by Brenda Novak
The chill of the evening seemed to soak right through Grace’s sweatshirt. She hugged herself for warmth. “I thought you might take exception to it.”
“I see. But you didn’t care about that when you were a kid.”
“It never even occurred to me.”
“And now you’re all grown up.” He grinned at Kennedy. “We’ve noticed.”
Kennedy gave him a dirty look, but Joe didn’t seem to let it bother him. “So what are your theories on the disappearance of my uncle Lee?” he asked. “Surely you’ve got a few ideas.”
“Enough about your uncle,” Kennedy said sharply.
Joe cocked his head to one side. “The subject doesn’t interest you?”
“I’m sick of hearing about it.”
“Then you’re the only person who is. Except maybe for Grace.”
“Daddy?” Teddy called from the tent, his voice filled with sleep.
“What is it, bud?” Kennedy responded.
“Heath just kicked me.”
“Push him over.”
“I tried. He’s too heavy.”
Kennedy shot Joe what looked like a warning glance as he strode past him to take care of his son. But when he ducked inside the tent, Joe leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “Why don’t the two of us try to put the puzzle together?”
“How do you propose we do that?” Grace asked. “He disappeared without a trace.”
“Without a trace,” Joe repeated. “See, that’s where you lose me. I believe there has to be some clue, someone who saw something.”
Like Jed Fowler…. “Who?” she challenged, knowing if Joe had anything solid she would’ve heard about it already.
“Nora Young had a meeting with him at the church. She claims she was still in the parking lot talking to Rachelle Cook when he locked up and got in his car. Rachelle confirms it.”
“So? Dede Hunt saw him heading out of town at about eight-thirty.”
“She thought she saw a car that looked like his. That’s different.” The shadows made his sly smile appear rather sinister. “And Bonnie Ray Simpson, the closest neighbor, said she saw his car parked in the drive around nine or ten.”
“Bonnie Ray’s an alcoholic.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t see his car.”
Grace leaned back, careful to seem completely at ease. “He never came home. Only my mother returned.”
“When was that?”
“About nine. She came from choir practice at Ruby Bradford’s.”
“She didn’t see him?”
“You know she didn’t. I told you, he didn’t come home.”
Joe rocked back. “God, doesn’t it drive you nuts, Grace?”
She took another drink of her water, watching him steadily over the rim. “What?”
“Not knowing.”
“I’ve finally come to terms with it,” she lied. She’d managed to block out part of that night—the part that came right after the reverend locked Molly out and right before her mother came home. But there was so much more that haunted her….
“You sound pretty certain that this mystery can’t be solved,” Joe said, clicking his tongue. “Do you know something we don’t?”
She remembered Clay getting home shortly after her mother—heard the shouts, the terrible thud of fist on bone. “You’ve asked me that before. Do you think the answer’s going to change?”
“I can always hope.”
“You can hope that the Easter Bunny’s real, too, but that won’t make it so.”
He studied her for a moment. “Your mother had a black eye the day after my uncle disappeared. And Clay had a cut lip.”
“Clay was getting a plate from the cupboard and accidentally clipped her with his elbow. When he bent over to see if she was okay, she lifted her head unexpectedly and caught him in the mouth.” There were more injuries that Grace remembered. But fortunately, they could be hidden.
“You’re sure.”
“Are you insinuating that your beloved uncle, a man of the cloth, would ever strike a woman? Or beat up a younger man?”
Joe chuckled at her neat dodge and drained the whiskey in his cup. “Maybe he was provoked.”
“He was far too patient and gentle for that.”
The zipper of the tent alerted them to the fact that Kennedy was back.
“What do you think, Kennedy?” Joe asked, setting his mug on the ground.
Kennedy moved to the picnic table and started stowing all the stuff the boys had left out. “I think you’ve had too much to drink. Why don’t we all turn in?”
“The conversation’s just gettin’ good.” Joe rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “Tell me what you think happened to him, Grace. Honestly.”
“That’s enough,” Kennedy said. “She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m asking her, not you,” Joe responded.
Kennedy whipped around. “I don’t care. Leave her alone.”
Grace caught her breath at the sudden tension between them—and sensed an increased malevolence in Joe as he glanced back at her. “Looks like you’re coming up in the world.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
Something had been set in motion the day she returned to Stillwater, like a rock rolling downhill, gathering speed. It would crush her if she didn’t stop it. She had to act. “What do you want from me?” she asked softly.
“You know what I want. The truth. And I want Kennedy to hear you say it.”
“Joe—” Kennedy began.
Grace lifted a hand to stop him. She refused to come between Kennedy and his old friend. She wanted to leave Stillwater knowing his life was as perfect as it had always been. “Don’t, he doesn’t bother me,” she said and stalked to her tent, doubly convinced that they had to move the reverend’s remains. They had to hide them deep in the woods and let Joe search the farm. It was a gutsy move, but if it worked, she stood to convince the whole town that her family had nothing to do with the reverend’s disappearance. Then they might be able to live normal lives.
