Southern Storm

by Terri Blackstock

  “Sure,” Sadie said in a flat voice. “Come in. I’ll get Morgan.”

  The woman waddled in and set her suitcase down. Sadie went back to the kitchen. “Somebody here for you. I’ll clean Caleb up.”

  Still sulking, she got a napkin and wet it and began to wipe the baby’s face as Morgan rushed to meet her visitor.

  Morgan noticed the suitcase first. “Hello, I’m Morgan,” she said.

  The woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Karen Miller. I knew your mama and daddy. I was in the jail when they used to come. I got out just a few weeks before they died. When I heard what happened to them, I cried my eyes out.”

  Morgan gave her a weak smile. “Thank you.” She glanced at the suitcase again.

  “You’re as pretty as your mama said, Morgan. Your mama talked all the time about you and your sister.”

  Morgan didn’t want to talk about her mother. “What brings you here, Karen?”

  “Your mama and daddy wanted me to come live here after I got out of jail.” She looked around at the room she stood in. “It’s just like they described—antique tables, Victorian sofa, plants and baubles every which way you look. I should have come then, but I didn’t. I went back to the old neighborhood and my boyfriend. I thought I could make it on my own, but it was hard, going back to all the same temptations. Crack dealers on every corner . . .” Her voice faded off. It was the kind of thing Morgan warned the prisoners about in her own jail ministry. Without a sound strategy, it was difficult for any of them to make it.

  “I just kept remembering how your mama tried to convince me to come here. And then I found out the house was still running. I know I haven’t filled out the application, and you don’t know me from Adam, but I thought you might take me in, anyway. For the sake of my baby.”

  Morgan regarded the girl’s swollen belly. She looked ready to give birth right now. She took the woman’s hand. “Come sit down, Karen.” She led her to the couch in the parlor. As the young woman got settled, Morgan checked her watch. Jonathan would be home soon. Maybe he could help her with this. They had agreed not to take in anyone who hadn’t been through a stringent application process—those who proved they wanted to change their lives, who could commit to hours a day of Bible study, who were willing to get jobs and work and help with the chores. They wanted to do extensive interviews with them to make sure they were sincere in their desire to change, to screen out those who were violent or dishonest, or those who might pose a danger to Caleb or Sadie or anyone else in the house.

  But when they showed up at the door like this, with no place else to go, clearly in a bind . . .

  “Karen, when is your baby due?”

  “Any day now. And I couldn’t let it be born at home.” Tears sprang to Karen’s eyes. “My baby’s daddy is a dealer, and he gets mean. . . . It’s no place for a baby . . . and it’s no place for me. Your mama told us in jail, she said we had to have a plan for when we got out. That we couldn’t make it on our own. I came up with my plan too late, but I don’t know where else to go. I want to change, Morgan. I want to live a life like you have, one that’s clean and good and Christian. God put it in my mind to come here. I know he did. I don’t have money or a job or any plan past ringing your bell, but I didn’t think you’d turn me away. I have Medicaid, so you don’t have to worry about hospital bills, and I’ll get a job as soon as I can after the baby comes.”

  Morgan’s heart burst with compassion. Her mother wouldn’t have turned her away, she knew, and neither would her father. Jonathan was a little more pragmatic, but even he would have been persuaded by the urgency of Karen’s situation.

  “I’m a Christian, Morgan. I found Christ in jail. I backslid real bad when I got out.” She patted her stomach. “I shouldn’t have, but I can’t undo it now.”

  Morgan sighed. “I have to talk to my husband, Karen. If you can’t stay here, we’ll find another place for you.”

  There were homes for unwed mothers with no place to go, ministries that took in people like Karen. They would be better for her in the long run, with their parenting classes and their counseling, their day care, and their help finding jobs.

  “I promise I won’t send you back out into the streets,” Morgan said.

  The woman looked around. “I don’t think there could be a better place than right here. It looks like a dream.”

