I inhaled. Exhaled slowly. Unable to hear their entire conversation put me at a disadvantage.
No. Actually . . . hiding in the broom closet of a house I had technically illegally snooped through put me at a disadvantage.
“I’ll leave again . . . not until after . . .”
“Oh,” Brianna said, her voice close, as though she were in the kitchen. “Okay.”
I could picture her, looking wildly around, wondering where I might be. I slid down to a squat with my knees around my chin. My phone, Sean’s, and my purse were still clutched in my hands. My ankle throbbed. In the darkness, I opened Sean’s cell phone, checked the time, and then powered off. I turned the volume of mine to Silent.
Any thoughts I may have entertained of Jean leaving shortly after her arrival became slim as the minutes passed without hearing her footsteps coming back through the mudroom and out the back door. Apparently, my crime had sentenced me to period of undetermined time in a tiny prison.
To pass time I sent a text to Leigh, telling her what I’d managed to get myself into: On an investigative lead. Almost caught. Hiding n a tiny broom closet.
She returned with an OMG, followed by LOL.
Yeah. She could laugh.
Nearly two hours went by, most of it occupied by the two of us texting—about Will, Sean, Lawson, the importance of what I was doing, and what I’d learned not two seconds before his mother arrived home. Somewhere in the middle of the texts, Will sent one that read: Pick you up at 1. Need u this afternoon.
I didn’t have the heart—or the nerve—to ask if he would mind picking me up from the Flannerys’ broom closet. Will Decker would hardly see the humor in this moment. I hardly did, although Leigh continued to get a kick out of it.
After an eternity and an uncountable number of texts, I heard footsteps enter the mudroom.
I turned wild eyes to the pantry doors as they opened, then relaxed when I saw Brianna’s peering back at me.
“There you are,” she whispered.
“Where is Jean?”
“Upstairs.” She slid the caddy onto the shelf over my head. “We have to get you out of here.”
“Don’t you need to sweep something? Mop?” I jerked my head to the cleaning instruments hanging behind me.
“Not with those.” She helped me up and out before pulling keys from her purse. “Hurry. Go get in the car and keep your head down. I don’t think she’s leaving until after I’m done.”
My ankle nearly refused to cooperate, forcing me to hobble to the back door. I opened it just enough to squeeze out, and miraculously, managed to get into the backseat of Brianna’s two-door car without a major upset. A half hour later, the car door opened. Brianna got in without saying a word, started the engine, and backed up. “Don’t move until we are well out of the driveway,” she instructed.
“Don’t worry,” I said. I wiped the sweat from my face. “If you don’t mind, turn your air conditioner as high as it will go. I’m melting back here.”
The air’s intensity increased. Then, “Okay. You can sit up now.”
I did. “That was close,” I said. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. My cheeks glowed red.
“Too close. I’m probably going to be shaking for a good long time.”
I reached between the bucket seats and extended my hand.
“What’s that?”
“Sean Flannery’s phone.”
“Oh. My. Mercy me.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a lot of incriminating evidence here.” Okay, so I could be found guilty of stealing. (“Your Honor, my intent was to take the photographs and then use what I knew to incriminate the supplier. I promise you I had no idea I’d end up in a broom closet with the phone.”)
Brianna jerked her head toward me long enough for me to see the fear in her eyes. “And you don’t want me to worry? What are we going to do with it, Ashlynne? I mean, I was thinking about this while I was finishing up in there. How are we going to show that Sean is using drugs unless we admit the truth?”
I laid a hand on her shoulder. “Bri, did you do anything wrong?”
Her breath was shaky. “No. Unless you count taking the vial. And letting you come into a house where you don’t belong. I mean, other than that. No.”
“Then don’t worry about it. The Flannerys are going to have far more to worry about than you and me.”
Brianna rolled her car to a stop at a red light. “Are you sure?”
“Trust me,” I said, giving her shoulder a pat, although I could hardly be sure. Sometimes, I knew, all people needed was a common enemy to deflect them from the real problem.
For sure, I was about to have a target on my front and my back.
William picked me up at the cottage a little after one.
“Before we go to the office, we have an assignment we need to hit first,” he said. “Traffic accident.”
“Can you please tell me,” I said as we walked to his truck parked next to the cottage, “how it is that a traffic accident is an assignment?”
“Easy. One of the vehicles is a city truck.”
“I see,” I said, though I really didn’t.
After we’d gotten to the highway, Will asked, “Did you get everything done this morning you’d hoped to accomplish?”
Heat built in my cheeks. “And then some.”
“So . . . ,” he drawled, “what were you doing exactly?” He took a deep curve in the road and his camera case slid from the middle of the floorboard to my feet.
“Magazine stuff.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You know. Forests and Fairy Tales . . .”
He turned his face toward me and back to the highway. “I’ve decided you’re doing that on purpose. Making fun of our maga-zine . . .”
