Before I Wake

by Dee Henderson

  “It’s going to be a while, maybe a long while.”

  Bruce smiled. “Time is the one thing we have going for this relationship. There’s nothing you’re going to say that will particularly surprise me, Rae. In the job I did, I literally saw it all.”

  She thought in a way he was right. Hearing what had happened with Mark Rivers—Bruce would have already guessed part of it. He knew what a defensive knife wound looked like, he’d seen her house, and she wouldn’t attribute to him being unobservant. He’d put together the majority of the physical facts she would be describing—but the why—he wasn’t ready for the why. Some things no one should have to hear, and especially not a fellow cop.

  She looked across the street. She thought about letting the conversation flow back toward less intense topics, of letting it rest for now, the weight of those chapters just shared. But when this topic closed, Rae didn’t think she’d have the courage to reopen it for some time, and questions stirred below the surface that she wished she could have answered. It was rare for Bruce to be so open about what she knew had to be an intensely private part of his life.

  She risked the question she had; she risked trying to process what she had heard from him aloud and with him, knowing he would hear in her questions her own heart’s struggle with God. “Do you think it was part of some plan, that you got shot so you would end up in that church and rediscover religion?”

  Bruce shook his head. “I got shot because someone was willing to exchange the name of an undercover cop for a lot of cash. Ending up in church—God was just kind enough to make something good come out of the disaster that hit my life.”

  She flexed the sides of the soda can she held. “Do you think God always brings good out of the disasters in our lives?”

  “I think He’s willing to if we’ll let Him.” Bruce smiled. “Isn’t it strange, Rae, how hard we struggle to believe that God loves us, that God will do the right thing? The Bible says God is good. It’s His personality, His nature. It’s impossible for Him to do bad; it’s outside His very character. And yet when we start to think about religion, about God, we spend most of our time trying to gather up the courage to trust and believe that God is actually going to be good to us and be willing to help us.”

  “I know.” She risked an observation in return that he might think simplistic. “But maybe it’s expected. We live in a messy, painful, fallen world. We live surrounded by good people who turn out to be liars, by people we trust betraying us—we live in a place where evil continually shows up and destroys what is good. And from that past we’re supposed to look at God, and despite everything we’ve lived through, we’re supposed to not attribute to Him any of the failings that beset everyone else we know.”

  She turned the soda can in her hands and could feel the remaining liquid in the bottom had long since warmed to undrinkable. She didn’t bare her heart easily, even with the one guy she trusted more than any other in her life, but she wanted someone she could be that honest with, and Bruce was listening and hearing her. She risked saying the rest of it. “I think trusting that God is good is one of the hardest steps there is to take. We get conditioned to expect to be let down. We get conditioned to not trust, because we trusted and we get burned. We get conditioned to be reserved and not take things at face value because we’ve learned nothing is ever at face value in life.

  “We have no relationships that come close to the relationship we are called on to have with God. With God, one side is perfect. The other side, our side, is clinging on by a prayer, asking ‘forgive me; please let grace cover my sins.’ We can hold that relationship with God only because He’s reaching over and holding us up to His level, not because we can ever reach to His level.”

  Bruce nodded. “Jesus pointed at the Father and said that’s life, to know that God who is absolutely perfect and good and loving; and it’s an abundant life to trust and obey Him. Jesus knew the Father was the one person we could have a relationship with who wouldn’t let us down. And that is the key thing necessary for having a good life: a relationship with Jesus and with God the Father.”

  Rae thought about her own desperate search to find some peace again, to be content with life and settled again, and she ended up shaking her head. She wanted that relationship with God to work and it seemed she was just always reaching and never quite there. She was still sorting out the hurts of the last year to the point she didn’t know what to think even about God Himself anymore. “Is it this hard for everyone, Bruce? I seem to know and understand less about God the older I get. Do you think someone like Nathan ever walks this kind of path with religion? Wrestling with the basics of the relationship?”

  Bruce thought about it. “For those who got the luxury of hearing the Good News early in their life, who accepted it when they were young—maybe the questions are just different for them. Once you’re an adult—it’s hard to believe any relationship, no matter how long it has lasted so far, isn’t going to sometime in the future fail. It is always a struggle to trust and not hold something back. It’s easy to doubt, and it’s hard to trust. But I need to trust, which is why I keep coming back to it. I need to trust that God is good, and from that, find hope again that life can be good.”

  Rae knew there was wisdom in that. “We used to talk philosophy and about being cops back in the days we were dating. Now we talk religion. I can’t say I mind the change.”

  Bruce smiled. “We’ve had these stakeout conversations before, Rae. We both end up saying more than we thought we would or go into corners with subjects we didn’t plan, because the topics flow around in eddies on us.”

  “I am glad you told me about what happened. I know it’s not easy to peel back layers and relive the history of being shot again. But hearing the story does help me to understand. You have changed, Bruce. And I like the new you.”

  “I’m beginning to like this new me too.”

