Page 59 of Counting Quarters

Chapter Twenty Five

Kyle — Past

Policeandemergencyvehicles were haphazardly parked across Mason and Bonnie's lawn, in the driveway, and lining the street. I lifted the yellow caution tape over my head to go to the side door and a strong hand pushed against my chest, stopping me.

“This is a closed crime scene.” Officer Cotteral's voice was rough and tired.

“Come on, Cotteral. You know I'm basically family.” I stepped forward again, only to be pushed back.

“Go home, Kyle. You don't want to see what's behind that door,” he warned, leveling me with a stern look.

He was trying to protect me. To spare me from a lifetime of being haunted by the images I was about to see—the grief I was about the experience. I wouldn't understand that for a few months, though. Instead, I was stubborn and irritated. I began loudly calling out for Mason from my spot on the lawn.

His head peeked through the door after a few moments of my shouting. He nodded for Cotteral to let me through, and the officer relented with a deep sigh.

My friend's face looked like he had aged ten years in the few hours since I last saw him. I had no idea what I was walking into. I was cutting through town to get home from the tavern when I heard the sirens, and then someone mentioned Bonnie's name and I came running. In the heat of the moment, I hadn't even looked to see who said it.

From my spot in the kitchen, I could see paramedics quietly setting up a black bag on a stretcher that took up the entire living room. I couldn't see the couch from this angle, but I heard Bonnie’s mom, Lunet's, guttural cries coming from somewhere behind the stretcher.

Mason led me into the nursery, where Asher was sitting in the rocking chair with Storie tightly tucked into her arms. She was quietly sobbing, her tears falling freely onto the swaddled clump.

I rushed over to her and kneeled at her feet, and my hands grasped each side of her head as I surveyed her for any injuries. When I couldn't find any, I used my thumbs to swipe away her tears as they flowed.

Mason watched the exchange with a detached expression, his eyes hollow.

“What happened?” I breathlessly asked.

Where is Bonnie?

Mason shook his head and looked over at his daughter, his face softening the tiniest bit when she stirred.

It was Asher's cold voice above that explained, “Rayner.”

I looked back at her, my eyes searching her face for any clarification. Just as I was going to ask for more, the paramedics in the living room each counted to three and a loud thud sounded out. Lunet's cries grew louder, and my feet took me back down the hall before anyone could stop me.

They were zipping the bag over her face as I rounded the corner. If I were one step behind, I would have missed it.

I half expected her head to turn toward me at the last second. For those odd, violet eyes—staring lifelessly up at the ceiling—to blink. But none of that happened.

Lunet had thrown herself over her daughter's body as the paramedics finished zipping up the black bag, refusing to move when they politely asked. After allowing her a few more moments to say her goodbyes, they gently peeled her away and began wheeling Bonnie's body away.

And when the room had been cleared, I finally saw it: the blood.

Splattered all around the room, mostly concentrated on the white couch that Bonnie and Mason argued over for weeks. He thought it was a ridiculous color to choose with a baby coming, and she argued that it pulled the space together.

The homey space she worked so hard to create, which was now covered in crimson. In her.

I wanted to look away, but something kept me rooted in my spot, helplessly watching as they wheeled my best friend’s body out the front door.

It didn’t make any sense. We were just together, laughing about Mason's blunders as a new dad. Comparing the beautiful little girl’s face to her parents—Bonnie insisted she was a carbon copy of her father, and Mason pretended he didn’t notice.

It all just happened. I swear, I could still hear her voice, and her quiet giggles echoing off the splattered walls.

She couldn't be gone.

Present

“What the hell was that, Abbot?” Mayor Douglas shouted as he entered the double-doors of the station. The two junior officers sitting at their desks jerked up to attention, their hands instinctively reaching for their weapons from his outburst.

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