by Gayle Roper
But if he was right, she was a greater danger to them now than when she’d been at the compound. They had defanged Jason permanently, but she was out there, a loose cannon if ever there was one.
It was all because she’d been best friends with Jennie.
“Hello. Mind if I join you?”
Harl looked up to see a scarecrow of a guy sliding into the booth across from him without waiting for an invitation. Everything about him from his complexion to his twitches screamed druggie.
“I been looking for you,” the guy said.
“You’ve been looking for me?” What could this putz want with him?
“I seen you in here before.”
Harl shrugged. “They have good food.”
Scarecrow Guy rolled his eyes at that disclaimer. “I seen you watching the girl.”
Harl went still. How could that be? He’d been so careful!
“Learned all about you and your boss online.”
How did the Scarecrow know about his connection to Michael and The Pathway? No one else in town did. He frowned. Did they? Harl made himself shrug again as if he hadn’t just felt a bolt of adrenaline flash through his system. “You and millions of others.”
“I got lots of free time, and I been using it watching you lots.”
Scarecrow Guy looked proud of his own cleverness. Harl bit back a sneer. People who so obviously thought themselves clever usually weren’t.
Even Mike.
“Why would you watch me?” Harl asked. “I’m just an ordinary businessman.”
“Right.” Scarecrow Guy smirked. “You and the archangel.”
Harl said nothing. He just stared at Scarecrow Guy as if he were something malodorous underfoot. As Harl had suspected, Scarecrow Guy couldn’t stand being looked down on. He snapped back with a zinger Harl didn’t see coming.
“You know that empty houseboat moored next to your miniyacht?” Scarecrow Guy smirked again. “Well, it isn’t empty after all. I needed a place to stay quick-like, and I thought, Why not the best? After all, I deserve it, right? Off-season, the best is one of them fancy unused boats.”
The hair on the back of Harl’s neck rose. The Scarecrow had not only hidden mere feet away, he’d done so without either Mike or him realizing it. They survived by foreseeing and forestalling any dangers. And they’d missed a threat right under their noses.
What had the druggie seen? More to the point, what had he heard?
Harl tried to look as if a trapdoor hadn’t just opened beneath him. “So you’re living there without permission? The cops would find that very interesting.”
Scarecrow Guy didn’t so much as blink. “I don’t think so.”
“And why not?”
“Because, like I said, I seen you watching that girl. Because I got good hearing. And because I been connecting the dots I bet others don’t even know are out there to be connected.” He grinned and the yellow, rotten teeth he revealed made Harl fight the impulse to gag.
“What dots?”
Lou’s arrival with Harl’s sticky bun and eggs prevented Scarecrow Guy from answering.
“Hey, that smells good.” Scarecrow Guy looked at Lou. “I’ll have one of them sticky buns, and you can put it on his bill.” He jerked a thumb at Harl.
Lou looked at Harl, and he gave a little nod. No sense riling the guy until he learned all that the guy knew. As soon as Lou left, the Scarecrow began talking again.
“You know that Jason you killed?”
What did he just say? Harl forced himself to show no reaction.
“You don’t have to play dumb with me.” Again the yellow teeth. “At that party last weekend, I heard Jason talking to the girl who works here, that Andi, the one you been watching.”
“They must be letting anyone into parties these days,” Harl said in an attempt at redirection.
Scarecrow Guy snorted. “They like me and my product. But like I was saying, I heard Andi telling him that she had something you wanted and wanted badly. I heard them plan to meet to talk about what to do with it.”
Harl felt his sticky bun turn from ambrosia to alkali burning his stomach lining.
Scarecrow Guy looked very smug. “Didn’t know she had it, did you? Or didn’t know for sure.”
Harl sucked in a deep breath and took another bite of his bun despite the fact that it had lost all its taste. He washed it down with a casual mouthful of coffee.
“And I saw you ‘help’ Jason when he left the party.” Scarecrow Guy’s grin was sly. “Drove off with him in his car, you did. Next thing you know, he’s missing, then dead. Murdered, the way I heard it.”
Never had Harl felt such an urge to kill, not even when he’d incinerated his father. No one this stupid deserved to live.
“Now you want the kid.” The Scarecrow rested both arms on the table and leaned way too close, invading Harl’s personal space with his halitosis and body odor. “I know where she is.”
42
I sat with my chin in my good hand, elbow on the register counter as I waited for the last few customers to leave the café after lunch. It had been a long day, not because the work was hard but because my wrist hurt big time, my heart felt bruised, and I had way too much time to think.
My mother was in Seaside. I couldn’t get over the coincidence of her coming to the café. Of course I knew that with the Lord there was no such thing as coincidence. He knew the end from the beginning, and He knew about her trek from Georgia to New Jersey.
I hope You don’t think You’re doing me a favor, Lord.
Actually I do. His voice was quiet but implacable, even though it wasn’t a voice so much as an impression. The impression continued to talk to me.
Since you’re big on it being or not being “your time,” remember that there’s a time to hate and a time to heal.
I sighed. I get it. It’s time to heal. I have to talk to her. I know it.
