The words were blank, empty. But she must know. Mother had lived too many years to have nothing, nothing at all to say. Did she have a thought, a single independent thought that Daddy hadn’t burned from her brain?
Laurie dropped her hands and grabbed her mother’s. “Cal asked me if I believed in God. Do I? Do you?”
Her mother sighed. “You know what Daddy said about that.”
Laurie’s face screwed up as she shook her head. “Not Daddy’s God. Jesus. Grams’ Jesus.”
Mother shook her head. “Grams was a dreamer. She never understood.”
“What? What didn’t she understand?”
Mother met Laurie’s eyes, and her mouth hardened again into the straight, pinched line. “That if there was a God, life wouldn’t be so hard.”
Laurie sat back, hope waning. She stared at the tea, unappealing now in the rose-flowered china, dull with an iridescent film. Why had she thought it possible? Why had she hoped?
She drew a slow breath and released it. “I need to talk to Luke, to tell him—tell them both—about Brian.” She stood, uncertain for a moment if her legs would hold. Just as she straightened, the phone jarred her, and she gripped the chair back, tensing as her mother stood and answered it.
“Yes. One moment.” Mother held out the receiver. “It’s Sergeant Danson.”
Laurie took the phone. “Hello?” Relief washed her like a flood at his words. Relief and vindication. They’d apprehended Dieter and Luìs just outside of Kansas City, trying to steal a different car. It was her first feeling of total safety since she’d found the knife in her table. She put a hand to her heart. “And Cal?”
“Mrs. Prelane, you’d do well to leave that alone.”
“But now you see—”
“Good day, Mrs. Prelane.”
Laurie hung up the phone and closed her eyes. She was safe. Her children were safe. But Cal … She leaned her forehead to the wall. It would take time, that’s all. It would come right. And then?
She drew herself up. She couldn’t think of then. This moment had enough to deal with. She went into the den and looked into her children’s faces.
19
WE HAVE TO DISTRUST EACH OTHER.
IT IS OUR ONLY DEFENSE AGAINST BETRAYAL.
Tennessee Williams
THE FIRST THING CAL REALIZED when he woke was that he wished he hadn’t. If he tried hard enough he might find something that didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t worth the effort. He rolled to his side and groaned.
“If you didn’t already look half dead, I’d return the favor.” Danson towered over him and rubbed his jaw.
Cal looked up, wishing Danson wasn’t quite so tall. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait until you listened.”
Danson’s expression was stone. “You’ve been bailed out.”
“I have?” Cal sat up, wincing. “Who?”
“Mildred. But that doesn’t mean I won’t still nail your rear to the post.”
“Look, Chuck—”
“Save your breath.” Danson ushered him out to the office. Pete Rawlings turned and motioned him to the chair. Cal eased himself down between them.
Chuck closed the door. “Let’s have your statement.”
“Did you apprehend Laurie’s abductors?”
“It’s your turn to tell.” Danson pushed the button on the tape recorder.
“Just tell me that much.” Cal held a hand to his side, the ribs more sore than yesterday.
Danson loomed over Cal’s chair. “You don’t give it up, do you?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I could.”
Danson held his scowl, then straightened. “We’ve got two guys in custody.”
Cal released a sharp breath. Ouch. “Then you know I didn’t kill Brian Prelane.”
Danson didn’t answer.
Rawlings said, “You want some coffee, Chuck?” Cal’s mouth almost watered.
“Get three.” Danson sat down on the edge of the desk. Cal had to tilt to look at him. Danson pointed to the phone. “You got one call. Want a lawyer?”
Cal shook his head. No, he didn’t want a lawyer. He’d gotten himself into this.
“Then start talking.”
Cal closed his eyes and collected his thoughts. It wasn’t easy. Coffee might help, but he still felt confused and battered. That wasn’t all of it, though. He’d been dreaming of Laurie, and that gave him a visceral confusion he was wholly incapable of putting into words.
