Page 26 of The Unraveling

Maybe.

Maybe not.

The detective cleared his throat. “Do you feel well enough to answer a few questions, Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

I shook my head. “What happened?”

“The accident, you mean?”

I nodded.

“We’re still trying to piece that together. But it appears Mr. Fitzgerald was speeding and ran a red light. He struck two pedestrians, lost control of the car, and crashed head-on into a nearby building.”

My eyes widened, my stomach dropping. “He struck two pedestrians?”

The detective’s face was somber as he nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“Are they okay?”

Detective Green looked up at the other man before shaking his head. “No, unfortunately they’re not. Can you tell us anything about this evening? Where Mr. Fitzgerald was coming from at the time of the accident?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. We had a fight earlier. He left.”

“What time was that?”

“I’m not sure. It was just getting dark. I looked out the window of our apartment to see which way he was walking. The sun was going down. I remember the sky was orange.”

“So probably about five thirty or six, then?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Did Mr. Fitzgerald have a history of drinking?”

“He was drunk?”

“We’re not sure. It will take a bit of time before toxicology reports come back. But an eyewitness reported his car was swerving before the accident. What about drugs? Did Mr. Fitzgerald have a history of drug use?”

“Drugs? No. He’s a professional athlete.” I immediately thought of illegal drugs—heroin, cocaine, the type of stuff addicts used. But then it hit me that not all drugs that impaired a person’s ability to drive needed to be bought on the street. Some people went to a pharmacist to feed their addiction.

I covered my mouth and stood. “I need a bathroom. I’m going to be sick.”

The detective yelled for a nurse, and the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a sink and someone shoved a pink, kidney-shaped plastic bowl into my hands. The woman was kind enough to hold my hair back while I emptied the contents of my stomach. After, I splashed water on my face, and she walked me back to the glass enclosure. The police were no longer there. Instead, they were on the other side of the nurses’ station, along with Dr. Bruner. The three of them ushered a bearded man into an identical glass pod, and the doctor slid the door closed. He looked up and our eyes caught for a moment from across the room, before he turned to face the man.

The nurse who had helped me in the bathroom stood in the doorway of the treatment room. “I have to go check on a patient,” she said. “Are you going to be okay?”

I motioned to where Dr. Bruner stood. “Is that the family of the other people who were in the accident?”

The nurse’s face fell. “The little girl was only five.”

Tears streamed down my face for the first time. It was awful to watch, yet I couldn’t tear my gaze away.

The doctor motioned to a seat.

The man shook his head.

A now-familiar scene that had probably happened a thousand times here.

A regular occurrence.

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