But I did not want to face the feelings writhing like a colony of poisonous snakes in my heart. On the other hand, I knew if I didn’t, I would become ever more spiritually and emotionally deformed.
You don’t ask much, do You?
I had to talk to Lindsay before she heard about Mom’s presence from Mary P or, heaven forbid, Mom herself. Linds had to have the opportunity to make her own peace with Mom, something I suspected she would have done years ago if she hadn’t thought I’d view it as disloyalty and a knife in the back—which I was ashamed to admit I would have. She should never have to choose between me and her conscience or me and Mom. Everybody lost that way.
And right up there with the problem of Mom was Greg. He hadn’t contacted me since Wednesday night, not even to ask how the surgery on my wrist went. For all he knew, I could have died on the table.
Idiot that I was, all day I’d looked up with hope every time someone came into the café. I wanted to see him with such desperation, the disappointment felt like one of the huge jetty rocks pressing on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. He was the only one I could talk to about the quandary of Mom. He already knew how terrible I was, so I couldn’t make myself look worse.
So where was he?
The door opened, and there he was, tall and handsome.
And remote. No smile. My happy Snoopy dance became an old lady shuffle.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I looked at my wrist in its split cast and shrugged.
“Does it hurt much?”
“As a matter of fact, it does. A lot. It hurt less before the surgery.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
I shrugged. “That’s what pain meds are for.”
“Right.” He looked around the café. “Did Andi show today?”
I shook my head. Come closer. Tell me you missed me.
“Mmm. She has me worried. Your mother?”
“She was here.”
“You talk to her?”
“No, but her husband told me he’s an alcoholic. They met at AA.”
He nodded. “Interesting.”
It was way more than interesting. It was mind-boggling.
“She doing well?” He tipped his head toward Lou.
“Very. She started yesterday morning. It’s a good thing she’s here, what with Andi not showing and me out of commission.”
“She any good?”
Why were we talking about Lou when I felt the distance between us growing wider by the moment? “She knows what she’s doing. Has good rapport with the customers. Even puts their beverages over their knives instead of at the edge of the booth.”
He gave an absent half smile. “That’s important, huh?”
“That’s where beverages go at a properly set table.” I sounded like a prim old maid.
He thought for a minute. “Yep, that’s where I remember Mom and Ginny putting drinks.”
He fell silent, watching Lou bid farewell to her last customers.
As the man handed me their bill, Greg went to the counter and got a cup of coffee to go. I ran the man’s card and handed him the slip to sign. As he and his wife left, Greg walked up and handed me cash for the coffee. I made change, and he turned toward the door.
I grabbed his arm to hold him there. I thought I had diagnosed his problem, and it wasn’t the “I love you.”
“It’s just a broken wrist, Greg. No big deal.”
He glanced at me a second, then looked away. He didn’t deny knowing what I meant. In a strained voice he said, “You deserve someone who’s not going to lose his nerve at the first sign of trouble.”
“You didn’t panic.”
He didn’t believe me. “As good as. Oh, I might not have run off screaming, but I was doing it inside.”
“Then it’s all the more impressive that you stayed with me. A sign of strength.”
He brushed my comment away as he might brush a gnat. “Out there there’s some nice guy who is whole and healthy, perfect for you.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t work that way, Greg. I’m the one who gets to choose who’s perfect for me, not you. And I choose you.”
With a feeling of despair, I could see I wasn’t making a dent in the wall he was building between us and around himself. I understood being paralyzed by emotions. I understood fighting against doing what needed to be done, choosing the expedient way even if it wasn’t the right or the best. I’d been doing it for seventeen years. I was still doing it.
“It wasn’t my fall that upset you, you know. Or my getting hurt.” I hoped I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt. It would be nice to keep at least a shred of pride. It might be the only thing keeping me warm at night for the rest of my life. “It was the lights and the milling people, the ambulance and fire truck, the shouted orders and the static, all the things that must have been present the day Ginny and the kids died.”
He flinched, but I wasn’t going to cater to his PTSD-like behavior. Acknowledge it, yes. Respect it, yes. Yield to it, no. The price was too steep.
Lord, hit him upside the head for me, please! “Tell me I’m wrong.”
He said nothing for a few seconds.
“See? You can’t because I’m right.”
He pulled his arm free. “You’re wrong,” he mumbled and was gone.
43
Greg took a seat on a boardwalk bench facing the water, today serene with gently cresting waves and a receding tide. He waited for it to soothe his insides, which felt as turbulent and storm tossed as the wild waves of the other night as they slammed themselves against the jetty. Against Carrie.
He ran a hand through his hair. He’d barely slept the last two nights, and his thoughts were fuzzy as a result.
He’d been okay at first. Carrie was right about that. Then came the flashing lights, the static-y radios, the many uniforms, the solicitous emergency workers. And he’d folded. All he’d wanted to do was run.
But she was wrong about the reason. It wasn’t the noise and commotion. It was because he loved her.
Which scared him most of all. He didn’t want to love again. He’d thought he did, but he didn’t. The potential cost was simply too high.
