“Oh… nothing…” I gulped down a lump in my throat and tried to pull myself together. None of this was about me, and I shouldn’t make it about me, I scolded myself. None of it. “Max, I need to go. I have to find those letters.”
Twenty-Three
On the short drive from the sheriff’s department to the hospital, Max rehashed the end of his conversation with Clara. The word that stuck in his head was “how.” What was she going to say? he wondered.
Could it have been: How life flips like a tossed coin? How we have so little control over our destinies? How different our lives would be today if we hadn’t been torn apart all those years ago? How our story is eerily similar to what happened to Myles and Laurel?
If she’d asked that final question, Max would have admitted that he had thought about it, often actually, in the past day. The night before when he finally finished at the cabin and went home to sleep for a few hours, he had peeked in at Brooke, such a sweet sight sleeping peacefully in her forget-me-not lavender room. Afterward, he had tossed and turned in bed, unable to clear his thoughts. He’d wondered if brooding over having been torn away from Clara was disloyal to Miriam’s memory. To Brooke, who wouldn’t exist if his life had taken the path he’d hoped for.
I can’t know these things, Max thought as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. Maybe Clara and I would have broken apart without the prophet’s interference. Maybe we would have gone separate ways on our own. How can we ever know?
Yet at moments, he still felt so close to Clara, and he suspected she did to him.
I have to convince her that it isn’t over, that we aren’t over, that we didn’t miss our only opportunity, he decided. Life has given us a second chance. As afraid as she is, we have to grab it.
As he walked into the intensive care unit, Max tried to table his ruminations and become all cop again. He followed the signs to Jacob’s room and found Michael and Reba Johansson seated in the hallway with Carl Shipley between them. The drapes inside pulled shut, Max couldn’t see into the room.
“How is Jacob?” Max asked.
“The same,” Reba said. “No change.”
Both of Jacob’s parents had eyes marbled with bright red veins, and they looked as if they hadn’t had a nod of sleep. “I’m sorry about Anna and Laurel and the children, Jacob’s condition, all you and your family are going through,” Max said. “I want you to know that Chief Jefferies and I are working hard to—”
“I hear you’re going to arrest Myles Thompkins, found evidence in his cabin,” Reba said, taking stock of Max as coldly as if he were an unwanted trespasser. “I told Clara Jefferies that he was the one behind it, you know.”
Max wasn’t surprised that Reba had already heard. News traveled fast in Alber. Soon it would hit the radio and television stations and all of Alber would know why they were looking for Myles, that he was more than a person of interest, a suspect. “We want to talk to him, yes, but we haven’t made plans for an arrest warrant,” Max explained. “We have a lot to investigate before—”
“Well, you should,” Carl griped, giving Max a sideways stare. “You ought to for sure, because he did it, I bet.”
“Carl, we—” Max started.
“Why the hell were you bothering me about this? It’s ridiculous,” Carl said, spitting mad. “Good thing Jacob’s mom led you and that Jefferies woman to the real killer, so you wouldn’t come after me anymore.”
“We knew you wouldn’t hurt Jacob, Carl,” Reba said, staring defiantly at Max as she affectionately patted Carl’s hand. “Why, Carl and Jacob are as close as brothers. Carl grew up in our home. He ate dinners most nights at our table.” Reba glared at Max, not even attempting to disguise her anger. “How dare you suspect Carl?”
Max’s frown stretched until it scrunched his upper lip and tied up his chin. He stared at Carl and said nothing. The situation bristled with tension, and Max didn’t see how it would accomplish anything to rile up Reba more than she already was. Instead of answering her, Max looked over at Michael, who had a lost expression on his face, as if he hadn’t heard a word the others had said. Max wondered what so occupied the old man and tried