Grave Secret Page 0,28
not very tolerant of other people's little differences." I held open the room door.
Matthew looked from me to his son, waiting for Tolliver to cancel my suggestion. Tolliver jerked his head toward the open door. "I think you better go before I get any madder than I am," he said, in a voice with no emotional weight whatsoever.
Matthew gave me a furious look as he walked by me on his way out the door.
I closed it and locked it behind him. I took a step over to Tolliver, hugged him, and looked up at his locked-down face. "You'd think somebody would be happy for us," I said, to break the silence. I didn't know what Tolliver was feeling. Was he having second thoughts?
It was now completely dark outside, and the blank window seemed like a big eye looking into the room, especially since we were on the ground floor. Tolliver gave me a little hug and stepped to the window to draw the curtains. I'd feel better when the night was blocked out and Tolliver and I were alone together.
Tolliver was standing in the center of the window, his arms extended to bring the curtains together. I was standing a little to the side and behind him, just about to sit on the bed to unlace my shoes. And then a hundred things happened in tiny layers of seconds. There was a huge noise; my face and chest stung; I was sprinkled with wetness. A gust of cold air blew across my face as Tolliver staggered backward, knocking me down on the bed. He landed on top of me and then slithered to the floor in a boneless way.
I catapulted back to my feet so fast I wobbled, aware that cold air was pouring in the window, inexplicably. I looked down at my cold chest. It was wet-not with rain, but with red spots. My T-shirt was ruined. I don't know why I cared. But I think I screamed, because I already understood on a subterranean level that Tolliver had been shot, that I was cut with glass and covered with blood, and that our world had completely changed in the space of a second.
Chapter Six
I must have unlocked the door in answer to the pounding, because Matthew was in the room, and I was not being any help to Tolliver because I was standing there looking down at him, my hands held out in front of me because I'd touched my face and my hands were covered with blood. Since my hands were dirty I didn't want to touch Tolliver.
Matthew was on his knees beside his son. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and hit 911, though it required more concentration than anything I'd ever done. I gasped out the motel and its location, and I think I said we needed an ambulance immediately, and I said "sniper," because I was thinking of the word.
In a thought that went by so quickly I couldn't catch its trailing ends, I was sorry I'd mentioned a sniper because maybe the ambulance wouldn't come because the driver was scared, and then I tossed that idea overboard and joined Matthew on the carpet, facing him over Tolliver's body.
I'd been shot at through a window before, and it had been frightening. I'd had glass all over me then, too. But this was so much worse, terrible, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, because it had happened to Tolliver. That was all I could think of, the eeriness of such a thing happening twice, but I tried to yank myself out of the horror and I tried to help. Matthew was pulling off his shirt and folding it, and he pressed it to the bloodiest spot.
"Hold this, you idiot," he said, and I put my hands on the pad formed by the shirt. It was soaking through with blood under my fingers.
If he hadn't rushed back to the door so quickly, I would have accused him of doing this to Tolliver, but I just didn't think. It was an idea I definitely would have adopted if it had even occurred to me.
Tolliver's eyes opened. He was pale, bewildered. "What happened?" he said. "What happened? Honey, are you okay?"
"Yes, okay," I said, pressing down with all my might. "Listen, they're coming, baby." I couldn't remember ever calling Tolliver "baby" in all the years we'd known each other. "They're coming, and they'll fix you up. You're not hurt bad,