by Melissa Tagg
“It’s okay, Lenora. Please don’t try to talk if it hurts.”
But I try again anyway. “Ma . . Mar . . .”
She cups my right hand in both of hers, and I’m not sure if it’s the wetness of my tears or hers on my cheeks. “Yes, I’m here. I’m so glad you’re awake. I’ve missed you so much.”
It strikes me that I’m not in my own bed. I’m in a hospital. Nurses and doctors bustle about the space above me as the darkness surrenders to shapes, color, and the slow-burning certainty that George will have to keep waiting for a time.
I hear another woman’s voice. A nurse? She picks up a plastic cup from the bedside table. “I’ll give you three a couple minutes alone, okay? But I’ll be right outside at the nurse’s station.”
You three? Is someone else with Mara?
Mara reads the question in my eyes. “Your uncle’s here too, Lenora. You found him. He’s been at your bedside all these weeks making sure you got the best care.”
Weeks? I try to speak again, but this time, the strain is too much.
“Would you like another drink, Elean—Lenora? I can get the cup back from the nurse.”
This . . . this must be my uncle’s voice. I heard it in the dark. There’s something about it—the timbre, the way he stretches his vowels—that reminds me of Mom.
I barely move my head, just enough to see the shape of him, backlit by stripes of sunlight that edge through window blinds. There’s something merry about the curve of his thin lips and all those lines on his face—even more than mine. I try to smile.
He takes my left hand. “I knew as soon as I saw you that you had to be Jeane’s girl. I have so many questions for you. Right now I can’t tell you what it means to me to be in the same room with you. Family.”
Family.
If only George could see me now. I bet he’d never tease me again about seeing a mystery in everything.
And Mara—oh, there’s much I want to say to her. I want to make sure she knows that even as I searched for my roots, hoping there might be something left of my old family, I was so very aware God had given me the gift of a new family. A daughter to stand in the place of all the children I never had.
Please, God, return my voice to me soon.
“Are you actually smiling, Lenora?” Mara leans closer to me, a plastic cup with a straw in her hands. “You are. Trust you to wake up after eight weeks of unconsciousness and flash a grin.”
Eight weeks. Heavens.
My uncle is standing and I see he walks with a cane, its tap and drag slow across the floor. “I’ll ask the nurse about that cup of water.”
Mara only nods, still grasping my hand. “I have so much to tell you about the Everwood. And you have to meet Marshall. He’s been staying there, but he’s not exactly a guest. . . Well, it’s hard to explain, but I think you’ll like him.”
I’ve seen moments of happiness pass over Mara’s face in the months since I met her last summer. But this—this bright-eyed glaze of sheer joy—this is new. And I don’t think my awakening is the only reason for it.
“There’s something else.” She leans in even closer. “Lenora, I emailed my dad. Just a couple days ago. I haven’t told anyone else, not even Marsh. I’m not sure why I did it. But I opened the door and I took a step through it.”
I see tears glistening in her eyes, and oh, I know what this means for her. I wish I could give her a hug. Make a cup of tea and talk for hours. Soon.
Mara blinks. “They said I could only stay in here for a few minutes, but I promise I’ll be back as soon as they let me. Did they fill you in on why you’re here before I came in? It was a horrible stroke—several actually—but you’re going to recover. I’m sure of it.”
I feel sure too. Down deep in these old bones. Someday, George. But not now.
I try to squeeze my fingers around Mara’s.
But then I realize there’s someone behind her. He approaches slowly, softly, without a word. He isn’t looking at me.
I swallow and try to whisper. “Who—”
But Mara’s hand is yanked from mine. I hear a muffled squeal and I try—oh, I try so hard—to raise any sound at all.
And then . . . she’s gone.
20
“Why did you take her away?”
Marshall stood in the center of the hushed hospital chapel, its backlit stained-glass cross sending beams of color to land on burgundy carpet around his planted feet. He hadn’t meant to come here. Hadn’t meant to pray—if his whispered question even counted as a prayer.
