At Close Range

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  That was something they had in common. Unexpectedly losing someone they loved.

  Brian took one last look at the window, wondering what would have happened if it had been open—what could happen in the future, if they didn’t get things under control.

  “Let’s bring him in with us just in case,” he said now, an arm around Cynthia’s shoulders as he led her back down the hall.

  The boy needed security. Whatever was causing the sleepwalking, whatever was causing the bed-wetting, might never be known to them, but the symptoms could still be treated. The cure, Brian was certain, especially in one so young, was a stable, two-parent home environment. An environment like the Summerses had to offer Felicia.

  An environment he could offer to Joseph and his mother.

  “Have you seen the Sun News?” Hannah didn’t bother with a hello when Brian finally answered his phone at four forty-five the next afternoon. She’d just come off the bench to be handed a copy of the weekly paper by her judicial assistant. Brian’s picture took up half the front page. Hannah’s name was in the second paragraph.

  “Hannah? No, I’ve had back-to-back patients since I got in this morning. To be honest, I’m not even sure what time it is. What’s up?”

  Relieved that he hadn’t been broadsided, that she could break the news to him gently, Hannah silently reread parts of the article. Her protective instincts reared all over again.

  “They’ve gone too far this time,” she said, pissed off and ready to take someone on. “It says here that you refused to comment.”

  “Only by default. I had some bad news to deliver to the parents of a three-year-old. The reporter completely slipped my mind.”

  Immediately taken back to her own experience as the parent of one of Brian’s patients, remembering the strength he’d given her when she didn’t have enough of her own, Hannah glanced away from the paper.

  Kids were supposed to be free from worry, from stress and pain. Childhood was for naiveté and laughter. Playing. No responsibility.

  Or so they said.

  “Is the three-year-old going to be okay?”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  Holding back the tears that would fall if she’d let them, tears that she’d grown adept at fighting over the past year, she looked again at the article while questions she couldn’t ask raged through her mind.

  How long had the little girl been sick? What were her symptoms? How old were the parents? Were they a close family? Were there other kids? Did they have the resources for treatment? Was there any hope?

  “So how bad is the article?” Brian’s question brought her out of a nightmare and into a mess.

  “Bad,” she told him, because that’s how they were. Always honest. Always there for each other. Loving but never lovers. “Someone’s done a lot of talking out of turn followed up by incompetent research.”

  “Okay.” His tone told her to get on with it.

  “They say that there’ve been an unusual number of SIDS deaths in the valley over the past year….”

  “That’s not true. Our educational seminars have had an impact already. The statistics are changing.”

  “Yeah, they mention that.” Hannah’s voice dropped. Since shortly after her son’s death, she and Brian, a mother and a doctor, had been traveling around the state speaking to groups of expectant parents, offering two different perspectives but delivering the same message. There were ways to lessen the chances of SIDS. Easy ways. “Which is why it’s a concern to this reporter that there’s one doctor who’s seen an upswing in sudden infant deaths among his patients.”

  “Me.”

  “Right.”

  His silence was difficult to take.

  “He doesn’t name his source but he claims that he’s gone through public records to verify his facts.”

  “Which are?”

  “You have three-hundred percent more cases of SIDS than any other doctor in the city.”

  Again, he said nothing.

  “Is that true?”

  “If every other doctor in the city averages one death a year, yes.”

  “You’ve had four.”

  “And you knew about all four of them.”

  Yeah. She had. She just hadn’t realized…

  “He says that all four of your patients were Hispanic babies.” Hannah could hardly hear the words she was speaking for the undertones in this conversation. If Brian…

  But that was impossible. She’d known him since college. Had loved him like a brother. He’d been a great friend. And a great husband to her best friend, Cara. More, he’d helped Hannah adopt Carlos, had been her son’s doctor and watched over Carlos as diligently as if the baby was his own. His and Cara’s.

  Cara. He’d taken her death hard.

  Hard enough to quietly, gradually, unhinge him as the article implied?

  “You know better than anyone how much time I dedicate to SIDS awareness, education, research and fund-raising.” Brian’s voice, lacking any hint of his usual charm, fell flat.

  “Yeah,” she said, also remembering the months after the accident. The bitterness that had poured out of Brian in his darkest moments, usually after imbibing more alcohol than he’d had during even the most raucous college parties. His wife, the only really close female friend Hannah had ever had, was killed by an illegal immigrant—a young man who’d crossed the Arizona/Mexico border with his parents as a child, without paperwork and, therefore, without the means to take drivers’ training or get a license.

  “The fund-raising is part of the problem.”

  “How so?”

  “Without some SIDS deaths, there’d be no funding.”

  “Without SIDS, we wouldn’t need the funding.”

  “The implication is that some of the funds we raise line your pockets.” Hannah didn’t believe it for a second. If for no other reason than because Brian didn’t need the money. That wasn’t the implication that bothered her.

  “You know me better than that,” he said when she didn’t continue.

