“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. Baby Bear put his front feet on the chair arm and gave me a big slobber and I wiped my face off with my sleeve.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” Jo insisted.
Annie patted the sofa next to her. “Sit down if you want to hear about it. Daddy was just going to tell me.”
Tommy jumped onto the arm of my chair and scrambled onto the chair back. He liked that perch. From there he could see out both the front door and the kitchen door. Baby Bear commandeered one of the pug beanbags until Mr. Wiggles rumbled a complaint. Baby Bear looked at Mr. Wiggles and Wiggles looked back—unrelenting. Baby Bear groaned and got up, circled and plopped down on the rug. Mr. Wiggles continued grumbling until he had kneaded the bag into the right shape, then sank into it.
“Dad?”
So I told them. How Liz had taken out a life insurance policy on Phoebe, how she wanted the trailer and money Phoebe had left to her grandfather, how Mark had planned what turned out to be a deadly picnic. I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t have to.
“Do you think Mrs. Pickersley is dead because of me?” Jo said. Her face was white and still.
“Jo, no. I don’t. I don’t know why Liz is dead. I don’t know exactly what took place today and you don’t, either. Don’t take this on yourself. I mean . . .” How could I know if what Jo had done had played a part in all this? I wasn’t going to put that on her. “There are some things you have to leave in God’s hands. We do the best we can, and maybe we make mistakes—”
“You think I made a mistake posting that recording.”
I was silent. I thought Jo had appointed herself judge, jury, and possibly executioner. But I wasn’t going to say that.
Jo said, “Tell me again how Phoebe died.”
“She drank Dilaudid. I told you. She wasn’t forced. She made that choice.”
“She drank it? You never said she drank it. How could you drink it? Isn’t it a pill? How do they know she drank it?”
“Well, Jo, they think she drank it because that’s what she had to hand, left over from her mom’s throat cancer and because her stomach was full of diluted sugar syrup, and her mouth and lips were stained with it.”
Jo sat there, her eyes wide and thoughtful. Annie put her hand over Jo’s.
“Dad and I are going to pray together and then your dad is going to bed. He hasn’t been sleeping well. Do you want to pray with us?”
She unfolded. “No. I’m going upstairs.” She curled her fingers and Baby Bear ambled to his feet and followed her up to her room. The pugs stayed tight. We heard her door click shut.
After prayer, I read my chapter in the Bible, showered and got in bed. Annie brought me a sleep-aid tablet. Over the counter. Not the serious stuff. I took it gratefully and fell deeply asleep.
• • •
Two A.M., I woke up next to Annie, who was wearing my Bose noise-canceling headphones to mute the pugs’ snores. It was like sleeping with an air traffic controller. I’m not sure what woke me, but once awake I got up to empty my bladder and having done that, made my way into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. That’s when I realized what was missing.
No one had joined me for cereal. I set the milk down on the counter and went back to the bedroom to make sure the pugs hadn’t died in their sleep. I couldn’t think what else would keep them from a midnight nosh. It was too dark in the room to see whether two fawn-colored pugs were sleeping in their fawn-colored beanbags. I unplugged my phone and clicked it on, used the light.
No pugs.
I climbed the stairs and quietly opened Jo’s door.
No pugs. No Baby Bear.
And no Jo.
I checked the rest of the house. Slipped on jeans and a shirt and sneakers. Debated waking Annie but decided against it. Jo had clearly taken the dogs with her, wherever that was. My bet was she had gone to meet Alex, crept out to the levee and walked down to the Avalon Community Center. That’s where the two of them used to meet before we found out about the nighttime forays. As she had taken the dogs with her, she clearly didn’t sneak out the window this time. She must’ve disarmed the alarm system, or else we would have heard her leave. At least I would have. Those Bose noise-canceling headphones work.
A cruise around the neighborhood and I’d locate her. How far could she get with three dogs?
I took my jacket from where I’d left it on the back of a kitchen chair, got my car keys and opened the kitchen door to the garage.
Annie’s car was gone.
