Protector
Page 49
Jane thought about it. “Growing up. Going to school. Laughing with your friends. Being happy.
“I don’t know how I’m ever going to feel happy again. How can I be happy when I saw them on the floor?”
“Emily,” Jane said with a serious tone, “look at me.” The child turned to Jane, her eyes sad and lost. “You might not be able to understand these words, but I want you to say them every single day for the rest of your life. I want you to say, ‘I had this experience, but it didn’t have me.’ ”
“I had this experience, but it didn’t have me.”
“That may not make any sense to you right now, but one day, it’s gonna click and you’ll feel . . . a sense of freedom. It would be so easy for you to blame Chris for ruining your life. But, take my word, it’ll just end up destroying you. Don’t feed the memory. You do that and you give him so much power—power he doesn’t deserve. If you do that, his memory will take over your life until you can’t figure out where he ends and you begin. Don’t let him live inside your head and tell you lies about who you are. Don’t let him define who you become. And no matter how much you want to, don’t picture him as some kind of towering monster. Think of him as if he were a small, dry leaf that’s easily crushed when you walk over it. If you can do that, he will never have power over you.”
Emily really thought about Jane’s advice. “You know what?”
“What?”
“When I grow up, I don’t want to be what I want to be. I want to be who I am.”
Jane smiled. “Well said.”
“When I talked to my aunt on the phone today, she told me that I’m supposed to go see a therapist.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
“You do?” Emily said, seeking Jane’s approval. “I thought you didn’t like therapists.”
Jane shifted in her seat. “Perhaps I spoke too quickly. There’s nothing wrong with sitting down and talking to someone about what happened to you.”
“Are you going to sit down and talk to someone about what happened?”
Jane smiled. “Have you and Sergeant Weyler been communicating?”
“No. I just thought—” Emily reached over and brushed her finger across Jane’s scar. “I just thought that maybe if you could talk to someone who knows things, maybe they could make this not hurt so much.”
Jane clasped her hand around Emily’s palm as her emotions got the better of her. “Do you think that’s possible?”
“I think pretty much anything is possible. Even the things that don’t make sense are possible.”
Jane’s attention was drawn toward the house as Emily’s aunt and uncle exited their front door and peered down the long driveway at Jane’s car. Emily turned, looking more irritated than happy to see them. “Come in with me,” Emily said.
“No,” Jane replied, wiping away her tears. “You need to walk up that driveway alone.” Emily threw her arms around Jane’s neck, holding on to her tightly. Jane, in turn, wrapped her arms around Emily. “You have my home phone number and my work number,” Jane whispered into Emily’s ear. Emily nodded, still holding on to Jane for dear life. “You call me whenever you want. Okay?”
“Uh-huh,” Emily said, sobbing on Jane’s shoulder.
Jane pulled Emily away from her chest so that they were eye-to-eye. “They’re waiting for you.” Emily lowered her head. “You don’t have to look back,” Jane whispered in Emily’s ear. “I’ll be right here.”
Emily reluctantly let go of Jane and sadly collected her Starlight Starbright vinyl case and small travel bag. She opened the door, hesitated and then turned back to Jane. “I love you.”
“And I love you,” Jane said, her voice cracking. Emily got out of the car and closed the door. She stared up the gravel driveway, clutching a bag in each hand. “Go on,” Jane quietly urged the child.
Emily softly cried as she walked forward. Slowly, she made her way toward the house. Jane got out of her car, never once taking her eyes off of Emily. She peered across the Mustang’s shimmering roof as Emily neared the house. The child suddenly stopped walking and bowed her head.
“Don’t,” Jane whispered. “Keep going, Emily. Don’t look back.”
Emily lifted her head and continued her journey up the driveway. Her aunt and uncle ran toward the child and cradled her warmly in their arms. Emily’s aunt looked toward Jane’s car and waved. Jane returned the gesture, taking in the familial scene. Once they were inside the house, she climbed back into her car and lit a cigarette. After several long drags, she turned on the ignition and drove down the road.
Jane could have headed straight home. But thirty miles down the road, she pulled off the rural highway, got out of her car and lay on the hood of her Mustang staring into the night sky. For the first time in her life, she had no clear mission planned—no sense of where she was meant to be. But she felt something close to her—like a heavy page turning. The sounds of the warm night echoed in the distance. The soft hum of trucks in the distance blended with a lone red-tailed hawk circling above her three times before disappearing into the distance. Jane lay there for three hours waiting for an answer that never came.
She got back in the Mustang and drove south toward Denver. Lighting a cigarette, she checked the time and flicked on the radio, turning to the familiar station.