  “I think he only put in that part to explain away the volunteer time you spend on behalf of SIDS victims. They can’t write an ugly exposé and have you coming off looking good.”

  “So why write one at all?”

  And here was the real problem.

  “It talks about Cara and the accident.”

  Hannah could tell by his silence that he was hurting. And she hurt with him. Even while looking for reassurance that he was as sane as anyone. As incapable of killing another human being as she was.

  “There’s a picture of the car, a line about you screaming at the other driver while they tried to cut Cara free from the wreckage.”

  “Which I don’t remember at all,” he said softly.

  Brian had hit his head in the accident. His memories were select. The doctors had warned that he might never remember everything.

  “And they talk about the trial….”

  “And the fact that the kid wasn’t tested for drugs at the scene? That he got away with some misdemeanors and a few months in jail?” Even while she understood his anger, shared it, it scared her for a second.

  Because she was stressed. Worn out. Not at her best.

  “What’s this got to do with SIDS?”

  “They imply that you’re trying to rid the state of immigrants because of Cara. They printed a picture of you, taken ten years ago, at that rally downtown….”

  “For stricter enforcement of immigration laws, I remember. But this guy can’t actually think that because I support immigration patrols, I’d resort to murdering innocent children. I’m a pediatrician, for God’s sake!” Brian’s incredulity struck a chord in Hannah. Her momentary doubts dwindled into nothing—the result of a long day, a long week. A trial that still hadn’t ended.

  “Crazy, huh?” she asked her dear friend. Cara’s death had changed Brian forever. Changed them both. But he wasn’t unstable. He wasn’t disturbed enough to take the law into his own hands, as the articl
e implied.

  “I’d say someone has way too much spare time. Does it say how I supposedly bring about these deaths? Or how rich I’m getting with the supposed kickback I’m getting from the SIDS fund-raising?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did they mention Carlos?”

  She blinked. And blinked again. She’d only had her sweet boy for eight short weeks, but what an impact he’d made on her heart. On her life. For eight weeks out of forty years she’d been what she’d always dreamed of being—a mother.

  “No,” she said when she could speak. She’d accepted that her grief was going to be a permanent part of her. And had learned to live with it. “None of the children were named.”

  “So the only mention of you was regarding the seminars?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should sue them.”

  “All they did was state facts and then imply. You can’t stop that.”

  “There aren’t enough sick and twisted people in the world, doing ungodly things, that they have to drum up something like this?”

  “Sick and twisted is too commonplace. The Sun News is always looking for the big angle. The story no one else has.”

  It was going to be okay. The story was just that. A story. She’d overreacted.

  “I wouldn’t hurt a child for anything. Not even the son of the man who killed my wife.”

  “I know that.”

  “I loved Carlos.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry this came up now. You didn’t need it. I should’ve remembered the damned call. I probably could’ve prevented the whole thing.”

  “Or not. You know how these people are. They had some interesting coincidental facts and that’s all they need to sell papers.”

  “I don’t understand why anyone reads that crap.”

  “Makes their lives seem better, I guess,” Hannah said, not wanting to hang up. On days like this she longed to be back in college when she and Cara and a few others had all lived in the same block, sharing life’s ups and downs. “You know, they see someone worse off than they are and think they have it good.”

  “I hate seeing you hurt.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “I’ve had negative press before,” he said, sounding as tired as she felt.

  So had she. Most recently the previous week when a certain unnamed reporter thought she’d been too lenient in sentencing a girl convicted of vehicular manslaughter in a hit-and-run.

  “If there’s a drop-off in your patient load you can claim damages…”

  “That would have to be a drop-off in my waiting list,” he said with more weariness than pride. “The accusations are ludicrous and while some people will believe anything, I have to hope this article’s going to generate more awareness of SIDS. It might actually help save a few lives.”

  Trust Brian to come up with a positive spin. A fix. He was the ultimate fixer. Bodies. Minds. Hearts.

  He spent his entire life fixing—as a means of escaping the things that couldn’t be fixed?

  No matter how many lives he saved, he’d never be able to bring back the wife who’d died in a car he’d been driving.

  “How’s the trial going?” he asked and Hannah was glad he wasn’t ready to hang up, either. It had been a couple of weeks since they’d talked and she’d missed him.

  “Not great.” Glancing at the file in front of her, the one that was thicker and far more bothersome than the rest of the stack her JA had left on her desk, she said, “Based on statements made by the defense, the state, who’d already rested, moved to admit testimony from the victim of a crime the defendant was convicted of as a juvenile.”

  “I thought they couldn’t bring in prior convictions because it’s prejudicial.”

  She smiled, loving the fact that Brian paid enough attention when she talked about her job to pick up on the basics.

  “Generally that’s correct.” Opening the file, she stared at Kenny Hill’s mug shot. And then let the folder drop shut. “But in this case, the victim of the previous crime can give information relevant to a claim the defense has made on this charge. Had the defense not made the claim, this door wouldn’t have been opened.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I took it under advisement.” Which meant she wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. “I told the attorneys I’d have a ruling for them by ten in the morning.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  “I think so.” Still, she couldn’t act rashly. She needed to mull over all the angles. To research. To make sure. “I don’t want this case losing on appeal.”