Inside his head, he laughed. You see, Sergeant, this girl showed up in my life, and nothing’s been easy since. He cleared the sleep from his voice. “Well …”
“From the beginning.”
Cal’s lips cracked. “Got a few years?”
Mildred and Cissy were solicitous, Dr. Klein surprisingly gentle with his follow-up check, Annie beside herself with glee. With a prescription of Vicodin in his pocket, Cal felt considerably better but foggy enough to sit back and let Ray take over. Ray must have had a squadron of guardian angels to catch only one bullet through the fleshy part of his upper arm. He wore the bandage like a badge as he sat at Mildred’s table regaling their misadventures. Laid on a little thick, Cal thought, but that was fine. Ray was reveling in his part. At least Danson hadn’t connected him to the shed episode.
Cissy tsked and Mildred humphed, but Cal noted the change in their demeanor. Mildred especially, though she’d deny it. They’d liked him before, in a way. But now he was one of their own. He rested a hand on Annie’s head, taking comfort in the softness of her ear in his fingers. He wanted to call Laurie, but hadn’t.
It was her call, not his. Did she know he was out? Did she care? Could she even think of him with all the rest she had to deal with just now? Cal drew a painful breath. Not even Vicodin could kill it all.
That thought brought Rita to mind. He was supposed to report the prescription, an unofficial checkup system she’d initiated with his release. That was one call he could make. He left Ray to his aunts, took Annie, and made his way up the stairs, a little woozy and stiff with the burned skin on his legs.
Doc Klein had said firstand second-degree. Cal had known worse. He opened the door to his place and stood a moment, just staring. The peaked and dormered ceiling, the graying windowpanes, the tired furniture. His place. After the cell it looked immense.
Annie bounded in. Come on, Cal. Where’s the spring in your step? Her eyes said it all. He followed her in and closed the door. Annie made a quick case of the joint and returned to him, tail wagging.
“Guess we’ll stay, huh?” He petted her head. Then he dialed Rita’s number and waded through her receptionist and nurse. Rita’s own voice was subdued. “Hello, Cal.”
“Just so you know, it’s Vicodin talking.”
“How many?”
“Five left.” He settled gingerly into the recliner. “How are things in the fun house?”
“I take it you’re out of jail.” Rita never was one for prevarication.
“A temporary reprieve if Danson has his way.” He heard her nails tapping the receiver.
“So I heard. You certainly tipped the scales this time. Assault on an officer, false imprisonment of same officer, interference with a criminal investigation.”
“I did what I had to do.”
She sighed. “It’s not you against the world, Cal. Societies have rules.”
“I know that.” He stiffly shifted his position. “The good thing is I beat it.”
“Beat what?”
“My former condition.” She was silent.
“That should brighten your day. We did it, Dr. James. No shakes, no screams, no orange air—none that wasn’t really there, anyway.”
Still she didn’t speak.
“Here’s where you congratulate yourself on a job well-done.”
Her voice came flatly. “I’ve recommended you not be returned to service until your competency is established.”
“What?” Cal pushed Annie’s paws down from his lap.
“Your criminal behavior
and lack of judgment—”
His chest tightened with a rage all too reminiscent. “Haven’t you heard a word I said? No post-traumatic stress.”
“PTSD is not the full scope of your problems. I can’t take the chance …”
“What am I, delusional?”
Her pause was just long enough.
Cal took the receiver from his ear and stared at it, then brought it back. “That’s right, kids, the one and only fully deluded fireclown …”
“Stop it, Cal.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Don’t you understand I put myself in jeopardy? I released you, believing you were fit. Yes, I knew you still had episodes, but I staked my reputation on your integrity. And you assaulted an officer.”
Cal swallowed hard. She was against him. But she was right.
“He wouldn’t listen, Rita.”
“I don’t care.”
His grip tightened. “They had Laurie. I had to do something.”
Her voice was cold. “Like the last time, when you directly disobeyed the orders of your superior?”
He shouted, “Yes, like the last time! I made a judgment call. I might have saved that child. It was worth the risk.”
