There was urgent movement around us, then I saw Bohannan’s boots and looked up.
“Down!” he roared. “Bellies!” he went on.
We dropped to our stomachs, and since there wasn’t a lot of room, I was half covering Celeste’s body.
I still had my head up as Bohannan turned, caught a rifle Robertson tossed him, and then he motored toward the back of the house as McGill rolled out of the front, his sidearm in his hand, closely followed by Robertson, who also was holding his weapon at the ready.
I then ducked my head and pressed my face to the back of Celeste’s hair.
I was panting, Celeste was doing it with me, and we coasted on terror across what felt like decades.
I came back to the room realizing I had Celeste’s sweater in my grip. My knee hurt because I was pressing it into the floor, ready to use it to leap up and flee if whoever out there got to us, and equally ready to take her with me.
I heard nothing. I felt Celeste trembling against me. I then felt an intense blast of fury that subsided as quickly as it came.
And I chanced a glance up.
I was going to look back down when I saw nothing.
Except as I was thinking I’d seen nothing, I realized I saw something, and my head stayed up.
We had a direct view out the two French doors that led to a front porch that ran along the front of the cabin.
Doors that had a view to the lake.
Doors that had a view to my place.
And the view to my place showed me David was lying on my deck.
Not moving.
Fifty
Both My Girls
It was no consolation, the changes I saw at the sheriff’s department when they took us there.
Change one:
I noted a female deputy in uniform.
Change two:
I noticed two Black officers.
Change three:
When we were in what was now Harry’s office, the detritus of Dern’s tenure had been entirely cleared.
No standing coatrack covered in personal items like this was his home away from home.
The gunrack filled with assault rifles had been removed.
There was the desk. Two chairs in front. Both were new, attractive but utilitarian, and free of any Andy Griffith feel.
There was also a new addition of a small, round conference table with four chairs in the top corner of the room, making the statement that the man who now used that office respected his colleagues and sought their input.
A credenza behind the desk had been added. That had a framed picture of a very pretty woman who was perhaps in her twenties. She was smiling happily at the camera. Beside and just behind that, another picture of Harry with his arm slung around an older man who was likely his father, and another man his age, who was probably his brother. They were standing by a picnic table.
Where the gunrack had been, now hung a large, and rather gorgeous painting of our misty lake.
His desk was not entirely neat, but it wasn’t untidy.
He worked there.
This wasn’t a veritable throne room, it was a place to do business.
Important business.
Polly brought us vanilla malts from the Double D, which Pete had sent over.
We did not drink them.
Celeste cried.
Twice.
I held her when she did and silently raged.
Hours later, Jace walked in.
He was wearing his father’s face.
Neutral.
“David’s out of surgery. He’s still with us. He’s critical,” he stated. “We’re going home.”
Celeste deflated.
He held his sister’s hand, and I walked like C3PO at their sides to his Ram.
I made Celeste sit in the front with her brother.
I sat in the back.
Jace drove.
His mood was wet and stormy, and it beat through the cab like a hurricane.
Even if my mood matched it, for Celeste, I tried to cut through it.
“Harry’s wife is very pretty.”
“Harry’s wife died a year after he married her when she broke her neck after her horse threw her,” Jace replied.
The picture of the pretty girl smiling happily at the man behind the camera formed distinct in my mind.
Thus, the hard face.
I shut my mouth.
Jace took us home.
The curtains were pulled, and Megan was fussing.
Dan sat at the kitchen bar with a gun holstered on his hip.
There was a lasagna staying warm in the oven, frozen garlic knots laying out on a cookie sheet, lined up to go in, and a dressed Caesar salad waiting for croutons in the fridge.
Some Mexican casserole extravaganza was cooling on the counter, ready for refrigeration or freezing, depending on our appetites and how long it took us to consume the lasagna.
I was thinking freezer.
I was sitting cross-legged on the couch, Celeste was lying on her side, her head on my thigh.
I was running my fingers through her hair.
That was when Bohannan and the boys walked in from the back deck.
Megan drifted to her man, and he curled his arm around her hips.
We all watched Jess lock the door behind him.