Free The Off Season by Colleen Thompson Page B

handkerchief so I could see it.”
    “Those are both good signs,” she said. “Vocalization. Response to painful stimuli.”
    “Then he’ll be all right?” Part of him knew she couldn’t tell him that, not without examining Jacob for herself. But Harris was fighting hard to hold himself together. To hang on to the hope that the last person in the world he loved without reservation wouldn’t be torn from him.
    “He will be, Harris, if I have anything to say about it,” Christina vowed. “I’ll call the hospital on the way over—you are using Shoreline, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Great,” Christina went on. “I’ll make some calls and try to get Alana Marshall over there to consult. She’s a pediatric neurologist, one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”
    “And you’ll look in on Jacob there, too?” He was surprised at how badly he wanted Christina’s opinion. Wanted the unvarnished truth about his son’s condition, no matter how difficult it might be to hear.
    “I’d be glad to. But what about Lilly? Is she all right?”
    He spotted the delicate blonde girl, standing frozen in place about ten feet behind where Renee and the nurse knelt at Jacob’s side, staring with those pale eyes that somehow reminded him of a much older woman’s. An old soul, his mother would have put it. Or was the toddler simply mesmerized by the confusion? When two EMTs hurried inside with their equipment, she didn’t budge as the men cut around her.
    “She seems okay,” Harris told her mother. “I’ll bring her with us to the hospital and make sure she’s looked after. Renee—Renee’s pretty distracted right now.”
    “Of course she would be—both of you,” Christina said. “I’m so sorry this has happened, Harris. And I promise you, I’ll help in any way I can. I adore Jacob. He’s a great kid.”
    “Yeah,” he said, voice breaking. “He’s everything I’ve got.”
    “I get that. Believe me.” The compassion in her voice served as a reminder that she, too, had recently lost a spouse.
    “The patrol car’s just pulled up,” she added.
    “Thanks, Christina. Thanks for meeting us,” Harris said before ending the call. As he hurried to return Renee’s phone and see what the EMTs were doing with Jacob, Lilly caught his eye again. The little girl was approaching his ex-wife and trying to slip beneath her arm, the uncertainty in her eyes telegraphing her need for reassurance.
    Instead, Renee physically recoiled, glaring at the tiny child. “I told you to stay over there,” she said, gesturing emphatically toward the spot where Lilly had been standing. “Get away from him now. You’ve already done enough.”

    Christina swiped her ID card, then hurried through an automatic door and into the heart of the emergency department. With its blues, greens, and natural wood tones, the modern layout was designed to calm civilians rudely thrust into the space. But Christina’s pulse picked up as she spotted Harris off to one side of the nurses’ station, in the consult area, with one of her fellow physicians.
    In one strong arm, Harris was holding Lilly. Though Christina’s daughter looked comfortable enough, leaning her head against his shoulder, the tall cop’s stiff posture betrayed a tension she could feel from across the open space.
    Cy Goldstein, an emergency-department veteran respected for his thoroughness and gentle manner, was explaining something to Harris. The dark eyes behind Goldstein’s silver wire-framed glasses were wells of calm sincerity.
    “Sorry to interrupt,” she said as she approached them. Reaching for her daughter, she added, “Just let me take her off your hands, and I’ll get out of your—”
    “Mommy!” Lilly wriggled to get to her.
    Harris passed her to Christina, the pain in his expression making him look a decade older than when she’d last seen him and somehow more vulnerable, dressed in off-duty jeans and a gray sweatshirt with the leather jacket he’d worn last