Surviving the Truth

by Tyler Anne Snell

  If it had been earlier in the day, Willa suspected that Kenneth would shake his head, thank her, and then insist on not being a burden in some gentlemanly way that he thought was right. But he didn’t do that now. He simply nodded, weary.

  Willa decided not to bring up that, while the law worked to contain and sift through what had happened, Willa and her sister and Kimball had worked to settle things for Kenneth. Thanks to Deputy Park, Kenneth’s keys had been taken before he’d been carried off in the ambulance to the hospital. His SUV was in the parking lot downstairs and Willa’s car was back at her place.

  That was one of the very great things about living in a small town with a solid support system. When something bad happened, you never went through it alone, even if you didn’t realize it.

  Willa didn’t want to seem like she was looking for a pat on the back for their resourceful accommodation or for having given some forethought to what might happen next. Instead she waited for him to speak again.

  When it didn’t seem like he would, Willa was gentle.

  “Do you need to stay here any longer?”

  On the way up to his room, Willa had run into only two deputies, one of them Deputy Park. They had been heading out. Surely that meant Kenneth could leave. “Or does the doctor need you to stay?” she asked.

  That got an immediate answer.

  “I can leave. I’m fine.” He looked down at his shirt.

  Willa’s heart squeezed again.

  She heard what he hadn’t said.

  He was fine.

  LeAnne Granger was not.

  A stray bullet from the masked man’s gun had found her and, though Kenneth had tried his best to save her before the first responders arrived, she’d died in his arms on the floor of her business. Surrounded by blood and broken glass, according to Deputy Park when Willa had finally gotten the truth from him.

  “I’ve never had someone die in my arms,” Park had commented after he’d told her, shaking his head, a pained expression lining his face. “No one should have that happen but especially not Kenneth. Not after—” The deputy had caught himself and buttoned up the conversation. Willa found it touching that he hadn’t wanted to gossip about something so sensitive to Kenneth, though it wasn’t hard to put together that he’d been talking about Ally Gray.

  As far as Willa knew, Kenneth hadn’t found Ally, but he had been called to the scene when her body had been called in.

  Holding a woman, even as she died, wouldn’t have been easy for anyone. But for someone whose wife had been murdered? It had to bring back memories that were a new level of unbearable.

  Willa reached out and touched Kenneth’s hands. It brought his attention away from a shirt he should have already taken off.

  “Here. You stay put and I’ll be back in a second.”

  He didn’t make a fuss as Willa went out into the hall and searched for Janelle.

  A few minutes later, she was back in the room, a clean white T-shirt in her hands. She stopped next to Kenneth’s chair and took his elbow.

  “Why don’t we switch your shirts out?” she said, keeping her voice soft as she tried to gently pull him up. Thankfully, Kenneth stood on his own.

  He was in a daze, probably deep in his thoughts, replaying what had happened to LeAnne or to his wife or on something else that would give Willa nightmares, but he seemed to be fine with following her directive.

  In one fluid movement, he pulled his shirt up and off. Willa took it before he could focus on the dried blood again and handed him the new one.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked, pulling it over his head.

  Willa hurried to the trashcan in the room and, hoping he wasn’t attached to the plain gray shirt, was quick to throw it away.

  “I noticed a male nurse on shift who was about your size. He had a spare in his locker,” she said, scooting back to his side. “He said it was no problem if you took it since he has a ton at home.”

  Kenneth nodded absently.

  Willa hesitated before taking the lead again.

  “Is...is there anyone you want me to call? That you need to talk to?” She knew about Ally but her death had been years ago. With a burning blush, Willa realized she had no idea if the detective was attached to anyone else. Sure, there was no ring on his finger, but he could have been dating someone. So far all of their interactions had been about Josiah and the box. Just because she’d been feeling a little more than what she’d let on, didn’t mean that Kenneth returned those same sentiments.

  So she waited, feeling incredibly selfish for hoping that he wasn’t seeing anyone, for him to answer.

  He did so with little fanfare, though it struck a chord with her nonetheless.

  “The only person I was planning to call was you.”

  He reached back to the table behind him and grabbed his phone and wallet. There was also a sheet of paper. She spied a doctor’s signature at the bottom. Probably a prescription for heavy-duty ibuprofen for his shoulder, like Janelle had said. He folded the paper and slipped it into his jeans.

  For the first time Willa noticed that there was some blood on there, too. Along with his shoes.

  “Let’s go.” She put her hand on the small of his back, feeling waves of protectiveness and helplessness lap over her at the same time. They stopped at a nurses’ station to make sure the paperwork was taken care of, and Willa waved goodbye to Janelle. It wasn’t until they were in the parking lot that Kenneth peeked out of his own thoughts for a moment when he saw they were headed for his SUV.

  “I don’t have my keys.” He patted his jeans.

  “I do. Don’t worry.”

  Kenneth nodded. He became quiet again.

  And that’s how the rest of the night went.