“Now why would I do that?” I pushed the camera back to the center of the floorboard. “Seriously, I do have a question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m listening.” He turned the truck down a road new to me. Within seconds we traveled between thick foliage running on both sides of a narrow asphalt road.
“Since you already know that I went into your home office . . .”
“Mmhmm . . .”
“Can you tell me why you have a framed photo of you, Conrad Moses, and Felicia? Are you sure being in Testament, where a city truck in an accident is big news, versus being in Chicago is what you want? That you aren’t still a little hung up on Felicia Moses?”
“Oh-ho.” He laughed. “Do I spy the green-eyed monster over there?”
“No,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “But what I’m wondering is if you really don’t miss the Chicago Star more than you might realize. Or, at least, that kind of reporting.” I shrugged. “Maybe you thought you wanted one thing—a scandal-less career—only to discover what you wanted was something else?”
We drove several yards before he said, “Sometimes I miss it. Yeah. But then I remember everything and . . . which is why I keep the picture. It’s my way of staying humble. Focused on what is really important to me now.” He slowed the truck and I looked ahead. A city truck and a Toyota, both mangled, rested on the right-hand shoulder. Two police cars and one ambulance, lights blazing, stood at odd angles, blocking both sides of the road.
Not that any traffic other than us was affected. “I hope no one was hurt,” I said.
“They weren’t.”
I raised a brow in question.
“I heard it on the police scanner.”
“Then why the ambulance?”
He grinned as he brought the truck to a stop. “Something to do, I guess.” He turned the key and unbuckled his seat belt. “I thought about something last night. Something I want to share with you.” He reached for the camera.
“What?”
“I realized I’ve not forgiven Felicia for rejecting me. For making me think she loved me. That she would marry me for who I am versus what I do for a living.” He pulled the door handle, but didn’t push the door open. “I
have to do that.”
“When?”
“Well . . . I did do that. At least between God and me. But . . .” He pressed his lips together. “I have to call her, I think. I have to tell her I’ve forgiven her.”
“She wasn’t a believer, was she?”
He pushed the door open. “She went to church. What’s between her and God, I don’t know. I thought I did, but . . . Stay put. I’m coming around to get you. Us being parked on the shoulder, you’ll fall right out.”
The very idea made me laugh. But when Will had come to my side and opened the door, I placed my hands on his shoulders and said, “You should call her.” And maybe, I thought, you could renew your relationship. Forget about me.
His brown eyes sparked, sending flutters through my stomach. “Thank you.” He looked to the scene of the accident. “Come on. Work awaits.”
I called Dad that evening, using his business cell phone rather than the home phone.
“Hey, Princess.”
“Hey. Where’s Mom?”
“Shopping with Heidi Vandewinter.” He chuckled. “Did you try to call her cell and she didn’t answer?”
“No.” I stretched out on the small sofa in the cottage’s living room and rested my ankle on one of the accent pillows. “I wanted to talk to you privately, but didn’t have time before now.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“Talk to me.”
I adjusted a legal pad full of notes on my lap. “I met a young woman up here named Brianna. She cleans houses for a living. Well, that, and she works at a café.”
“Okay . . .”
“I hired her to clean the cottage—you know, every other week—and she came last Tuesday.”
“Okay . . .”
“When she got here it was after she’d cleaned the Flannerys’ house. The Flannerys have a son named Sean. He’s a real football hero around here. Folks have him set as the next big thing to hit college football and then, I’m sure, the pros. And Shelton Decker said something the other night, at the scrimmage game, about how the coach would get some Coach of the Year award.”
Dad chuckled. “I cannot believe my little girl is using words like ‘football game’ and ‘scrimmage.’ ”
“Dad.”
“Sorry. I’m just relishing the moment.” He paused. “Okay. Please continue.”
“So, anyway . . . when Bri got here, she was crying. Like, sobbing. She told me, through the tears and hiccups, that she’d found vials of steroids in Sean’s bedroom—by accident—and she even brought one vial and one syringe to me. To show me.”
I waited for the severity to click. When it did, he said, “I see.”
“I, uh, I tried to talk to William about it, but he adamantly refused to address the issue.”
“Did you tell him about Lawson?”
“No. He’s never really given me a chance. But . . . today . . . I, uh, I went into the Flannery home with Brianna.”
“For what purpose?”
I closed my eyes and prepared myself for what I knew my father’s response would be to the answer. “To see if I could find out who is supplying him with the drugs.”
“Ashlynne Paige. You know better—”
“—I know, Dad. I know.” Ethics and all . . . “But this is actually where it gets worse, so before you start your lecture, hear me out.”
“I’m listening.”
I pictured my father’s face, pinched with anger and concern. “I also found a cell phone, which I more-or-less accidentally ended up bringing back home with me.”
“More-or-less accidentally?”
