Page 112 of The Family Cross

“Every day,” I said. “Tell Nana not to worry, he’s going to be okay. I’ll come home once I know Charlie’s stable.”

Dr. Sydney Ames came by and told me that Emma had suffered a severe concussion but would not require surgery.

“I’m moving her upstairs,” Dr. Ames said. “We’ll keep her overnight for observation just in case. And she will probably forget quite a bit of what happened in the hours before she was hit like that.”

“Probably a blessing,” I said.

“How’s your grandmother?”

“Her speech is still a bit off, but she holds court most evenings.”

“Good to hear and give her my best,” Dr. Ames said.

While Emma was moved to a room upstairs, I talked to a social worker I knew, and she began calling around to ensure that Anna Stein’s children would have a home.

I went up to Emma’s new room and told Luke and Emma that, but Luke said flat out he wasn’t leaving without his sister. I assured him that he would not need to leave, that he could stay by her side until she was discharged.

“Where will they put us after that?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but Detective Sampson and I will be there fighting for you,” I said. “We were friends of your mother, and we will make sure you are okay.”

“Did that guy O’Hare really kill my mom?”

“I don’t know. But I promise you we will figure that out as well.”

Luke took that in. “What about, like, her funeral? Burial?”

It felt completely wrong that a nine-year-old had to ask these kinds of questions and face these kinds of issues, so I tried to give him some peace. “We’ll make sure she has a funeral. With you and Emma there.”

That seemed to relieve him. When I left the room, Luke was holding Emma’s hand while she slept.

99

ON MY WAY BACK to the emergency department to see how Boog was doing, I prayed that Anna Stein’s kids would catch a break in life, and soon. I found John Sampson outside Boog’s room, and he told me he was praying for pretty much the same thing.

He said Boog’s mother, Nelly, was in the room with her son. The thirteen-year-old had several deep cuts, a badly broken arm that would require surgery the following day, and multiple bruises from the ceiling collapse.

Sampson and I went into Boog’s room, and Boog told us what had happened. He said Choir Boy had mentioned the condemned building one night when he was drunk, and after Boog found Anna’s body by the river, he was terrified that the killer would come for him and Anna’s kids, so he’d woken Emma and Luke, and they’d run off to that building. It was just bad luck that Colin O’Hare was there too, in hiding himself, and he took them hostage.

“Boog did something extraordinary today,” Sampson told Nelly Bogner. “He challenged O’Hare when that psycho was about to shoot Luke.”

“It’s a rare thing to put another person’s safety before your own,” I said.

“They’re my friends,” Boog said from his hospital bed. “What else would I do?”

Sampson said to his mother, “He’s a good kid. You should be proud of him.”

Nelly began to cry softly. “I am. Very proud.”

John pulled himself up to his full height. “I expect you to stop leaving Boog alone in places like the Bridge to Nowhere.”

“That was because—”

“I know why, but now you have to follow through on your promises.”

“I will,” she assured him. “Like I said, I have a legit job now.”

“Good for you,” I said. “Good for the both of you.”