“And you paid the price.”
“Fine.”
Her words came clipped, “Chuck Danson is not the enemy. He’s not a door you need to ax down. He’s an officer of the law doing his duty, the same as you.”
Cal had no response to that. She was right again, technically. But— He rubbed his face. “Would Danson have gone into that burning barn?”
Rita didn’t answer.
Frank had stood outside the old house and balanced Ashley Trainor’s life against his men’s. Danson would have done the same. Laurie would be dead.
Cal hung up and dropped his head back against the recliner cushion. He’d done what he had to do. Didn’t Rita understand? Just like the last time, he’d done what he had to do. Hurt welled up like a stain inside him. Hurt and betrayal. He raised the phone and dialed Frank.
“Am I in the rotation?”
Frank didn’t ask who it was. He cleared his throat, and Cal could picture him working the gum to the other cheek. “I can’t risk it, Cal. Wait till things have cleared up.”
Cal pushed the disconnect button. There was nothing he could do. He was tired and sore and disillusioned. Only God knew what would happen next. It’s in your hands, Big Man.
Laurie lay awake for the second night in a row. She looked around the room that had been hers through her two years in Montrose, two awful and wonderful years—her coming of age with Cal, then leaving it all for something “better.” Brian Prelane. And he was dead.
They’d performed the autopsy and confirmed what everyone knew already. Death by a single gunshot to the head. Surprisingly no evidence of alcohol or cocaine in his bloodstream. Brian had been aware and lucid in his last moments. What had he been thinking? Did he regret his actions?
What of her own? She’d lived a lie for six years. Now Brian was dead. The last vestige of that lie dissolved. Yet she wasn’t free of it. Maybe her whole life was a lie. Maybe everything, since praying that simple prayer with Grams, had been a lie. She’d believed that the prayer would change her life. But it hadn’t.
Daddy was still Daddy, still criticizing everything she did. She had to watch every step under Mother’s grim gaze and Daddy’s disapproval. God hadn’t changed them.
When they’d come to Montrose, she’d already begun to grow numb. Only Cal broke through with his persistence, his insistence. Not even Daddy cowed him. She remembered the time Cal had stepped between her father and her, put his body at risk as a verbally abusive man got violent.
No one had reported it. No charges of assault. Daddy had never repeated physical blows. But he’d pummeled her mind, her heart, her spirit. And Cal had hurt for her through it all. When Grams died, he’d held her so close. Maybe what followed shouldn’t have. Laurie hardly remembered the act itself. But the joining of their hearts …
She started to shake. That’s why she’d run before. She would not sur render her heart, not when it meant car ing what someone thought of her, felt for her … and hurting when it wasn’t enough. Not when it meant ripping open all the defenses she’d taken so long to develop. Laurie covered her face with her hands.
She could not give Cal her heart, but there was something she could give. Maybe that was the answer, the thing they both needed. It might lead to more trouble and heartache, but she had to do something. She owed him something. Maddie stirred. Her daughter had slept beside her both nights, as she had with Cal in the cabin. Maddie had told her he took away the scary thoughts and let her sleep with him. Laurie knew how it was to have Cal’s arms around her, chasing the fear and grief from her dreams.
What had he thought, cradling Maddie like that? Helping her not to be afraid. Laurie pictured it only too well: his protective arms, his gentleness, and always the promise of strength and devotion. Cal Morrison, her knight in shining armor. A fallen knight now. Disgraced.
Because of her. Like Lancelot. Laurie had always blamed Guinevere more. As she blamed herself. She hadn’t called, hadn’t spoken with Cal. Sergeant Danson had told her he was out on bail, nothing more. She could find him at Mildred’s. But if she did? Again the guilt assailed her. Didn’t she owe him anything he asked? What if he wanted more than she could give?
Close to euphoric, Cal hung up the phone. He’d spent the last two days doubting himself, humanity, and God—and fighting the demons that threatened sobriety and sanity. If Mildred hadn’t put up bail, he might have done something radical, rebellious, something … desperate. But he wouldn’t betray her trust.