  Morgan got up and grabbed the suitcase. “Come with me, and I’ll show you a room where you can relax until Jonathan gets home.”

  The woman beamed through her tears as Morgan led her up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 19

  Voices yelled above and around him, and Cade squinted his eyes open. Paramedics ran his gurney down a hospital corridor, and Blair hurried beside him, sweating and panting with her blonde hair flapping into her face.

  “Hang in there, Cade! We’re going to help you.”

  He felt a jolt as they pushed him through double doors.

  Then all at once he saw blue sky and an egret flying and felt the cool breeze in his hair, and he opened his eyes and was flying across the heavens, soaring and sailing through the blue, following his egret until it took a nosedive and started down . . . down . . .

  He woke with a shock.

  There was no egret and no blue sky, no gurney and no hospital, no paramedics and no Blair.

  Just Cade lying on the cold concrete floor, sticky in his own blood.

  He’d been shot through the left calf, shattering bone and slicing out muscle, and the pain strangled him, nooselike, closing his throat and tearing a moan from deep within him. He forced himself to sit up, and winced at the pain spearing through his right ribs. He’d been shot there too.

  Sweating with the pain, he tore his shirt open and stared down at the wound. The bullet had missed his rib, though it had blasted the flesh in its deadly path. It had not missed the bone in his leg, however. The bullet had gone right through him, shattering a hole in his tibia before exiting out the back.

  He’d been going up the stairs . . . a gun in Ann Clark’s ribs. So who had been at the top of the stairs? Who had shot him? And why hadn’t they killed him?

  He reached down to his bloody leg and ripped the fabric of his pants, so he could better see his wound. Carefully, he peeled it away from his blood-caked skin.

  The sight of it made him dizzy, so he stopped a moment and looked up toward the vent that hummed and blew cold air into the room. He needed to get up. He needed to stop the slow bleed, and figure out a plan of escape.

  He tried to rise up, but there was no way he could put weight on his leg.

  With his good arm and leg, he managed to pull himself up. His head throbbed, and as he rose up to the mattress a wave of dizziness washed over him again. He grabbed the blanket and ripped off a strip, then used it as a bandage on his leg.

  He didn’t know what to do for his side.

  Lying back, he tried to catch his breath. The only relief was the cool air blowing through that vent on the ceiling just above him.

  But he couldn’t lie here, wallowing in his weakness. He had to get away.

  He knew the life was running out of him, and he didn’t have much time left.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sadie hadn’t had the nerve yet to tell Trevor Beal that she couldn’t go out with him. She’d tried talking Morgan into it, and when Jonathan came home, she had enlisted his help. But he was too preoccupied with Karen’s appearance and Cade’s disappearance. Irritably, he’d told her no. She was not to go out with “that boy.”

  She had to tell him soon, but she hadn’t seen him yet today, and she dreaded what he would think of her. How dare she judge him for his parents’ reputation? Do not judge, or you too will be judged. She pushed through the crowd to her locker, rolled in her combination.

  A locker two down from her slammed, making her jump, and she turned to see Crystal glaring at her.

  “Is it true that you’re going out with Trevor Beal?” the girl snapped at her.

  Sadie looked from Cry
stal to the two friends who waited behind her, spearing her with hateful looks. She wasn’t going to discuss this with them. Slamming her own locker, she turned and started away.

  “I’m talking to you!” Crystal shouted. “I asked you a question.”

  Heads were turning, so she stopped and looked back. “Who I go out with is none of your business.” She kept her voice low to keep from calling more attention to herself.

  “The only reason he’s interested in you is that he thinks you’re easy. A tramp like you, living at Hanover House, of all places. He knows he can get you to do whatever he wants.”

  Sadie hadn’t expected for Crystal to have a more hurtful comment than “tramp daughter of a jailbird” in her arsenal. Don’t react. Just turn and walk away. Blinking back the tears threatening her, she turned and started up the hall.