  Willa made the decisions, Kenneth went along for the ride.

  She drove him straight home and let him inside his own house before sitting him down at his dining room table. She made him a turkey sandwich, got him a water, and called her sister to make sure she could keep Delilah overnight.

  When he was done eating, she guided him to the shower and left him, to make another call to her sister. Once he’d changed, she shooed him into bed with little to no resistance.

  He’d fallen asleep faster than she’d anticipated.

  Willa paused by his bed in the middle of her current task of collecting his discarded clothes for the laundry and looked long and hard at the man.

  She became misty-eyed at his face slack from sleep.

  Good people watching bad things was no life to live. At least, no life to live alone.

  * * *

  THERE WAS A knock on the door. He could have cussed at the interruption. He’d already bandaged himself but had had to change it out twice already. The first had bled through his shirt; the second had pulled uncomfortably.

  “Honey! You’ll never believe what I just heard!” His wife’s voice was excited, pitched high and vibrating.

  He could ruin her fun, tell her he had a good idea of what she’d just heard, but that wasn’t part of his plan. So he used the voice he reserved for her and called back through his closed office door.

  “I’m on a call, dear. Give me a few minutes and I’ll come talk, okay?”

  She wasn’t a fan of that but, to his surprise, had been a good wife when it came to his privacy. If he told her to not disturb him without knocking on his office door first, she didn’t. If he told her he couldn’t talk right then, she waited.

  Just as she did now.

  “Okay. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re through.”

  He heard her pad away and continued to check on his cuts. Then he looked at the bruise on his arm that would only get nastier.

  He couldn’t believe Detective Gray had hit him with an umbrella.

  He also couldn’t believe he’d left his gun behind.

&nbs
p; As for the woman who had been shot by accident...

  Well, nothing he could do about that now.

  So he finished up and thought about his options. He became angry and then he cooled.

  He was the smart one.

  The patient one.

  Then why did you attack the detective? You could have just let him go.

  It was a question that had been bothering him since he’d escaped.

  But one impulsive decision wasn’t going to affect him. He wouldn’t let it.

  Impulsive or not, patient or not, there was somewhere else that he needed to be. Something he needed to fix.

  Because that’s what he did.

  He fixed mistakes, especially ones that others made.

  And, boy, was there one he needed to fix sooner rather than later.

  For now, he checked that his shirt covered his injuries, was thankful for that bit of good luck, and left the office for his kitchen.

  His wife was on him in seconds.

  “That woman who got shot? The Granger lady? She died! Isn’t that awful?”

  She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

  He squeezed it back.

  “That is awful, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Light splayed across the foot of the bed. Kenneth blinked away sleep and took in the sight slowly.

  He looked down at his hands and got lost for a moment.

  His alarm went off after that. A series of chirps on his phone that annoyed him to no end, especially since he always seemed to wake a minute or two before it. He rolled over and slapped at his phone on the nightstand, dismissing it.

  Then he saw the charging chord attached to it.

  Kenneth tried to think back to the night before. Plugging in his phone was always the last thing he did before sleep, but he knew for a fact he hadn’t done it last night. In fact, he’d lost track of his phone entirely somewhere between food and his shower.

  Kenneth sat up, ramrod-straight.

  Willa.

  He looked around his room, expanding his attention to detail.

  A pair of jeans sat folded on top of his dresser. He got out of bed, walked through the pain in his shoulder that made him wince, and held up the jeans.

  They were clean.

  So were his shoes, sitting stain-free on the floor next to him.

  His gray shirt, however, was nowhere to be found.

  That didn’t surprise him. Not after—

  The sound of dishes clattering together pulled Kenneth’s attention again. When he opened his bedroom door and walked out into the hallway, he could smell something that made his mouth instantly water. He followed it out and down the stairs to the kitchen, minding the pain as he took each step.

  Kenneth turned the corner and saw sunshine in his kitchen.

  Sunshine trying to reach a plate on a shelf too high for her.

  “Let me.”

  Willa whirled around, hand going to her chest.

  “Kenneth!”

  The day before felt like a lifetime ago but Kenneth knew Willa had changed from the outfit he’d seen soaked through in the alley and then again in their quiet conversation at the hospital. She was casually dressed, with her hair down, framing her face, and jeans and a light blue blouse that clung more than it flowed. There were no shoes on her feet but there was a pair of socks. They were pink and had hearts all over them. Cute was the word that came to mind for them.

  Beautiful was the word that came to mind for her.

  “I didn’t hear you moving around,” she added after his quick look up and down her body. Her cheeks took on a rosier hue. Then her eyes widened, her brows knitting together. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  Kenneth shook his head and went for the items she’d been trying to reach. With effort, he hid how it hurt to grab plates and bring them down.

  “I always wake up around now,” he assured her. “I think it’s part of my DNA at this point.”

  Willa took the plates from him and waved him to the doorway that led into the dining room.

