This Is Where We Stop novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Suspended

Mara's POV

By Monday the clip had been seen two million times, and the county had a statement.

Colson Teale was suspended without pay, pending a full review of the dispatch records for June ninth.

The Lifesaver Medal had been returned to the mayor's office in a cardboard box.

I read all of it standing at the kitchen counter of the furnished rental I had taken near the hospital.

It had one chair, a toaster and a window onto a parking structure.

I liked it more than any room I had lived in for years.

At eight in the evening someone knocked.

I looked through the peephole, and I opened the door on the chain.

"Mara," Colson said.

He had not shaved. His county jacket was gone, and he was in a flannel shirt I didn't recognize, and he was holding a plastic bag from a dry cleaner.

"You're not supposed to be here," I said.

"I know. I'll go. I just have one thing."

"Say it through the door."

"I can't."

He held up the bag.

Through the plastic, I saw gray fleece.

It was the vest.

The free one, from the safety fair, with the union logo on the chest.

"The restaurant mailed it to the house," Colson said. "They found it on the chair. I thought, I don't know what I thought. I had it cleaned."

I looked at it for a long moment.

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