Trauma

CHAPTER 38

Adam was shooting hoops when Carrie got home. She parked her car in the pullout and ambled over to him, trying to not favor her swelling left ankle. Worried about alarming everyone, especially Adam, Carrie had decided to keep the incident at the park a secret.

Adam took a shot, swished it from fifteen feet out, got his rebound, and bounced the ball with a display of his substantial dribbling skills. He appraised Carrie warily.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

Carrie was taken aback. She thought she’d done a good job concealing the minor sprain, and glanced down to make sure her pants hid the scrapes from her fall. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You’re limping,” Adam said.

Irene had passed her keen observation genes to her son as well as to her daughter.

“It’s nothing,” Carrie said.

Adam tossed Carrie the basketball, with a little heat on the pass. He never held back when it came to playing sports. He loved competition, as did Carrie, but he took it to a whole different level. It was one aspect of his personality that had driven him into the military.

Carrie took a shot, but her balance was off on account of her ankle, and the ball clanged off the rim. Adam snagged the rebound, and in a fluid, dancerlike motion, turned and fired a jump shot that sent the ball in a high arc before it eventually found the center of the hoop.

Everything about Adam’s body was in perfect working order, Carrie observed. He was lithe, agile, and quick on his feet. It was a bit surreal to see how able he appeared when Carrie knew he was anything but.

“You seem a little shaken,” Adam said, dribbling once more. “Everything all right?”

On a whim, she decided to tell the truth. The experience had been truly frightening. Who better to share it with than someone who understood fear so well? “Oh, I just had a really creepy, scary incident at the park, while I was running. It’s nothing.”

Adam’s stern expression indicated otherwise. “What happened?”

Carrie had not spaced on Adam’s overly protective tendencies. The dark expression that overtook Adam’s face after she had finished was more than a little unsettling.

“You sure he was just using you to set the pace?” Adam said.

“I don’t know. I think so,” Carrie said, not sounding at all convinced. “He came up to me after and seemed to feel badly about it.”

Adam said, “Yeah, well, don’t trust anybody, and run with somebody else, will you please? I told you that like a thousand times. People do terrible things to each other, Carrie. Really terrible things.”

Carrie was not sure whether Adam was talking about the jogger in the park, or himself. She set her hands on Adam’s shoulders. “Look, it’s nothing,” she said. “I’m fine. And I’ll be more careful next time.”

Adam took a couple dribbles to get centered, and looked at Carrie the way she might examine a patient during a pre-op exam. She could tell he was looking for any hint of deceit. Adam said nothing, but it seemed he had picked up on Carrie’s lingering apprehension.

“It really was harmless,” Carrie said.

In the back of her mind, though, she wondered about the timing. The incident with the jogger came on the heels of her plot to bug Goodwin and in the middle of her search for two missing vets.

Still unconvinced, Adam said, “Just remember, I’m your brother. I’m always going to look out for you. Always.”

Adam slugged Carrie playfully in the arm, and she slugged him back with an even lighter tap. During this exchange, the garage door came open and Carrie snatched the ball from Adam’s grasp while he was distracted. She launched a solid ten-footer that found the net, no problem.

Howard Bryant emerged from the garage, carrying a tray of gardening tools, dressed for that sort of work. He set down the tools and sauntered over to his kids.

“Who’s up for a game of Horse?” Howard asked with a star-bright smile on his face. Like their mother, Howard wanted his two children living on their own, but the sparkle in his eyes said he would cherish every moment spent together as a family under any circumstance.

Adam passed the ball to his father with maybe a little less zip than his delivery to Carrie. Not missing a beat, Howard caught the ball with two hands, took a couple of dribbles, and fired off a shot that could have been a mirror of Adam’s earlier jumper. It hit nothing but net.

The game commenced as the sun beat a final retreat and birdsong filled the sweet-smelling air with joyful chatter. Howard started off the game with a layup, made it, and passed the ball to Adam, who also made the shot. Carrie, still favoring her left ankle, dribbled awkwardly to the hoop and clanged the ball off the rim.

“Carrie’s a bit lame,” Adam said.

Carrie acted indignant. “We’re playing Horse,” she said. “I’m not one.”

“Just keep the move-and-shoot to a minimum, Dad. I’d hate for us to have to put her down.”

Howard made a face, but the truth was that he’d been encouraging Adam to lighten up, to relax. Any show of levity was a minor victory in an otherwise endless war. Howard saved his expression of concern for Carrie.

“Did you hurt yourself, sweetheart?” he asked.

Carrie shot Adam a nervous glance, fearing he might say something about the incident in the park. Her dad might not think it was so innocuous, either. The world was full of predators, and Carrie was not interested in a lecture on safety. Adam gave Carrie a look that said she could trust him.

“I’m fine,” Carrie said. “It’s just a slight sprain, that’s all. I fell while jogging. I can still take you boys on.”

The winner of the game was basically predetermined. The real contest was between Howard and Carrie for second place. Adam seemed to relish his expected victory, and a fraction of a grin overtook his face, until his gaze settled on the dysfunctional Camaro visible in the garage. Adam stomped over to the garage, pushed the button to shut the door, and returned to the basketball game with a look of disgust.

