Free Moving Target by J. A. Jance Page B

on the floor between them. “How are things this morning?”
    “The same. He’s still in the drug-induced coma,” LeAnne answered. “The doctor hasn’t been by so far this morning.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be here any minute. Maybe today will be the day they’ll bring him around.” She paused while tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Mom,” she groaned. “What am I going to do? I have to be there when they wake him up. I have to be the one who tells him about his leg, but what am I going to say? What can I say?”
    Hours earlier, at a few minutes before midnight, Lance had been wheeled into surgery, where doctors, hoping to stop the spread of a raging infection, had amputated his right leg just below the knee.
    Phyllis didn’t answer immediately. “I think you need to tell him the truth,” she said quietly. “Soft-pedaling it isn’t going to work.”
    LeAnne sighed and tried to get a grip on herself by changing the subject. “How are things at home?”
    “Thad has a basketball game after school. I told him I’ll pick Connorup from Susan’s place and bring him to the game. I know he loves watching his big brother play.”
    Susan and Les Madigan were LeAnne’s next-door neighbors in San Leandro; Susan had willingly pitched in to help look after six-year-old Connor as needed. She had also masterminded a hot-dish brigade that was organized so that one hot dish appeared each day and the previous day’s dishes were picked up and returned to their proper homes by whoever brought the next day’s meal.
    “Thank you,” LeAnne said, patting her mother’s bony knee. “It’s so good of you and Susan to keep some semblance of normal life going on at home for Thad and Connor.”
    “Speaking of normal life,” Phyllis said, passing her daughter a heavily laden grocery bag, “I brought you a change of clothes. There’s also shampoo, conditioner, and hair spray in there.”
    LeAnne managed a tentative smile. “Is that a subtle hint?”
    “Not so subtle,” Phyllis allowed. “Since they’ve got that shower room for bicycle-riding employees downstairs, and since they’re willing to let you use it, you should. You’ll feel better.”
    “Yes,” LeAnne agreed, “but not until I see the doctor.”
    “Have you had anything to eat?”
    “I’ve had coffee, thanks to you. I’m not hungry.”
    “Maybe not, but you’re going to eat. I’ll go down to the cafeteria and get you something. What do you want?”
    “One of those wrapped tuna sandwiches and some yogurt.”
    Phyllis sighed and shook her head. “Not a very nutritious breakfast, if you ask me,” she grumbled, “but I suppose it’s better than nothing.” Grabbing up her purse, she headed for the cafeteria.
    As her mother left the waiting room, LeAnne picked up her phone. For the past week, her world had shrunk to endless hours in this waiting room and the few minutes she spent each hour at her son’s bedside. During most of that time her only connection to the outside world had been through her cell phone. Flipping it open, she studied the call history. Most were back and forth to her mother’s phone, to Thad’s cell,or to the landline at home. Several of the incoming calls came from blocked numbers, mostly from media types hoping for interviews, all of which she had declined.
    The last blocked call, the one that had come in early this morning, had been from someone who claimed he wasn’t a reporter. LeAnne wasn’t sure of the name; she hadn’t quite caught it. The guy had said he was the father of a kid from Lance’s school—the old one—from before their lives had all gone to hell. It had touched her to think that at least some of the kids from San Leandro High still cared about Lance.
    All it had taken was that little bit of sympathy from a complete stranger for LeAnne to end up spilling her guts. Now she worried that she had said too much, telling him about the joke of an investigation that had ruled Lance responsible for