Zach took her in his arms and held her while she cried, mentally kicking himself for not calling Cam to give him a heads-up. Better late than never, he decided. “Let’s call Cam, honey.”
She pulled away from him. “What happened?”
“I’m on my way to the clinic to take statements now. The people in the other car were tourists. I came to tell you because I knew you were friends and also because I need to notify her family. I don’t know them.”
“She has a sister in California. Bakersfield, I think it is. Her name is Lucy.”
Zach had a friend in the department in Bakersfield. “Do you know her last name?”
Sarah thought for a moment, then her tears flowed anew. “No. I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay. You’ve given me a starting point and that’s what I needed.”
“I know LaNelle has her number in her cell phone.”
Zach didn’t want to tell Sarah that if LaNelle had had her phone with her, it hadn’t survived the fire. “Good. Now let’s give your husband a call.”
“Yes. And Nic. And Celeste. All the Patchwork Angels. Is it okay if I tell everyone?”
“Give me half an hour, okay?” He pulled two napkins from the dispenser on the counter behind her and wiped the tears from her face. “Call Cam.”
“Okay.” Sarah picked her phone up from the counter and placed the call. While it connected, she said, “I’m okay, Zach. You go on and do your work. I’m … Cam? Oh, Cam. Can you come home? Zach is here and he brought terrible news about LaNelle.”
Once Cam said he was headed home, Zach left the bakery. He’d just climbed back into his Range Rover when Sarah came rushing out. “I remembered her sister’s name. It’s Carrington. Lucy Carrington from Bakersfield.”
“Thanks, honey.”
On the way to the hospital, Zach contacted his friend in California and arranged to have the next-of-kin notification made personally. Then he tackled the next gut-wrenching event of his day, which was interviewing the driver of the car that had barreled through the intersection and broadsided LaNelle Harrison’s car—a sixteen-year-old new driver from Texas who would live with the consequences of today’s accident on her conscience for the rest of her life.
Both she and her father, who had been the occupant of the front passenger seat, had suffered cuts and abrasions from the deployment of airbags. The teen’s mother and nine-year-old sister, seated in the back and wearing seat belts, had escaped physical injury. However, the father’s attempt to rescue LaNelle from the burning car while the mother tended to the freely bleeding cut on her older daughter’s head had the nine-year-old screaming hysterically when Zach and Gabi arrived on the scene.
It was a hell of an afternoon and a bitch of an evening. Once he finished with the interviews at the medical clinic, he had to deal with city hall. LaNelle had been a particular friend of Mayor Hank Townsend’s wife, and when Zach arrived back at the office to write up his report, Hank had been waiting for him, wanting details.
Once he had the details, he wanted blood. “How long has that stop sign been missing?” he demanded.
“It was there the day before yesterday, Hank. I rode that route myself.”
“So it was missing a whole day and no one reported it stolen?”
“I don’t know that, Hank. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Ginger.”
“Any idea who stole it?”
“Kids, I’d imagine.”
Hank Townsend harrumphed and grumbled, “Probably that hippie kid from Georgia.”
Zach grimaced. Admittedly, the same concern had been hovering in the back of his head, but he wouldn’t abide by baseless speculation. Not within his hearing, anyway. “Hank, please keep those sort of thoughts to yourself. We have absolutely no evidence that TJ is involved in any way. For all we know, Celeste Blessing decided to take the stop sign home and polish it.”
“Now, that’s just stupid.”
“So is blaming a kid for this because you don’t like the color of his hair. He’s had a rough go of it. This sort of talk could hurt him in town.”
“Oh, all right.” Hank dragged a knuckle across his eyes, wiping away the wetness that collected there. “But I want you to find who did this, Zach. LaNelle deserves that. That poor girl who hit her deserves it, too.”
“I’ll do my best, Hank.”
He thought of his promise as he drove home that night. This wasn’t going to be easy. In