by Jodi Thomas
Liz frowned as she pulled to the end of the circle drive out front. Frankenstein must have been the architect of this place. No one but company used the front drive. The family never opened the front door except to put a wreath up at Christmas. Maybe her family would get the hint and not ask when she planned to come to her senses and move back in if she stepped into the house through the company entrance.
Her mother, Joyce, had gone all out for dinner. Her aunts actually made two Jell-O dishes, and her six-year-old niece claimed to have baked cookies. They dined in true southern style, late.
Hank joined them for the first course, then got a call on his cell and excused himself. He was often called out to put out a kitchen fire or cover one of the other volunteer firemen’s shifts at the station. The women in the house long ago gave up asking him questions, but Liz felt his absence the minute the door closed.
Hank was the only one in the Matheson clan who didn’t try to mother her constantly. Maybe it was because he had so many women to worry about.
Claire, her older sister, came down from her studio in the attic, filled her plate after everyone had finished the main course, and entertained them with all her plans of a gallery opening in Dallas. Her paintings were catching on, it seemed, and making loads of money, or would be any day, Claire said more than once.
Liz didn’t miss the fact that she never mentioned moving out. Claire wouldn’t. If she took her daughter, Saralynn, somewhere else, she’d have to have almost round-the-clock babysitters. As it was, the whole family pitched in to make sure Saralynn got to school and to the doctor, and to therapy. Rarely, when Joyce had to go to Dallas on pottery business, she hired a young nurse to babysit Saralynn. All the other Mathesons could have taken care of her fine, but Joyce overprotected her only grandchild while she encouraged her oldest daughter to push harder with her art.
Claire claimed she had an artist’s soul and everyone knows souls don’t wear wristwatches. All the others seemed to agree, because no one, not even their mother, asked Claire to keep up with a time schedule.
During a break in Claire’s stories of success, the aunts cleared the table and Liz leaned near Saralynn and whispered, “How you doing, kid?”
The little girl smiled. “Fine.”
Liz winked at her. A few years ago they’d had to evacuate the ranch because of a grass fire. Claire had run past Liz in the hallway and told her to take Saralynn in her car, because she needed all the van room for paintings. Saralynn hadn’t shown back up in the garage, so Liz thought she’d caught a ride with one of the others. The little four-year-old on crutches had been left alone. Luckily, the fire didn’t reach the house, but they all blamed Liz.
Everyone except Saralynn. She’d even held Liz’s hand while everyone else in the family took turns yelling at her.
Liz leaned near the frail little angel again. “I love you, kid.”
“I love you too,” Saralynn whispered. “I miss you reading to me.”
“How about I read to you tonight before I go back to town?”
Liz’s mother heard the last bit. “There’s no need for you to go back to town on a night like this. You might as well sleep in your own room.”
Liz felt an imaginary fishhook catch in her skin at her mother’s attempt to reel her in.
“You’re not dating anyone, are you? No one’s waiting up for you?” Claire asked with a giggle. “I know it’s been three years since the divorce, but if you’re like me even the thought of going out with someone gives me the shakes. Of course, I’m a divorced woman with a child . . . not exactly the top of the dating pool, but I still can’t think of one man in Harmony that would be worth putting on makeup for, much less spending hours on a date trying to talk to.” She glanced at the corner of the room and when she looked back, Liz knew another painting had come into her mind. The prized piece of artwork would probably be called Man Killed by Clock or something like that. All Claire’s paintings were of dead men.
Saralynn tugged on Liz’s sleeve. “What pool?”
Liz looked confused, then answered, “It’s not a real pool. It’s like the gene pool. It’s just something people say.”
“What’s a gene pool?”
Liz was saved from answering by her Aunt Pat, who stepped in from the kitchen. “Elizabeth,” she said with eyebrows raised. “Some man from the county lockup is calling for you.”
Liz jumped up, almost knocking her chair over. Surely Martha Q hadn’t already gotten herself arrested and in need of a lawyer. Since she was Liz’s only client, it had to be the round little legend of a woman. Who else would call?
“I’ll take it in the living room,” she said. Liz walked across the hall, picked up the phone, and waited for the click from the kitchen before speaking.
“Elizabeth Matheson,” she said in her most professional voice.
“I need your help.”
He hadn’t said his name; he hadn’t needed to. She’d know Gabriel’s voice anywhere.
“Where are you?”
“County sheriff’s office,” he said. “They’re about to take me up to a holding cell. Ask for Gabe Leary, Elizabeth, not Smith, and get here as fast as you can.”
She’d already figured out that Smith probably wasn’t his real name. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “But they think I may have killed someone.”
Liz told herself she was a lawyer. Whether he did or didn’t commit the crime, he had a right to counsel. Only she wasn’t sure she could go through with it if he had. She wasn’t sure which bothered her most: that he might be lying, or that if he was, she’d kissed a murderer.
She gripped the phone for a minute, trying to think.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered again. “Are you still there? I’m no good around people. I seem to be causing more trouble for myself than helping.” He was quiet as if listening to her breathe, and then he added, “I need you.”