Somehow Carrie thought the fact that he hadn’t run was something to be lauded, but he’d been a cop, a man who ran toward trouble, not away from it. He should have been able to care for her, be there for her when she needed him most. Instead he’d curled into himself like an injured animal. He hadn’t even called her yesterday to see how she’d made out in surgery. He should have taken her flowers, sat with her, prayed with her.
At least he could give himself full marks for praying for her. But what good did that do when she needed what someone had called “Jesus with skin on.”
God, what is wrong with me? Most people would consider being able to love again a wonderful gift. I should never have let myself fall for her. All I’ve brought her—and myself—is pain. She doesn’t deserve a man like me.
Today he’d wanted to see her, to be with her with a physical ache. Because she deserved better, he made himself a bowl of cereal at home rather than go to the café. It was amazing how lonely it was sitting at the table by himself with only the ghosts of his former family to keep him company.
“Ginny,” he’d muttered at one point, “I thought for a while there I’d found a new family.” He sighed. “I should have known better.”
He could imagine his late wife, hands on her hips, scowl on her face. “Get a grip, Greg. Wallowing isn’t becoming.”
At lunch he went to Burger King and got a Whopper that he couldn’t eat. At least Ginny didn’t scold him there. She’d never liked public scenes. When he got back in the car, he lowered the windows to release the heat that had built up from the sun and just sat.
Finally at two thirty, unable to resist any longer, he drove to Carrie’s. He had to see her, see for himself that she was fine. And he had to tell her he’d changed his mind about them as a couple. He had to tell her to look for a better man, one who’d always be there for her. He was shriveling inside at the thought, but it was the right thing to do. He didn’t let himself think about what he’d do tomorrow when he had no excuse to see her.
He’d parked across the street from the café, and as soon as he saw her through the front window, working the cash register, he calmed.
“She looks pale.”
Greg turned and saw Cilla sitting in her chair beside his car. He nodded. “She does. She should be in bed.”
“Carrie? Are you kidding? She’s a doer. Staying in bed would drive her crazy.”
Too true. He watched her smile at a customer as she took his money. He must have asked about her wrist because she looked at it and spoke.
“She tells them a jetty got her.” Cilla smiled. “She makes it sound like a great time was had by all.”
“Sounds just like her,” Greg managed. And he became all the more certain that someone that brave deserved more than him.
With a wave Cilla rolled off, and Greg crossed to the café. Carrie looked up when he entered and smiled with such hope and pleasure when she saw him that it made his step falter.
He should smile back, tell her how brave she was, how strong she was, how glad he was to see her and to see her well, but did he? Not him. He pokered up, becoming all frosty and withdrawn. It was the only way he could manage what he had to say. His spirit constricted with guilt when her face fell at his cool behavior. She struggled to act naturally, but she didn’t quite succeed.
Now sitting on the boardwalk bench, his stomach spit out a whole new batch of acid as he thought of how she had laid her hand on his arm and begged. Carrie, strong independent Carrie, pleading with him. For him. And what had he done? He’d pulled back again.
The crazy part was that he didn’t want to push her away. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her she was his and he was hers. He wanted to tell her he’d be there for her always, whatever the circumstances.
But he was afraid he couldn’t keep that promise. She deserved a man who could. This choice he was making was for her good. Th
e cramp in his gut was but one proof that it wasn’t for his benefit.
“There’s a time to every purpose under heaven.”
Right. And this was the time for saying good-bye. He thought of another line in that passage that said there was a time to mourn and a time to dance. A hiccup of protest caught in his throat.
Lord, haven’t I spent enough time mourning?
He wanted to dance, to take a chance and live again. Love again.
Another thought zapped through him. While he didn’t know if he’d always be able to be what Carrie needed, he didn’t know he wouldn’t either. If he looked at this situation rationally instead of emotionally, did any man know if he’d be able to be all his woman needed or even most of what she needed? Of course not.
He hadn’t been everything Ginny needed any more than she’d been everything he needed. No man or woman could fill all the holes in another’s life, no matter how deep their love. Two sinners, fragile and flawed, could not make a perfect relationship. They could make life deeper and richer for each other, but that was it. It was stupidity to think otherwise.
Once, when he was fifteen, to his surprise and adolescent embarrassment, his father had grabbed his mother in a romantic clinch, and after a great smacker said, “Greg, find a woman who makes you feel more alive. She won’t make life perfect, but she’ll make it infinitely more interesting.” He’d swatted Mom on the bottom, and she’d grinned at him. “And then love her with all that’s in you.”
One thing was for certain: Carrie made his life more vibrant, more alive. In fact she had brought him back from the dead. She was the woman he needed and wanted. She was smart and beautiful, and she had a heart for the Lord. She’d gone through her own personal fire and come out pure gold.
And he loved her. He’d never expected to feel this way again, to experience that bolt of joy when he saw her, that frisson of desire when he kissed her. He’d thought that life would always be sterile and lonely at worst, filled with mere companionship at best.
“I think I’m the one who gets to choose who’s perfect for me. And I choose you.”