  She shifted around on the seat to find a more comfortable place. “Was there any particular reason you chose Justice as the place to open the agency? A dart tossed at the map? Something more definite?”

  “I’d met Nathan’s dad at one point in the past and liked him. I’d been through the area before and remembered it. It wasn’t anything more than that. The town is close enough to Chicago I figured if I changed my mind about being in a small town, I could always take an apartment back in the city and commute occasionally to the place here for my vacations. But I got here, and I settled remarkably easy.

  “Like any small town, there is a variety of stories regarding who I am and how I ended up opening a detective agency in this town of all places. Some have me as still doing deep undercover work for the county narcotics task force, others have me escaping disciplinary action by resigning, others think I’m just another one of the out-of-towners who want to shift assets from big city to small town so I can take huge tax write-offs with the business while not doing any particular work.”

  Rae smiled. “I’m sure that habit of yours of never explaining has led to a few of those rumors starting.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  “This town has been a good fit for you, I think. I’m glad you invited me to come join you.”

  “I’m glad you came. You’ll find it grows on you too, Rae, and starts to feel like home.”

  “I hope it does. That would be nice, Bruce, to feel settled again.”

  16

  Rae shifted her jacket to create a better headrest. She was drifting on Bruce, and that wasn’t a good thing. He was patiently watching for Bob Teal to reappear. She reached for a new soda and opened it. “Talk to me some more, about anything. I want to stay awake a bit longer.”

  Bruce smiled, but he complied. He gestured toward the union hall. “Did you realize this case is something of a milestone? My fiftieth case as a private investigator. Sam thought I’d fold up shop after the first half dozen.”

  “What was the first case?”

  He didn’t answer her. She looked over and thought this migh
t be interesting. He was trying not to look entirely embarrassed. “What? Give. I can see it’s a good story.”

  “A lost dog,” he said so quietly she barely heard him.

  She choked on her soda. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  He looked over at her and his embarrassment shifted toward remembered amusement. “Rae, I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die, absolute truth. My first case was a lost dog.”

  “Give. I want the story. And don’t leave out any details.”

  “It was a Pekinese. The lady was traveling to a dog show; she’d stopped overnight at the Hilton Hotel and they let her have her dog in her room. She gets up in the morning, gets ready to go down to breakfast, goes to put him back in his travel cage, and her precious dog is gone. I thought Tony was an actual person for the first couple minutes of the phone call. I’d said yes, I had time to help her that day, before I realized she was talking about a dog.”

  “Give me a napkin. I’ve got to wipe my eyes here. Bruce Chapel, detective extraordinaire, looking for a little mutt.”

  “Please, it was a purebred dog, not a mutt.”

  “Hands and knees looking under the cars? Showing the photo around? Getting flyers ready to put out?”

  Bruce just nodded.

  Her laughter hurt her ribs. It got to the point she stopped trying to talk, because every new thought triggered another peal of laughter. “Where did you find him?” she finally got enough composure to ask. “You did find him, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did. He’d snuck out when the maid brought in more towels. I found him in the hotel sauna hiding under the bench, very well steamed. I hate to think what germs were under there. He sneezed the entire time I carried him back to his owner.” Bruce laughed at the memory. “Man, he was very well steamed.”

  “This is priceless. Did you also keep the first dollar you made as a private detective?”

  He shifted on the seat to tug his wallet from his back pocket. He moved the flap to get to the inside pocket. “Still crisp too.”

  She took the bill he handed her. “I like Benjamin Franklin. His face looks so sweet, and he was so mercenary when it came to money.”

  “Keep it.”

  “No way.” She took the wallet out of his hand and slid the bill back into its protective place under the flap. “This is like a treasured timepiece.” She fanned out two photos he had in the wallet. “Those are timepieces too. I was young.” She hadn’t expected to see herself, and she could feel her heart tumbling a bit at the reality Bruce had been carrying her photo for so many years.

  “We looked good together,” Bruce pointed out.

  She smiled, feeling like she was stepping on a bit of quicksand. “You always could make me laugh. Where was this, the county fair?”

  Bruce nodded. “Just after you got your badge.”

  Rae pushed the photos back into the wallet and handed it back to him. “You need a more current picture. Folks will think you are robbing the cradle.”

  Bruce put away his wallet, then reached over and gently traced her chin with a finger even as he smiled. “I figure I’ll find an excuse to get a new one of you one of these days.”

  She could handle talking religion easier than she could handle the rather terrifying thought of talking about their relationship as it had been in the past. So much joy, laughter, love, and just plain emotion roiled back there, deliberately left in the past when she had wisely accepted his push that it was a good thing that she go to the FBI rather than stay with him in Chicago.

  She looked away from Bruce, not wanting to duck the conversation with a trivial remark, but knowing this topic had to be set aside. She started. “Bob. He just unlocked his car.”

  Bruce turned to look and hurriedly shifted to start the car. “Good catch. Had he pulled out and we missed it, you would have been telling this stakeout story on me for the next fifty years.”

