The Crash

Chapter 68

68

POLLY

“What’s going on?” Hank blurts out.

It takes me a second to realize that the police lights aren’t around our house. The police are surrounding Mitch Hambly’s house. There are a whole bunch of them.

Oh no. Sadie.

If Mitch hurt her, I swear I will make good use of those kitchen shears.

Before Hank can stop me, I leap out of the truck. I am dressed completely inappropriately, with no coat and only sneakers on my feet. Within a second of stomping through the snow, my feet are wet and cold. But I keep going until I get to the other house, which is surrounded by yellow police tape.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a young officer says as I approach the tape. “I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”

“But this is my neighbor!” I cry. I point to our own house. “I live right over there.”

“I’m sorry. I’d recommend you go on home.”

“But…the little girl…is she all right?”

The officer isn’t listening to me though. He is talking into a police radio.

A second later, Hank comes up behind me. He grabs my elbow as his gaze darts around the scene before us. “Polly, this is police business. We shouldn’t be here.”

“But what about Sadie?” I fold my arms across my chest. “I’m not leaving here until I make sure she’s okay.”

Hank could very easily pick me up and throw me over his shoulder to bring me back to the house. But instead, he shrugs off his heavy coat and rests it on my shoulders. “Put this on before you freeze.”

“Aren’t you going to be cold?”

“Are you kidding? You know I’m a furnace.” As he says it, though, his teeth chatter slightly.

“It’s way too big,” I grumble, but I wrap the warm coat tighter around me. It smells like oil and wood chips and Hank.

I crane my neck to see what’s going on. The officer is talking into the radio again. I can only catch snatches of what he’s saying. Forty-six-year-old male…blunt head trauma…

And that’s when I look down in the snow in front of the house. And I see drops of crimson.

“Hank!” I grab my husband’s sleeve. “Look! There’s blood in the snow.”

Hank blanches when he sees where I’m pointing. He looks like he’s making up his mind about something, and finally, he walks up to the yellow tape and clears his throat loudly. I follow close behind.

“Excuse me,” he says to the young officer. “My wife and I live next door. We have a right to know what’s going on in our backyard. I need to know if we’re safe.”

The officer spends a moment taking in my husband’s six-foot-four-inch frame. Finally, he says, “Nothing to worry about, sir. Looks like your neighbor was drunk and took a bad fall down his front steps and got knocked unconscious. Then he suffocated with his face down in the snow.”

Mitch is dead ? I always got a feeling that his drinking would be the end of him. But I didn’t expect it to end so soon. “And what about his young daughter?” I ask. “Is she okay?”

“She’s okay,” the officer assures me. “We’re going to find a place for her.”

“But she doesn’t have any other family…”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ve got it under control.”

Hank puts his arm around my shoulders. I lean my head against him, and as I feel his heart beating against me, I make a vow to myself that no matter what, I will make sure that little girl comes out of this okay.