their anniversary. There’s a party Saturday.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Carter,” the doctor said. His voice was hard to hear over Dixon’s muddled thoughts. “They suffered fractured cervical vertebrae, so death was likely instantaneous. I’m going to transfer you to a liaison who’ll talk over transportation arrangements.”
“Transportation arrangements?” The hospital had a travel agent? They’d get him a flight, a rental car?
“For the bodies,” the doctor said. He sounded young. A resident likely. Maybe he’d gotten the patient names wrong. They made mistakes at busy hospitals, right?
Dixon opened his mouth to ask for proof, for a second opinion, anything, but he was put on hold. His brain was moving through sludge. Howard was dead. Brianna, too. Killed on the highway. They lay in a hospital morgue, their bodies broken. Oh, God.
Waiting, he fumbled in his desk drawer for a pen, finally seeing the one on top of the yellow pad where he kept a running list of to-do items, some checked, some not. Insanely, he mentally added a task: bury your brother and his wife.
The social worker who came on the line was kind. She spoke slowly, waited for his questions after each piece of information. His mouth felt rubbery as he talked, and her voice came to him as if from underwater. She told him to contact a Phoenix mortuary, which would make arrangements with one in Reno to prepare the bodies and fly them home. Prepare the bodies...fly them home. The words were tiny bombs exploding in his brain.
She gave him her number if he had more questions. “Will you be all right? Do you have family nearby?”
“I’m fine. No one nearby. My mother’s away.” He’d have to reach her on the cruise ship in Europe. She would know how to reach his father, who’d skipped out when Dixon was ten. But Dixon wasn’t close to his mother. His family consisted of Howard and Brianna and Sienna and Ginger. Sienna and Ginger!
He had to pick them up. His gaze shot to the clock on his desk. He’d be fifteen minutes late if he left right now. “I need to go. I’ll call if I have questions.” He jumped up, sending his chair crashing to the wall behind him and lunged for the door, patting his pocket for the keys to Howard’s SUV. They’d asked him to drive the girls in it instead of Dixon’s Subaru WRX since the SUV was built like a tank. Howard and Brianna had taken their sedan to Tahoe. Maybe if they’d had the SUV they would have survived the crash...
Too late. Too late. They’re gone. He ran for the door. Maggie, two of the social workers, and Ben, a Bootstrap graduate they’d hired as a handyman, huddled around the reception desk. “What happened?” Maggie asked Dixon.
“Brianna and Howard were in a car wreck. Killed. They’re gone.” The words hit his ears like blows. He noticed he was trembling. The women gasped, faces shocked. Maggie covered her mouth with her hands.
“I have to get the girls. Cancel the United Way lunch, Maggie. Hold down the fort as best you can. I’ll call when I’m able to. Ben, finish the shelves in the career center, then wire the computers.”
He jumped in the SUV, squealed out of the lot and gunned the engine, wishing for his WRX with its turbo boosters. He leaned over the steering wheel as if that would get him there faster.
Sienna and Ginger, those two sweet girls, were orphans.
Bile rose in his throat and his vision grayed. He twisted the steering wheel, swallowed hard. He didn’t have time to get upset.
The girls were probably freaked enough that he hadn’t arrived. How would he tell them what had happened? When? Not right off. Not until he figured out the right way.
Grief tugged at him, dragging him down, breaking him in two. He fought to stay clear, to keep going, to do what had to be done. Get the girls, feed them, find a funeral home, reach his mother—would her cell phone work at sea or would he have to ask the cruise line to contact her?
He had to call Brianna’s twin sister, Aubrey, too. Aubrey was Brianna’s only family, as far as Dixon knew. Their mother had died when they’d barely graduated high school. Breast cancer, he thought. He didn’t know the story on their father, who wasn’t in the picture. Where would he get Aubrey’s number?
Probably from the stapled pages of instructions Brianna had left with details about the girls’ food preferences, their schedule, what they needed in their backpacks for Bootstrap, the babysitter next door, plus a list of emergency contact numbers—a plumber, an electrician, several neighbors, the pediatrician. At the time the list seemed to be overkill. Who would ever need any of that?
He did. It was all he had.
How would Aubrey take the news? Would she even be in the country?
Supposedly, she was coming to the anniversary party in three days. He’d figured she would breeze in at the last minute with some extravagant, impractical gift like she’d done for the twins’ birthdays. She’d brought her ski-bum boyfriend to the last one. Dixon and Aubrey had had a moment five years before at Howard and Brianna’s wedding. Since then, she’d been prickly around him, and they’d hardly spoken to each other.
Now they’d be forced to work together. They had a funeral to plan.
He shoved that idea into the swirl of his thoughts and snagged a new worry. What would happen to the girls? They would need a guardian.
It had to be him. Dixon was the only option. His mother loved the girls, but only in small doses. And parenthood had to be the furthest thing from Aubrey’s mind. She had some kind of travel blog about outdoor sports.
Of course, it was far from his mind, too.
You’re it, Dix. You’ll have to raise the girls. His gut churned, and he noticed that his jaw ached like crazy. He’d locked his back teeth, as if that would help him keep it together. He looked up, saw the red light and slammed on the brakes. Damn. It wouldn’t do for him to get in a wreck on the way to get the girls. He was all they had now.
How would the twins react? Ginger would dissolve into tears. Would Sienna? He imagined screams and wails and howls of grief and wild questions he wouldn’t know the answers to.
They’d be upset that he was late, and hungry, so he’d stop for fast food—always a hit—take them home and somehow find a way to tell them their parents would not be coming home tonight...or ever.
Call Constance. The answer popped into his head. The Bootstrap career counselor used to work as a school psychologist. She would talk him through this. He couldn’t blow it. The girls were counting on him.
As he waited for the green, the icy fact of Howard’s death trickled past his defenses.
Howard is gone. Your brother. The one person who loved you no matter what, your best friend, your family.
It can’t be. It’s not fair.
Howard deserved more time with his kids, more time with the agency he’d only begun to build. Dixon wanted more time with him, too. He owed him so much.
He’s gone. Forever. You’ll never see that grin of his, never get to harass him about the Phoenix Suns, kick his butt on the court, eat his smoked ribs, watch him work wonders with people in need.
The light turned green and he stomped the accelerator to the floor, shutting down his pain. He had
