he told her after pulling the phone from his incoherent ex-wife’s grip. He wished he’d been able to stop her before she’d made the call. But what he’d seen on entering the Kid Zone, after racing there following a frantic call from the manager, had slammed him like a two-by-four across the shoulders. “I’m sending an officer to your house, lights and siren.” “Is it Lilly? Is she—has something happened to my—” “Lilly’s fine,” he assured her. “It’s Jacob.” My son. My best buddy. He glanced toward the spot where a registered nurse who’d happened to be there with her own kids was kneeling at his three-year-old’s side while Renee sobbed and clutched his hand. The shock of seeing Jacob, pale and unmoving, snaked across Harris’s nerve endings, all of them sparking like downed wires. “What’s going on?” Christina demanded. “Harris, talk to me. Was there a car wreck? Or are you at the—” “The Kid Zone, yeah.” He shook his head, distracted by the flashing lights and the beeping backup warning of an ambulance approaching the glassed-in front entrance.