The tom-toms in my chest pounded. I called Jo’s cell number and got routed directly to voice mail.
“Jo, this is Dad. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care how important this might be. Wherever you are, stop right now and call me. I mean it. Right now, Jo.”
No point in waiting for a response.
I got in my car and plugged my phone in. Lesson of the day—bad things happen when you can’t call out. Technology is good. Stupid is bad.
I put the car in reverse and let the car roll silently down the driveway.
Where was Jo?
There were a hundred places she could have gone in her mother’s car. There was only one place I could think of that she absolutely, positively, could not, should not, be.
I put the car in Drive and headed for Telephone Road.
• • •
Two o’clock in the morning and traffic is not a problem. That’s not to say the streets are empty. On the outskirts of Houston, there is always a steady stream of traffic. The colored lights from the car dealerships, the strip centers, the Vietnamese, Indian and Cajun restaurants slipped past.
Who could she have gotten to drive her? Not Alex. He had more sense. Truth be told, he had more sense than my daughter. And if she had talked him into it, he would have taken his truck, not Annie’s car.
Cara, then? Cara could drive.
Yes, she can. Better than— That’s what Alex had said. Right before extolling the virtues of teaching someone how to drive when they were underage. Better than whom?
I had a baboon’s bottom instead of a brain.
Better than Jo, of course. Alex had been teaching Jo how to drive. It was Jo driving Annie’s car.
So why had she taken the dogs? Baby Bear, that I could see. Baby Bear was some protection, and he would have protested at being left behind and that might have woken us, plugged ears or not—but the pugs? Why the pugs?
I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but I had to laugh. Jo took the pugs because they, too, would have protested long and loud at being left behind. I wanted to call Alex and see if he knew where she was. Surely she would have tried him first, tried to bend him to her will. But if Jo hadn’t tried Alex first, and he found out where Jo was headed, where Jo might be headed, Alex could well do what I was doing. Because there was every indication that Alex was in love with my daughter. Whatever that means at his age. And I could not put someone else’s child in this situation.
I thought about calling my brother Tucker. Tucker owns handguns. He and his wife Lee bought a huge old house in a part of town that is being slowly gentrified. They’ve been reclaiming that house for six or seven years now. The second time the house was broken into, Tucker and Lee were home. The intruders made Tuck and Lee lie facedown while they ransacked the house; the whole time Tuck and Lee were praying none of their kids woke up and startled the thieves. Before the burglars left, they stole Lee’s wedding and engagement rings right off her hand. After that, Tuck and Lee bought handguns and took lessons. They go to the range regularly. Their kids can shoot, too.
I’m not a gun guy. I’m no hunter—not because I think there’s anything wrong with it, I just don’t like being cold and wet and getting up early in the morning and I don’t like to sit still and be quiet for long periods of time. I get bored—and I’ve never felt the need for hand
guns. We live in a safe neighborhood. Besides, when Merrie was a toddler, her investigative talents were phenomenal. There wasn’t a child lock made that she couldn’t figure out. Where exactly would I have hidden one? It would have had to be secured in such a way as to make it useless for home protection.
But right now, I wanted a gun and the know-how that went with it. I gave my head a shake.
Wanderley answered on the second ring.
“Are you kidding me?” he said into the phone.
“Are you awake?”
“You better be calling me to make sure I don’t miss the Rapture, Preacher. Anything else isn’t going to be good enough.”
“Jo is gone.”
There was a rustle of bedclothes and a woman’s sleepy voice complaining.
“Just a minute,” Wanderley said. Seconds later, “Okay. What’s up?”
“I’m probably overreacting.”
“If it’s not the Rapture, you definitely are.”
I told him what I knew. I asked him if I should call the Houston police.
“How sure are you that that’s where she’s gone?”
I wasn’t sure at all. I was headed that way because it was the only dangerous place she could have gone to that I could think of. So it was all good. Jo had an amiable Newfoundland and two spoiled pugs to watch over her and keep her safe as she drove to a trailer that housed a gun-toting drunk with a chip on his shoulder.
