I saw the gun. The matte black metal was so plain and unremarkable. The metal was dull on my fingertips. The grooves on the grip dimpled my palm. It almost looked like a toy.
My father stepped out of the way, moving his head to the right, and Leon Lassiter’s took its place. I was right behind him.
It was strange the way it felt; the weight unfamiliar and somehow dangerous. I looked down the muzzle. Just a hole.
“Thank you, Marcus.” Lassiter smiled and clapped my father on the shoulder. “I am a man of few words, but I wanted to say two things. First, that I am grateful, so grateful, for my lawyer Marcus Dyer.”
I pointed the gun.
“He took time away from his life, his wife, his children to get justice for me, and I am not sure I’d be standing here right now if it wasn’t for him.”
Blackness seeped into my field of vision. I felt arms holding me, felt the brush of lips by my earlobe, but I heard nothing.
“Second, I want to tell the parents of Jordana—”
And then the oddest thing; before another thought appeared against the backdrop of my mind, someone began popping popcorn right there at the courthouse. Pop pop pop pop. The sound was so loud that my eardrums tickled. Then rang. Only then did I hear the screaming.
Moments later I could see again, and there were bowed heads, ducked and tucked under hands and knees. The hand holding mine was gone.
“Put the gun down!” someone shouted. “Put it down now!”
I was still standing. I looked straight ahead, straight in front of me, and saw a pale arm extended in my direction. Holding a gun.
It clattered to the steps. A wave of screams erupted with the bounce.
I didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of me. She was older, her face splotchy and red, with streaks of mascara trailing down her skin. Her finger pointed at me like an accusation.
I heard the voice of Rachel in my mind, the voice of my best friend.
“How am I going to die?”
“He killed her,” the woman said calmly. “He killed my baby.”
Officers surrounded the woman and gently, reverently placed her hands behind her back. “Cheryl Palmer, you have the right to remain silent.”
The piece semi-circled the board, sailing past A through K, and crept past L. It settled on M.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Landed on A.
The sound died away, and the pressure lifted from my hand. I looked beside me, but Noah wasn’t there.
Zigzagged across the board, cutting Rachel’s laughter short. R.
Panic overcame me, threatened to pull me under as I searched for him with feral eyes. There was a flurry of activity to my right; a swarm of EMTs buzzing around the leaking body on the courthouse steps.
Then back to the beginning. To A
Noah knelt beside it. My knees almost buckled to see him alive, not shot. Relief flooded me, and I took another step just to be closer to him. But then I glimpsed the body lying on the ground. It was not Leon Lassiter.
It was my father.
59
A MACHINE BEEPED TO THE LEFT OF MY father’s hospital bed as another on his right hissed. He’d been joking an hour ago, but the pain medication had put him back to sleep. My mother, Daniel, Joseph, and Noah were all huddled around the bed.
I hung back. There was no room for me.
I had never been there to witness it before, that exquisite moment when my thoughts became action. Just yesterday, I surveyed the chaos—the chaos I wanted—and stood there helpless as my father’s blood flooded over the white marble stairs. A grieving mother was arrested, taken from her broken family to be locked away. But she was a danger to no one.
I was a danger to everyone.
A doctor poked his head into the room. “Mrs. Dyer? Can I speak with you for a moment?”
My mother stood up and tucked her hair behind her ear. She had spent the night at the hospital but looked like she’d been here for a thousand years. She made her way over to the door where I stood, and slipped around behind me, her hand brushing mine. I winced.
The doctor’s words trailed through the open door. I listened.
“I have to tell you, Mrs. Dyer, your husband is one lucky man.”
“So he’s going to be okay?” My mother’s voice was stretched to the breaking point. Tears welled in my eyes.
“He’s going to be fine. It’s a miracle he didn’t bleed to death on the way here,” the doctor said.
I heard a sob escape my mother’s throat.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of practice.”
My gaze flicked to Noah. He sat next to Joseph and stared at my father, his eyes shadowed and dark. They didn’t meet mine.
“When can he come home?” my mother asked.
“A few days. He’s recovering from the bullet wound beautifully, and we’re really just keeping him here for observation. To make sure he doesn’t get an infection and that the healing continues. Like I said, he’s one lucky man.”
“And Mr. Lassiter?”