Page 7 of Having HIs Back
“Me too,” Henry told him. “When will she be back?”
Kerry guided them to the sofa and sat down, taking them along with him. “Do you know what angels are?” he asked, and both of them nodded. “Okay, so your mom went to join them. She’s with the angels, and they are watching over her, and your mom is going to be looking over you from heaven from now on.”
Phillip watched him with huge eyes. “But I want her here.”
“Me too,” Henry added. At least he was talking more.
“I know you do. I do too. But sometimes, there are things we can’t control, and we don’t always get what we want. But I’m going to be here for both of you.”
Henry blinked up at him with Caroline’s eyes. “But what if you become an angel like Mommy?”
“I’m going to stay here with you for a long time. Your mommy is going to watch over me too.” He hugged both of them. Kerry didn’t have any delusions that this would be the last of their questions; there were bound to be months of them. All he could do was be there for them and answer their questions as best he could.
Phillip burrowed next to him, holding him tightly as he hugged Henry. “I still want Mommy.” He wasn’t going to give up, and frankly, Kerry couldn’t blame either of them. They sat still for a while, but eventually Phillip slipped out of his arms, wandered down to his room, and returned with a bag of toys that he dumped on the living room floor. Henry joined him, while Pebbles stayed on the sofa, curling up to go to sleep.
Kerry let them play for a while. “Did either of you see anyone in the garage yesterday?” he asked, as though the question wasn’t important.
Phillip shook his head and continued playing, while Henry seemed to ignore the question, running trucks along the floor. Kerry wondered if that meant that Henry was avoiding the issue or just hadn’t heard him. Still, he didn’t want to make a big issue out of it right now. But in the back of his mind, he wondered if it was possible that Henry was suppressing something. Phillip jabbered on about this and that, while Henry had grown very quiet.
On his previous visits, Henry was always an active, normal kid, but now he was the opposite. Different people acted differently when it came to grief, but they usually behaved alongtheir own personalities, just more or less intensely. Henry being silent was out of character.
“I’ll make you dinner in a little while.”
“Pizza,” Phillip said, piping up.
“Sure.” He used his phone to find a local place that delivered and got a pizza with half cheese and half pepperoni. Then he set the table for when it arrived and made a call to Brian, explaining what little he had found out from the boys.
“What do you think we should do?” Brian asked. “The neighbors saw no one.”
“Well, give it a few days, and once we’re through the funeral and all that, I’ll contact a colleague and see about setting up a session with her so we can try to get Henry to open up. He may have seen something, but I’m not sure. If we push, it could hurt him, so I want to take a gentle approach.”
“Okay. We are working through the evidence collected, but there isn’t much. Your sister did scratch her assailant, and we have his DNA, but we need someone to match it to, and right now, we’re coming up empty.”
“Sorry.” He wished he could be more helpful. “I need to be able to go into the garage. I need to get into Caroline’s car so I can get the boys car seats. Is that okay?”
“Yes, but I should be there in case something is disturbed. Give me twenty minutes.”
“All right.” He ended the call and returned to where the boys were playing.
The pizza arrived a little while later, and he got the boys in their seats at the table as Brian arrived. He smiled at the handsome officer and offered him a slice before sitting down to dinner. “You need to eat the same as the rest of us.”
ChapterFour
This wasa bad idea on so many levels. In a weird way, Brian found himself drawn to Kerry, though he knew he should stay away and just be professional. He had a case to solve, and he was going to do that come hell or high water. And yet his attention kept getting drawn to Kerry.
“How are you?” Brian asked Phillip, the younger of the boys, who sat next to him, munching on his pizza and smiling.
“Good,” he answered, and kept grinning. “Uncle Kerry says Mama is an angel now.” He sniffed but kept eating.
“I don’t want an angel mama—I want a real mama,” Henry declared, and slipped off his chair to hurry over to Kerry, who held him.
“I understand.”
“I have an angel mama too,” Brian said. His mother had passed away two years ago from complications of lung cancer. She had smoked her entire life, and it finally caught up with her. Even though his mother’s decline had been over a long period of time, losing her had still been hard. “She keeps watch over me.”
“How?” Phillip asked, and Brian knew Henry was listening too.
“Well, she helps keep me safe. I catch bad guys for a living, and my angel mama watches over me. She helps keep the bad guys from getting to me. It’s like she’s watching out for me. And I’m sure that’s what yours will do too.” He looked at Kerry, who smiled back at him and nodded gently. “I wish my mama were here with me just like you do.”
