almost empty—although that didn’t necessarily mean anything—but all he had to do was reach the clinic, fumble with the door key, shaking, damn it! and there was nobody waiting for him, good, because he couldn’t protect anyone else right now, not until he found Beth.
There, the phone. Morton’s number, direct line, if the cop would just pick up, okay, no time for conversation, just identify himself and ask—
“Can you find out about a train wreck?”
“What, the derailment?” The cop’s voice was more curious than bewildered, which meant Oscar’s radio report might’ve been accurate after all. But that still didn’t mean there was anything wrong. Beth was fine.
“The one from Los Angeles,” Rafe said over a short, tight breath. “My wife’s on there.”
“Oh, man.” Morton sounded alarmed, but that was probably just the phone connection. Because everything was fine. “Hold on, let me see what—hold on.”
Beth was fine, he repeated to himself as he gripped the phone with a fist too numb to release, and paced the six-foot gap between his desk and the door.
Beth was safe.
She was on her way home right now.
Right. Right, although people didn’t always come home—look at Mom, look at Carlos, look at Nita and Gramp and Rose—but this wasn’t the same thing. It wasn’t like he depended on Beth.
Never had, never would.
So she had to be fine. It was just taking Morton a while to confirm that, but any minute he’d be back on the line with word that Beth’s train delay was nothing, a minor glitch…. And there he was now.
“Rafe?” The cop sounded uneasy, and he felt himself bracing for a blow before he could remember that everything was fine. “Look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but—” Then Morton broke off. “Wait a minute, was your wife traveling with—”
“Her sister, yeah,” he managed to answer. Maybe there was a mix-up, maybe something had happened to her sister. Which would be hard on Beth, yeah, but as long as she was still alive— “Anne. They’re twins.”
“Ah, hell,” the cop muttered. There was a pause, during which Rafe scrambled for any prayer he could think of, any hope, any magic, and came up completely blank. “The sister’s being transported to emergency right now. But Beth…I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”
No.
No, he repeated as he slowly replaced the phone in its cradle. That wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t happen.
It happens all the time.
No.
Not this time.
“She didn’t make it.”
Not Beth.
Not again.
But already he recognized the feeling—that same heaviness, that same hot pressure of tears—
No.
No tears. He had to move, Rafe knew, he had to move someplace, do something—
Not cry.
No. No point. He stumbled into the lobby, where if anyone was waiting he could find something to do, something besides crying, because he wasn’t crying, this was crazy, even with nobody here he still wasn’t breaking down—
It hurts.
No, it couldn’t. Beth couldn’t be gone, because he still needed to fix things. After the way she’d left, thinking that delaying a baby meant he didn’t love her, when he did love her—
But not enough.
Never enough.
Rafe felt a shudder rising in his chest and gulped it down, bracing his hands against the back of the cracked plastic sofa where clients waited for the lawyer on duty. He couldn’t lock the door, not when someone might show up any minute, but he couldn’t—
God, he couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t fix this.
He had to fix this! That was his job, fixing things, and he couldn’t stand here crying in the clinic lobby—
But the tears wouldn’t stop. No matter how he clenched his muscles, how rigidly he held his breath, for some reason there was no swallowing the—
Not here!
Rafe fled to the bathroom and slammed the door lock home, already feeling the torrent of heat swelling into his eyes, his throat. God, he was practically choking, and suddenly he was sobbing, and somehow he couldn’t seem to stop, couldn’t keep from gasping out the desperate plea….
No. Not Beth.
Not this time.
Please!
There was no answer, which he already knew was the only possible response, but even so he begged with all his heart, with all his hope, knowing all the while that it wasn’t enough. Crying wouldn’t help, nothing helped, and he had to get himself together, get himself out of here, get back to the kind of strength he’d spent a lifetime building so this pain would never come back.
It was back now, though, worse than he remembered from the last time, although by now he knew how to fight it. Knew how to move, knew to flex his arms behind his back, to stop those bone-jarring gasps for breath and count five, ten, fifteen…
Seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five.
Two twenty, two twenty-five, two hundred thirty.
Counting as high as it took. That was the beginning, he knew, but real strength lay elsewhere. For real strength, he had to get out of here, he had to take care of someone. Anyone. Maybe some clients in the lobby, although he hadn’t heard anyone come in—and when he finally managed to square his shoulders and resolutely opened the bathroom door, the clinic was empty.
Okay. He could still get through this.
He knew what to do.
If there was nobody here, he’d try somewhere else. He could do it, Rafe knew. He’d done this before. Just find someone to look out for, somebody hurting or scared or—
Hurting. Right.
Anne.
Emergency, the cop had said, and she’d have to be at the hospital by now. So…
Okay. He locked the clinic door for the second time that morning and started for the dirt lot behind the building. Just move, just go. Protecting someone was the key to staying strong, and Beth’s sister was probably in bad shape right now.
So get going, Rafe ordered himself, stumbling blindly toward his car. Go, and you can get through this.
You
