Shelter From the Storm

by Peter Sexton

  “It’s all bullshit,” Miranda managed to say. “I was only defending myself. I didn’t have a choice!”

  “Where are you?” Sarah asked again.

  “I just passed the turn-off for the town of Congress.”

  “I’m going to move my Land Rover so you can pull right into the garage when you get here. Judging from what I’ve seen on the news, I think we need to keep you and your car out of sight.”

  “My God, look at you,” Sarah said, as Miranda dragged herself out of the Lincoln. “You’re a mess.”

  Miranda nodded, holding her arms away from her as if she were dripping wet. “I need to change out of these clothes.”

  “Let’s get you to the bathroom so you can clean up,” Sarah said. She depressed the button on the wall and closed the garage door. As they entered her home, Sarah asked, “You hungry? I can fix you something while you’re in the shower.”

  Miranda shook her head. “I don’t think I can eat anything,” she admitted. “I tried to eat on the way and almost threw up on the side of the road.”

  “Well, we’ll worry about food later.”

  In the master bathroom, Miranda checked all the pockets before she pushed the coat and slacks into a large, black garbage bag that Sarah had given her. She discarded her shirt and undergarments, as well. She pulled out some of the clothes she had packed before she and her father had fled their home, and placed them on Sarah’s bed before she went to clean herself up.

  The hot spray from the shower felt good against her skin, and she closed her eyes and pushed her face under the water. It was blessedly calm in the shower, as though the hot water was washing away more than just the residue of the earlier violence. Miranda imagined it was also diluting the pain, fear and anger that had been building over the last few days.

  In the kitchen, minutes later, Sarah handed Miranda a can of Coke. Miranda took the soda and popped the tab but didn’t take a drink. They were sitting together at the table now.

  Sarah stared at Miranda for several silent moments. Then she said, “I can’t get over how differ- ent you look.”

  “Me, either.” Miranda passed her hand through her hair. “I never thought I’d ever have hair this short.”

  “It looks good.” Sarah took a drink of her soda. Then asked, “How you holding up? You hanging in there?”

  Miranda shrugged.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Miranda admitted.

  “It’ll help me understand what really happened back there. It might even help you feel better.”

  Miranda tossed the thought around while trying to decide what she wanted to do. Maybe Sarah was right.

  “Getting in was easy,” Miranda began. “I knew they usually kept a side door open for smokers to use, so I got in that way. I didn’t have to force my way in like they’re saying on the news, I just walked in like I belonged there. Once I was inside, all I wanted to do was have a look around, see if I could find any evidence of what they’re actually doing with the baby food.

  “Somehow the guards figured out I was on the eighth-floor poking around. I was copying some files from one of their computers when they started coming in.” She paused, sighed deeply. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” She heard the sadness in her own voice. She took a deep breath before she continued. “I was holding one of the guards at gunpoint. I guess you could call him a hostage, but I wasn’t thinking of him that way. I just wanted them to let me out of there alive without anyone getting hurt. And it almost worked. But then there was a voice calling from a two-way radio in the corner. I was startled by the sound and turned my head. After that everything just happened so fast.

  “As I was turning back I saw the other guard had his gun pointed at me. Then he fired. By reflex I pulled my trigger. I’m not sure how many times either of us fired, but when the gunshots ended both guards were dead. I was about to run for the stairs when a third guard came out of the elevator. I hid in the office with the dead guards until the third one came in.” Miranda was fighting back tears now, forcing herself to finish her story. “I pressed my gun to the side of his head the moment he walked through the doorway. I’m sure he was afraid for his life, certain I was going to kill him. He told me that he had a family, that he had a little girl.” A beat. “He helped me get out of there, out of the building. I never hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I only wanted to get out of there alive.”

  Miranda started to cry then. Sarah hugged her, held her for several minutes. When Miranda had finally stopped crying, Sarah let her go. Neither woman said anything more for several moments.

  “Tell me something,” Sarah said, finally. “When did you start driving a Lincoln?”

  The sudden shift in subject took Miranda by surprise and she blurted out a little laugh, then realized it was Sarah’s attempt to lighten the mood in the room. “I’m kind of borrowing it.” Miranda hesi-tated. “It belongs to Gillian’s husband.”

  Miranda saw the surprise on Sarah’s face.

  “Gillian as in your mother?” Sarah asked, her voice portraying more than a little shock and con- fusion.

  “Yeah,” Miranda said. “I stumbled onto her address after my dad was killed.” She paused. “I couldn’t help myself; I had to go and see her, find out for myself if it was true, if it was really her.” Miranda frowned. She was trying to understand her own motivation. “And I needed help; I was in trouble.”

  “Of course.”

  Miranda said nothing more for several moments. Then: “All these years I thought she was living some- where far away. Another state, maybe even another country.” A few more beats of silence passed between them. “I couldn’t believe she’s been less than an hour away all this time.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Sarah admitted. “I thought she was dead. You told me she was dead.”