The cool night air ruffled Kennedy’s hair as he crouched outside Grace’s tent. “Grace.”
He heard her stir, but she didn’t respond.
“Grace,” he whispered again and scratched the nylon fabric with his flashlight to gain her attention.
“What?” She sounded groggy, confused.
“Head down to the bathrooms.”
“But…why?”
“Shhh,” he admonished, and said nothing more. He didn’t want to wake Joe, who was sleeping off the whiskey in his own two-man tent.
Grace emerged wearing flip-flops, a pair of pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt turned wrong side out. She walked several feet before snapping on her flashlight. Then, as he’d directed, she started down the path to the Port-a-Potties. When she was halfway there, Kennedy fell in step beside her.
As he approached, the snap of a twig brought her light up so she could see him, but he quickly covered her hand to keep the beam on the ground with his. “What are you—” she started.
He squeezed to communicate the need for silence, and she let her words fall away.
When they reached the bathrooms, he turned off both flashlights and led her around the small building. He wasn’t sure how he’d expected her to react to his late-night summons, but the way her fingers curled through his the moment he took her hand surprised him. She felt fragile and cold, which only made him more certain of his decision.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
He pulled her into the woods. “Here,” he said when he was fairly confident they could speak without being overheard.
“Why?”
He squinted to see her more clearly. The towering trees obscured most of the moonlight. “We need to talk.”
Wariness entered her voice. “No, we don’t.”
“Tell me about the Bible, Grace,” he said. “What were you doing at Jed’s? Why
did you have it?”
She shook her head. “Stay out of it, Kennedy.”
The questions were making him crazy, but he was better off not knowing. With a sigh, he stretched the taut muscles in his neck. “You’re right. Forget I asked.” What was the point? He had the Bible in his pocket. He’d brought her out here to give it back.
“So what are you going to do with it?” she asked. “Have you decided?”
He could tell she was wary of his answer. “What would your next move be if I turned it over to you?”
“Is that a real possibility?”
The suspicion in her voice made him a little angry. “You think I’d hold you, kiss you, tell you I want to make love to you, then throw you to the wolves?”
She didn’t answer, but his anger wilted as he realized that was exactly what his friends had done to her, again and again, in high school. She could probably no longer link sexual desire with loyalty or anything positive.
“Would you hide it somewhere?” he asked.
“I’d burn it,” she said simply. “And I’d ask you to forget you ever saw it, to go on with your life as if nothing ever happened.”
He hesitated. “And you?”
“What about me?”
“Am I supposed to forget you, too?”
“What other option do you have?”
He couldn’t really answer that, but he was too used to getting what he wanted to believe he couldn’t have it now. Only death seemed capable of cheating him. “You feel what I feel, Grace.”
She didn’t agree, but she didn’t deny it, either.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he prompted.
When she stared mutinously up at him, he decided to prove it. Setting their flashlights on the ground, he slipped his hands under her sweatshirt and spanned her waist, rubbing her soft skin with his thumbs. She clasped his forearms, but he wasn’t sure if she meant to hold him where he was or push him away.
“Touching you, even as innocently as this, makes me drunk with desire,” he whispered. “I want to feel you beneath me, pulling me inside you.”
She closed her eyes and swayed toward him, and his heart began to pound as his mouth found the curve of her neck. Breathing in the scent of their campfire, which lingered in her hair, he kissed the indentation below her ear while sliding a hand up her shirt. She moaned as he cupped her breast, as if she’d surrender all resistance.
But then she shoved away and stepped out of reach, leaving them both shaken.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We can’t do this.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid of what you make me feel.”
“Feeling isn’t bad, Grace.”
She raked her fingers through her hair. “It is for me. I’m not capable of loving you, just a little and only for a while.”
Just a little and only for a while? Was that what he was asking?
Maybe so. He wanted a meaningful relationship, something to fill the vacuum Raelynn’s death had created. But even if he and Grace could overcome their own history, he could never offer her a long-term commitment. The thought of them together would be enough to put his father in the grave. And that was only one of the many ramifications.
Yet he couldn’t give her up.
“I’ve had a good relationship in the past. I know what it can be like,” he said.
“What does that mean to us?”
“It means maybe you should trust me. I’m not like Joe.”
“You’re demanding I be vulnerable.”
“I’m willing to be vulnerable, too,” he said, even though he knew he’d be vulnerable in a completely different way.
She shook her head. “We’d be heading straight for a brick wall.”
“Risk it,” he entreated. “Lower your guard this once. See where our friendship leads.”
She seemed to waver. “No,” she said at last.
“Why not?”
“Because our friendship can’t lead anywhere, Kennedy. I envy what you had with Raelynn. But I’m not her.” She lifted her chin. “I only need to know one thing.”
“The Bible.”
“Are you going to give it to me?”
Kennedy started to reach into his pocket. He wanted to prove his loyalty, convince her that he wasn’t trying to use her. But if Grace and her family really did have a hand in Barker’s disappearance, could he let something so pertinent to what had happened go up in smoke? As damaging as Grace’s connection to this Bible might be right now, if some other piece of evidence surfaced later, the reverend’s notes could prompt a jury to draw the same conclusions he had.
