Daniel's Gift by Barbara Freethy Read Free Book Online Page A

animal in pain.
    Alan hoped it was an animal and not a human being. Instinctively he knew it wasn't. He and Sue walked through the small group of people huddled on the road, while the other officers set up a roadblock to protect whoever was lying in the middle of the street.
    When Alan got to the front of the huddle, he stopped dead in his tracks. Nothing prepared him for the sight before him.
    "Oh my God," he muttered.
    Sue caught up to him, pushing past his shoulder so she could see. She cried out, a mother's cry, a friend's cry, an anguished cry.

    * * *

    Jenny's tension increased as she drove slowly through the fog. Twelve years of living on the coast had made the route as familiar to her as the back of her hand. She knew the landmarks, the incline of the road, the smell of the sea.
    Tonight everything seemed different. In the past five minutes, her heart had begun to race without reason, her pulse going ninety miles an hour.
    She knew every fear was greater because Danny wasn't with her. That's why her imagination was running wild. She had to think positively. Danny was probably sitting at home, eating ice cream out of the carton for dinner.
    A few more minutes, and she would be with him. The nightmare would be over. A gleam of light cut short her thought. She was getting closer to the highway, where there were streetlights and businesses rather than the rural Christmas tree farms and pumpkin patches that dotted Highway 92.
    Jenny came upon the accident before she saw it. She slammed on her brakes and narrowly avoided hitting the car in front of her. As she peered through her windshield, she saw the flashing lights of a police car and the rescue squad. They had completely blocked off the road. In front of her were five cars waiting to get by.
    Jenny shifted into park. It took her fifteen seconds of debate before she jumped out of the car and ran down the road. She heard someone call after her, but she didn't stop. She was pulled forward, relentlessly, by something stronger than herself.
    Someone caught her by the waist as she joined the throng of people standing in a circle. A body had been placed on a stretcher. The paramedics were loading the person into the ambulance. A flash of blond hair took her breath away.
    A fear that was so great, so powerful, so debilitating hit her all at once. The figure on the stretcher was so slight, so pale, so fragile.
    A wild cry broke from her heart. "Danny. Danny!" she screamed. "Oh God, no."

Chapter Five
     

    Someone was talking to her. Someone was holding her back. She had to get to her baby.
    Jenny struggled against the arms that bound her. She turned in fury, attacking her captor as if he were an assailant. She pummeled her fists against his chest until her hand caught the edge of a slash of silver. A badge. A cop. Alan.
    She looked into his face and saw pain and fear. "Danny?"
    "He's hurt bad, Jenny. They have to get him to the hospital."
    "I'm going with him," she insisted, but even as she spoke the ambulance roared into the night.
    "No, no. Stop!" she screamed. "I have to go with him. He's my baby. He needs me."
    "He's unconscious."
    "Why did you stop me? Why did you hold me back? Damn you. I should be there with him."
    "I'll take you to the hospital in the patrol car. We'll be right behind them."
    Jenny stared at the spot on the ground where Danny had been lying. She saw a pool of blood that must have come from some part of his body. It looked so dark. There was so much of it. She felt faint, horror-stricken.
    She looked away from the highway and saw a slight figure wrapped in a blanket, crying inconsolably as he sat on the side of the road.
    A woman was talking to him, but the child wasn't listening. He rocked back and forth, his arms wrapped around his body, his eyes wide and shocked.
    Jenny ran across the road to Christopher. Without a word, she gathered him in her arms and held him tight.
    "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he cried. "It's my fault. It's all my fault."
    "Sh-sh,"