“. . . And so it is, my peripatetic voyagers of the unconscious mind,” Mooney said with his characteristic warm resonance. “Like all cycles, my time with you has come to an end.” Jane felt a twinge of sadness at Mooney’s announcement. “Your regular host will be back tomorrow from her time off and I will wander off toward my next uncommon foray into the marvelous unknown.” Jane smiled at his atypical tangle of the English language. “To fall into that place and allow the current of synchronicity to sweep me toward my destiny, ah, now that is true bliss. My, my . . . I think I just got a chill. But then again, did you ever have an experience that gave you a chill and then wonder if you were just standing in a draft? How do we connect the dots between what we know from what we can’t understand? Do we chalk it up to a strange moment in time? Or do we trust, quietly holding that experience against our heart and protecting it in that sacred space when, for one implausible instant, we saw the face of God in our own reflection?” Jane let Mooney’s voice wash over her. “If not now, my friends . . . then when?” There was a long, thoughtful pause. “When?”
Jane drove into the night and let the towrope slip gently from her hand.
Here’s an excerpt from Laurel Dewey’s next novel featuring Jane Perry.
REDEMPTION
On sale in hardcover from
on June 16, 2009
“Barmaid!” Jane Perry yelled above the din of the smoke-lacedbarroom. “Two more whiskeys for me and two tequilas for my friend!” Jane came to an unsteady halt in front of the waitress, her back to Carlos. “You got that?” Jane said, her eyes asking another question.
The waitress cautiously looked at Carlos before quickly locking back on to Jane’s iron gaze. “Yeah. I got it.” The waitress headed back to the bar.
Jane nervously lit her fifth cigarette of the hour and surveyed the sparse crowd mingling in the center of the bar. The dim lighting painted heavy pockets of darkness across the tables and chairs, making it difficult to discern faces. A dozen beer-splattered Christmas garlands hung carelessly against the nicotine-soaked walls. It was the bar’s inept attempt to define the holiday season, but the cheesy decor reminded Jane of topping a dead tree with a broken angel. The Red Tail Hawk Bar was located on East Colfax in Denver, Colorado—a location that supported seedy establishments and attracted drug deals, bloody brawls, and twenty-dollar hookers. The clock with the beer keg image read 4:45. Within thirty minutes, Jane knew the grimy hole would be packed with hard-core drinkers and enthusiastic partiers, all looking to find a warm refuge from Denver’s December chill and to extend their stoned post-Christmas revelry. Her jaw tightened, a sign that the stress was taking its toll. The deal had to go down tonight, and it had to go
down exactly as Jane planned it. Wearing a mask of bravado, she turned around. “You said 4:30. We’re fifteen minutes past that. I’m not used to waiting!”
“Chill out, Tracy,” Carlos replied in a lazy tone, his oily, black hair obscuring his pockmarked, swarthy visage. “I told you I’d hook you up. This is a busy time of year. Santa may have stopped sliding down chimneys two days ago, but Camerón and Nico are still in business.”
Jane drunkenly moved around the pool table. “Shit, man, I’m jonesin’.”
“Have another shot,” Carlos suggested, motioning over to the approaching barmaid and her tray of shot glasses.
“Two tequilas,” the barmaid said, setting the shot glasses in front of Carlos, “and two whiskeys,” she managed to stammer as she slid two shots in front of Jane and surreptitiously tilted her head toward two men who had just entered the bar.
“Is that them?” Jane asked Carlos, dismissing the waitress and angling her pool cue in the direction of the front door.
Carlos squinted against the poor lighting. “See? I wasn’t fuckin’ with you!” Carlos raised his hand, catching the eye of Camerón and Nico, who made their way through the syrupy darkness.
Jane felt her heart race as the two Columbians moved toward the pool table. They were as imposing as she expected. Both were in their late thirties, but their road-ravaged faces made them appear fifteen years older. They seemed to drag the darkness of the bar behind them as they loomed closer. Camerón was the lead guy, but Nico was clearly an equal partner.
“Hey,” Carlos said, proud to be part of this nefarious deal. “How’s it goin’?”
“It’s goin’,” Camerón said, sizing up Jane.
“This is Tracy,” Carlos said. “She’s real happy to see you guys!”
“Are you?” Camerón replied, his black eyes boring holes into Jane’s face.
“You got the stuff?” Jane asked, crushing her cigarette into a nearby ashtray.
“You think I’m stupid enough to bring a quarter kilo inside a fuckin’ bar?” Camerón quietly replied with a sharp timbre to his voice.
“Where is it?” Jane said, undaunted.
“First things first,” Camerón announced. “You check her out, Carlos?”
“Yeah, she’s got the fifteen Gs.”
“No gun?” Camerón asked Carlos, never taking his eyes off Jane.
