Hauck’s thoughts traveled back to a place they rarely did now.
Ten years ago, he had been behind the wheel of his Ford Bronco when he backed out of his garage in anger and over his five-year-old daughter, Rachel, who had been playing with her sister in the small yard in front of their house and had chased a ball into his path.
To this day, the remembrance of that impact, and the high-pitched terror of Jessie’s scream, still sent a shiver of anguish down his spine.
He was in a fit of impatience after a spat with Beth, which like most spats, could be traced to the most trivial thing, and had ended up costing them both the thing most dear to them.
That moment changed the rest of their lives.
But today he’d seen it again. Like it had happened just yesterday. Only a person who felt it himself with such immediacy would recognize it so plainly for what it was.
Leave, Kelli had said to him. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.
So what if Watkins had done something that led to his son’s death? Who cared if it was easier for him to live with it as some kind of unpreventable accident? Who was Hauck to force his way in and try to shine the truth on it? Truth is fungible, people say. Look at any conflict. There’s always a different side if you dig deeply. A different truth. This wasn’t his fight.
Does it get easier? Watkins asked him at the door.
Which part? The pain or the guilt.
He should just go back, Hauck tried to convince himself, like everyone was telling him to. He had a life on hold. An important job. A girl. If he was so looking for an answer, those could show him the way.
But that was before the latest text had come in from Brooke, just before he and Dani went to dinner.
That the team looking into the balloon accident in Aspen had indeed found something. A tiny hole in the nylon—most of the fabric had been consumed in the flames—ringed with microscopic traces of sulfur and potassium nitrate.
Gunpowder.
Which meant that the tragedy wasn’t what everyone had thought. An accident. Someone had shot a bullet into the shell. It was just like Dani had said. A part of a cover-up that was aimed at the person Dani was headed to see that morning. Who’d caught sight of something on the river the day before, when Trey died.
That made things different now for Hauck. For Watkins, too, whether he liked it or not.
Five more people had died.
When he told Dani about it she wept and Hauck put his arm around her. He knew how hard it was when your worst fears turn out to be true. Even ones you carried from the outset. He went back to the room and lay down, and thought about Naomi. He needed to talk to somebody. This thing was growing. Whoever had done this not only had the means, but the will. He checked the time. Ten thirty P.M. Well after midnight back east. She’d long be asleep. Most days she was up at five A.M. for a run before work.
He wrote out a text to her.
Miss you.
Then his thoughts shifted to Jessie. His older daughter was sixteen now. She’d been seven when the accident occurred. She lived with her mom and her stepfather in Brooklyn. Hauck saw her every few weeks, though less frequently now, now that she was dealing with boys and AP classes. He figured she’d be asleep as well, but he thumbed out a text message to her. He needed to feel a part of someone.
Just letting you know I’m thinking of you.
Then he put the phone down and closed his eyes. He felt sleep coming over him.
Next to him, his phone jingled. A text coming in. Jessie had written back: “Thinking of you too, Daddy.”
Which made him smile.
So late? he wrote back. What are you doing up?
He waited a few seconds until her answer came in. “I’m with a guy.”
He bolted up, sleep rushing out of him, until he heard the phone jingle again: “Hahaha! Just doing homework, dad. It’s exam time. Gotcha, tho!”
He wrote back with a wave of relief, just happy to feel her close. Yes, you did. He closed his eyes again and flicked off the TV.
The phone jingled again: “When you coming back, Dad? I miss you.”
I miss you too, honey, he wrote back.
It had been three months.
What are you going to do? Kelli had asked him. Stay or go?
He knew his answer in his heart, even if he hadn’t made up his mind.
No. It doesn’t get easier, he could have told Watkins. It doesn’t go away. It never does.
It only hides for a while.
He wrote out a last message. Something that made sense to him at least. Then he put the phone on the table and closed his eyes.
He was staying.
I am back, honey.
THE FALLS
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Wade Dunn leaned back at his office desk, the phone to his ear. It was going on eleven; only the two or three staff manning the night shift were still around. He dialed the number and waited for the person he was calling to pick up.
“Wade …?”
“The very same,” he said with a chuckle, doing is best to appear upbeat. “How’re you doing, Dani?”
An hour ago he’d gotten the call, the one that was tearing his stomach into shreds. It was an old lesson, one he knew he should’ve learned before. You open the door and let people in, in this case the wrong people, they never let you go. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
“Wade, it’s late.” Dani sounded tired. “I can’t really talk right now.”
“I just don’t want you to think we don’t follow up on our guests when we let them out of jail here. We’re a full-service operation. So where are you?”
“You told me to get out of town, so that’s exactly what we did. I’m with my uncle.”
“So where’d you go? Hiking? Fishing? Down to the sand dunes maybe?” He knew exactly where they were, of course. That’s what was behind his call.