Chet was probably sound asleep right next to him. The men had always been friends, and Ellie was pretty sure that Chet chose to be her partner for that reason. He’d never, ever admit it, of course.
The police cruiser was heavy and thunked loudly as it turned into the cracked-cement driveway. The converted minivan she drove her dad around in was parked on the right side of the driveway. It was all decked out in the latest tech, including a wheelchair lift, and every kind of hook and harness one could think of. It was also her only vehicle. She’d sold her nearly broken-down Kia in order to get up her half of the down payment.
“Sweet ride,” Travis said, taking a long glance at the van she’d taken to calling Big Bertha.
“Thanks,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s for my dad’s wheelchair, so it might be kinda tacky to make fun of me for it.” She opened the passenger-side door as soon as he stopped the car.
“Sorry, Brown. I didn’t mean . . .” Travis tried to apologize, but she slammed the door, tired of playing nice with everyone. She had to be with her sister this morning. She might lose her. She saw her brother-in-law, shot up, drugged after surgery. Her fiancé lied to her face, and now she had to check on her dad, who probably had no idea what was going on. Then she had to check in on her nieces, who might lose their mother at an even younger age than she had. It was too much to manage all that and try to be nice at the same time.
The sight of her front door, so close and so familiar, made Ellie break into a sprint. A part of her thought that if she could just get through the door, maybe she would be transported back to the days when her father would gather her up in his arms and swing her around the kitchen, his mustache tickling her ear as he whispered, “I missed you.”
Travis’s car door shut loudly behind Ellie and his footsteps rushed closer, but she kept pushing forward, the peeling black door the closest thing to a finish line she could imagine that horrible day. When her hand landed on the tarnished brass knob, the cool metal sent a shiver of relief through her body that raised goose bumps over her arms and legs. She shoved the door open and crossed the raised cement threshold onto the octagonal tile landing. The subtle smell of beef stew and Lysol that always seemed to linger in the air wrapped around her in the closest thing to a hug her house could give her, the only constant, unaltered item still in her life.
Ellie was half-tempted to close the door on Travis, who she knew couldn’t be too far behind. Instead, she shoved it backward hard enough to make it close but lightly enough to keep the latch from catching. Ellie glanced around the dark entry.
The TV was glowing, and, as she had suspected, her father was sound asleep and snoring lightly, the mustard-yellow, orange, and brown blanket her mother had knitted pulled up to his chin. Chet was sitting up on the couch, still dressed in his paramedic uniform, his head tipped back like he’d intended to stay awake but finally gave in to the pull of sleep. To the left was the kitchen. The cup from her coffee that morning was still sitting in the sink. The only unexpected sight was two little backpacks hanging on the back of one of the bar stools.
The door swung open behind her, and Travis let himself inside. It must have been part of being a police officer, but he seemed like he belonged there, like he didn’t need an invite. He closed the door and flicked the dead bolt as though he’d done so a million times.
“Okay, what do you need? Can I help?” He glanced at his watch and whispered, “We can get you back to your sister in fifteen minutes if I use my lights.”
Ellie dropped the hospital bag on the floor and stripped off the smoky sweatshirt, then leaned down to untie her boots. They came off one at a time with a loud clunk. Next she peeled off her socks and added them to the pile. Just as Ellie reached for the drawstring in her pants and yanked at the bow to untie them, she remembered that Travis was standing there.
“You can leave, Rivera,” she said, gathering the items off the ground and heading for the back bedroom.
“You gonna take that blue monstrosity out there? How’s your dad going to get anywhere? How about Chet and the kids? Are they all going to ride in his ambulance? Have your boyfriend . . .”
“Fiancé,” Ellie interrupted.
“Fine. Have your fiancé meet you at the hospital or whatever. Okay?”
Ellie sighed. He was right. She couldn’t take the van, and with Collin out of commission for a while, she needed a ride back to see her sister and to the morgue before eight a.m. She wrapped her arms around the collected clothing, the rubber soles digging into her forearm.
“Fine,” she agreed, perturbed. “Fine,” she said again, this time with more actual anger deepening the volume of her reply. She had no idea why, but it made her blood boil that he wanted to help. She could only think of one possible reason—the fear that he was pumping her for information rather than actually caring about her. No one liked being used.
“Well then, hurry,” Travis replied, the empathy on his face not matching his words and impatience.
Without another word, Ellie marched back into her bedroom, opening the door carefully in case there were little girls sleeping on the floor. Instead, both girls were curled up in her bed under the off-white lacy polyester duvet that had covered her bed since she was six. That was when her mom had helped her redecorate it into a princess room, to be more specific a unicorn-princess room, thus the canopy bed and unicorns on the wall. Both girls were wearing Ellie’s casual tee shirts, one from her dad’s days playing softball for the department team on Kate and a worn Cardinals jersey on Cora. Those poor girls, no clothes here of their own, no Puppy Moto for Kate to sleep with, or Cora’s ever-so-secret but still very real blankie she snuggled every night. Everything in their own house was a piece of evidence for now. Ellie wondered how much they knew and who told them. What was going to happen to those little girls?
Ellie placed her collection of clothes on a chair in the corner that was already filled with various items of clothing. Then she went over to see the girls closer. Cora had her arm across Kate’s body, hand encompassing her sister’s little fingers. That was when it hit.
What was Ellie going to do without her big sister?