The Secret Between Us Read Free

Dr. Monroe.” He checked his watch. “Ten forty-three. And it’s D-E-B-O-R-A-H?”
    “Yes. M-O-N-R-O-E.” She was often mistakenly thought to be Dr. Barr, which was her maiden name and the name of her father, who was something of a legend in town. She had used her married name since her final year of college.
    “Can you tell me what happened?” the officer asked.
    “We were driving along—”
    “We?” He looked alarmed. “I thought you were alone.”
    “I am now—Grace is home—but I had picked her up at a friend’s house—that’s Megan Stearns’s house—and we were on our way home, going really slowly, not more than twenty-five miles an hour, because the rain was so bad. And suddenly he was there.”
    “Running along the side of the road?”
    “I didn’t see him running. He just appeared in front of the car. There was no warning, no time to turn away, just this awful thud.”
    “Had you drifted toward the shoulder of the road?”
    “No. We were close to the center. I was watching the line. It was one of the few guidelines we had with visibility so low.”
    “Did you brake?”
    Deborah hadn’t braked. Grace had done it. Now was the time to clarify that. But it seemed irrelevant, a technicality.
    “Too late,” she replied. “We skidded and spun around. You can see where my car is. That’s where we ended after the spin.”
    “But if you drove Grace home—”
    “I didn’t drive her. I made her run. It isn’t more than half a mile. She’s on the track team.” Deborah wrangled her phone from a soggy pocket. “I needed her to babysit Dylan, but she’ll want to know what’s happening. Is this okay?” When he nodded, she pressed the speed-dial button.
    The phone had barely rung when Grace picked up. “Mom?”
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m okay. How’s Mr. McKenna?”
    “He’s on his way to the hospital.”
    “Is he conscious?”
    “Not yet. Is Dylan okay?”
    “If being dead asleep on the sofa when I got here means okay, yes. He hasn’t moved.”
    So much for large eyes at the window, Deborah thought, and heard her ex-husband’s
You worry too much,
but how not to worry about a ten-year-old boy who had severe hyperopia and corneal dystrophy, which meant that he viewed much of his life through a haze. Deborah hadn’t planned on that, either.
    “Well, I’m still glad you’re with him,” she said. “Grace, I’m talking with the police officer now. I may run over to the hospital once we’re done. You’d probably better go to bed. You have that exam tomorrow.”
    “I’m going to be sick tomorrow.”
    “Grace.”
    “I am. I can’t think about biology right now. I mean, like, what a
nightmare.
If this is what happens when you drive, I’m not doing it. I keep asking myself where he came from. Did
you
see him on the side of the road?”
    “No. Honey, the officer’s waiting.”
    “Call me back.”
    “Yup.” Deborah closed the phone.
    The cruiser’s rear door opened and John Colby got into the backseat. “You’d think the rain’d take a break,” he said, adding, “Hard to see much on the road. I took pictures of everything I could, but the evidence won’t last long if it stays like this. I just called the state team. They’re on their way.”
    “State team?” Deborah asked, frightened.
    “The state police have an Accident Reconstruction Team,” John explained. “It’s headed by a credited reconstructionist. He knows what to look for more than we do.”
    “What does he look for?”
    “Points of impact, marks on the car. Where on the road the car hit the victim, where the victim landed. Skid marks. Burned rubber. He rebuilds the picture of what happened and how.”
    It was only an accident,
she wanted to say. Bringing in a state team somehow made it more.
    Dismay must have shown on her face, because Brian said, “It’s standard procedure when there’s personal injury. Had it been midday with the sun out, we might have been able to handle it ourselves, but in