LITMIR.BIZ

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a dramatic sigh. “Fine,” she said in the tone of a long-suffering victim.

      He set her on the floor with a pat on the shoulder. “Go kiss your mom goodbye, but be quiet so you don’t wake her.”

      Emily ran down the hall, slowing as she approached her mother’s bedroom. She carefully pushed open the door and entered on tiptoe. Thomas smiled as he watched her golden ponytail disappear into the dark room, then turned to press a kiss to his mother’s temple. “Have a good day, Ma.”

      “You, too, dear.” She patted his cheek. “Be safe today.”

      “Always.”

      Emily reappeared, closing the door with exaggerated care. “I’m ready,” she said as she approached Thomas.

      He handed her the pink-sequined backpack, let her struggle into it on her own. He’d made the mistake of trying to help her once, and the resulting fit had drawn Jenny from her bedroom. His sister-in-law worked nights at the hospital and needed her sleep, and she hadn’t been happy about being roused after only an hour of rest to calm down her hysterical daughter.

      “Bye, Nana.” She reached up to hug his mother, who bent with effort to wrap her arms around the girl. She was moving slower and slower these days, but she still insisted everything was fine. He supposed it didn’t take much effort to watch Emily at night while Jenny worked, but even so, he worried about her health.

      “Goodbye, sweet girl. Have a great day at school.”

      Emily let out another sigh. “I’ll try.” She reached up to take Thomas’s hand, leading him out of the apartment.

      “Is everything okay at school, Em?” They walked down the stairs together, hand in hand, her eyes on the floor while she carefully navigated the steps.

      “I guess.”

      “Is anyone bothering you?”

      “No.”

      “Do you like your teacher?” he pressed. The FBI had courses on the best methods to use when interrogating children, but he hadn’t taken any of them since most of his investigations focused on adults. Now, faced with a recalcitrant niece, he wondered if maybe he should sign up for the next session.

      Emily shrugged as he opened the passenger door. “She’s okay.” She climbed into the car, wriggling out of her backpack and setting it on the floor before reaching for the seat belt.

      He slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. “It just seems like you don’t want to go to school.”

      “Yeah.”

      “Do you want to tell me why?”

      He pulled into traffic, giving her time to think about her response. The silence went on for so long that he was about to ask her again when she said quietly, “I miss my dad.”

      His heart clenched at the admission. He reached for her hand, gave it a squeeze. “I miss him, too, sweetie.”

      Roger, his brother, had died in a car accident six months ago, but the details of that horrible day were never far from his mind. The afternoon phone call from his mother. The frantic drive to the hospital. The stale waiting-room coffee as they huddled together, waiting to hear if the doctors had worked a miracle. Jenny’s piercing scream when the surgical team walked over, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched. And Emily’s pale, tear-streaked face after he told her the earth-shattering news.

      Roger’s death had left a gaping hole in Jenny and Emily’s lives, one that Thomas had tried to patch, albeit with limited success. While he never wanted to replace her father, he did want Emily to have a male presence in her life, a man who loved her unreservedly and without question. He had begun taking her to school in the weeks after Roger’s death, stepping into the role Roger had performed so well. At first, Emily had been reserved and tearful, but she’d gradually begun to warm up to seeing him more often, and he treasured their mornings and the routine they had built. It was a small but important step on the path of healing.

      But it was a bumpy road, as evidenced by Emily’s quivering lip. “All the other kids have dads,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I don’t understand why mine had to die.”

      “I don’t either, love. Nobody understands it.” He ached to pull her into his lap for a hug, but contented himself with holding her hand as he kept his focus on the road. From the corner of his eye, he could see her lips press together in a pale line and knew she was trying hard not to cry. My sweet, brave girl.

      She was quiet for the rest of the drive. He didn’t press her to talk—he wanted to be a safe place for her, and if he pestered her, she would withdraw from him. He pulled up to the curb in front of the school, then turned to face her.

      “Try to have a good day, Emmycakes.” It was his pet nickname for her, a play on her name and patty-cake, her favorite game as a little one. The name never failed to make her smile, and it didn’t disappoint now.

      She grinned up at him, her earlier sadness cast off like a discarded coat. “I will. You, too, Uncle Thomas.”

      He smiled at her serious tone. “I’ll do my best,” he assured her.

      She leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek, then climbed carefully out of the passenger seat. He watched while she made her way up the steps to her teacher. He gave the woman a wave as she collected Emily and guided her inside along with the other children, then merged back into traffic.

      Must be nice, he mused, thinking how quickly she had gone from tears to smiles. Would that his own grief and sadness were as easy to shake.

      Although he understood on a logical, rational level that his brother’s death hadn’t been his fault, he couldn’t dismiss the guilt that plagued him at the thought of Roger.

      I should have taken Mom....

      After a late-winter storm had pounded the city, his mother had called needing a ride to a doctor’s appointment. Buried at work, Thomas had asked Roger to cover for him. Since he was off duty at the time, Roger hadn’t hesitated to hop in the car and head over to their mom’s house. It should have been just another drive, a normal errand, nothing to write home about.

      Except for the garbage truck that hit a patch of ice and slammed into the car, crushing it and his brother in the blink of an eye.

      For the first few weeks after the accident, Thomas had woken almost nightly, soaked with sweat and with a scream trapped in his throat. The nightmares were graphic and all too real, the accident playing out in horrible slow motion while Thomas stood on the sidewalk, helpless to do anything but watch as his brother disappeared into a pile of twisted metal.

      The images had gradually faded, but the worst part was that Thomas still couldn’t think about his brother without imagining Roger’s last conscious moments as he lay trapped in the wreckage. His pain. His fear. His worry for Jenny and Emily. He hoped that one day, he would be able to remember Roger without recalling the accident, but for now, thoughts of Roger just left him feeling raw, like he’d taken a bath in acid.

      So he tried not to think about it.

      With a shake of his head, he reached for the dial, wanting some music to distract him for the rest of the drive. No sense in brooding over a past he couldn’t change. In that way lay madness.

      Before he could settle on a station, his phone rang. A quick glance at the lit display showed his boss calling, which was unusual. Agent Harper liked to keep track of the team, but he usually wasn’t overbearing about it. For him to call now, minutes before Thomas was due to show up at the office, meant something was going on.

      “Kincannon here.”

      “How close are you?”

      Thomas bit back the urge to reply Good morning to you, too. Harper’s brusque tone made it clear his sense of humor was on vacation, and since Thomas still didn’t know him all that well, he decided to play it safe. “Five minutes, give or take a few.”

      “I

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