Page 18 of Keep

All the Gentrys were still waiting back in the lobby. They were shocked and sorrowful to hear the news about Hale but I couldn’t accept any sympathy just yet. Not when I still had a phone call to make. Cami stayed with me when I sought the dark privacy of the parking lot. She held my hand as I told my mother that her firstborn son was dead. My mother had always been distant, rarely affectionate even when we were children. She was often accused of being selfish. But in that moment her agonized sob would have broken the coldest heart.

I promised my mother I would go to her as soon as I could. Returning to the hospital was the last thing I wanted to do but there were things to be done. And I still didn’t even know what had happened. Maybe there was no mystery. Hale had always been a reckless motorcycle rider who avoided helmets.

Curtis and Cassie met us at the door. Cassie immediately hugged me tight.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a choked voice.

“Who called you?” Cami asked, taking her turn to hug her twin. “Was it Dad?”

Cassie swiped at her eyes and nodded. “Yeah. He’d gotten the call from Uncle Chase about the boys and when he and Mom got to the hospital they found out about Hale.”

“How are they?” I asked, noticing Chase and his wife weren’t in sight. “How are Derek and Kellan?”

“Kellan has a fractured wrist and a slight concussion,” Cassie said. “And Derek…”

Her voice trailed off and she looked in the direction of her family, biting her lip.

“There was a cop,” Cami said. “He was standing outside Derek’s room.”

Cassie nodded. “Yes.”

“And Derek was handcuffed to the hospital bed.”

Cassie’s eyes were already tearful but now they spilled over. “Oh god.”

“Kellan said they were in an accident too,” Cami said. “Is that right?”

Cassie nodded, closing her eyes briefly.

“Cassidy,” Cami said, her voice starting to break. “What happened tonight?”

Sometimes a few seconds of silence answers more questions than words do. The dots were now all connecting in a terrible way.

Curtis was the one who had to say it and he did so with reluctance. “Derek was driving the car,” he said. “He was driving the car that hit Hale.”

“Oh,” I said and coughed. So that was it. They were all out on the road after the wedding at the same place and time. They just happened to collide.

But no, that wasn’t it. There was something else. There was the cop posted outside Derek’s room and the desolate look in the eyes of Chase’s son when he stared at me.

“What else?” I asked Curtis because I knew he wasn’t the sort to shrink from the truth no matter how bad it was.

And he didn’t.

Curtis exhaled and stuck the last piece into the puzzle of the night.

“Derek had been drinking. He was legally intoxicated when he ran into Hale’s bike.”

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