“Come morning, I’m turning that pile of metal into scrap,” he said.

The glower on Adam’s face remained until he buried three free throws in a row. Neither Carrie nor Howard reacted. They had heard the same threat many times before.

Carrie tried another shot and missed. H-O. Not wanting to earn the final three letters, Carrie decided her ankle needed a more supportive sneaker. She excused herself to go inside and change footwear.

Carrie could not locate the sneakers she wanted in her closet at first, but eventually saw them to the left of her black riding boots. It was a bit odd; Carrie was normally fastidious about her closet, and those sneakers were always to the right of her boots, kept in order of size. She sat on the bed and put on her sneakers, then got up to feed Limbic.

While Limbic gobbled every flake of food offered, Carrie opened her dresser to change into a different T-shirt. Right away she could tell someone had rifled through her clothing. Her shirts were folded, but not exactly as she would have done it. Close, but not perfect. Not her stamp.

Carrie was on high alert, every muscle tense. She scanned her bedroom for other anomalies. They were not especially difficult to spot. The sheet on her bed had not been pulled as tight as she would have done, and a stack of papers on her desk seemed closer to the window by about six inches. All these details were minor, but Carrie cut her teeth obsessing over the minor details. She noticed everything. Somebody had been in her room. Not just in her room, but looking through her things.

Carrie tried to make sense of it and arrived at one disturbing conclusion — Adam had spied on her. Who else could have done it? As much as she tried, Carrie could not come up with another logical explanation. His mental state was obviously fragile, but he had never done anything this strange, this out of character. Carrie’s pulse accelerated as she descended the stairs, but at the bottom step she paused.

Deep breaths … deep breaths …

The surge of anger subsided like the tide rolling out to sea. There was an answer, Carrie assured herself. It would just take a conversation with Adam to clear things up.

Outside, Carrie found her father and brother shooting around. She approached tentatively, hands on her hips.

Howard stopped dribbling and said, “What happened to you? You look pale.”

Carrie’s heart fluttered as the anger returned. “Was somebody in my room?” She looked right at Adam, and her composure vanished.

“What are you talking about?” Howard asked.

“Somebody went through all my things. My clothes, under the bed. Somebody was in my room.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed and his face reddened like a boiled lobster. “Why are you looking at me?” he asked.

“I’m just asking,” Carrie snapped. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

Howard said, “No. No. Of course not. Nobody went into your room.”

Adam took a step forward. “Are you accusing me of something?” His voice held violence. His eyes were like pools of lava bubbling just below the surface and about to go volcanic.

Carrie changed her approach. One slight push might be enough to send Adam over the edge. “I’m trying to figure out if somebody went into my room, or not, that’s all.”

The answer, of course, was that somebody had been in there. The question was who.

Adam was not about to beat a retreat. He had been accused of wrongdoing and felt victimized. “Maybe you’re getting paranoid,” he said. “First you think a guy is chasing you in the park, and now they’re rummaging through your stuff?”

“What guy?” Howard asked, turning to Carrie.

“It’s nothing, Dad.”

Adam let the basketball roll into the woods and approached Carrie in a menacing, threatening manner. His shoulders were forward, his arms out in front of his body, palms facing up. “Maybe the jogger is the guy who went into your room,” he said.

Maybe, Carrie thought.

But that seemed incredible. It was too bizarre to reconcile. Why would somebody go into her room? What could they be looking for?

“Were you here all day?” Carrie asked, not yet ready to back down.

Easy, Carrie … Easy …

“Yeah, I’ve been here all day. Going through your crap.”

“Adam, that’s not necessary,” Carrie said in a softer tone. “I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

“Understand this,” Adam said. He held up two hands with his two middle fingers fully extended, then turned and marched his indignation all the way down the driveway.

Carrie felt sick to her stomach, but it had been the most logical conclusion. While her father and mother were out and about, Adam had free rein around the house.

Howard appeared crestfallen. “You have to be careful with him, Carrie,” he admonished.

Now she felt even worse. Disappointing her father, her hero, even a smidge, put a crimp on her heart.

“I’m sorry, Dad, but somebody was in my room.”

“Well, obviously it wasn’t your mother or me, and I’m willing to believe Adam. You’re under a lot of strain, Carrie.”

Carrie took a sharper tone. “Are you suggesting I’m making it up? I know what I saw, Dad.”

Howard did not take the bait, and he was not going to get into it with her. “Just go easy on your brother,” he said. “You two need each other. And I need to know that you’re there for him in case we’re not.”

Carrie understood the subtext. She nodded glumly at the thought of her parents’ demise. It would be many years away, she prayed, but one day they would be gone, and her dad was right: She would be Adam’s lifeline.

“You can count on me, Dad,” Carrie said. “I won’t ever let him go.”

Howard leaned forward and kissed his daughter gently on the cheek. “Good,” he said. And with that, Howard headed down the driveway to go looking for his son.