“Bear, we’re going to have to put an ankle monitor on that girl. Hope you’re okay with that.”
I told him I thought we should put one on both ankles.
He breathed into the phone. “You know, Bear, I was spending the evening with the mother of my child, trying to convince her she could have a normal life married to a cop.”
I didn’t say anything. I could apologize tomorrow. Right now, I wanted my Jo.
He gave a long, exasperated sigh. “Where are you?”
I told him.
“Pull off the next exit and park in the nearest parking lot. Wait for me. I’ll come get you.”
“James. I’m not waiting for you. I’m ten, fifteen minutes away. You’re thirty, easy. I’m not waiting.”
“Don’t be a cretin. Wait for me. I’m almost dressed.”
“I’m almost there,” I said. I hung up, turned my phone off, and began to pray.
The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
I prayed for my child. I prayed that the God of Heaven and Earth would cover her with His hand. I prayed that He would remember the faithfulness of her parents, and grandparents and great . . .
I know that my God allows terrible things to happen.
I drove faster.
• • •
Telephone Road swept past me, overbright with fluorescence. There was a really good chance that this wasn’t where Jo had gone. In fact, hardly any chance at all that I would find her here, I told myself. What could she hope to accomplish? She knew, now, that the trailer was occupied, and occupied by a crazy guy with a gun. And Jo wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t academic, but that’s not the same thing as being stupid. There wasn’t a stupid bone in her body.
One sweep through the Green Vista mobile home park. That’s all I needed to do. Once I saw that Annie’s car wasn’t there, I could call Wanderley back, apologize up one side and down the other and go back and cruise the likely haunts of Sugar Land. My tires crunched over the loose gravel as I turned into the Green Vista entrance. I rolled my windows down to let the cool air fill the car and my lungs.
Green Vista was set back from the strip centers and three-story apartment complexes. It had resisted the new trend to pave entire mobile home parks—surely a merciless upkeep decision once the summer sun arrived. Green Vista had kept its trees—mature, overhanging oaks, still heavy with leaves in early January. That made the park darker than the street. But I knew my way. I crept along and passed the trailer I remembered as belonging to Lacey Corinda.
And there was Annie’s car, a white Accord, parked behind Phoebe’s green-and-white mobile home. Three furry faces were pressed against the passenger-side window. They barked when I rolled past, but the windows were rolled up and the sound was muffled. I put my finger to my lips and all three dogs ignored the signal. Jo was nowhere in sight.
I kept the car steady and drove slowly past Phoebe’s trailer. Circled through the park and pulled in next to a vintage Airstream near the front entrance. I turned my phone on, noticed I had missed a number of calls from Wanderley, and texted him the exact location of Annie’s car and DeWitt’s trailer. I put my phone on vibrate and it buzzed right away.
Wanderley again. I knew what he was going to say. He knew I wouldn’t wait.
Patches of grass grew through the gravel in places. I tried to stay on them to mute the sound of the gravel under my sneakers. There were windows open in the trailer. That made me feel hopeful—if you were holding someone at gunpoint, you wouldn’t be likely to open a window, right? When all the person would have to do is scream? There wasn’t any screaming going on. When I got closer, though, I could hear talking. Some of the tightness around my heart eased up. Jo would be sitting at the table, just like last time, only this time Jo and Phoebe’s crazy granddaddy DeWitt would be sitting at the table, sharing iced tea and telling Phoebe stories. I could go right to the door and knock, and DeWitt would let me in, and this time I would get the chance to tell him how sorry I was for his loss . . .
Fifteen feet away from the trailer, I again texted Wanderley. I said I was going to call him, and I wanted him to answer, but I didn’t want him to speak as I would be close to, or inside, the trailer. That was so he could hear what was going on.
I called his number and snapped my phone into the holster I wear on my belt, then made the last fifteen feet in a crouch. I ducked beneath one of the open windows. The trailer felt cool and dusty under my hands. From inside, I could hear Mitch DeWitt maundering on about Liz and Mark getting theirs—my heart seized up again. Slowly, I raised my head high enough to see through the dark window over the kitchen sink. Between the Palmolive liquid bottle and two Jim Beam empties, I saw Jo.