  Rae breathed a sigh of relief for more personal reasons. “It would have been another priceless story to tell,” she agreed lightly. “He’s going home; he has to be at this time of night.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Bruce stayed well back, using the taillights of the car to keep Bob in sight. They followed him safely home.

  “Want dessert somewhere?”

  Rae paused in her search through the picnic basket for anything she had missed earlier. A wise answer would be to ask Bruce to take her back to her car and give her an escort to the hotel. But she looked at him, at the man she’d given her heart to long ago and still thought to call when her life crashed to pieces, and didn’t want to walk away just yet from the fact that she had someone to really talk with tonight. That was too good a thing to end quickly. “Pie. I would love a really good piece of pie right now.”

  Bruce changed directions from heading toward the hotel to heading downtown. “Pie I can do.”

  “Would this constitute a date?”

  Bruce glanced over. “Do you want it to?” he asked, curious.

  “I’m just sorting out the this-is-work–time-and-this-is-not time,” she offered cautiously.

  Bruce thought about it and smiled. “Okay. Call it a predate, so I can relearn the things you like best and the things you avoid, before I have to get them right during an actual date.”

  “I like that.” Rae found her shoes and wrestled to slip them back on. “For the record, I like dates that last to midnight, but kind of end then. I need more beauty sleep these days.”

  “I’ll remember. Was this a nice night, Rae?”

  She looked over at him, curious about the question. “I think so. You can’t figure out the future until you’ve talked about the past. We both know that. We’ve been down that road before.”

  “Then we’ll talk about the past a little more when you come over and see my house, and I’ll tell you about some of the better chapters of the last eleven years. There have been a few good ones.”

  “I’d like that a lot.”

  Bruce pulled into a parking spot near the M&T Diner. He came around to open the car door for her. “Still partial to chocolate-cream pie?”

  “A perfect idea.”

  She let him hold the restaurant door for her. Bruce was trying, in very big ways, to bridge the past eleven years and make it possible for her to be comfortable with him again. She was determined to start matching his courage with her own and to meet him halfway. The best thing she had in her life right now was also the oldest, closest friendship she had ever had. Reviving it would go a long way toward helping her sink stable roots here in Justice. She wanted that, that reality of belonging again, of having a place. If that turned out to be with Bruce and forever, it would close a circle begun years before.

  “I seem to remember our first date was also over a slice of pie,” Bruce mentioned.

  She smiled at the memory he offered as he retrieved menus for them both. That night in their past had been a nice night too. “Some things in life should never change.” She followed him to a private table in the back.

  17

  Rae scanned house numbers as she drove through the Westwood subdivision Wednesday morning, following Peggy’s parents’ directions. She passed Peggy’s home before she saw the number. Rae slowed and found a parking place along the side of the street.

  Peggy had a single home on a road with a number of duplexes. The trees were still young and the landscaping needed years of growth on the bushes to fill out the blank areas.

  Rae walked to the house, looking around for signs of neighbors who were still home. Duplexes meant lots of neighbors, but not many looked like they were home with small children, the best kind of neighbors for noticing who came and went.

  Rae shifted keys in the ring Mr. Worth had given her. She’d suggested they might want to be here, but Mrs. Worth had not felt able to face it. Rae checked the mailbox and found it empty.

  She opened the screen door and checked the door, expecting to find it locked. It turned under her hand.

  Rae tensed.


  She had signed the handgun-carry-permit application but it was still in process, and she hadn’t thought this morning warranted breaking the law to carry her weapon. The wise thing to do was to walk back to the car, call the cops, and watch for anyone who left before the officers arrived.

  Rae stepped over to cautiously peer into the window. The blinds were lowered but she could see a slice of the room; sunlight from the other windows cut across the carpet and what looked like the arm of a sofa. There were no signs of movement.

  Rae reached into her purse and retrieved the small can of Mace inside. She flipped off the tab. Spreading the keys between her fingers, she clenched her fist around the ring. She didn’t want to wait for someone else to tell her the house had been ransacked.

  She pushed open the front door slowly and looked around, seeing only a large empty living room. She took one step inside and held the screen door so it closed quietly behind her.

  A large living room, what looked like the kitchen to the back of the house, to her right a staircase that went upstairs. She could hear steps above her.

  The worst place to confront someone was on the stairs where they had the tactical advantage of being higher than her. One person or two? She listened to the sounds, wishing the rooms were hardwood floors rather than carpeted.

  No car in the driveway, no obvious way to take items being taken out the back door to a van behind the house. It was possible they had opened the garage door and pulled inside so they could load the vehicle at their leisure.

  She moved toward the steps and spotted movement just a fraction before she was seen as well.

  “Police! Hold it right there,” she ordered, sliding two steps back and toward the front door. “You want to tell me why you’re in Peggy Worth’s home?”

  The man froze at the top of the stairs. “Easy.” He lifted his hands away from his body and opened his right hand to dangle a key ring. “She’s a friend; I let myself in with keys she gave me.”