She straightened. “I’ll be right there.”
She hung up and walked back into the dining room, where everyone was having dessert. “I have to go. I’m needed over at the jail.”
“A client,” Claire said. “Oh, how exciting. Little sister has a real client.”
Liz grabbed her coat and purse. As she walked out the door, she yelled back, “No. A date.”
Chapter 18
WEDNESDAY, 10:00 P.M.
FEBRUARY 6, 2008
HARMONY HOSPITAL
ALEX RUSHED TOWARD HANK STANDING BY THE EMERGENCY waiting room’s long black windows. Adrenaline was still pumping through her blood. When she’d walked in and seen that man leaning over Reagan’s body, she’d almost fired.
As she knew he would, Hank hugged her tight before he said a word.
“Where’s the old man?” she whispered against his cheek, loving the feel of him.
“He’s in the restroom throwing up, I think.” Hank pulled away, but his arm remained around her waist with his thumb tucked into her service belt. “He’s already taking it hard, and we don’t know anything. If she’s hurt bad, I’m not sure the old guy’s heart can survive it.”
“The doctor’s with her now. We should know something soon.” Alex held tightly to her man. For once, even in a public place, she didn’t care who was watching. She needed to lean on him, draw strength from him.
“What happened? Did she slip on the ice?”
Alex shook her head. “We don’t know. I have to talk to her as soon as she wakes. I have no idea what happened.” Alex couldn’t lie to her Hank. “She may have been attacked. When I got to her, there was a man standing over her. I don’t know if he was helping or hurting her.”
Before he could ask questions, she hurried on. “I don’t know anything else. Nothing.”
“What’s your gut feeling?” Hank asked.
“That he was helping her,” she admitted. “But he was in one big hurry to get away, which makes me wonder.”
As always, Hank seemed to read her thoughts. “Then we tell the old man tha
t she may have fallen. Once he sees her, knows she’s all right, then he can take the possibility of her being attacked.”
“I agree.”
She looked up and saw Old Man Truman moving slowly toward her. He was trying his best to walk tall and straight as a soldier, but age had twisted his body and stiffened joints that no longer allowed movement. His eyes were puffy and gray as fog. They seemed to have a hundred years of sadness floating in their depths. He seemed a man who had cared for very few people in his life and feared he might lose the last one now.
“Where is she?” he said when he reached them. “I told her to be careful, that it was icy. ...” He trailed off, realizing it no longer mattered what he’d told her.
“The doctor’s with her. The medic told me it looked like she had a break just below the right knee and a cut on her forehead.” Alex silently said she was sorry for lying. The cut was a gash and the break probably in more than one place.
Truman raised his head. “She’s strong. A broken leg and a cut won’t slow her down much.” He nodded as if convincing himself. “We Trumans can take our hits and survive.”
“There’s nothing to do now but wait.” Alex took his arm, and they moved to the waiting area.
Hank offered them both coffee. While he went to get it, Alex sat beside Truman. She couldn’t help but wonder if the man had ever cared about anyone the way he cared about this niece who showed up on his doorstep two years ago. His parents had died young, his sister never spoke to him, he never married or had children. Reagan seemed to be all his family rolled into one person.
They sat waiting, drinking coffee, and listening to the ticking of a clock on the wall. No one wanted to talk.
Finally, the doctor came in and went straight to Truman.
The old man stood to take the news.
“She’s going to be fine.” The doctor rushed on. “The cut on her head took eleven stitches. It’ll leave a scar just at the hairline. We’re waiting for the X-rays and the swelling to go down before setting the leg, and I’d like to run several tests to make sure there was no internal damage.” He smiled at the old man. “She took quite a fall.”
Alex echoed, “A fall?”
The doctor looked at her for the first time. “She’s awake, but groggy from the painkillers. She told me she walked out back to deliver a takeout meal and accidentally tumbled down into the ravine. She said a man named Gabriel Leary found her.” The doctor looked back at the old man. “If he hadn’t, she could have bled to death.”
“I want to see my niece.” The old man was already moving to the door. No one stopped him. “After I do, I want to talk to Gabriel Leary, if I can find him, and tell him any debt he thinks he owes me was paid tonight.”
Alex hurried beside Truman. “I know where he is. I’ll take you there as soon as you check on Reagan.” She knew the old man probably wasn’t listening, but she added anyway, “I’ve got an apology to make also.”
Jeremiah didn’t slow, but he said, “That boy don’t like talking to people.”
“You’re telling me,” Alex added.
Chapter 19
WEDNESDAY, 10:45 P.M.
FEBRUARY 6, 2008
COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
GABE LEARY PACED THE HOLDING CELL THAT SMELLED LIKE old vomit, his leg aching with each step. He hated the weakness the bomb had left behind. From the time he’d joined the army, the day he’d turned eighteen, he’d thought of himself as a machine and kept that machine in top shape. He’d been a runner, loving long distances where he felt like he could run away from his past forever.