After talking to Rita and Frank, he’d refused conversation, hunkered down, and licked his wounds. Reggie had called, but Cal hadn’t picked up the phone. Ray had knocked on the door to go fishing, but he’d declined. This time, though, when it was Laurie’s voice on his machine … and she wanted to see him. Balm for the wounds. Not that Ray and Mildred and Cissy hadn’t tried. Reggie, too, he supposed. But none of them mattered like Laurie.
She was coming over. He’d see her, smell her, feel her. He’d won her back from death. She was his. He’d heard it in her voice. He stood up, ignoring the pain. A few days’ worth of dishes cluttered the small counter, most from before he’d taken the kids to the cabin. He wouldn’t subject Laurie to the mess. He moved like an old man, cleaning up, but some of the stiffness eased as he forced the kinks out. Lastly, he saw to himself.
He’d showered already, but his hair was looking shaggy and he needed a shave. With the circles under his eyes, he could be a bum like Flip Casey. Cal sobered. He supposed he’d never know what part that poor old man had played, how he’d crossed paths with Brian Prelane and the other two. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe Flip was better off.
As Brian was? Cal kicked himself for the thought. He didn’t want to think of Brian Prelane, not with Laurie on her way. Not with all the possibilities Brian’s death opened up. But there it was—the hope. He squelched it fast.
She’d lied and protected her husband. She’d only left him because of his criminal behavior. Maybe they would have reconciled. Maybe she would have gone back to her fairy-tale life, a life Cal could never give her and didn’t want to. He drew the blade over his chin, revealing the half-moon scar that hung, a little drunkenly, to the right of his shallow cleft.
He wasn’t sure what had scarred him, something sharp in the explosion. The memory brought no shakes, no screams. He’d told Rita the truth. He was cured. Whether by God, or by facing it, or both, he didn’t know. But that was all in the past now. And Laurie would arrive soon. He cleaned up his neck and face, brushed his teeth, and put on a clean shirt. He drew as broad a breath as he could inside the rib wrapping, closed Annie into the bedroom where she was curled at the foot of his bed, then went to the window to watch for Laurie.
He pressed his hand to the pane as ca
r lights appeared, neared, and turned in. He looked for the children, but saw only Laurie. A private meeting then, as he’d hoped. They could say all the things that needed saying. And when the words were done …
Laurie got out and climbed his stairs. He had the door opened by the time she reached the top. She smiled, her eyes large and inviting, her hair soft, smelling of Beautiful. He pulled her inside and closed the door.
She didn’t resist, melting into him like butter on hot bread. It was all worth it—the ribs, the burns, the destruction of his reputation, and all the trouble he’d yet to face—worth it because she was there in his arms. He tipped up her face and kissed her, putting all of his love and need and desire into that kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned it.
“I love you,” he breathed into her hair, stroking her shoulders with his hands.
She said nothing, only pulled his mouth back to hers and cranked his desire up another notch.
He eased back to hold her face between his hands. “I love you, Laurie.”
“Just kiss me.”
He did, but a sense of loss was growing inside. “I want you to know—”
“Don’t talk, Cal.” Her eyes brightened with tears, and her lips trembled.
“What, then?” He threaded his fingers into her hair.
“You know what.”
Did he ever. He wanted her more than he’d thought possible. He could have her now. No more longing, no more needing. Really? The voice inside threatened to spoil it. Just like the last time?
He kissed her again, trying to regain the simple need, the physical need. “And after that?” his voice rasped.
She shook her head. “Just now. Just this.”
He swallowed the pain that grew in his throat. “Why?”
“You saved my life, my children.”
The pain went deep inside. “And you owe me?”
She rested her palms on his chest. A tear broke free and started down the side of her face. “Don’t make it sound like that.”
The hurt was turning to anger. “So we have a romp for old times’ sake, and you don’t have to feel indebted?”
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