But here he was.
He stepped in between a row of chairs, fingers gripping the cloth back of a seat in front of him. “Other parents get to keep their kids. But you took mine.” There’d been no miracle for Laney—not like for Lenora. There’d been no doctor striding from the room with a grin and good news.
That’s why he was here in this chapel. Because with each step he’d taken away from Lenora’s room, the unfairness of it all had begun its gong-like chiming.
When Davis Saddler had told that story about his father spending the rest of his life fruitlessly searching for “his greatest treasure,” his daughter, Marshall had actually empathized with the criminal. Their circumstances might be different, but what if Marshall was destined for the same hopeless ending as Spinelli? Spinelli’s prison bars were literal but wasn’t Marshall trapped, too?
By anguish at all he’d lost. By his own inability to fix what was broken inside of him. By this endless cycle of one day thinking he was on the road to hope and healing and the next, feeling the stab of despair all over again.
Beth had said he could trust God with his broken pieces. He’d almost started to believe it. But how was he supposed to trust God to be careful with his broken pieces when He hadn’t been careful with Laney.
You weren’t careful then, no matter how much I prayed.
If he couldn’t trust God to fix him, if he couldn’t fix himself, then where did that leave him?
Impulse or maybe desperation surged through him and before he realized what he was doing, his phone was at his ear. One ring. Two rings. Did he actually want Penny to answer or—
“Hey, Marshall.”
His head pounded and he could feel his pulse in his ears. “Hi, Penn. Um, sorry. I don’t know why I’m calling.” True. Yet not. “I’m . . . I’m in a hospital and—”
“Are you hurt? Sick? Beth told me you’ve stopped with the meds, but maybe you shouldn’t have gone off them so fast or—”
“It’s not that. It’s . . . I don’t know how . . .” He closed his eyes and sat. “Penny, I—”
The sound of a baby’s cry rattled across the line. A sharp reminder. He shouldn’t have called her. She had a whole new life. She wasn’t his wife anymore.
And even if she were, he didn’t know what he needed.
You need Me.
His gaze flew to the cross once more.
“Marsh?”
He ended the call, jabbed the phone into his pocket. His head pounded. “If you want me to believe,” he said, his voice hard, “you’re going to have to give me something. Anything.”
He stared at the cross.
Nothing.
Enough of this. He jerked to his feet. He shouldn’t have come in here. He’d told Mara he’d be waiting outside Lenora’s room, so that’s where he’d be. Never mind that he’d never found that bottle of water or aspirin.
He was halfway up the chapel aisle when its double doors flung open. Davis?
The man was breathing hard, leaning crooked against his cane. “You need to come. Mara.”
“She’s already done seeing Lenora? That was quick.”
Davis was shaking his head before Marshall even finished. “She’s gone.”
Marshall’s gut twisted. Gone. Lenora? As in, she’d passed away? “But the doctor said she was doing good. How . . . what happened?” His picked up his pace.
Davis was still shaking his head, so rapidly now that his cane wobbled too. “Not
Eleanor.”
He reached Davis just as the man’s cane slipped from his grasp. Marshall caught it with one hand while reaching out to steady Davis with the other. “I’m confused. What are you say—”
“Mara.” His voice had spilled over into a near yell. “She’s gone and Eleanor is upset. We can’t understand her. Something about a man—”
Marshall’s pulse quickened.
And then he was running, feet carrying him down hallways and around corners until the commotion from Lenora’s hospital room invaded his senses. A beeping machine, multiple voices. He skidded into the room.
Lenora was twisting against her pillows, her rasping voice pitiful and panicked. Unintelligible.
“You shouldn’t be in here.” A nurse touched his elbow and pointed to the door.
“The woman who was in here before, where is she?”
The nurse shook her head. “We don’t know. We’re trying to get our patient calmed right now.”