  “That’s the only reason he’d go out with you,” Crystal shouted. Others turned their heads, looking to see who she was referring to. Sadie lifted her chin in the air and held her lips tight.

  She hurried into her biology class, tears in her eyes, but she would not cry in front of anyone who would tell that girl and her friends. She bit her lip and pulled out her biology book, opened it to the page they had studied for homework, got out her pen, and held it poised.

  Crystal and her friends filed in like Nazis in a prison camp. The teacher sat at the front of the room, a sentinel who kept them quiet. But she couldn’t stop the looks the girls shot her—hate-filled, venomous looks.

  She kept her head down and her eyes on her book, and when the class finally ended, she dashed out of the room. Trevor Beal was waiting for her.

  “So how’s it going?” he asked, those blue eyes twinkling, oblivious.

  She looked up at him. He couldn’t be part of a criminal family. He looked so normal.

  She shrugged and looked back over her shoulder. Crystal and Company were down the hall, watching with those piercing eyes, their faces twisted with contempt. “I’m okay, I guess.”

  “So have you thought about what movie you want to see Friday night?”

  She drew in a deep breath and decided to get this over with. “Morgan and Jonathan told me I couldn’t go.”

  His face changed, and his cheeks suddenly mottled red. “What do you mean they told you you couldn’t? Why?”

  “They just didn’t approve. It’s a long story.” She hurried to her locker, knowing the girls were following behind. Pulling her backpack off, she started digging through it.

  Trevor took it out of her hand. “Sadie, you’re not going to do what they say, are you?”

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to go, but I just can’t.”

  He flung the backpack against the locker, startling her.

  “It’s because of my family, isn’t it?” he said.

  She looked away.

  “Come on, Sadie. Those people you live with are so holier-than-thou that there’s probably not a guy in this school they’d let you go out with. They think they’re better than everybody.

  They’re the moral police, that’s what they are. And you’re their prisoner.”

  “No, I’m not!” She picked her backpack up. “They care about me.”

  “Then they should let you go. Come on, I’m a nice guy. You shouldn’t judge me on the basis of my family any more than I judge you on the basis of yours.”

  It was as if he had read her mind.

  “Come on,” he said, leaning toward her. “I want to take you out. I’m not going to drag you to some family dinner or any other place that you don’t want to go. I just want to spend time with you. I want to get to know you. Is that wrong?”

  She thought of what Crystal had said about his reasons for asking her out. “Are you sure that’s all?” she asked. “Because there’s talk that you had ulterior motives. So if you think that I’m easy or that—”

  “Who told you that?” His words slashed across hers.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s just a rumor going around, that the only reason you asked me out is that you think I’m easy.”

  His hand hit the locker again. “Whoever said that is a stinking liar.” He leaned down until his face was inches from hers, his blue eyes searching her face. “I don’t want anything from you. Come on, Sadie. Give me a chance. I didn’t think you’d let somebody’s background or their family ruin your opinion of them. I thought you were different.”

  Sadie thought of Morgan and Jonathan. There had been no gray area in what they’d said to her. She was simply to obey. And why wouldn’t she? They’d been nothing but good to her, and all their advice so far had been wise. They cared about her and Caleb, worried about her well-being . . .

  But they didn’t understand.

  She looked into Trevor Beal’s blue eyes. His interest made her feel better about herself. She needed that, she thought. If Morgan and Jonathan understood how much, they wouldn’t deprive her of this.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “I won’t pick you up at Hanover House if that’s a problem. We can meet somewhere and then go off quietly. Nobody has to know. You can tell everybody you broke the date with me, and then Morgan and Jonathan will never have to know. Who could it possibly hurt?”

  Sadie closed her eyes and tried to think. “I don’t have a car,” she said. “I can’t meet you anywhere.”

  “You can walk, can’t you? You have feet.” He wasn’t going to give up easily. That fact sent a warm thrill rushing through her. “What about their boathouse? You could walk down to the boathouse, and I’ll pick you up there. Nobody will ever have to know. We’ll go to Savannah, eat, see a movie, come home. I’ll drop you off a little distance from the house and you can go home.”

