was a cop, but Gabe sure as hell would find out.
REVEREND MILLER had appeared. It was time for the funeral service to begin.
“Excuse me,” Holly said. “I have to get my son.” A small sense of relief passed through her at this perfectly logical reason to flee not only the continuing parade of well-wishers but also the presence of this intense and disturbing man.
This man who wasn’t merely a cop, but a leader of cops.
Who had made it clear he intended to inflict more cops on her, in the name of helping her.
The kind of help she really needed required that she never again, for the rest of her life, see a policeman.
“Of course,” he replied. “I’ll come with you.”
“That’s all right,” she said quickly. “I can—” But he took her elbow and began politely bulldozing a path through the crowd toward the door from which she had previously emerged.
She should despise his take-charge attitude. And yet, for this moment, at least, it felt good to have someone deal with the crowd on her behalf.
She’d been handling ninety percent of the things in her life and Tommy’s by herself for quite a while now. There was time enough for her to learn to deal with the other ten percent alone.
But perhaps she should just let Tommy stay outside during the memorial service. She knew Edie would continue to watch him, for her friend was like a second mother to her son. He was so young, after all. The funeral wouldn’t bring any closure to someone so unknowledgeable about what it was supposed to mean. And although Holly had checked with the child psychologist and been given the go-ahead, she wondered if it was a good idea to have him here after what he’d gone through.
Still, whatever he experienced here might allow him in the future to deal with his father’s death better. Thomas was about to be given a hero’s sendoff. That might help little Tommy remember his daddy. Whatever else Thomas had been, he had been a good cop.
Chief Gabe McLaren’s vast shoulders appeared to shrink the size of the already small waiting room once more as he led her through it and outside the door to the adjoining garden. There, Edie was pointing to something on a flower. As Holly drew closer, she saw it was a butterfly.
Tommy was laughing, and Holly felt herself smile in response. It was the first laughter she had heard from her son since that awful morning four days earlier. She soaked it in as if she was the butterfly, and the sound was the nectar from the loveliest of blossoms.
Edie looked toward her, and their eyes met. “It’s time,” Holly mouthed. Edie’s nod didn’t dislodge one hair in her short pixie hairdo, and she stood.
Even as tall as her friend was, she still seemed almost petite compared with Gabe McLaren. Edie clearly noticed, for she smiled up at the chief from beneath flirtatiously lowered lashes and held out her hand. “Hi,” she said, and introduced herself.
“Hi,” Chief McLaren said in return. He extracted his hand from Edie’s and extended it to Tommy. “I saw you before, but we didn’t get a chance to talk. You’re Tommy, aren’t you? I’m Chief McLaren. Your dad and I worked together.”
Tommy’s smile faded. He regarded the large man with huge, solemn eyes. He held out his small hand that was dwarfed by Gabe McLaren’s much greater one and received the polite handshake in an adult manner that nearly made Holly cry.
Holly couldn’t help liking the way Gabe hadn’t diminished Thomas in his son’s eyes by stating the truth: that his daddy had worked for him.
“It’s time to go inside, Tommy,” Gabe said. “Is that all right with you?”
Tommy nodded, still not speaking, not even to another man. But of course this man was a stranger. Holly took her son’s hand and together they walked toward the chapel. She didn’t look to see if anyone followed. She knew Edie would, and most likely Gabe McLaren would, too. Maybe she shouldn’t leave the flirtatious Edie behind. She certainly didn’t want her best friend to wind up involved with a cop.
What was she thinking? This wasn’t a singles bar. Edie and the chief weren’t here to make small talk to one another. This was a funeral. Thomas’s funeral. And Chief McLaren was probably already married.
Holly felt sorry for his wife…didn’t she?
They went through the door from the small waiting room into the chapel. The minister stood at the front of the room at the pulpit overlooking the closed casket and its surrounding garden of aromatic, dying flowers.
Holly took a deep breath as a thick lump formed in her throat. She somehow had to get through this.
The seats right beside the door where they entered were all occupied by police officers. As Tommy and she entered, everyone stood. A sea of uniforms surrounded them.
And suddenly, unexpectedly, Tommy began to scream.
Chapter Two
Holly quickly knelt before her son, held his small, shaking body against hers as he continued to sob and shriek wordlessly. “What is it, honey? Tell Mommy. Please, Tommy, it’ll be all right.” Her own voice cracked with all the emotions evoked by Tommy’s terrified screams. The loud, heart-rending noise resounded in her ear, pulsed through her brain like a siren that was the herald of an indescribable disaster.
But even her tight hug, the attempt to soothe her panicky son with quiet, loving words, didn’t calm him.
“What’s wrong?” Edie stood beside them, her hand lightly on Tommy’s head. Tears filled her wide eyes as she caught Holly’s gaze. “What can I do to help?”
Holly didn’t know. She noticed Sheldon and Evangeline hovering about, too. Evangeline turned and began talking to Reverend Miller, taking charge of the situation, as usual.
But still Tommy screamed.
“Tommy?” Holly said. “Tommy, please hush, honey. I can’t help you while you’re crying so loud. I need to understand what’s wrong.”
She knew what was wrong. His daddy was dead. Tommy had probably seen Thomas’s bleeding body. There was even the possibility that he had seen his father being murdered, though Al Sharp and the others had reassured Holly it was unlikely. Someone with as little compunction about killing as the fiend who’d stabbed Thomas would probably have had no scruples against killing any eyewitnesses—even one as young as Tommy.
Scant comfort, but Holly had understood its logic. And it had given her hope that whoever it was would not, after the fact, harm her son.
But what had triggered Tommy’s agonized reaction now? Had the sight of the coffin upset him so much? Did a four-year-old even understand the significance of a coffin?
“Hey, sport.” Gabe McLaren knelt beside them, talking softly despite the likelihood that Tommy could not completely hear him over his own screams. “Know what? You’re right. This place sucks. I noticed you were in that garden outside. I liked it, too. And those butterflies? Awesome. Would you like to see if they’re still there? I’m not from this area. Are there monarch butterflies around here? They’re those pretty, bright-colored ones, oranges and browns and yellows.”
That