“But—”
With surprising strength, the woman nearly pushed him from the room. He spilled into the hallway, headache raging now, but his policeman’s reflex finally drove him past his panic. He scoured the space, gaze darting over every corner and doorway even as he jogged to the nurse’s station.
Two women looked up from computers as he caught his ragged breath. “I’m looking for a woman. Red hair, about five foot eight.” He combed his memory. “Jeans and a blue pullover.”
“A patient?”
“No, no, a visitor. She was just here. She was in room 302.”
He jabbed his fingers through his hair. Hadn’t his instincts tried to warn him? Outside Lenora’s room, earlier in the waiting room . . . on the drive. Those headlights.
He’d felt it in his gut, the knowing that something was off. But he’d let the hospital memories distract him. Let his pain and all his efforts to shove it down sidetrack him.
“I saw a woman with red hair.” A third nurse moved toward him now. “She was walking down the hallway a few minutes ago. She was with a man.”
Garrett.
Not Garrett.
Mara’s sprinting heartbeat collided with her disbelief. For what felt like the hundredth time, she tried to yank free from the man’s grip, but his hold only tightened, his fingers digging into her arm as he shoved her from the stairwell into the parking garage. Their steps tolled against the cement floor and their panting breaths echoed.
If not for the gun he’d flashed back in Lenora’s room, she’d have yelled for help. Called for Marshall. Called for anyone.
Finally, he twisted her around to face him. And it smacked her all over again.
Not Garrett.
Her instant panic when the man had grabbed her in Lenora’s room had morphed into terrified certainty. Garrett had finally come for her. She’d been sure of it.
But then the man had spoken into her ear and it hadn’t been Garrett’s voice. “I’ve got a gun. Stay calm and walk with me. If you don’t, I’ll happily use it.”
And it wasn’t Garrett’s face in front of her now. But in her fear, she fumbled to remember his name. Morton . . . Morris . . . Morse. Jim Morse.
The man with the briefcase. From the open house.
“You wanted to buy the Everwood.”
He flashed a menacing grin at her blurted words. “Seemed like a fine enough solution at the time but this will be much more expedient. Either you’re going to tell me where the painting is or you’ll make a nice little bit of leverage when I ask your friend Lenora where it is once she’s talking again.”
The painting? This was about the painting?
If only she’d been faster to act when he’d first edged into Lenora’s room. But his threat in her ear had sent shards of ice down her spine. And without a doubt in her mind that he’d meant what he said about using the gun, she’d let him tow her into the hallway and out the door underneath an exit sign.
“Where’s the painting?” he asked again.
“I have no idea.” The whirr and rumble of engines and tires bellowed in the parking garage around them.
“Fine. Then you’re coming with me.” He jerked her arm again, sending a spasm into muscle already tight with alarm.
Even as she yelped, she put every ounce of her strength into planting her feet, pulling away. Were those footsteps she heard now? A flash of color darted behind the man. Marshall? Willing herself not to look at the gun, she ignored the slice of pain in her shoulder and tried wrenching away once more.
He grunted, yanking her back to him, lifting his gun—
Halting footsteps. A surprise thump.
Jim Morse crumpled to the cement, his gun sliding under a nearby car.
Marshall? Garbled emotion churned inside her. Gasping for breath against the shock, the stabbing pain in her arm, Mara lifted her relieved gaze.
Garrett.
Everything tipped off axis all over again. Garrett. Who was supposed to be in France.
It took only a moment for realization and adrenaline to kick in. She whirled, panicked attention darting to the stairwell door as she picked up her feet and—
It was one moment too many. An arm rippling with muscle shot out to pin her against Garrett’s body. Garrett Lyman was no longer the lanky college kid she remembered. He radiated with ominous strength as he laughed into her hair then spun her back around to face him.
There was a glint of steel in his eyes. And a blade in his hand. “Let’s go.” He shoved her forward. Just like that, she’d gone from one horrific situation to the next.
