Read Online Guilt by G. H. Ephron - Free Book Online

turned it off if he’d gone into the courtroom. The upper floors of the courthouse looked unscathed in the acrid haze that hung over the area. At the base of the building, a steady stream of people were exiting, falling over each other as they tumbled out the door, coughing and covered with soot. Peter squinted through a gray scrim. Didn’t look as if Chip was among them.
    The intersection was rapidly filling with emergency vehicles and men in uniform shouting orders, herding people into groups, taking names, clearing the way for orange-clad emergency-services personnel, who were trying to get to the wounded or rush them out on stretchers. A firefighter in a yellow rubber raincoat emerged from the building, propping up a woman who was bent nearly double, coughing. He yelled for oxygen, and an EMT with a portable tank rushed over.
    A breeze kicked up and an empty file folder skittered across the asphalt. Papers—pages from printed documents—were flying around like someone was celebrating end-the-bureaucracy day for City Hall.
    Peter started across the street. A woman sat dazed at the curb, blood on her white T-shirt. A man in a business suit was facedown on the sidewalk. The back of his head was bloody. Dark pinstripes, dark hair. About Chip’s height. Peter rushed over. The man’s fingers were moving, and he wore a wedding ring. Thank god, not Chip. Peter felt a twinge of guilt at the thought. Peter crouched beside him. The man’s eyes were glazed but he was conscious.
    â€œWhat happened?” the man asked, pushing himself over onto his side.
    More emergency vehicles converged on the courthouse from both sides. Peter got out his handkerchief and pressed it to the man’s bleeding scalp. “Looks like you have a head wound. There was an explosion.”
    The man blinked and his eyes focused. “Another one?” It was the question everyone would soon be asking.
    â€œPeter!”
    The voice came from behind Peter. He turned. Relief flooded through him as Chip hurried over, his briefcase flailing.
    â€œJesus, I thought you were in there,” Peter said.
    Chip stared across at the charred lobby. “That’s where I thought you were.”
    Emergency personnel had set up a triage center at the end of the block. An EMT came over and started to take vital signs from the man Peter had been helping.
    â€œI had to take care of something at family court,” Chip said. “If the clerk hadn’t been so inept, I’d have been here.” Chip gave Peter a careful once-over. “Don’t tell me, you ran late, too. You sure you’re all right?”
    Peter looked down. His shirt and suit were stained with soot and his jacket sleeve was torn at the shoulder. An empty, bloody Nike lay a few feet from where they were standing. That put things in perspective.
    â€œI’m fine.”
    A police officer asked them to move behind where other officers were putting up sawhorse barriers. Peter remembered his briefcase. It was still on the steps. While Chip called Annie to tell her he was fine, Peter gathered up the papers that hadn’t blown away.
    A dark sedan pulled up. Peter recognized MacRae getting out. MacRae spoke briefly to a uniformed officer, who pointed at a lamppost. MacRae went over and examined a flyer posted there. He pulled on a latex glove, reached up, eased off the tape, pulled down the flyer, and tucked it into a plastic bag.
    Peter looked over at the mailbox nearby. There were flyers stuck there, too. A fluorescent green one for a local jazz group that was appearing at the Ryles. Below that was one that said, ANXIOUS? UNABLE TO SLEEP? It was a call for volunteers for a clinical study at Mass General. Peter looked around at his fellow bystanders. More than a few of them would soon qualify.
    *   *   *
    Bullfinch Square seemed oddly untouched as Peter and Chip crossed through. It could have been a quiet twilight in the protected area