Free Withholding Evidence by Rachel Grant

firefighters were directing pedestrians to back off, creating a buffer between the people and the blast zone.
    Trina scanned others in the crowd for signs of injury but saw none and hoped everyone had fled their townhomes after the initial blast, before the second, devastating one.
    Depth of sound slowly returned, as if a filter had been removed. She heard both low murmurs from the onlookers and the high-pitched cry of a baby.
    They rounded the tail of the fire engine to see the crater that had been his town house again. Debris still floated down. His house was on the end of the row. The adjacent home had also been destroyed. Only the far wall of the structure remained, sagging with jagged, crumbling edges.
    Keith’s gaze dropped. She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
    “You’re okay. I’m okay. As long as my neighbors are okay, I don’t give a damn about my stuff.”
    A boy about eight years old shouted, “Keith!” and ran toward them with his arms out.
    Keith dropped to his knees and hugged him. “Tyler, please tell me your family is okay.” He ran his hand over the boy’s dark curls.
    “We’re all fine. Even Patches is okay.”
    Trina looked up to see an African-American woman running toward them with a younger child in her arms and a dog on a leash. Keith let go of Tyler and hugged the woman. “Thank God.”
    She hugged him, but the toddler in her arms balked and squealed. The woman stepped back. “We got out right after the first blast. It shook the house, woke the baby. Tyler put Patches on a leash, and we bolted. Tyler wanted to go into your house to see if you were okay—” She caught her breath and spoke in a choked voice. “I couldn’t let him.”
    Keith scooped the boy back into his arms. “Your mom was right. You’re very brave, but never, ever go into a building after an explosion. Always do just what you did—grab your mom and your little brother, and get out. Fast. ’Kay?”
    The boy nodded. “I wasn’t scared.” But his voice shook as he said it.
    “It’s okay to be scared, Ty. I was scared. And if your daddy had been home, he’d have been scared. Sometimes being scared is what keeps us safe, makes us stronger.”
    “You promised to teach me how to throw a football. Guess that won’t happen now.” Tyler glanced back at the burning wreckage, and Trina’s heart went out to the little boy who’d just lost his home and was trying his best to figure out what it meant.
    “I will,” Keith said. “This weekend if I can. We’ll take a video and send it to your daddy so he can give you pointers. He’s a better player than me.”
    Tears burned Trina’s eyes. The boy was handling the situation better than she was. Shock, fear, adrenaline, and now seeing Keith interact with this family—three people who could have died just moments ago—was almost her undoing.
    First responders descended upon their small group, clearly alerted by their disheveled state. “Are you Keith Hatcher? Is that your home?”
    Keith set Tyler down and nodded.
    “Was there anyone else inside?”
    “No. Just Trina and me.” He put an arm around her and pulled her forward.
    The questions began. First, she and Keith were put in the back of separate ambulances, and Falls Church police and a fire department investigator questioned her as a paramedic assessed her condition. Then the FBI arrived.
    Except for scrapes, bruises, and a sore ankle, she was fine. She insisted on forgoing a trip to the hospital so she could be questioned on-site—and stay near Keith, who remained inside his ambulance long after she’d been released from medical care. She imagined a medic was cleaning the road rash on his back and arms.
    In embarrassing detail, she described for the FBI everything that had happened. From arriving at Keith’s house, his slamming the door in her face, to ending up in his bedroom. It was too early to determine where the initial blast had come from, but from eyewitness accounts of the state