“This is crazy, Garrett. Aren’t you supposed to be in France? How did you even find me?” And where was Marshall? What if Jim Morse roused and came after them?
“It was child’s play, Mara. I had a Google alert set up for you. There was a newspaper article. I caught a flight.”
So that fear had been well founded, after all. “It’s been a year. Why were you still—”
He slammed her against a black Buick. “Because I told you I would. I said I’d find you and I did. Now get in.” He wrenched the door open and thrust her inside. The lock clicked. She attempted to unlock it, but it clicked again. And again.
And Garrett was rounding the car. They’d be out of this garage within the next minute or two. And once he pulled out onto the open road, how would Marshall ever—
Phone!
She had it out of her pocket by the time the driver’s side door opened. She fumbled to open a new text.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She heard Garrett’s growl, felt the air move as he landed in his seat and his hand lunged toward her—
Black Bui—
His hand closed over hers, squeezing until she dropped the phone. Had it sent? Had she even finished the text? He reached over her to grab the phone and tossed it out his door. “Nice try.”
“Why are you doing this?” Frustration poured out in her shrill words. “You can’t possibly think you’re going to get away with whatever it is you’re trying to do.”
“Stop talking to me like I’m a kid.” He jammed his key into the ignition. “You think I haven’t thought this through? I’ve known where you were for over a week, Mara. I didn’t go rushing in hot-headed and rash like last time. I waited.” He looked over at her, malice and desire twisted together in his taut expression.
“So that was you last week at the Everwood?” Stall. Keep him talking.
The engine sputtered to life. “Plan A didn’t work out. What of it?”
“And you’ve just been waiting around ever since? Lurking?”
“You’re a hard woman to get alone.” He peeled out of the parking space.
“You don’t have to do this, Garrett. You haven’t committed much of a crime yet, other than scaring me half to death.” Pain blazed through her injured arm. If he made it out of the parking garage—
He pummeled the accelerator, his knife tucked against the wheel under his left hand. At least he hadn’t gone after Morse’s gun earlier.<
br />
Could she reach for the wheel fast enough? Manage to get his knife? She gripped her door handle.
“Don’t bother trying again. Got the child lock on.”
Fine. She’d go for the wheel. She shifted, reached—
His elbow slammed into her hurt arm and her shriek split her eardrums. He whipped around a curve, barely avoiding an SUV going the opposite direction. And suddenly, up ahead, jarring daylight gushed in. Another thirty seconds and he’d be free of the garage.
“Garrett, please.”
He swore, gunning the accelerator.
Even if not for the half-finished text from Mara, Marshall would’ve known the Buick was his target. The moment he’d barreled out the door of the stairwell and into the garage, his focus had snagged on the fallen man’s form in a heap on the floor.
Then the black vehicle that lurched from its parking space.
It’d taken less than a split second to plan his own course. No point chasing after the car on foot. Instead, realizing his truck was parked a level below, he’d sprung toward the stairwell once more, scrambling down clanging metal stairs and surging into open garage. The odor of cigarette smoke and gasoline clung to chilled air as he ran toward his truck.
He reached the truck just as a flash of black flew by in his periphery. The garage’s exit was only one level down. If he didn’t catch up in time—
No, he wouldn’t even think of it. His tires squealed as he veered out of his parking space and swerved the direction the Buick had gone. One more curve and—There!
The Buick rushed toward the glare of sunlight that clashed with the shadows of the garage. For a moment, Marshall hoped for an easy resolution. There was a booth up by the exit, a long bar stretching across the ramp.
But no, instead of slowing, the vehicle in front of him only sped up.
Over the pounding of his headache, Marshall fought for a decisive calm. Okay, then. He knew what he had to do. At least there weren’t any other moving vehicles around.
He pressed his pedal to the ground, heard the growl of his engine, the images outside his windshield blurring but for his moving target up ahead. He was gaining ground.
