The Designated Drivers' Club (28 page)

The doctor displayed no similar signs of recognition. Why should he? He’d probably given those announcements to hundreds, if not thousands, of families over the past years. Was it fair to expect him to remember each family? Or each death?

“No! He’s not dead,” Jenny spouted. Every shocked face turned to her.

“Of course he’s not dead, honey,” Lauren’s soothing voice answered. “He’s had an incident with exhaustion that’s all. They’re keeping him for observation.” The tightness around her mouth made it clear there was more, but Lauren wasn’t voicing it publicly.

“Our future family doctor was so busy taking care of everyone else, he neglected to do the same for himself.”

“Really?” Jenny’s mouth dropped. A quick look at each face assured her it was true. She let her shoulders drop and sighed. “Thank God. I thought it was happening again.”

“What was happening again?” Hodge asked.

Jenny looked around at all the faces. She couldn’t read Grant’s eyes. He hazarded a glance at the doctor then moved closer. Had she scared him?

She sucked in a deep breath and held her eyes tightly closed. God, please make it all go away. She had said this over and over then. Why didn’t he listen? It hadn’t worked so she just decided if it couldn’t be fixed, then it had to be ignored. Forgotten. She had been able to do so for years. She had locked it away since she walked out of the hospital with her mother the day the doctor told them both he couldn’t save Dad. The impact to the pole had tossed her Dad so hard against the windshield; it had fractured his skull, severed his spine, punctured both lungs, and crushed his pelvis. The internal bleeding had been too significant. It all came back in a rush. She wanted it to stop. Her closed eyes gave no relief so she blinked them open.

“The accident. My dad’s accident eight years ago. He was driving me home from college. We were almost to the house. A rock flew into his windshield and shattered it. He couldn’t see.” Jenny couldn’t stop the words. She’d never said them before, and now, they had to come. She couldn’t hold them back. “He slammed on the brakes, but there was this young man … a teenager, I think. He was chasing a soccer ball and laughing. Dad couldn’t see him. I screamed. Someone else screamed. Dad swerved and hit a light pole head on. We didn’t have airbags back then. His head went straight into the windshield. He put his arm out for me and held me back but he hit it hard because he tried to protect
me
.”

Grant couldn’t mask the pain her words brought, nor the sympathy that overwhelmed him. She hesitated when he closed his eyes. Still the words had to come and she kept talking.

“There was this little girl that screamed. He didn’t even see her because he was trying to miss the boy and the windshield was so broken, it was like looking through a hard rain. His fingers bit into my collarbone right here.” She raised her hand and passed it along the spot, feeling the pressure again. “He held tight until he started to slump. There was blood. I couldn’t see the left side of his face. Still he smiled at me. ‘See, honey,’ he said, ‘you saved that boy’s life.’

If that rock hadn’t hit us we never would have been able to stop. We were going too fast. But he had already hit the brakes so he just swerved. Into the pole. Dad said, ‘Don’t worry; it’s going to be okay. Sometimes things happen for a reason. Even bad things. I’m proud of you, sweetie.’ He blinked, trying to clear the blood from his eyes as it trickled further onto his face.” Jenny’s throat cramped again and she swallowed.

Lauren hissed out a painful squeal and clenched her eyes. Then she did something really odd: she nodded as if she knew what came next.

“There was a little girl. Dad never saw her. He died on the way to the hospital and never knew. She was so tiny you couldn’t even see her over the hood of the car. I heard her scream but didn’t
see
her.” The tears stung in the back of Jenny’s eyes, then slowly spilled down her cheeks. “I saved the boy but I killed the little girl. I didn’t even know her name then and I killed her.”

Grant turned away hiding his face from her. Lauren let out a wail and clamped her hand over her mouth.

“Her name was Shilo, Jenny, and you didn’t kill her. It was an accident,” Hodge murmured.

Jenny hunched over her computer and typed in the business’s monthly budget. It had been five days since she stumbled out of the hospital with tears streaming down her cheeks as she repeatedly mumbled, “I’m so sorry.”

Grant drove her home that night, but when they reached her apartment she couldn’t bear for him to come up. How could he want to be with her when she’d been the catalyst that changed his life? Her mistake had catapulted him into a career that was not of his choice. It also ripped Hodge and Lauren apart, and plummeted Josh into a world of anxiety, stress, and self-mutilation.
How can I face them again? It wouldn’t be right.

She wondered what their life would have been like if not for her mistake. If she hadn’t screamed, they may have still missed Josh, and Shilo would be fine.
She would have been a teenager talking about boys and school dances.

“And that would have been just gross,” Shilo’s voice said. Jenny shot her eyes to the figure over her shoulder. “I hate boys and I would never, ever, ever dance with one. What are you doing, Ms. Jenny?”

“Shilo, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t
mean to kill you
. I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t. It was an accident. Your dad was right. Sometimes things happen for a reason. Like me. And you. And Josh.”

“But Dad didn’t know about you. I should have seen — ”

“Yes, he did. Why do you think I’m here with you?”

Jenny shook her head. “Because I’m going crazy with guilt, I guess. Or you’re haunting me because I screamed and killed you.”

Shilo slammed a hand against the table. “NO!
You didn’t kill me. You SAVED Josh.
And I’m here to save you.”

“I thought you were here for Josh.” Jenny reminded her of their earlier conversation.

“I just said that because I knew you wouldn’t listen. You blocked it all out. That’s what your dad said.”

“My dad said?”