  Miranda nodded. “I never really understood it all myself. But I couldn’t tell you she was still alive. My dad told me that everyone thought my mother had done something awful...I mean really awful. He said that I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. He made me swear.”

  “What could have been that awful?”

  “My dad never told me. He said some things are better left unknown. I just trusted him and took his word for it. What else could I do?” Miranda took a moment to gather her thoughts, put everything her mother had told her the other night into some logical order. “I never knew the whole story until the other night. My mother finally told me everything.”

  “What everything?”

  Miranda held up her hand and, with the simple gesture, asked Sarah to give her just a moment before she continued. She took a deep breath, fought back tears. “My mother was involved in the bombing of an abortion clinic.”

  “What?” Shock. Disbelief.

  “No one was supposed to get hurt; no one was supposed to even be there. She was involved with some anti-abortion group. All they were going to do was destroy the building. The bomb was set to go off at 2 a.m.”

  “Gillian set the bomb?”

  Miranda shook her head. “She was supposed to but got cold feet and backed out at the last minute. A close friend of hers, her college roommate, went in her place.”

  “Okay, now I’m confused.”

  “Like I said, no one was supposed to be in the clinic. But while her friend was in there planting the bomb, someone showed. Her friend must have hid and planned to wait until the coast was clear, but the bomb was on a timer. It detonated while they were all still inside.”

  “Oh my God!”

  Neither woman said anything for a time.

  Then Miranda said, “Everyone was killed.”

  “Who is everyone?” Sarah asked.

  “My mother’s friend, a doctor, a nurse, a senator from California and her fifteen-year-old daughter.”

  “Wait...” Sarah said. “What? Holy shit!”

  “Because of the high-profile victims, the public was screaming for blood. The cops had to make an arrest and make
it fast. My mother’s friend didn’t have a car of her own so she was driving my mother’s. It was still in the parking lot when the police were doing their investigation. Since my mother had traceable ties to the anti-abortion group, the authorities announced that she had been the bomber, and that she had been killed in the blast.”

  “But how? You said it wasn’t even her.”

  “According to my mom, they claimed to have identified her by her dental records.”

  “But they couldn’t have.”

  “They did whatever they had to do to close the case. Officially, my mother was dead. No one would ever come looking for her. All she needed to do was stay dead.”

  “Jesus!”

  “So she changed her last name and went away. She’s done everything she could to stay under the radar.”

  “But what about the woman who was really killed in the explosion?”

  “Unsolved missing person case. No doubt the cops know the truth of her identity. But they had everything wrapped up all nice and tidy. The truth would just muddy everything up. The truth would have been very bad for them.”

  “God, that’s just...I don’t know what that is.”

  A long, uncomfortable silence dragged out between them. Then Sarah reached for the television remote.

  “Don’t!” Miranda said, a little more sternly than she had intended. “Please. I’m just starting to feel a little...I don’t know. My heart doesn’t feel like it’s racing out of control anymore. But I don’t think I’m up to seeing more news reports right now.”

  Sarah was still holding the remote in her hand. She nodded. “All right. I just thought you might want to see if there are any new developments.”

  Miranda shook her head. It didn’t surprise her that more tears had started forming in the corners of her eyes. “Just tell me what they were saying before I got here. I had the radio off the last two hours or so of my drive.”

  “You were right,” Sarah began immediately. “They’re trying to pin it all on you and your dad. They said you broke in to the building and were try- ing to destroy evidence that would prove you two were responsible for the deaths of all those children.”

  Miranda shook her head. “Bastards.”

  “They said you stole a couple of computers. That they may have contained evidence that could be used to prove what your father was doing, and also that you were helping him. They said they suspected your father all along and were just about to turn over all the evidence they had to the police.”

  Miranda shook her head. “No,” she said. “How could I have taken any computers out of there? I was alone.” She thought about something for a moment, thought about some of the email files she had found and copied. It was all slowly beginning to make sense. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “I just had a few minutes in the offices before they figured out I was there, so I couldn’t spend a lot of time poking around. But if they’re telling the police that I stole some computers while I was there, then they must have done something with them, moved them or gotten rid of them somehow. Obvi- ously they don’t want people looking through them. And that can only mean that I’m getting close to some answers.”

  Twenty-Two

  Sarah Gustafson plugged a phone cord directly into the desktop computer she had just been working on, then picked up the telephone, depressed the TALK button, and handed it to Miranda. “You’ve got a dial tone. You’re good to go.”

  “What if they trace the call back to you?” Miranda asked, genuinely concerned. “I can’t risk losing you, too.”

  Sarah barked out a laugh. “Oh, please,” she said. “No way they trace the call back here.”

  “You’re absolutely sure it’s safe?”

  “Make your call,” Sarah insisted. “And don’t worry about any charges, either.” She grinned. “As far as the phone company is concerned, the call you’re about to make will never exist on any records.”

  The call was answered on the second ring, and Miranda heard sleep in the groggy male voice on the other end of the line. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was after two in the morning.