  “Well, now that you’re up, let’s go ahead and eat. I hope you like bacon and cinnamon rolls because that’s all we have.”

  Kenneth told her that he did and soon they were seated at the small table, each with food that smelled delicious, and a pot of coffee.

  Everything had all happened so fast that Kenneth hadn’t thought to question any of it until he was one cinnamon roll deep. He supposed he must have been hungrier than he’d thought.

  “I didn’t know I had cinnamon rolls. Or bacon, for that matter.”

  Willa looked up from her food and smiled.

  “You didn’t. Actually, you didn’t really have anything, but Martha is a ridiculously early riser and offered to bring some of each over. She baked the rolls and the bacon. She’s big into breakfast.” Willa averted her eyes and grinned. “I guess I should have opened with that instead of hoping you’d thought I was the one who went through the trouble of making them.”

  Kenneth shook his head.

  “Hey, if it had been just me, I would have had the coffee and saved a buck fifty for the vending machine at work. This—” he motioned to his plate “—is much appreciated, whether you physically made it or not.”

  Willa seemed cheered by that. Her smile widened. “Well, for what it’s worth, I do make a mean everything-in-it omelet.”

  He believed her. “I’ll have to try it sometime.”

  They lapsed into a silence while they finished their food. It wasn’t like the night before when Kenneth had locked himself in his own head. This time he was trying to backtrack, to see outside his thoughts about LeAnne and the hockey-masked man.

  Kenneth had made it home, in a new shirt, been fed, directed to the shower, and told to go to sleep. He’d had his clothes washed, his phone charged, and had been served breakfast.

  And all because of Willa.

  “I wanted—”

  “Willa—”

  Both spoke at the same time and both stopped.

  Willa’s face tinted pink.

  Kenneth chuckled. “You go first,” he said.

  Willa obliged.

  “I just wanted to say I hope I didn’t overstep by staying here last night. Or by invading your privacy and making some decisions without your input.” She got up and walked over to where her purse was sitting on a chair that seemed to collect junk mail.

  Willa fished inside it until she pulled out a keyring. It and the keys belonged to him. She set them down next to him on the table and took her seat again.

  “For instance, driving your car around without your consent and for also letting Martha and Kimball keep Delilah overnight when you don’t even know them. And, well again, staying here after you’d gone to sleep.” She shifted in her seat, outwardly uncomfortable. “I just didn’t want you to be alone is all, and thought I could help. I hope you’re not too mad or think I’m a loon.”

  Kenneth didn’t have to think about what to say. It came out with a smile he hoped she realized was genuine.

  “I was going to thank you, Willa.” She gave him an apprehensive look. “I mean it.” He tried to drive his appreciation home. “Last night was hard. You didn’t have to help but you did. You made everything a little less...” Kenneth couldn’t find the right word. He let it lie and reiterated his first point. “What I’m saying is thank you. I mean it.”

  Willa tucked her chin a little. She was back to smiling. It was small but sincere. But then it faded.

  He knew what came next.

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you.” Her hand fisted around the handle of her coffee mug. “And apologize again. If you hadn’t grabbed me when you had, that man would have caught me, I’m sure of it.” A shadow passed over her face. “But if I had run the right way or if I had been more
aware of my surroundings, LeAnne...you... None of this would have—”

  “No.” Kenneth’s voice was pure force. It made Willa’s gaze snap up to his in a flash. “This isn’t your fault. Not one ounce of any of it. Not LeAnne’s death. Not me getting hurt. Not even him trying to take your bag. The only person to blame is the person who actually did every single one of those things. You got it? Willa?”

  She sniffled, surprising him that she’d been so close to tears, but nodded. There she had been, helping him while also riddled with self-imposed guilt.

  A feeling Kenneth knew all too well.

  He softened again. “It’s a hard lesson,” he admitted. “Easier said than done, too.”

  “Then let me remind you that LeAnne’s death isn’t your fault, either. It was that man’s. You did everything you could to save her.”

  Kenneth couldn’t help but look at his hands. After he’d called for help, he’d tried to use them to stop the bleeding. But the lone bullet had done too much damage. He’d lost a heartbeat before the EMTs had arrived. Still, he’d gone with her to the hospital, tied to her in death since he’d been the one to face it with her.

  The way she’d looked up at him before she’d gone...

  Kenneth could feel it pulling him back into himself again. Just as it had last night.

  “You can talk about it, if you want.” Willa’s voice was small but strong.

  Kenneth didn’t want to talk about it. Yet he did.

  “I’ve seen death before on the job. Some things I’ve tried very hard to forget and other memories sneak up on me sometimes. But last night was the first time I’d seen anything like that since Ally passed.” His felt his jaw harden. “I knew LeAnne wasn’t going to make it and, when you can’t save someone, the best you can do is be there with them—really be there—at their end. To see them out of this world with compassion and attention.”

  Kenneth shook his head slowly. His eyes found the sunshine across the table from him. He felt shame. Deep and cutting.