Mitch sat across from her, drinking something the color of tea, but it was in a shot glass. The trailer was completely dark. My Jo was there, sitting at the table, just as I had imagined her.
Well, not just as I’d imagined her. Hot rage poured into me, filling me so completely, I could have taken that trailer apart like the crackerbox Liz had called it. I wanted to lift that trailer up over my head and shake that drunken sot out on his head—Jo would be safe when I did that because that son of a gun had taped my daughter to the table!
Duct tape had been wrapped round and round the kitchen table, pinning Jo’s arms, wrist to elbow, flat against the surface. Another piece of duct tape was across her mouth. DeWitt held his shot glass in one hand and a pistol in the other. A brand-new bottle of Jim Beam was down four or five inches and working its way toward joining the empties on the kitchen counter.
Jo’s eyes found mine and glided past. But she knew I was there. She knew I had found her. She knew I would save her. And I would.
But I didn’t know how.
Oh, God, I prayed. I’ve never asked You for a miracle, but I’m asking for one now.
I scurried back to the plastic flower garden—the three dogs bounding from window to window to watch my progress—and I picked the heaviest gnome I saw, tucked him under my arm and leaped from grass island to grass island back to the trailer. I didn’t give myself a chance to think. I didn’t give myself a chance to doubt.
We don’t do Hail Marys in the Church of Christ, but I threw one in anyway.
The garden gnome hit the back of Mitch DeWitt’s head so hard, it forced his head forward with enough force to smack it against the kitchen table before
breaking. The gnome, not DeWitt’s head, thank you, God. My feet hit the kitchen floor about the same time Mitch hit the table, my fingernails scraping at the duct tape binding Jo down. Useless. Then I remembered. In a flash, I had Annie’s worthless anniversary knife open and slashing the tape on either side of my daughter’s arms. As soon as I had freed her arms, I grabbed her around her waist and yanked her from the booth. She came but her feet didn’t. I ducked under the table and sliced at the tape binding Jo’s ankles tightly to the table base. Mitch must have happened upon a duct tape special at the local Sam’s Club. I finally got her loose and I rose up from under the table to find Mitch’s flat, cold eyes staring at me, wanting me dead.
I looked for my gnome but he was beyond help himself. DeWitt stood slowly and I tried to put myself between him and Jo but she elbowed me hard and that’s when I saw that Jo, her mouth still duct taped, was holding DeWitt’s nasty little snub-nosed pistol about a foot and a half from his belly.
“Give me the gun, Jo,” I said.
She shook her head, her hair flying loose from its band. She held the little gun in two hands like a movie cop. I didn’t know if that would help her accuracy but I thought it would be hard to miss from less than two feet.
I held my hand out for the gun. “You don’t want to accidentally shoot him, Jo—”
She nodded her head so emphatically, it was hard to miss her intent.
“Honey, he’s an old man, and he’s harmless and unarmed—”
Mitch DeWitt reached across the table and snatched the gun from Jo.
My mouth fell open. Without saying a word, DeWitt raised the gun and shot me, then half spun and fell across the table, faceup. Jo looked down at her blood-splattered hands and arms and her eyes screamed at me. I snatched her up, put my shoulder to the door and burst through it, stumbled over a stick in the grass and the world exploded.
• • •
A long time later, when the world came right and my ears stopped ringing, I tried to sit up. I couldn’t. A great suffocating weight pinned me to the ground. It was hard to breathe and the air was hot and humid and it smelled like garbage. I opened my eyes. Baby Bear gave my face a lick and shifted his weight so most of it was on my belly and groin. I pushed him off and took in a deep breath. I could sit up now, now that I didn’t have 180 pounds on my chest. I brushed gravel off my face. I could hear Wanderley swearing long and evenly and without any appearance of taking a breath to fortify himself for more cursing.
Safe from Harm (9781101619629) Page 31
