Page 9 of Find My Way Down to You

“You’re not a suspect, kid,” Rosado interrupts.

I flinch at her tone. It’s how most adults talk to teens. As ifwe are always being dramatic. Every thought and feeling and experience we have is an overreaction.

The officer on the night of the accident spoke to me the same way.

It wasn’t your fault, kid.

How does he know? He wasn’t in the car. Was it supposed to be comforting? Nothing about what he said made me feel any better about my boyfriend, my first love, being dead.

“We spoke with the other customers and staff inside Viva Catalina’s,” Rosado continues. “Mr.Connely showed no signs earlier.”

“No signs of what?” Max asks, startling me.

I forgot she was there.

“A heart attack,” Rosado says flatly.

“A heart attack?” I rasp out, confused.

“That’s what SB Cottage Hospital’s emergency docs believe. They’re running tests. We’ll know in a few hours.”

Rosado pockets her notepad. End of discussion. Case closed.

But it can’t be.

“I’ll be in touch if we have more questions,” she says, like she’s read my thoughts. Before she turns away, her eyes study me one last time. “Are you sure you saw someone else, Mr.Clarke?”

Yes, I want to scream.

Cary was right here. Where Detective Rosado is standing now. I saw him…didn’t I?

Grief does weird things to the brain chemistry.My dad said this a few months after the accident. He works at the hospital. As a pediatric nurse. He was the first person at my side that night when the ambulance brought us to the trauma center.

Sometimes, I think I see him. London. In the corners of crowded rooms. Walking down a street. A shadow moving along the walls, shaped like him, with his broad shoulders and long, narrow torso.

It will pass, Dad promised. It hasn’t yet.

I know what I saw in this alley. And I know Detective Rosado will never believe me.

“Mr.Clarke?” she repeats.

I look away. “Maybe not.”

Angela closes the pizzeria early.

“Out of respect,” she says, frowning at the stool Hal loved to sit on. “We lost one of our own today.”

Hal was a Viva Catalina’s lifer. He came by every afternoon for the last fifteen years. At least, that’s what the staff says. I didn’t know him that well. I knew his order, the well-worn, frayed-brim hat he took off every time he greeted someone.

But I didn’t know he was in his late forties. That he had no partner, no children. Not until Angela tells me.

I stare at the hardwood floor, ashamed. Sad.

Who will mourn him? How will they react when they findout he died in an alley behind a pizzeria? Who will cry at his funeral?

My vision hazes as a memory comes into focus. A church’s tall wooden doors. My trembling hand reaching to open them. The swift recoil of my arm when I thought about what was waiting for me on the other side.

“Okay?” Angela asks, squeezing my shoulder.