by Nancy Rue
CHAPTER THIRTY - SEVEN
Sully was draping a cover over the Impala when he heard the toy-engine sound of the Jeep pulling up. Too bad he couldn’t cover his pain the same way, just long enough to get Demitria through hers.
“I have to go back and finish this,” he’d told Porphyria.
To his surprise, she’d nodded, the sun kissing her forehead, her nose, her chin as her head moved. “Sounds like she’s almost there— and you have the final piece for her.”
Sully knew she wouldn’t put that into words for him. He’d had to mull it over on a walk through the woods, a slow stroll that brought him to his knees at a stump sprouting tender shoots. He folded his arms across it and rested his head.
At least he could close his eyes now without seeing red lights flashing in the darkness. He stumbled in darkness most of the time, even when he recited to himself what Porphyria had said. The shadows still fell across his soul. What would it take for the Light to flood in again, the way it did when he prayed for his patients?
It was there somewhere. Sully turned and leaned against his stump of an altar, face tilted toward the sun that mottled through the canopy of leaves above him. He felt so small here.
Dang. He was small. Like a kid just learning to live.
He’d felt a sad smile spread. I’d like to solve the puzzle, he thought. Humble willingness. He would have to give that one to Demi.
The Wheel of Fortune wheel was set up in the office, on top of the boxes of tools he’d packed to leave in Ethan’s garage. It was a toy roulette wheel he’d picked up at Great Prospects and modified for today’s session, and the puzzle board was ceramic tiles, letters penned in Sharpie. Only Vanna White was missing.
“You putting her to bed?”
Sully looked up at Demi, who nodded at Isabella.
“She’s ready for a new owner,” Sully said. “How are you, Demi?”
She seemed to appraise him, eyes drooping softly at the corners. “I’ve been better.”
“Then let’s talk.” He wafted a hand to the office doorway, where she stopped and blurted out a laugh.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Wheel of Fortune.”
“Ding-ding.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “What—no evening gown for you?”
He had to grin.
“What do I do, buy a vowel?” She sank into the chair.
“Tell me what’s going on first.” He sat across from her.
“Christopher saw me in the parking lot of the teahouse with Zach screaming obscenities at me, and he gave Rich a slanted version.” She took in a breath and held it before she went on. “And now Rich wants a divorce.”
Sully closed his eyes for a second. “I’m so sorry.”
“I took it out on my son—slapped him across the face. And then he told me that Rich took the news out on a rookie and sent him to the emergency room—casualty number two—and now Christopher feels as horrible as I do.” She rubbed at the corner of one eye. “But he isn’t speaking to me, and my husband has been suspended from the fire department, and things could probably be worse but I don’t know how. You heard about the hearing coming up—for Ethan?”
Sully nodded.
“I told him about Zach so he won’t be blindsided, but he doesn’t think St. Clair and Estes were involved with him. Who knows what to believe? I hate the whole thing.” Demi bent her forehead to her hand.
“So, which part of that can you do anything about?” Sully said.
She took a minute to bring her head up. “None of it.”
“So who can you help? Besides Jayne and Audrey.”
He got a blank look.
“I’ll give you two consonants and two vowels. D-E-M—”
“Myself.” She rubbed her hands on her thighs, clad in pink pants. She was crisp and put together—not the look of a hopeless woman.
“I learned something while I was gone,” he said. “It’s working for me, and I think it’s the final piece of the puzzle for you too.”
“You and I need the same thing?” She gave him an eyebrows-up look. “Go figure.”
He turned to the puzzle board. “An attitude before God.”
“They never give clues that good on Wheel of Fortune.”
“This is the special Sullivan Crisp edition.”
“For dense contestants, obviously.” She pointed at the wheel. “Do I spin?”
“Go for it.”
The wheel twirled and teetered and stopped with the ball between two pegs.
“What does that mean?” she said.
“It means you get to turn over a letter and start solving the puzzle.”
“That’s not how they play, is it?”
“I told you—it’s a special edition.”
She flipped over the first tile and displayed an H. “This could take all day, Sullivan,” she said.
“Have at it, then.”
“I’ll be Vanna.” Demi turned each tile over, smiling at an imaginary audience and framing the squares with her hands.
The attempt to cheer him up tugged at his insides.
“HUMBLE WILLINGNESS,” she read. “An attitude before God.” She traced the last tile with her finger. “I feel like I should kneel down and pray.”
“That’s how I felt when I discovered it. Well—when a friend of mine led me to it. My mentor, actually.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You need a mentor?”
“We all do.”
Demi tapped the box the wheel sat on. “You’re leaving for good, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“And who’s going to be my mentor? I’m not done, you know.”
“Demi, you know what?” He leaned on his knees. “Until we’re dead, none of us is done.”
“Lovely,” she said. A quick smile faded. “How will I find someone as—I’m just going to say it—as amazing as you?” She wrinkled her brow. “And you know how I mean that.”
“I do, and I’m honored.” He grinned. “I’ll help you find someone who at least comes close.”