“Yeah. He couldn’t come back. He’d already done what he was ’spose to. He asked me to help you and he said you’d never listen ’cause you’re kind of stubborn, but that you had to know how important you are. He said you deserved to be happy and that you didn’t want to ’cause of me. You thought you didn’t ’serve it.”

The ashen-faced little girl with big brown eyes smiled at her. “You deserve it, Miss Jenny. That’s why I’m here. Why I was here the whole time and … why I’m leaving now. Your dad said to tell you that just because you haven’t been inside the big guy’s door for a while, it doesn’t mean he hasn’t been in yours.”

“My dad? You’re telling me he’s here too?”

“Not him, silly.
THAT BIG GUY”
She pointed upward. “Bye, Miss Jenny. Be happy.”

Jenny swore she heard her father’s voice saying the words along with Shilo. Then her image vanished. She basically evaporated into the curtains.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, buried her head, and frantically typed on the keyboard, entering invoices, calculating billings, and posting her new service orders.

Deserved to be happy.

What made her deserve to be happy when they were gone? Her scream had completely rearranged the future of two families and broken them to shatters. She thought of Grant. What future would he have had if it hadn’t happened? He certainly wouldn’t be in entertainment. She felt pretty confident of that. She glanced out the window at the sun beaming in. As much as it hadn’t been his choice, maybe it was a good fit. He stabilized them. He had a way of doing that, even for her. She imagined it was rather a caustic way at times but even that seemed to have good intentions. The abrasiveness had diminished over time.

Know how important you are
.

How can I be more important than someone else? Isn’t every life important?
She struggled to remember Shilo’s explanation.

Her purse vibrated and Grant’s muffled ringtone said, “Jenny someone wants you.”

She frowned and tapped a pencil to the stack of bills in front of her.

“I wish,” she said.

Jenny, someone wants you.
It repeated. She padded over and pulled the phone from her purse. She swiped a finger across and started to say her name.

“Jenny, someone wants you.” The voice was louder now. She stared at her iPhone.

“Jenny, I want you.”

She pivoted her eyes to the door and brought a hand up to her mouth. They were here. Grant’s dark, smoldering eyes watched her.
You deserve to be happy,
Shilo had said. Elation bubbled through her like a warm bath. In his hand he lightly held a leash that only pretended to contain the dog that sat next to him happily drooling on her carpet. Jenny smiled. Okay, maybe she’d try this happiness thing.

“I love you, Grant Tucker.”

Lenny heard the door open and Sophie Henderson talking to someone. A rather husky male voice replied. The hairs on the back of Lenny’s neck prickled and he sucked in his breath. Sophie was supposed to be out all evening with that big guy he’d seen her talking to. What was she doing here? He glanced at the papers on the counter in the kitchen. He needed to get them but they were impossible to reach from across the room. He had the others from her desk but if he didn’t get all the copies, it wouldn’t matter. No time to grab them now. Most importantly, he couldn’t be seen. He looked around for somewhere to hide, or a way out of the apartment — a window or something. Nothing came to his immediate attention. He rushed down the hall, checking each of the rooms for an escape or, at least, camouflage. The spare bedroom was impeccable — apparently unused. So maybe it would work until they left. He ducked into the room and burrowed into the closet, slinking down onto the floor in the corner. He pulled the clothes in front of him.

The pile of papers in Sophie’s office proved enough to know she had suspicions. The numbers didn’t lie … they never did. He’d lived with numbers like this all his life; they’d been his friends through hard times. They’d been his enemy, too. They’d even been his bargaining chip a few times. He was a slave to the numbers and it was imperative to watch them carefully now if he and his associates intended to get out of this one cleanly. Manipulating them was easy — a cakewalk. He’d done it several times. Lately, though, the frequent need to make adjustments was frustrating.

But Sophie posed a problem and he needed to curtail her digging fast before it became harder to deal with. At the present moment, she was almost at the point of discovery, but hiding it better than the guy before. That would make it easier for them to deal with. Regardless, if something wasn’t done about this right away, she’d figure it all out and he’d be done. Done with his career. With his family. With life. And the others would pretend they knew nothing about it, silently sitting on their little stockpiles.

He intended to retire next year — but planned to siphon off another two or three hundred thousand first. Then the nest egg would be sufficiently big enough for him to live on for the remaining years. They weren’t really hurting anyone by doing this — the money just sat there. The fact that they never seemed to notice or care that the reports were sometimes off showed him that this amounted to “peanuts” for them. They were a government contractor and as long as they kept spending it, the government kept giving them more.

Besides, if the company hired an accounting department that didn’t know how to balance the books and find missing dollars, then they pretty much deserved to lose money. Isn’t that what a competent staff does?

But unfortunately for Lenny, Sophie seemed a lot smarter than the rest of them, and if he didn’t deal with her, she’d ruin it all. Her footsteps clip-clopped down the hallway, getting louder as they advanced. He shrunk deeper into the closet, pulling the musty sleeve of a jacket over his face. He even tucked his shoes under the box on the floor in front of him. The steps plodded past to the back bedroom, the clatter of shoes falling on tile filled the silence. Then the sound of a shower running reached him for a second before a door closed. She was in the bathroom. Did he hear singing?

In a way, there was a thrill to her involvement that enticed him. All this time, only two people had even noticed. And one of them was dead. It was, well, more than a little easy to hide, and therefore, boring. Not so boring now, though. He would need to be more careful in the future. First, he needed to get out of this damn apartment.

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