“Nah,” said Gabriel. “Chris gets buried in his own thoughts sometimes. Leave him alone.”
He’s scared, thought Hannah. She knew guys like that, other firefighters who would lash out in anger when they were really scared shitless. But she didn’t want to say it, not in front of his brothers.
“I’ll go,” she said. “Make sure he doesn’t kill someone between here and wherever he’s going.”
No one stopped her, so she walked out of the cafeteria and into the main hallway. Since it was a Saturday afternoon, the hospital was crowded with visitors and staff, but she caught sight of Chris’s angry form pushing through the double doors to the outside.
She hustled to catch him, expecting him to keep walking, but he dropped onto the painted bench just outside the doors and stared at the sky.
Hannah stopped beside him. November air bit her arms and tried to convince her to go back inside, especially when the clouds released a few droplets to sting her cheeks.
“Freezing rain,” she said. “Want to come back inside?”
“No.”
He wasn’t looking at her, and she didn’t know him well enough to know how far she could push. Crystalline droplets were collecting in his hair and on his jacket, melting where they found his face and hands.
If she had to put money on it, she’d say he was sitting here trying not to cry.
“Can I sit down?” she asked.
He looked away from the sky and met her eyes. “Is my brother dead? Is that why they won’t tell us anything?”
His voice was so bleak that it caught her by surprise. She sat beside him. “No. He was alive when they pulled him out of the rubble.”
“Then why can’t we see him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your dad is the fire marshal, right?” he snapped. “And you have no idea?”
“My dad doesn’t exactly talk to me about active investigations,” she said.
“I think he’s a suspect,” said a voice behind her.
She and Chris both turned. Hunter stood behind them, frozen droplets collecting in his hair and on his sleeves.
“Go away,” said Chris.
Hunter ignored him and sat on the other side of Hannah. “I think he’s a suspect in whatever happened at the restaurant.”
A suspect? Hannah studied him. “Why?”
Hunter shrugged. His expression was just as bleak as Chris’s. “He was at the scene of two major catastrophes. I’m pretty sure anyone in law enforcement can connect those dots.”
“I told you to go away,” said Chris.
His voice was so sharp that Hannah expected Hunter to snap back at him the way he had in the cafeteria. But out here in the cold, Hunter’s expression looked almost wounded. He was silent for a long while. “Why?”
The freezing rain picked up, and each drop hurt where it struck her face. “Because you don’t need to be here.”
Hunter didn’t say anything. He just kept letting the frozen precipitation beat down on him. Hannah wanted to ask if they should all move inside, but this conversation felt too precarious and she didn’t want to upset the balance.
When Hunter finally spoke, his voice was low, and the words came slowly, as if he had to think through each one to get it out of his mouth. “You’re right. I don’t need to be here. He’s not my brother. You’re not my family.”
Chris didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes forward, unblinking against the rain.
“When I moved here,” Hunter continued, “with my dad and my uncle gone, I didn’t—” He stopped himself, seeming to search for words. “I didn’t think anyone would ever get me, if that makes sense. When my grandfather threw me out of the house, I had like nine dollars in my wallet. I didn’t eat for a day. Hell, your brother found me just before I was going to swipe cash from a Home Depot cash register.”
Chris wasn’t looking at him, but he was listening. She could feel it.
“When he offered to let me help with a job—” Hunter hesitated. “He could have just handed me a twenty and driven off. Most people wouldn’t even have done that, you know what I mean? Hell, the school guidance counselor is paid to help me, but she just wanted to hassle me, and here your brother, who has every reason to hate me for everything I put you guys through—”
“He helped you,” said Chris. His voice had lost the malice.
“Yeah.”
Hannah knew this story. Michael hadn’t just helped Hunter that one evening. He’d offered him a place to live. He’d stopped Hunter’s grandfather from coming after the kid again. He’d opened his home and his family like it was nothing.