Torin managed to slowly get up the stairs. Relieved, she was glad her father and Fergus had stayed behind to keep him from tumbling backward. By the time they made it up to his apartment, beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead and his breathing was labored. Entering, she was surprised to see that Maeve was already inside the apartment.
Grinning, his sister pointed toward the living room. “Hey, bro, I brought something for you. I thought this would make it easier for you to keep your leg elevated while chilling in front of the TV.”
Erin looked over to see a wide, padded, upholstered ottoman placed in front of the sofa.
Torin grinned and hobbled over, accepting a hug from Maeve. “Gotta tell you, that looks mighty good. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make a pit stop, and then I’ll settle in.”
Uncertain what to do, she was glad when Fergus said, “Don’t mind me, boy, but I’ll just follow along and make sure you don’t fall in.”
Laughing, Torin and his grandfather made their way slowly down the back hall toward the bathroom.
The women were busy finding room in the refrigerator and freezer for the food when her dad looked at his phone, glanced up to indicate he had a call that he needed to take, and stepped outside.
“We’ve got everything labeled so that Torin can just pop things into the microwave,” Hannah said. “Brianna sent some things from her restaurant, and Bekki and I made some of the other dishes.”
She walked over and hugged Hannah. “Love you, second mom.” She felt Hannah’s arms squeeze around her tighter.
Her mom turned around, smiling at the two of them. “Sweetie, are you going to stay here?”
“Yeah, I packed a suitcase so that I have some things I can keep here. My classes are finished for the semester, and I’ve got a couple of weeks before next semester starts. Originally, I was going to increase my hours with at-home nursing care but decided I’d rather be Torin’s at-home nurse instead.”
“Well, I’m sure Torin is thrilled to have you stay here,” his grandmother said.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here with him.”
“Good to hear it.”
Hearing Torin’s voice behind her, she whirled around. Placing her hands on her hips, she shook her head. “How on earth can you be so quiet coming down the hall when you’ve got those crutches?”
He laughed and accepted a kiss from her as they made their way over to the living room where she helped him settle onto the sofa, his foot elevated on the new ottoman and pillows around to keep him comfortable.
Just then, her dad walked back into the apartment, the expression on his face unreadable, but serious.
“Dad, what is it?”
All eyes turned toward her dad as he said, “That was Chauncey.”
Erin knew instinctively that the Chief of Police had not called her dad just because they were friends and neighbors. “What’s going on?”
“It appears that there have been several developments. First of all, Agent Bancroft did find something in the background of the picture that you took right at the scene of the explosion.”
Her brow furrowed, and she glanced between Torin and her dad. “Which one?”
“The last one you took where Torin is holding up his hands. It must’ve been taken a few seconds before the blast.”
Eyes wide, she shook her head slowly. “Oh, my God. I still don’t remember that. What did it show?”
“The FBI has been running analysis on it, looking at who was around. In the background, there’s a fuzzy image of a man standing close to the building. He has a backpack hanging from his hands, but there’s very little else that can be seen. It’s too far in the distance to get a positive ID on his face, but it gives them something to go on. And since more information is coming in, that may be key.”
Colm had been told that a partial print had been lifted from the side of the pressure cooker fragment. The lid had nothing, so the assumption was the bomber was wearing gloves. But with a partial print, they might not have been wearing gloves when they pulled it out of the box it came in. Or they wiped it down but missed a spot. Either way, that indicated this was not a professional. It was being put through the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Plus Chauncey told him that a man in North Carolina had called the authorities to say that he had