  “Where will I tell them I’ve been? They’ll have to know I’m gone.”

  He considered that for a moment. “Tell them you’re going to the Methodist dance. There really is one Friday night, no kidding. Tell them some girls invited you to come. They’ll like that, won’t they? They’ll buy it.”

  She grinned. “You’ve done this before.”

  He shrugged. “Sue me for being creative.”

  She laughed then as the bell started to ring. Quickly she grabbed her book out of the locker and shoved it into her backpack. “I’ve got to go.”

  He blocked her way. “Not until you say yes.”

  She grinned up at him. “All right, yes.”

  “Great,” he said. “So Friday night, the boathouse at six. We’ll have a blast together. You’ll see.”

  A chill shivered over her, but the thrill that rivaled it made the reservations flee from her mind. It wasn’t her fault Morgan and Jonathan were being narrow-minded. She wasn’t hurting anyone, after all. Pushing her doubts to the back of her mind, she hurried to her next class, knowing that nothing Crystal or her friends said to her could hurt her now.

  CHAPTER 21

  Blair’s preoccupation with Cade’s disappearance worried Morgan almost as much as Cade did. She had been camped in front of her computer for hours at a time, forgetting to open the library or closing it at odd hours of the day as she took off on a hunch that led nowhere. She hadn’t been eating or sleeping, and her face was pale and distracted, her eyes full of things that only she could see. The scar on her face burned more brightly than usual.

  “I want you to come to Hanover House for dinner tonight,” Morgan had insisted when Blair finally answered her phone. “You need to be around people and get your mind off things.”

  “I don’t want my mind off things,” Blair said. “Other people’s minds are off things, and that’s why no one’s found Cade.”

  “Just come,” Morgan said. “You have to eat, and maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something.”

  She had reluctantly agreed to come, but the moment she’d arrived, Morgan knew Blair would rather be any place but here. The house was crowded with the tenants who had just gotten home from work, the television in the den blared, and Caleb cried intermittently as Morgan tried to prepare dinn
er.

  Blair seethed past the den, where Karen, the pregnant woman Jonathan had reluctantly allowed to stay, sat watching a rerun of Step by Step at a volume so loud you could have heard it from the second floor.

  “Blair,” Morgan yelled over the volume, “I’d like for you to meet Karen. Karen, this is my sister . . .”

  “Nice to meet you,” Blair yelled, and turned with disgust to go into the kitchen. Morgan followed her in as Karen mumbled that it was nice to meet her too.

  “Karen just showed up yesterday,” Morgan said in a low voice when they were out of her earshot. “Mama and Pop led her to Christ when she was in jail. She isn’t married, and she finally realized that she couldn’t have her baby in the environment she was living in, so—”

  “So she came here to get a free ride and leach off you for a while?”

  Morgan glanced around, hoping no one had heard. Sadie sat at the table feeding Caleb. She looked up and then hastily looked away. Morgan hoped she hadn’t taken the comment wrong.

  Out on the sunporch sat Mrs. Hern, rocking blankly. She was having a bad day, and her boss, Mr. Jenkins, had sent her home early from her job at Goodfellow’s Grocery. The woman’s Alzheimer’s wasn’t severe enough for a nursing home, but she couldn’t live on her own or support herself. The donations that came to the home helped to subsidize her. Thankfully, she hadn’t heard Blair’s comment, and if she had, she’d have forgotten it so quickly that it would hardly have mattered.

  Felicia, the fifty-year-old former bank robber, who was strong as an ox and worked for the town’s sanitation department, was out in the backyard pulling weeds. It was one of the household chores on her list this week.

  “Blair, keep your voice down, please,” Morgan said. “I don’t want the tenants to hear you say that kind of thing.”

  “I’m serious, Morgan. I thought you only took Christians who were committed to studying their Bible and stuff.”