was too late.
Hemmed in by more than just the other mourners and a palpable grief, Hannah was trapped by her own emotions. There was nothing in life she wanted more than children of her own. Put in the place of the desperately grieving mother, Hannah thought she might have simply taken out her service revolver and ended her agony.
A wave of rising murmurs signified the entrance of the family. Hannah’s initial view was blocked by others in the pew, but she could feel the heartache surging from the family members now moving down the aisle.
She got her first glimpse of them when they sat down. Like most of the mourners, they were dressed totally in black. They filled two pews and part of a third, the grandmother in the front row. Hannah wanted to close her eyes against the sight. The poor woman had aged ten years. Tears streaming down her face, she slumped against the two young men, grandsons, maybe, who sat on either side of her. Beside those three, a mute, shell-shocked couple, the children’s parents, waited in silence for the service to begin.
She’d learned the details of their lives from Bobby. Beverly Williams, the mother, worked the second shift as a printer’s assistant at the Times-Picayune. The father, Aloysius, ran a bakery, his hours starting as hers ended. The grandmother, a shampoo assistant at a local hairdresser, helped out by taking the children to the day care before going to work herself. They ate dinner together in the evenings before the torturous schedule started over again the next day.
Hannah could only wonder at the agony they must be experiencing. The Williamses wore the stunned expressions of people who’d been through an explosion themselves, their eyes blank, their faces empty. Their world was gone.
The service began with a woman stepping up to the dais behind the coffins. Quietly dignified and impeccably groomed in a spotless suit, she introduced herself as the mistress of the ceremony and welcomed everyone to the homecoming of the two children. After that, a young man seated at the piano began to play. A soft melody filled the church and Hannah instantly recognized “Amazing Grace.” But to her ears, the people around her seemed to be struggling to sing, their voices straining to maintain the song’s hopeful message.
She couldn’t even try. Instead she bent her head and stared at her shaking hands. One minute, those babies had been playing a game of hide-and-seek, and the next minute, they were gone. All the hopes, all the dreams, all the plans for the future that this family had for them…destroyed in one terrible moment. A moment designed by a madman.
She lifted her eyes to the caskets once more, where their shape shifted and grew. The white changed to mahogany, and instead of the Williams family sitting in the front pew, she saw herself.
Quinn’s death or theirs? Who had decided? The minute she formed the question, Hannah knew the answer. There was no plan to any of this, no fairness, no justice. Those children died, but it could have just as easily been Quinn. Or her. Life offered no guarantees. All you could do was go out there, pray for help, then give it your best. Nothing else was under your control.
Hannah covered her eyes and fought her emotions. If she didn’t begin to seek the things she held so dear—a family, children, a man to love—they weren’t ever going to be hers. Things like that didn’t simply arrive on your doorstep. They didn’t come to you of their own accord. You made them happen.
Or you didn’t. It was up to no one else.
Lost in thought, Hannah didn’t realize the service was over until the pew began to empty. A few minutes later, she found herself outside, standing on the fringe of the grief-filled crowd now moving en masse toward a white-striped canopy. The cemetery shared the church grounds, she saw suddenly, and they were heading for the grave sites. She stopped, turned and walked against the flow. She couldn’t handle any more. No one seemed to even notice; they continued toward the graves, moving around her like water surging past an island. She kept her composure until she reached the car, and then she broke down completely.
Back at the hospital, she longed to talk to the still figure beneath the covers, but she ended up saying nothing about the funeral. The following week, Quinn was moved into a private room. Staying beside him during the day, but sleeping in her own bed at night, Hannah walked a thin line of anxiety, torn between guilt and love. She knew she should leave Quinn—she needed to move on—but something she couldn’t deny held her in place. Besides, he had no one else. She had her mother, but Quinn had already lost both his parents, and like Hannah, he’d been an only child. Hannah couldn’t abandon him.
Quinn remained remote; drugged for the pain and deaf to all sounds.
She had no idea if he knew she was there.
HE KNEW SHE WAS THERE.
But little else registered. The days and nights merged together, and Quinn marked the passing of time by the level of his agony. His consciousness was a transitory thing, the pain a wave that pulled him into alertness, then sent him tumbling back out again. When he could think, he was sure he was going to die; when he couldn’t, all he did was wish he would. He knew he had failed and the children had been killed. He slept as much to escape that fact as anything else.
After a while—minutes, hours, days—he wasn’t sure, his awareness began to return. Slowly at first, then more quickly, images and sensations came to him. He smelled the smoke and saw a tiny shoe, he heard a woman’s grief-filled scream and felt the heat. His body would eventually recover, but the grief he felt for the children was a wound that would never heal.
A MONTH AFTER THE BOMBING, Quinn was moved to a rehabilitation hospital.
Hannah continued to come every day. Always laden with messages from the other team members, she kept him abreast of their work and everything that continued to happen in the real world, including the fact that Bill Ford had left and appointed Bobby Justice as the new team leader. Quinn acknowledged the news with a nod and nothing more. Hannah had never learned of Quinn’s promotion, but what did it matter now? He concentrated on her, instead. Beneath the mundane conversations, Quinn had begun to sense a growing withdrawal. Hannah was pulling away from him, and he suspected he knew why.
The team had suffered losses before this, but not since Hannah had joined. Ever since the funeral, she’d been quiet and subdued. She was grieving for the children, just as he was, and in true Hannah fashion had decided to keep her feelings to herself. He’d reached the point where he simply tried not to think about them at all. It wasn’t a healthy way to deal with the situation, but it was the only way he could cope. The children stayed alive in his nightmares and that was more than enough for him.
But a week later, he decided the time had come for them both to confront the issue. Their emotions about the incident would only grow and eventually consume them if they didn’t bring everything into the open.
He was reaching for the phone to call her when his doctor entered. Six foot plus and built like a linebacker, Jorge Barroso was the best orthopedic surgeon New Orleans had ever seen. Born in Brazil, he looked as if he’d be more at home on a soccer field than in an operating room, but his hands were delicate and slight. They’d saved Quinn’s life.
Dr. Barroso asked his usual questions, then made notes on Quinn’s chart. After a few minutes he tossed the clipboard down and examined Quinn’s battered body. When he finished, he pursed his lips. “I think it’s almost time to kick you out of here, McNichol.”
“Sounds great. I’m ready.”
“No, you’re not,” the doctor said. “But we need the bed.” He grinned at his own joke, then his demeanor went serious. “You still planning on going to St. Martin?”
Quinn’s complete recovery would take months and they’d already discussed the fact that he needed somewhere quiet to recuperate. He’d decided that place was where he’d spent his childhood. An hour from New Orleans, St. Martin was a small town, up the river from where he still owned property that had been in his family forever. On temporary medical leave, he could retreat to the bayou and exercise until he dropped. Then Barroso would examine him again and reinstate him. Or at least that was the plan.
“Absolutely. In fact, I’ve already talked