She was desperate to share the burden of it, and if there was anyone in her life she could trust, it was Jill. But before she could speak, Hal Trutter appeared.
There was nothing subtle about Hal. Wearing a natty navy suit and red tie, he had LAWYER written all over him. Realizing that, Deborah guessed every one of the people out front knew why he was here.
He took a coffee from the tray on the desk and looked at Jill. “Witness or chaperone?”
Jill didn’t like Hal. She had told Deborah that more than once, without even knowing he had come on to her sister. It might have simply been her distrust of arrogant men. But in answer to his question, Jill folded her arms across her chest and smiled. “Both.”
Feeling marginally protected, Deborah pulled the accident report from her bag. Hal unfolded it and began to read.
Deborah was comfortable with the first page, a straightforward listing of the spot where the accident occurred, her name, address, license number, car model, and registration number. She grew more nervous when he turned to the second page, where there was a line labeled “Driver.”
Fighting guilt, she kept her eyes steady on Hal. He ate some of the sticky bun and read on.
Jill asked, “You’re not gooeying up that form, are you?”
Just then, Deborah’s cell phone chimed. Pulling it from her pocket, she read the message, swore softly, and rose. “Be right back,” she said and headed through the kitchen. “Yes, Greg.”
“I just got a message from Dylan. What’s happening down there?”
Deborah wasn’t surprised Dylan had called his father. She wished he had waited, but Cal McKenna would still be dead. Greg would have to know sooner or later.
Finding a spot in the shadow of a dumpster outside the back door, she told him about the accident. The questions that followed were predictable. Greg might have moved to Vermont to rediscover his inner artist, but to Deborah, he was still the CEO who had inadvertently micromanaged his business to success.
To his credit, the first questions were about Grace and whether either of them had been hurt in any way. Then came, What time did you leave the house, what time did you get Grace, what time was the accident? Exactly where on the rim road did it happen, how far was the victim thrown, how long did it take for the ambulance to arrive? What hospital was he at, who’s his primary doctor, was a specialist brought in?
“No specialist,” Deborah said. “He was doing fine. No one expected that he’d die.”
There was a brief pause, then, “Why did I have to hear this from my ten-year-old son? You were involved in a fatal accident, and you didn’t think it important enough to keep me in the loop?”
“We’re divorced, Greg,” she reminded him sadly. He sounded genuinely wounded, so much like the caring man she had married that she felt a wave of nostalgia. “You said you had burned out on your life here. I was trying to spare you. Besides, there was nothing fatal about it until early this morning, and I’ve been slightly preoccupied since then.”
He relented a bit. “Is Grace upset?”
“Very. She was in a car that hit a man.”
“She should have called me. We could have talked.”
“Oh, Greg,” Deborah said with a tired sigh. “You and Grace haven’t talked—really talked—since you left.”
“Maybe it’s time we did.”
She didn’t know whether he meant talking on the phone or in person, but she couldn’t imagine proposing either to Grace right now. The girl saw her father every few months, and then only at Deborah’s insistence.
“Now’s not good,” she said. “Grace is dealing with enough, without that.”
“How long is she going to stay angry with me?”
“I don’t know. I try to talk her through it, but she still feels abandoned.”
“Because you do, Deborah. Are you imposing your own feelings on her?”
“Oh, I don’t need to do that,” Deborah said with quick anger. “She feels abandoned enough all on her own. You’re her father, and you haven’t been here for the last two years of her life. Literally. You haven’t been down once, not once. You want the kids to go up there to visit, and that might be fine for Dylan, but Grace has a life here. She has homework, she has track, she has friends.” Deborah glanced at her watch. “I can’t do this right now, Greg. I was in the middle of something when you called, and I have to get to work.”
“That’s what did it, y’know.”
“Did what?”
“Destroyed our marriage. You always had to work.”
“Excuse me,” Deborah cried. “Is this the man who put in sixteen-hour days right up until the moment he dumped it all? For the record, Greg, I do go to Grace’s track meets and Dylan’s baseball games. I do go to piano recitals and school plays. You’re the one who could never make time for us.”
Quietly, Greg said, “I asked you to move up here with me.”
Deborah wanted to cry. “How could I do that, Greg? My practice is here. My father depends on me. Grace is in high school—and we have one of the best school systems in the state, you said that yourself.” She straightened her shoulders. “And if I had moved north with you, would it have been a threesome—you, Rebecca, and me? Oh, Greg, you made me an offer I couldn’t accept. So if you want to discuss what killed our marriage, we could start with that, but not today, not now. I have to go.”
Amazed at how close to the surface the hurt remained, Deborah ended the call before he could say anything else. Looking out over the yellow van with her sister’s logo on the side—a stylized cupcake, frosted into peaks spelling Sugar-on-Main—she took several calming breaths. When she was marginally composed, she went back inside.
Hal had finished reading the report. He was standing with his hands on his hips. Jill hadn’t moved.
“Is it okay?” Deborah asked uneasily.
“It’s fine.” He extended the papers. “If what you say here is exact, there’s good reason for us to know what the guy was doing out there in the rain and whether he was hopped up on booze or drugs. Anyone in his right mind would have moved to the side of the road when a car came along. So the big question mark is him, not you. I don’t see anything here that would raise a red flag on your end.”
Feeling little relief, Deborah refolded the papers. “I’m sending copies to the Registry and to my insurance company. Are you okay with that, too?”
“You have to do it. Just don’t talk with John again without me there, okay?”
“Why not?”
“Because the victim died. Because I’m your lawyer. Because I know John; John knows how to build a hand and hold it close. And, Deborah, don’t talk to the media. The Ledger’s bound to call.”
Of course they