Tonight he hadn’t even been strong enough to lift a girl and carry her inside. He’d lifted her, even made it up a few crumbling steps out of the creek bed, but his leg wouldn’t take the load. In the end he’d pulled off his coat and made a sleigh for her. It hadn’t worked well. The ground was bumpy and rough, tousling her and ripping the coat, but it had worked. He’d gotten her inside still breathing so he could see where she was injured.
Gabe moved to the cell window. It was barred and the thick glass layered with what looked like chicken wire. He couldn’t see out, but in his mind, he could still see the blood. Blood rolling down her face from a wound. Blood darkening her jeans almost black from what had to be a compound fracture of her leg. Blood dripping from scrapes and cuts on her back where she’d encountered branches and rocks on her way down the incline to the bottom of the creek bed.
He rested his forehead against the cold glass. Somehow this was his fault. If he hadn’t been so afraid of seeing people, she could have handed him the meal at the front door. If he’d walked over early like he usually did, she wouldn’t have gone looking for him. If he’d been stronger, he could have moved her inside faster.
Closing his eyes, he remembered the night he’d been hurt. There’d been no warning earlier in the day. No hint of trouble. His team was on a routine guard assignment for a group of senators he’d never heard of. Their names weren’t really important, only their safety. Just starting his third tour of duty, he thought he had his job down, nothing would surprise him. Only he’d been wrong.
One of the senators wanted to stop to take a picture. Gabriel said no. He had his orders. But the guy must have talked the driver of the car into stopping, so the entire patrol pulled to the side in a part of the city where he’d have preferred to speed through.
Gabe and two of his men got out, fully armed and on full alert. After that, everything happened at once. Gunfire from a roof above them. Men scrambling back to the vehicles. He remembered blocking the senator with his body as he lifted his weapon to return fire. Then a bomb exploded, and all he remembered was black pain.
Hours later he thought he must have awakened briefly as men loaded him on a plane.
“Easy, soldier,” a medic yelled above the noise. “We’re transferring you back to the States. You’re stable, but we’re going to keep you under for the trip.”
“My men?” Gabe remembered whispering.
“I think they’re all dead, pal. I heard you were the only one alive when help got there. Lucky, I guess.”
Gabe fought back a scream. Max, Nathan, Jack, all gone. “Lucky, I guess,” he whispered, thinking of how he’d been with most of them since the first day of special training. They’d grown from boys to men together. They’d molded into warriors together.
A week later he’d been in San Antonio when he heard two men plotting to kill him, the only survivor of the raid. The men standing in the shadows of his room somehow thought he’d seen or heard something he shouldn’t have. If Gabe could have cleared the fog in his brain, he would have told them they were wrong.
The door to his cell clicked, drawing him back from the hell he now called his past.
Turning, he was surprised to see Elizabeth Matheson step in. She had on a pink ski jacket lined in white fake fur and looked far more like a Playboy bunny than a lawyer. Instead of a briefcase, she carried a purse big enough to hold a file folder and an entire desk set.
“Don’t look so surprised to see me,” she snapped. “I am your lawyer. You called me, remember?”
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he answered. “And even if you did, I didn’t think they’d let you in here.” He glanced around.
Elizabeth did the same. “Of course I’d come. That’s what lawyers do. I’ve seen it in the movies.”
“You don’t know?”
“You’re my first case.” She set her purse down on the steel table. “Don’t look so strange; someone has to be my first case. You just happen to be the lucky one.”
“Great.” He looked back at the window. It had been raining bad luck most of his life, and it looked like the clouds wouldn’t pass anytime soon.
She didn’t seem to notice he’d stepped out of the conversation even if he was still in the room. She walked around the cell telling him how bad it smelled and how they really needed to paint the place and how if she were him she wouldn’t sit on anything in the room. When she circled aro
und to him and complained that he could play the Mud Man in a horror flick, she finally got his attention.
“Aren’t you supposed to ask me questions or something? Don’t you want to know what happened tonight?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I already know what happened. My brother called me from the hospital to tell me Reagan explained everything. It appears, Gabriel Leary, you’re a hero.”
“I learned a long time ago that there are no heroes, only survivors.”
“The doc said you may have saved Reagan’s life. He said if the gash on her forehead had gone untreated five more minutes, she might have died. If she’d been out in the cold much longer, wet and bleeding, she might have frozen to death. Like it or not, you saved her life.”
“If I’m such a hero, why don’t they let me out of here?”
“My brother said they’re heading over now so Alex can apologize for almost blowing you away.” She raised her hand and pulled a dirt clod from his hair, then made a face and tossed it in the corner. “What did you do, roll in the creek?”
“Something like that.” Gabe frowned and pushed her hand away when she reached for another clod. “I don’t want to talk to them. I just want out of here. You’re my lawyer, get me out. Even a bunny should be able to do that for an innocent man.” He fluffed the fake fur of her hood, still tucked around her face.
She crossed her arms just below her breasts and looked pouty . . . absolutely nothing like a lawyer should look. “I’m not a rabbit or a genie from a bottle. There’s paperwork to fill out . . . probably . . . and who knows what else.”
