Chasing River (Burying Water 3)

“Of course. They need to hire more doctors. At least the new cardiologist they found to fill Aaron’s spot is working out well.”

My stomach clenches with that name.

After a moment of silence, Dad offers a quiet, “Sorry, hon.”

“It’s okay.” I quietly push the painful reminder aside. “I’m sure Mom’s heavier work schedule may also have something to do with a retired sheriff lingering around the house with too much time on his hands.”

He grunts in response.

“Is Alex around?”

“Trying to get rid of said retired sheriff so soon?”

“Never.” I smile. He’s been driving my mom nuts, leaving the kitchen splattered with grease and filled with dishes in his attempts at making dinner each night for her.

“Listen, Amber . . .”

“Yes, Sheriff Welles?” I laugh, knowing that he just rolled his eyes. I only call him that to his face when I’m on the offensive. Particularly, an offensive to his coming lecture. Not that I’m never unreceptive to it. My dad may have been hard on us growing up but he was always fair, his staunch belief in right and wrong a thing to be admired. That doesn’t mean I always agreed, or that sometimes I didn’t wish he would just not share his opinion for once, but it’s always been his voice in the back of my mind, helping me see through ambiguity to reason. My father is just one of those guys who can do no wrong, even when he makes mistakes, because his heart and his morals are always in the right place.

“Hearing about that bombing on the news, about an American girl with long brown hair, in her twenties . . . it scared us. The kind of people who are willing to do that sort of thing are dangerous, and you won’t even be able to pick them out of a crowd.”

The attempt to keep my identity out of the media was successful. All the newspapers could get was what the first witnesses could tell them, which wasn’t much since I was fortunately too shocked to make the mistake of giving them my name. The reporters filled the rest of the articles with the description of the scene and comparisons to past bombings. Talk of the city’s gang problem, extortion and retaliation shootings, the heroin and cocaine epidemic. The IRA. Or the RIRA. I don’t understand the difference. I do understand the word terrorists, though, and the articles mentioned that more than once.

I push aside my guilt for lying to my dad, reminding myself that my reasons are valid. Between their careers and the past year with Jesse and Alex, my parents have dealt with enough stress to make them stronger than most. Still, I don’t want them worrying about me more than necessary. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“I’m glad you are. I’m glad this American girl is, too. I’m sure her parents just want her home now.”

Oh, no doubt they would.

He pauses, and I can almost see him standing at the edge of the garage’s concrete pad, peering out over the three mountain peaks that earned our town its name, his hand on his hip. “If it hadn’t been for that man who knocked her down . . .”

“Thank God for good people,” I whisper, my throat suddenly going dry.

I haven’t forgotten about “that man.” In fact, he’s occupied my thoughts over the past two days more than anything else about that fateful morning.

Wondering why he ran, if Garda Duffy is right and he could be involved. And if O’Brien is right and he just saw me as a pretty face that needed to be saved.

But, mostly, just wondering if he’s okay. On the drive home, O’Brien and Duffy reiterated how lucky I was. While the bomb was apparently small and not filled with nails and the usual stuff, the scattering of shrapnel from the pipe that they found was enough to seriously harm me, had I been caught upright in its crossfire. But that guy . . . the blood spots on his back tell me that he wasn’t as lucky.

I’m remembering more now. Just bits of the puzzle, really.

A golden scruff coating his jaw.

Strong, solid-looking shoulders.

A stag on the front of a T-shirt the color of green clovers.

I’ve held Duffy’s card in one hand, the phone in my other. But I haven’t called him yet, haven’t admitted to recalling more information. The memory of the guy’s pleading eyes keeps stalling my fingers.

It’s an odd feeling to have a complete stranger save your life and not be able to thank him. I know he’s out there somewhere right now. Some nameless face I’ll decide I need to search for one day, five or ten or twenty years down the road, whenever I’m back home and not fearing my father’s reaction. I’ll take out a random ad in search of him, or post a message on Facebook, or whatever social media tool will be most prevalent then, and I’ll recount the day that an American girl was saved by an Irish boy in St. Stephen’s Green.

And if I never find him? I’ll probably still be thinking about him when I’m old and gray and lying on my deathbed, wishing that I had not hidden from the media, but had used them to express my gratitude. I guess I still could . . .

“One of the articles I read suggested that the guy was actually involved. What do you think?” I ask casually.

“Who knows. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in my day.” A moment of dead air hangs between us. “Okay, well . . .” Dad heaves another sigh. “Three more months, is it?”

“It could have been eleven, so count your blessings.” When I started adding up costs, I realized that my original plan to travel for an entire year was too lofty. My only options were to either shorten my trip or downgrade to backpacker hostels, and, well . . . I shortened my trip. Four months abroad is still plenty of time.

“Have fun, Amber.”

“I will.”

“And watch out for thieves. Don’t carry your passport with you. Store it somewhere safe.”

I roll my eyes. “Dad, I’m not clueless.”

There’s a pause. “And get that Skype thing working so I can see your face next time.”

My eyes flash to the dresser mirror facing me. To my purple-and-blue mottled shoulder and bicep where the guy’s body collided with mine. I could have hidden it under a jacket or long-sleeved shirt, but the gash on my bottom lip is impossible to explain. Plus, he would have noticed my slow, stiff movements. When I woke up yesterday, I started to worry that something was broken. I couldn’t turn my head without cringing.

“Sure thing, Dad. Love you.”

I listen to the shuffle as the receiver is passed off, relieved that that conversation is over and that he didn’t figure out what happened. It’s better this way, for everyone involved.

“Hey.” Alex’s soft voice fills my ear and my heart. Of everyone back home, I think I miss her most, which is funny because she’s not even my blood.

“Hey, Alex. How are things?”

There’s a clatter in the background, followed by Jesse swearing. She chuckles. His normal broodiness doesn’t seem to bother her. Probably because it vanishes the second he lays eyes on her. “You know.”

“Anything . . . new?” I don’t have to elaborate. She knows exactly what I mean. We’ve been through so much in the time since she arrived at the hospital that my mother and I work at, near death from a brutal attack, only to wake up with no idea what had happened or who she was. To be fair, I had no idea who she was either. Or more importantly, who she was to my brother. I should have known he’d be somehow involved.