Using the hand that had been about to reveal the Bible, he rubbed his face instead. “I can’t.”
“So you’re going to throw me to the wolves, after all?”
He grimaced. “No. I already destroyed it.”
“When?”
“Last night after you went into your tent.”
Her eyes glistened as she stared up at him. “Why?” she said.
“Because I was upset,” he told her. “He was a fraud. I hate him as much as you do.”
She must have heard the truth in that statement because some of the stiffness left her stance. “You were right,” she whispered, reaching out to grab hold of the nearest tree as if she needed the support.
Kennedy’s heart leaped into his throat. “About what?”
“About what he did to me,” she said. Then she scooped up her flashlight and ran away.
Kennedy remained where he was, letting the silence gather around him as he tried to digest what she’d just admitted. He’d never encountered the extreme emotions he was experiencing with Grace. Raelynn had been happy, sweet, consistent. They’d fallen in love young and maintained a close relationship with very few problems.
Grace was right—she was nothing like Raelynn. She’d been through hell and might never get over it. So why did he want her so badly? When logic screamed, “No! Absolutely not!”
Because there was one place, way down deep, that didn’t care about logic at all. That part of him seemed to chant, “Yes, yes, yes!”
And it was getting louder….
Grace couldn’t walk quickly enough. Hurrying out of the woods, she rounded the Port-a-Potties and went down the narrow path to the campsite, hoping to reach her tent before Kennedy could come after her. The Bible was gone. As much as she would’ve liked to watch it burn, part of her felt gratified that Kennedy was the one who’d destroyed it.
But there was still something about him that frightened her, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he could so easily unravel her family’s dark secret.
She smiled bitterly. Who would’ve thought a ray of hope—hope that she might actually have a chance of being loved by the only man she’d ever really wanted—would be the most frightening thing she’d ever encounter?
She marveled at the warmth she’d felt when Kennedy’s hand held hers. Maybe it was just that she craved some sort of vindication for being snubbed in the past. But his voice, his touch, affected her like no other man’s—
A dark shadow loomed in front of her. Jumping back, she barely managed to stifle a scream.
“Hey, it’s me.”
Joe. He stood before her wearing tennis shoes with no socks, a pair of Nike shorts and a windbreaker that was open to reveal his bare chest. Obviously, he’d dressed in a hurry, just as she had.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
Grace grappled for the self-possession she’d lost while speaking to Kennedy in the woods. “Coming back from the Port-a-Potty.”
“Where’s your flashlight?”
“Here.” She waved it between them as an excuse to take another step away from him. “With this moon, I didn’t need it.”
Tugging it from her hand, he flipped the switch and pointed the beam behind her. She turned to look, expecting to see Kennedy walking up the trail—and said a silent prayer of thanks to find no one there.
“You’re alone?” he said in surprise.
She wasn’t going to volunteer anything to Joe. “What’d you expect?” she replied. “It’s the middle of the night.”
At this, he pointed the light directly in her face. “I thought maybe you were giving Kennedy a blow job.”
Squinting against the blinding brightness, she jerked the flashlight away and pretended his crudeness didn’t bother her. Anything else would only encourage him. “Considering he’s sleeping in his tent, that’d be quite a feat.”
Joe’s smile changed. “He’s not there. I checked. But you already know that.”
She gave a nonchalant shrug. “All I know is that if Teddy and Heath are around, Kennedy’s not far away. Maybe he couldn’t sleep and got up to take a walk.” Circumventing him, she started off again. “You might check the lake.”
Joe laughed softly. “You know, Kennedy might be interested in you for the moment, Grace. He hasn’t been laid in two years. But it’ll be over as soon as he gets what he wants, so don’t expect it to last.”
Grace didn’t turn around. “I don’t expect anything.”
“Yeah, right,” he called after her. “Just like your mother wasn’t after my uncle’s farm. Only the stakes are much higher with Kennedy, aren’t they? I have to hand it to you, Gracie. At least you know a real prize from a poor preacher.”
13
Kennedy stood in the woods, wrapping the Bible in the empty black garbage bag he’d just removed from the trash can outside the restrooms. Now that he’d decided to keep it, he needed to figure out a hiding place. He didn’t want to risk putting it back in the Explorer and having Grace or one of his boys find it. He wasn’t excited about the idea of taking the Bible home with him, anyway. What would he do with it? The more work he put into concealing it, the more questions he’d face if something ever went wrong.
The best thing would be to get rid of it right here. Why carry it around? If he buried the reverend’s Bible, the chances of anyone stumbling upon it would be slim, especially in such a remote location. And, if necessary, he’d know where to find it.
Locating a large, sharp rock, he began to dig at the base of a tall pine. It was late, and he was tired, but he wanted to bury the Bible deeply enough that some raccoon or other animal wouldn’t unearth it.
