else there, how much courage there was in this tough little package, how much she had risked for me.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“I was wondering, what did your brother mean when he said he was worried how everything might have gotten to you. He mentioned Rick. And Raef… It made me think, when I spoke to you that first time, you said it was your first day back at the job…”
Carrie glanced away, checking her mirror, and changed lanes.
“I know you said you’d tell me, later on, when I turned myself in. But it’s not like we don’t have a couple of hours here to ourselves…
“Uh-huh.” Carrie finally nodded, letting out a breath. “And my son.”
She drove on a ways, still seeing I was waiting for an answer if she felt like giving me one. “Last September, my son, Raef…” She drew in a breath. “He was eight. He went into a seizure on the soccer field at school. He lost consciousness. Rick got the call and I was about two hours away…”
I nodded.
“I rushed to the ER, but Raef was already in the ICU. A ruptured AVM. You know it?”
I nodded again.
“The doctor said it would be touch and go for the next forty-eight hours. He’d lost a lot of blood flow to the brain. He said Raef was putting up a good fight, but that something else had happened. He sat me down…”
She blinked and again pressed her lips tightly together. “Rick was in the OR, undergoing emergency surgery. He had what’s called a dissected aorta. You probably know what that is too…
“They said he probably had it from birth. Apparently he’d sat down in a chair in the waiting room and all of a sudden he just felt woozy. It had to be dealt with immediately. The procedure took four hours.” Carrie forced a smile, different from any I had seen from her thus far. “I had a kid in the ICU clinging onto his life and a husband in the OR who could go either way… I kept running back and forth, checking on Raef, holding his hand, telling him to hang on, then I’d go back up and watch Rick…”
I frowned and swallowed. “How did he do?”
“He didn’t make it,” Carrie said, with the slightest shake of her head. “He stroked out on the table. Like a ticking bomb, they told me. I suppose it could’ve gone off anywhere. It just happened there. You would have thought…” She glanced in the mirror again and shifted lanes.
“Would have thought
She shrugged. “Rick did two tours in Iraq. Before law school. He lost a lot of friends there. You would have thought if it was simply a matter of stress, it might’ve happened over there…”
“What do
She blinked almost distractedly and shook her head. “I don’t know…”
She held the wheel with one hand, and I reached out and put my hand on her arm and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I don’t really talk about it much. I suppose it’s all still pretty new. Raw…”
“I didn’t mean to make you go through that.”
“I think you do him proud,” I said, “when it comes to that measure.”
Our eyes met, and we didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I saw a Florida driver’s license next to Rick’s photo. “You mind?”
She shook her head.
I pulled it out. With my new cropped hair and glasses, I kind of resembled him.
“I should probably take that out now,” Carrie said. “I guess it still makes me feel like he’s here. There are times I just want to feel close.”
“I think you should keep it there as long as you like,” I said. Our eyes met. “I think you’ll know the right time.” I was about to put the photos back in her wallet. “So how’s your boy doing?”
“He’s doing great,” Carrie answered with a resurgent smile. “He’s back at home now-at my parents’ actually. He suffered some cognitive loss that they’ve been working on at the hospital, as well as some motor paralysis on his left side. But he’ll be back to school in the fall. Little guy’s the love of my life. But you must understand that, Dr. Stead-”
She caught herself, in an awkward pause. “Sorry.”
I looked at her. “You think it’s time you start calling me Henry? Nothing special, it’s just that I kind of let everyone who saves my life call me by my first name. It’s a rule with me…”
Carrie smiled, brightness coming back into her face. “I don’t know. Maybe we should keep it like it is for now…”
“You’re right. Anyway,
Suddenly I realized what the answer to my question about Carrie was.
It had to do with what I had said to her that first time I called in that somehow made her trust in me and look for that car. When everyone else had me tried and convicted as a ruthless killer and just wanted to bring me in.
I had asked if she had kids… And now I remembered, after a long pause she had answered yes, she did, a son
And then I had said: “
Then I swore, on Hallie-the love of
And somehow that had cut through all the convincing evidence and the rush to judgment. And it had made her believe me. In spite of everything to the contrary. All the evidence, all the crimes Hofer had managed to pin on me-
“No.” I shook my head at her, smiling. “I think you just did.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Mount Holly was a sleepy North Carolina town, like so many I’d been through lately. We made it there by 2:30 that afternoon.
Around Charlotte, the traffic narrowed to a single lane, a bunch of police lights flashing. Carrie pushed Rick’s license back to me, saying, “You may want to hold on to this. And while we’re at it, maybe this too.” Underneath it was Rick’s business card.
Worriedly, I started thinking maybe those sightings of me were more dangerous than I’d thought.
But it was just an accident. We passed right on through the line of police cars. The road was clear the rest of the way.
Bud’s Guns was located in a small strip mall on the outskirts of town, in between a wheelchair outlet and a Dairy Queen.
“Ready?” Carrie asked, parking the car and reaching around to the back for her file of photos and my iPad. She took in a breath.
“Totally ready,” I replied.
Carrie went into the store, the iPad armed with two bookmarked photos: one, from the