“Dad.”
“This just keeps getting better and better.”
“I know. But Dad, listen. I went through all the messages, photographing each one with my phone while I was hiding in a broom closet and in between texts to Leigh.”
“Excuse me?”
“Seriously, not important. The supplier is his coach, Dad. Coach Meriwether. Who, by the way, happens to be a dear friend of Shelton Decker, so before you tell me to turn this over to Shelton, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
Dad remained quiet until he said, “The police?”
“I’ve thought of that. But then I have to admit I went into the house and . . .”
“Broke the law. And your code of ethics.”
I sighed, felt tears moisten my eyes. “I don’t know what to do, Dad.”
“I’ll have to think on this.” Again, he paused. “There’s something else, though, isn’t there?”
“There is. I don’t want to hurt anyone here. Especially not—to be honest here—Will Decker. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“Will Decker? I thought he was giving you a hard time.”
“He was. But not anymore. Dad, he’s been emotionally wounded in the past. By someone who looks a lot like me and I don’t want to bring additional pain.”
“With this information and how you got it?”
Yeah. Something like that. That and so much more. “Dad, I need . . .” The tears that had threatened spilled over. “I’m going to need to end this six-month period early. Very early. Before good people get really, really wounded.” I gasped as I fought the torrential downpour of anguish. “I’m sorry. And I’m happy to keep the job I have now. At the magazine. To expand on it actually.”
I lost the fight entirely. I bent until my nose nearly touched my knees as the angst won. I hurt. But I was about to hurt others more.
For the first time, I realized that’s what hurt me the most. Knowing I was going to hurt others—Will, the Sheltons, Alma, the Flannerys, a community of people I’d grown to love. I knew the truth needed to come out, about Sean’s steroids and the graves. But I couldn’t stay to watch the fallout. I just couldn’t.
“What I’m saying is . . . I want to come home, Dad. Okay? I want to come home.”
38
If you want to come home,” Dad said quietly, “then come home.”
I heard the disappointment in his voice. I felt it across the miles. “The good news,” I said, as though what little tidbit I’d found was worth mentioning, “is that I now know what I want to do.”
“And that is?”
“Be an investigative reporter. I’m good at it, Dad. You should see some of the stuff I have over here on the kitchen bar.”
“Well,” he said slowly. “We’ll talk about all that when you return. When do you think that will be?”
“Tomorrow?”
He didn’t reply at first. Then, “I’ll let your grandmother and mother know.”
I swiped at the tears running down my face. “Thanks, Daddy.”
All for the best, I told myself. And I’d tried, hadn’t I? Tried harder this time, to make a go of it?
Maybe so. Maybe not. I didn’t know anymore.
The next morning I sent Will a text as early as I dared, telling him I would work from home again. His return text came within seconds: Thought we were talking today.
I texted back, asking him to come by the cottage:
About 1:00? I’ll have all the info together by then.
My breath caught in my throat and fresh tears burned my eyes as I pressed Send. In an effort to keep from completely falling apart—yet again—I decided to read the last entry in the devotional book.
With my mug of tea and the book, I stepped outside to the rock garden I’d come to cherish. Wagging-tailed dogs met me, as though they’d anticipated my early-morning entrance to their domain. “Hello,” I said. “Let’s have our last read together, shall we?” I waved the book in the air.
The last entry—KNOW LOVE—showed a wooden tile with a lopsided red heart. Inside the heart a dark curlicue had been engraved, as though stirring the heart to action. The complementing verses came from Deuteronomy 7:9 and an excerpt from 1 Corinthians 13:
Know now then that the Lord your God is the only true God! He is the faithful God, who keeps the covenant and proves loyal to everyone w
ho loves him and keeps his commands—even to the thousandth generation!
If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love . . . If I . . . know all the mysteries and . . . if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.
Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.
Love never fails . . . Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known.
Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love.
The last page gave the author’s final comment: HE IN ME, I IN HIM. WE LOVE YOU.
I closed the book with a determination not to cry. Not again. Not anymore. I sipped on my tea, took in everything around me and engraved the surroundings on my heart, allowing them to stir me like the curlicue. I drank in the sloping of the land. The mountains etched along the sky in the distance. The green grasses, the tall trees.
I closed my eyes. Listened to the songs of the morning birds. The cry of insects in the woods behind me and below, reaching all the way to the roads of a long-ago era, where people had traveled and, just up the road, a massacre had occurred. And I knew that, one nearly forgotten day, scarred but proud people had discovered their dead, had buried them quietly and placed stones to mark their final place of rest. Then said nothing.
Nothing.
The irony struck hard. Some had chosen to remain silent and, many of them, to continue living here as though nothing had happened. I had chosen to reveal a crime. And leave.
With that thought, I stood. Patted the dogs and told them I’d see them around.
They seemed content with that.
The Road to Testament Page 32