“You think I’m stupid enough to bring a gun inside a fuckin’ bar?” Jane retorted, echoing Camerón’s prior statement. She noted a stream of patrons entering the bar and realized if she didn’t move things along, the set-up was going to get complicated. “I got your cash.” Jane opened her leather jacket to reveal a fat envelope secured in an inside pocket. “Where’s my coke?”
“You gotta love these trust-fund snow junkies!” Nico said with a cocky grin.
Camerón stared at Jane for what seemed like an eternity. Jane matched his steely glare, hoping he couldn’t hear the deafening beat of her heart. Finally, Camerón nodded. “Take a shot to kill that edge and then we’ll go out to the car,” he suggested.
Jane grabbed one of her two shots and quickly knocked it back. “Let’s do it,” she declared, taking a drunken step away from the pool table.
Camerón eyed the remaining shot of whiskey, shrugged and drank it. Jane turned toward him as the last drops of liquid slid down his throat.
“What the fuck—” Camerón said, checking the aftertaste. He grabbed Jane by the arm. “How do you get drunk on tea?”
Jane started to react, but Camerón moved too quickly. He jerked Jane’s body toward him, opened her leather jacket, and pressed his palm against her side. “She’s wired! She’s a cop!” Camerón pulled out his nine-millimeter handgun and aimed it at Carlos. “You dumb motherfucker!”
Jane caught Camerón’s hand, moving it just enough off target for Carlos to escape the deafening gunshot. The shockwave sent the bar into a frenzy. Patrons ducked for cover as Jane skillfully punched the butt of her pool cue into Camerón’s groin, causing him to drop the gun. She kicked the pistol under the pool table with her boot as Nico drew his gun, aiming it squarely at Jane’s head. Jane rapidly swung the cue at Nico’s forearm, deflecting the gun before it discharged. A split second later, Carlos leaped onto the pool table and took a forceful dive onto her body. The loosely hung fluorescent light fixture above the pool table crashed down as Jane hit the wooden floor with a hard thud. As the fluorescent tubing exploded around them, Carlos landed a brutal punch to Jane’s right cheek.
“Fuckin’ bitch!” Carlos screamed, nailing Jane with another savage smack.
Jane managed to roll onto her back and slam the side of the pool cue against Carlos’s forehead. The momentary dazing afforded her the opportunity to struggle to her knees, just as a burly male bar patron jumped into the mêlée. Chaos broke loose as the muscle-bound guy pounded Carlos’s head against the pool table until he passed out. Jane, slightly woozy from the two punishing blows that Carlos had delivered, ducked under the pool table and swept Nico’s handgun under a nearby chair. But as she turned her body, the thick envelope of cash slid out of her jacket and onto the floor, spreading several hundred dollar bills under the pool table. Jane reached for the envelope, but Nico quickly snagged it and disappeared with Camerón into the dark recesses of the bar.
Jane achingly emerged from underneath the pool table just as the beer keg clock came loose and smashed to the floor. A stream of blood spilled from Jane’s lip and she stood, disheveled, amidst the chaotic aftermath.
All eyes in the bar focused on her.
But one set of probing eyes was more intensely interested in her than the rest.
So begins Jane’s next adventure. After the events in Protector, Jane has resigned from the Denver Police Department. Trying to make her living as a private investigator, she finds her past haunting her at every turn and her old demons rising up to torment her. Seeking some level of comfort at an AA meeting, Jane encounters a woman who knows what Jane does for a living. The woman wants Jane to drive with her from Colorado to Northern California in search of a man who matches the description of the killer who murdered her granddaughter many years before. She’s convinced that the man has started to kill again and she wants to stop him.
Jane thinks the woman is crazy—especially when she discovers that she’s a New Age devotee—but Jane is desperate for work. They head out on the road, gathering critical information about the killer, and themselves, along the way. Jane has recently experienced several events in her life that seem to border on the paranormal, though she is a complete skeptic in that regard. Now, those experiences come with greater frequency. And when the trail of the killer leads to a fundamentalist church, the consequences of belief and faith propel her toward a deadly confrontation.
Once again, Laurel Dewey has created a novel as rich in character as it is in suspense. Juxtaposing spirituality and religion, mission and manipulation, revenge and redemption, this is a powerful, taut mystery that will confirm the author as a top-flight storyteller.
You can read a longer excerpt of
REDEMPTION
at
www.laureldewey.com
and
www.thestoryplant.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
The Story Plant
The Aronica-Miller Publishing Project, LLC
P.O. Box 4331
Stamford, CT 06907
Copyright © 2007 by Laurel Dewey
eISBN : 978-0-984-19053-9
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All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by U.S. Copyright Law. For information, address The Story Plant.
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��These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” written by Lee Hazlewood. Used by permission Criterion Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
First Story Plant Printing: February 2010
Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Teaser chapter
Copyright Page