She brought her eyes up, shimmery and wet. “Whatever has happened to you, I get the feeling it was worse than a divorce and a rotten kid. If you’re going to keep going, then so can I.” She let the tears fall. “You’ve helped me so much, Sullivan. You’ve helped me start seeing who I am, and even if that didn’t bring Rich back to me, it brought me back to me.”
“Ding, ding, ding, Mrs. Costanas,” he said.
They sat in the dewy-eyed silence for a minute.
“I want to do something for Ethan,” she said finally. “I keep thinking that if the board knew about the pictures and had even a hint that they came by them dishonestly, they would give Ethan the benefit of the doubt.”
Sully shook his head. “Ethan would never expose you to them. He promised you.”
“I don’t expect him to.” She shoved a tear from her cheek with the side of her hand and lifted her chin. “But I can.”
Sully slowly sat up straight. “You sure you want to do that?”
“If there was the slightest thing you could do for him, wouldn’t you do it?”
He would, no question. He’d been trying for months—eating enough pink champagne cake to gag a maggot.
Somewhere in his head, a Light came on.
Maybe he could stand just one more piece.
The bakery was quiet when he jangled the bell on the door. Tatum appeared from the back, pulling off her hair net, and greeted him with a sheepish smile. “I thought you’d want to stay as far away from me as you could.”
She leaned on the counter and let the smile vanish. “Okay—you didn’t come in here for cake, did you?”
“You want to know something? I seriously hate that stuff.”
“I knew that.” Her hands went to her hips. “All right, what’s going on? Did Van press charges against you?”
“No, but he did something—and I think you know what it is.”
She stuck out her chin. “I’m trying to f
orget whatever I knew about him.”
He watched her eyes. “Including the pictures Zach Archer hired him to take?”
Though she tried to form her usual thin layer of indifference on her face, the guilt was there in her eyes. “What’s it to you?” she said.
“I’m a friend of Ethan Kaye’s, and I want to help him.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t.” She reached behind her and snatched up a rag, which she applied to the already spotless glass case. “I hate that college, I hate Zach Archer more, and I hate that woman even more than I do him.”
“Dr. Costanas.”
“Yes.”
“Because . . .”
“Would you just give it up?”
“No, but it won’t go past here.” Sully pointed to his head. “I’m a therapist. I keep secrets.”
She let the blue-gold eyes glint at him and tossed the rag behind her. “I thought therapists weren’t supposed to lie.”
“I didn’t lie—I was here to rebuild a car.”
“And pry into my psyche.”
“Why do you hate Demitria Costanas?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because you could help a lot of people, Tatum. If not her, an entire segment of students at CCC.”
“I have long since stopped caring about anybody at that college. In fact—” She gave him a plastic smile. “I wish it would burn to the ground or something. In my mind, they are all getting what they deserve—including Dr. Costanas, who, if you must know, took away the man I loved.” She ripped off the smile. “Satisfied?”
“What about you, Tatum?” Sully said.
“What about me?”
“Don’t you deserve to be able to face up to this so you can be healed, instead of turning into a bitter, cynical woman wasting her life in a bakery?”
Her eyes swam, and, he saw, she hated them for it.
“Is that the shrink talking?” she said.
“No—it’s your friend talking.”
She came out from behind the counter and marched to the door, and for a minute he thought she was showing him out. But she flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED, and turned the deadbolt. With her hand still on it, she said, “Sit down. I’ll give you ten minutes.”
He sat dutifully and pushed out another chair with his foot. She turned it backwards and straddled it, leaving its back between them.
“Here’s the deal.” Her voice was cardboard. “I had a—call it an intimate affair—with Zachary Archer last spring. Technically it wasn’t sexual, but it was enough for me to know he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But just before classes started in the fall, he broke it off. He told me he’d had an attack of conscience about seeing a student. It was pretty romantic, actually.”
Tatum licked her lips as if she were removing a bad taste. “He said it broke his heart, but he wanted to stop before we weakened and slept together. He respected me too much to do that to me. Can you believe I bought that?”
She pointed her finger at Sully. “Don’t answer that.”
“I do believe it. What woman in love wouldn’t?”
“Anybody with half a brain. Anyway, I felt like he was protecting me, even when he said I should date somebody else, preferably a student. I took it to mean he wanted to avert suspicion. It was in the innuendo that we were going to end up together when I graduated.”
Sully leaned across the table. “Tatum, from what I know about this guy, I’m sure that’s exactly what he wanted you to believe. Don’t beat yourself up.”
She twisted her mouth. “Too late.”
“So where did Van come in? Was he the diversionary boyfriend Zach told you to acquire?”
“Yeah. Zach even picked him out for me.”
“So you two were still talking.”
“He gave me just enough attention to keep me hanging on—I see that now. Which is why when he came to me in February and asked me if I would have Van do a ‘discreet photography job’ for him—” She pushed away from the chair back with her palms. “I was sick of Van by that time. He wanted a whole lot more from the relationship than I did, and I felt like a jerk leading him on. Zach said this job would get me out of it and set me free to go away with him.”