  “Sorry I’m calling so late,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Lawrence Blackwell said. “I wasn’t asleep.” There was a pause. “You okay, Randi? You safe?”

  Miranda nodded, as though Lawrence would see the subtle movement. “I’m fine, Larry,” she said before taking a slow breath. “That’s why I wanted to call. I don’t want you and my mother freaking out because of all the news coverage.”

  “Don’t tell me where you are,” Lawrence said, remembering his thoughts from earlier. “It’s better if you don’t say.”

  “I know, I won’t.”

  “But you’re sure it’s safe where you are?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  Miranda hesitated for a moment. “Can I talk to my mother?”

  “Of course. She’s right here.”

  Gillian’s voice came right onto the line. “Miranda?”

  “Hi.”

  Gillian didn’t give Miranda time to say more.

  “Miranda, Jesus! Where are you? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. I’m somewhere safe.”

  “Okay. Okay, good.”

  Miranda heard her mother sigh. She imagined Gillian anxious and pacing. She hoped her reassur- ance would be enough to calm her mother.

  “Miranda, listen to me. I know you don’t want to hear this, that you don’t think they can help you, but you really need to turn yourself in to the police before you end up getting hurt, or killed.”

  “The way you turned yourself in, Mother?” Miranda almost immediately regretted what she had just said. “I told you I can’t turn myself in. Net yet. Not right now.”

  “I know what you told me. But now with the killings in Arizona—” Her mother trailed off, her voice replaced by silence. “I’m really frightened for you.”

  Miranda didn’t know what to say.

  “I don’t believe everything they’re saying in the news,” Gillian continued. “I know you’re not a monster.”

  “I did shoot one of the guards, Mother. You should know that much is true. But it was unavoid- able. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. If I hadn’t shot him I’d be dead right now.” Miranda paused. “No one was supposed to get hurt. That wasn’t part of my plan.”

  “How can any of this be part of a plan?”

  “Listen, Mother. I’ll call you again when I have a better idea of what’s going on. I’m not even sure it was safe for me to make this call. I need to go.”

  “Wait, Miranda. Don’t hang up.”

  Twenty-Three

  Later that morning, sitting together at the kitchen table, Miranda watched Sarah scan the sheet of paper she had copied in Trammel’s office. Sarah tapped on the columns of letters and numbers several times with a pencil. “Where exactly did you get this?”

  “A locked drawer at Earth’s Own corporate headquarters,” Miranda answered. “It was in a stamped envelope addressed to a reporter named John Alexander. The address was written in my dad’s writing. I’m not sure if it was intercepted or if he just hadn’t mailed it yet or what. It looked like it had been sealed and then opened again, but it didn’t have a postmark.” Miranda stared at Sarah while she studied the paper a little closer. “Think you’ll be able to figure out what the lists are?”

  Sarah shot her a glance. “You’re kidding me, right? I haven’t found a puzzle yet was tough enough to stump me.” She flashed a confident grin. “Obvi- ously the first column is a list of dates.”

  “I saw that, too,” Miranda said.

  “I’ll figure out the others. Just give me a little time.”

  Sarah stood up and started walking away.

  “Where you going?” Miranda asked.

  Sarah continued to the stereo system. “I con- centrate better when I’m working to music.”

  A moment later, classic folk music Miranda recognized as Bob Dylan
was playing in the back- ground. Sarah sat back down at the table and contin- ued to study the lists.

  “I’m gonna try and eat something,” Miranda said. “Want me to fix you anything?”

  Sarah shook her head without looking up from the paper.

  The refrigerator door was covered with photo- graphs held on by magnets shaped like miniature record albums and musical instruments. One of the photos caught Miranda’s eye. She stared at it for a long time, unable to move. Finally, she lifted her hand to the snapshot and pulled it from the appli- ance, barely registering the sound of the saxophone magnet falling to the floor.

  She stared at the image of herself holding Maren. The photo showed them both smiling toward the camera. Sarah had taken it while visiting them in California, only a month after Maren’s birth. It had been the first time Maren had really smiled. Miranda caressed the photograph with her fingertips, traced an outline around Maren’s face. She thought of all the things she would never get to experience with her daughter: birthdays, the first day of kindergarten, her senior prom, graduation from high school. Maren’s life had hardly begun. There would be no more laughter, no more joy, no more love. Only loss, untimely and ultimate loss.

  “I’m not gonna let them get away with what they did to you,” Miranda whispered to the photo of her daughter. “I swear it. I’ll make sure they pay for what they did...for what they’re doing.”

  She brought the photo to her lips and kissed it, held it against her skin. For a moment, she thought she could feel Maren’s warm breath on her cheek, hear her soft, gentle heartbeat. “I love you,” Miranda said. She held the photograph a moment longer.

  Sarah was busy writing when Miranda sat down next to her with a plate of buttered toast and a glass of orange juice. She did not look up from her work.

  “How’s it coming?” Miranda asked.

  “Three down,” Sarah said, beaming confidence, “one to go.”