  “It’s a capital case, right? If he’s convicted isn’t it pretty much a given that it’ll be appealed?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t envy you.”

  Thinking about his young patient who didn’t have much hope of a future, about the ones he lost and the grief he suffered for each of them, Hannah shook her head. “Some days, I don’t envy you your career, either.”

  “I’d suggest dinner or a stiff drink, but I’ve got…to get home.”

  His hesitation, accompanied by a strange tone in his voice, piqued her interest. “Why’s that?”

  “Cynthia’s moving in. Tonight.”

  What? “The young woman with the four-year-old?”

  He’d seen her more than twice, but…“She’s moving in as in with you, or as in renting a couple of rooms?”

  “With me.”

  “In a relationship. With you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m…I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t either, really. But it seems like the right thing to do.”

  “Is she still doing your bookkeeping?” Hannah asked.

  “Yes.”

  “At night so you can watch her son?”

  “Yes.” Consciously fighting a twinge of jealousy that he had what she’d lost—a little boy to care for and love—Hannah refused to give in to the depression that had buried her for the long months after Carlos died.

  She could look at other families now, other mothers with babies and toddlers, and not fall apart.

  “I didn’t know you were still seeing her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And it’s that serious?”

  “Yep.”

  “Needless to say, I’m shocked, but if you’re sure this is what you want, I’m happy for you.” Brian’s happiness was as important to her as her own. “It’s about time you joined the ranks of the living.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Though she was worried he might get hurt, Hannah wished him well. Told him to tell Cynthia hello. To give Joseph, whom she’d met only once at a SIDS fund-raiser, a hug. And then she hung up, staring at the wall of bookcases across from her.

  Something about Brian’s news didn’t feel right; she just couldn’t pinpoint what that would be.

  She wasn’t jealous, was she? She and Brian were close friends, nothing more.

  So why wasn’t she as happy for him as she should’ve been?

  Sliding the pile of folders in front of her, Hannah grabbed a pen. She was tired; that was all. The week had already been too long and wasn’t over yet. She’d feel better after she got some rest.

  She’d feel better after Kenny Hill was convicted.

  3

  L ights welcomed Brian as he pulled through the entrance of the gated community and up to his home on Thursday night. The landscapers had been there earlier in the day and his half acre of colorful desert plants, squeezed into an entire street of similarly coiffed properties, provided a much-needed sanctuary from another long and trying day. The three-thousand-square-foot house was too much for him—he’d known that for a couple of years. But on nights like tonight, Brian couldn’t bear the idea of giving it up. He’d had to admit a six-year-old with an extremely high fever to the hospital this afternoon. With any luck, he wouldn’t be called out again that night.

  The room-to-
room stereo system was blaring the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” as he came through the garage door into the laundry room. A far cry from the peace and quiet he was used to. But it wasn’t wholly unwelcome.

  With a smile, Brian entered the adjoining kitchen. Joseph, busy with crayons and paper at the table, didn’t notice him. Neither did the beautiful brunette standing at the granite counter, reading a newspaper. A few unopened moving boxes lined one wall. Cynthia had told him she didn’t have much as she’d rented her apartment furnished. If those boxes were the extent of her goods, he’d say her comment had been an understatement. How did one raise a child with only four moving boxes’ worth of belongings? Where were the toys? The picture albums and booster seats?

  “Hey, doesn’t a guy get a hello after a hard day’s work?” He raised his voice to be heard over the childish chorus.

  Joseph’s quickly indrawn breath, the speed with which the boy jumped down from the adult-size seat he’d been kneeling on, almost completely distracted Brian from the sight of Cynthia quickly folding and trashing the paper she’d been poring over so intently she’d missed his entrance.

  “I made this for you, Brian,” Joseph said, holding out a wrinkled and slightly ripped piece of drawing paper.

  Squatting, Brian had to consciously restrain himself from pulling the boy into his embrace, a sign of affection that Joseph could not yet accept, as he studied the artwork. A wobbly circle dominated the page. Several colors rimmed what Brian assumed was a ball. Rays of sun came out of the edges of the ball and ran off the sides of the page. The center of the ball had been left blank.

  “This is great, son,” Brian said. “Is it mine to keep?”

  Wordlessly, eyes wide as though fearing the reaction to his offering, Joseph nodded.

  “Well, thank you. This is the nicest present I’ve had in a long time.” His ear-to-ear grin wasn’t the least bit forced. “I’m going to put this in my briefcase right now. I’ll take it to work with me tomorrow and hang it on the bulletin board by my desk so I can think of you every day.”

  Joseph stared at him, leaving Brian to wonder what the child was thinking. Eventually the boy nodded and moved slowly back to his chair where he returned his focus to his latest creation.