Sully tried to keep the utter disgust out of his eyes.
“I was so ready to do that. Van was already accusing me of having a thing for Dr. Archer. I guess I wasn’t hiding it all that well.”
The impassive I-could-care-less face she was fond of putting on was a post-Zach development, Sully decided. She must have been a beauty to behold when she was in love.
“I did everything Zach told me to,” she went on. “I gave Van a packet and told him to do whatever the instructions inside said. I have to say I was sort of weirded out by it—but I thought Zach wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t totally right, after he was so ‘honorable’ with me.”
Sully nodded.
“So—the night he took the pictures—at the end of February, Van comes to my apartment, drags me out in the hall so my roommate won’t hear, and says if I thought Zach Archer had any feelings for me, I was wrong. He shows me this huge wad of cash and says Zach paid him big bucks to take pictures of him and a woman, print them, and deliver them to the fire station with Rich Costanas’s name on the envelope.”
She tilted her head back and breathed in through her nose. “He shows me the pictures, and there’s my Zach with Dr. Costanas—her half naked.”
“I know,” Sully said. “I’ve seen them.”
Tatum blinked at him.
“Long story,” Sully said. “Go on.”
“It was like Tatum Farris ended right there—I either had to become somebody else or die.” She put her head down, and her shoulders shook. “So now I’m a bitter little bakery girl—and I hate myself this way.”
She cried like it hurt and stopped, Sully knew, long before she was ready. He handed her a napkin.
“Now,” he said, “you want to tell me the rest?”
I had to admit it was manipulative, but I had to do it to get Rich to see me, and I had to talk to him before I went through with my plan. Jayne was more than happy to help, though I told her at least six times she was never to do anything like this herself.
“Whatever, Mom,” she said. “You do what you have to do. He’ll get over it.”
It was so unlike my fairy princess of a daughter, I had to laugh out loud.
She called him and asked him sweetly to meet her at Java Joe’s, that she needed to talk to him. That wasn’t a complete lie. She did sit with him for ten minutes, telling him in no uncertain terms (she told me later) that he should listen to me for once instead of deciding to divorce me. From the ladies’ room door I watched him rub the back of his head and try to look stern. He didn’t quite pull it off.
When she reached up and pulled at her ponytail—our prearranged signal for me to enter the scene—I hurried to the table and slid into her chair as she slid out.
“I’ll meet you out front,” she said, and vanished among the tables.
Rich leaned back and simply sighed. The man looked exhausted.
“I’m sorry to hear about your suspension,” I said. “I really am, Rich.”
“Is that why you set me up—so you could tell me that?”
“No. I’m sorry about the setup, but you need to hear this.”
“You used our daughter.”
“She was a willing accomplice—and much more honest than our son, which is another story.”
“What is it, Demitria?” he asked wearily.
I folded my hands on the tabletop and shook my head at the waitress who waved a coffeepot in my direction.
“What I’ve done has hurt a lot of people, and some of them won’t let me make it up to them. But there’s one person who I can help, and that’s Ethan Kaye. I know you’ve always respected him.”
Rich gave a jerky nod.
“There’s a board meeting coming up to decide whether they’re going to let Ethan go.”
>
“That makes no sense. He’s put that place on the map—he got you your position.”
“I know that if I go to the board and tell them that Zach Archer set me up with those photos and somehow Wyatt Estes and Kevin St. Clair got them and tried to use them to force Ethan to resign—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. He did what?”
I blew out air. “Zach was the one who had the pictures taken and delivered to you. Somehow, the others got them too. I don’t know for sure if he had anything to do with that—Ethan doesn’t think so.”
“This was the guy who supposedly loved you?”
“Don’t start, Rich,” I said, closing my eyes. “I know I was an idiot to ever trust him—and it isn’t going to do me any good to tell you how deceptive he could be.”
Rich swore under his breath. “The nice guy who took us all out on his boat. I bought it too.” He cleared his throat. “Not that that’s any excuse for you—”
“I said don’t start. What’s the point? You’ve already asked for a divorce.”
“So why are you telling me this?”
This was the part I dreaded. “Because there’s likely to be publicity, and I know you don’t want that.” I pressed into the table. “I have to do this, Rich. It’s the right thing. I’m sorry if it embarrasses you, but people are going to know sooner or later. This way you can tell anybody you care about before they read it in the paper. Anybody else might even feel bad for you the victim.”
He looked down. “There’s nobody I care about anymore, except the kids. Do what you have to do.” His eyes came up. “I’m surprised you want people to know what you did, though. You have friends here.”
“They all know already—and besides, people can think what they want, but I know that one act of infidelity does not define me as a person. I can still do good things, and I can still love, and I can still serve God. That’s who I am.”
Something came into Rich’s eyes and lingered there long enough for me to catch it and name it respect. He gazed back down at his hand.
“I hope all our conversations in the future can be as calm as this one,” I said. “We’re going to have to have some—about the kids and the property.”
