie. Mattie. Mark. Mark. Mark. Each moment she closed her eyes brought horror and terror. Every sharp noise startled her, her mind thinking it was a gunshot. And as she held Skipper against her and waited for the dawn, she wondered if this would be the new rhythm of her life, a fragile state of unrelenting fear interrupted by extreme moments of regret—every other minute remembering, then forgetting again, because the idea simply won’t stick—an endless cycle of torture certain to drive her insane.
She sits up carefully so as not to wake Skipper and rubs her swollen eyes. Grace is a few feet away, Miles in
her arms, a bottle plugged in his mouth.
She looks as bad as Hadley feels, her eyes bruised and her hair matted on one side and frizzy on the other. She looks homeless, like she’s been living on the streets for months. They all do—the four of them layered in mismatched clothes and blankets bought from a Walgreens two blocks away, gritty with dirt and grime from a night spent huddled in the dark corner of the church’s courtyard.
Dinner was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and this morning’s breakfast will be the same. Grace is oddly adept at knowing how to survive on the street, making Hadley wonder again about her past. She knew exactly which corner would provide the most shelter and how to make the most of their funds, spending it on food that would last and on as much warmth as they could afford. Hadley wanted to buy toothpaste and hand sanitizer, but Grace was adamant they hold on to their money in case Jimmy doesn’t come through, which Grace seems to think he might not.
Hadley was surprised when Grace told her she had called him. It was a sign of how desperate things had become. She wanted to ask Grace if she was okay, but Grace made it clear she didn’t want to talk about it. So, Hadley let her be, though it’s quite obvious the conversation wrecked her, and Hadley has never seen Grace so close to despair.
The bells of the church chime eight times, and Grace turns. “We need to go.”
Hadley jostles Skipper to wake him. His response is to curl tighter against her.
“Come on, Champ,” she says, her eyes fixed on the purple dinosaur pin on his hat. The Rockies mascot emblem was a purchase Mattie insisted on when they were at the sports store buying his new jersey. Tears pool in her eyes, and it takes all her will to keep them from spilling over.
Skipper blinks his eyes open, wide pools of blue looking up at her, and she forces as bright a smile as she can manage onto her face as she says, “Morning, Champ. Ready to start our day? Trout has a plan.”
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