Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [102]
“Here we go, Will,” she said, putting a hand on his stocking foot. She must have been crazy not to get him another pair of shoes. “We’re riding in an ambulance. Cool, huh?”
“Wait, wait!” came a shout, and they all looked back. A black sedan had pulled up behind the police cruisers, and a man was running toward them in the snowstorm, waving his arms, his sport jacket flapping in the whirling snow. Cops surged toward him, blocking him, but in the light from the open ambulance, Ellen recognized his agonized features.
It was Bill Braverman.
“Stop, wait!” He fought the cops to get to the ambulance, but they held him back, the melee silhouetted in the high beams of the cruisers. A bitter wind picked up, and the snow swirled as Bill struggled free of them and reached the ambulance doors, shouting, “Wait, stop, let me see!”
“Mister, get outta here! We gotta go!” the paramedic shouted back, pushing him away, but Bill took one look at Will and his expression filled with joy.
“Timothy, it’s you! Thank God, it’s you!” Bill held out his arms, and Will burst into terrified tears.
“Mommy!” he screamed, and Ellen jumped up, blocking the way.
“Bill, we’ll sort this out later. I have to get him to the hospital. He has a head injury.”
“You!” Bill went wild with outrage. “You’re the one! You’re the woman who adopted our son!” He started to climb into the ambulance, hoisting himself up by the open door, but the cops pulled him back and the paramedic held him off. He shouted, “That’s my boy! That’s Timothy! Where’s my wife? What did you do to my wife?” He turned angrily to the cops flanking him. “I’m Bill Braverman! Where’s my wife, is she here? Is she all right?”
“She’s right here,” the paramedic answered, gesturing in confusion at Ellen, who had turned to calm Will.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Tears spilled from his eyes, his lower lip shuddering.
Officer Halbert put a hand on Bill’s arm. “Sir, is your wife Carol Braverman?”
“Yes, where is she? Is she all right?”
“Sir, please come with me,” Officer Halbert said. “I need to speak with you.” The other cops crowded around, clearing the ambulance as snow whirlpooled around them all.
“But that’s my son! My son! Is he hurt? Where’s my wife? That’s our son!”
“Mommeeee!” Will screamed, confused, and Ellen smoothed the hair back from his head. Blood leaked down the back of his neck, and bright red drops stained his hoodie.
“It’s all right, baby, it’s all right.”
“We gotta go!” the paramedic shouted, buckling Will onto the gurney, then he shifted over to shut the back doors and twisted the handles closed. He climbed around Ellen and leaned toward the driver in the cab. “Locked and loaded, Jimmy!”
“It’s all right,” Ellen kept saying, holding Will’s hand. She looked back through the windows, and just before the ambulance pulled away, she heard an anguished cry through the howling storm. Bill Braverman had lost his wife on the very night he’d found his son.
“Okay, little man, this won’t hurt a bit,” the paramedic said to Will, wrapping a child-size pressure cuff around his arm.
“It’s all right, honey,” Ellen said, holding his hand, but Will cried harder. “It’s all right, everything’s going to be all right.”
Through the back window, the cops became stick figures against the whirling white, and Ellen felt a wrench of deep sadness. For Bill, for Carol, and for herself.
And especially, for Will.
Chapter Seventy-nine
Ellen slumped in the cloth-covered chairs of the waiting room of the emergency department, ignoring the back issues of People and Sports Illustrated. The place was empty except for two young cops, who watched TV on low volume. The doctor had sent her out to the waiting room while Will was taken up to MRI and X-ray.
She closed her eyes, tilting her head back on the hard edge of the chair, trying to block out the images. Will, with gasoline on his snowsuit. Rob Moore, looking excited as he aimed his gun at Carol. Carol, raising her arms to protect Will. Bill, screaming against the snowstorm. The blood on her shirt.
Ellen looked down numbly, and the blood had dried to a stiff, oddly