“Aww, that’s so sweet.” She pulled the dish out of the microwave and stuck her finger in it. “Yep, it’s hot. Sure you don’t want any?”
“Nope, I’m good.”
“Okay, then. Let’s pray so we can eat.”
When we raised our heads, I knew it was time. I poked my spoon around in my soup, feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit wash over me. I cleared my throat. “I was praying for you this morning.”
“Thank you.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I know I can always count on you and Dot to pray for me.”
I nodded. “I believe God wants to heal you.”
“That’s so encouraging. I know it will be a long battle, but—”
“No. I mean, like now.” I pushed my stool back from the counter. “He told me to pray for you and He would heal you.”
She laid down her fork. “You mean, like a miracle?”
I nodded again, surprised to feel the sting of tears.
“Bring it on, then, girlfriend.” She wiggled down from the stool and stood in front of me. “I’m ready.”
She was so open. So eager to believe that God would do what He said He would do. Why couldn’t we all have simple faith like that?
His power pressed in on me then like a heavy, warm blanket draped over my shoulders. I staggered under the weight of it.
“Put your hand over the spot, Mona. We’re going to agree together for your healing in the strong name of Jesus.” She placed her hand on her chest, and I laid mine over hers. I took a deep breath. “Father God, in the name of Jesus—”
Before I could utter another word, Mona began to tremble. “I feel a deep heat in my breast,” she whispered. “It’s spreading into my chest and through my body.”
“Thank Him, Mona. He’s healing you right now.” I was shaking along with her, feeling the power of the anointing rolling through her like waves. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. Yes, by His stripes Mona is healed. Thank you, thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Wow. What an afternoon. I sat at my kitchen table with a mug of tea, mulling everything over.
Go to Kenny’s.
Lord?
It’s time, Daughter. Take the key with you.
Was God finally going to bring closure to this? I pulled on my tennies, suddenly energized. It would be an adventure. Maybe I was more intrepid than I thought. Besides, what could happen? Sadly, word of Marianne’s death had come an hour ago, and the barn was already a pile of rubble.
I rolled up to the property shortly before sunset. I would park right in front as if I was visiting. I wasn't trying to break any laws. I opened the sliding door and let Annie out. She frisked around like a puppy, sniffing everything. I grabbed my purse and slung it over my shoulder. Should I lock the van? Nah, I'd only be a few minutes. Annie trotted alongside me. “At least you like adventures, don't you, girl?”
She smiled up at me before darting away to chase a squirrel across the huge open space behind the house, right toward the police tape that still cordoned off the blackened pit that used to be Kenny’s barn. I shook my head, thanking God again that I was alive.
Rounding the corner of the house, I stopped short. The back door was open. Why would the door be open? I glanced over my shoulder. I hadn't noticed any other vehicles when I pulled up. Maybe Kenny did have family, and they had accidentally left it open last time they were here. No, that was pretty far-fetched. I whistled for Annie. She came flying over to me and nudged my hand. “Let’s go close the door, girl,” I said to her. That's all I would do. I would walk up those two porch steps and pull his door closed, like any good neighbor would.
I took a deep breath. What if the barn blower was still around? Maybe I should at least grab my pepper spray out of my purse. I clutched it in my hand. “Let’s go.”
Annie bounded ahead of me and stuck her head in the door.
“No, Annie,” I whispered, tiptoeing up behind her. Why was I sneaking? My heart started pounding. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea. I would pull the door closed and then—
“Help me.”
I jumped. I must be imagining things. “Come on, Annie. Let's get out of here!”
Annie ignored me and pushed through the door, her tail held high.
Oh, no. I was getting creeped out. And it was starting to get dark. What if it was a trick? What if someone was trying to lure me into the house?
“Annie, come back here!”
“Help. Please.”
I stood poised in the doorway. In the dim light, I could make out a battered couch and not much else. The room, a sun-porch kind of deal, was empty, the tattered curtains blowing in the wind. I hadn't noticed until now that the windows were broken out.
Jesus?
I am here.
I pulled in a calming breath. I wanted to bolt out through that door and run away and never come back. But ...
Go, beloved. I am with you.
I gripped the pepper spray tighter.
Jesus?
Yes. Go, child.
“Where are you?” My voice sounded braver than I felt.
“Help me. Please.”
Annie bounded into the room from the opposite direction she had left it. She nudged my hand and whined.
“Okay, show me, girl.”
She took a few steps, then turned to make sure I was following her.
“I’m coming.” I grimaced as we made our way toward the hallway. It was darker down there. I paused, groping along the wall for a light switch. There!
I flicked it. Nothing. “Of course not,” I muttered.
Annie snuffled along ahead of me. I braced myself for what I might find, praying silently as I moved down the hallway. It was a tiny house, but it seemed to take an hour to walk that hallway. Curious, I peered into the rooms we passed. More junk. Decades worth of stuff.
“I’m in here,” the voice called.
In the kitchen? I guessed that was the room ahead of me. I could hear Annie's nails on a hard floor. I edged my way over a pile of boxes. “I’m coming.”
I took a deep breath and cautiously peeked into the room. It was indeed the kitchen. With a very round person lying on the floor in front of the ancient refrigerator. Porky? “Mr. Blackman? Is that you?”
Annie licked his hand as he raised his head barely enough to squint at me through swollen eyes. His face looked like someone had used it as a punching bag.
“Thank God,” he said. He ran his tongue over his split lip. “I couldn't reach my phone.”
I dropped to my knees next to him, pushing his smashed phone out of my way. “What happened to you? Where are you hurt?”
He shook his head back and forth on the worn linoleum floor. “I’m not hurt bad. Just can't get up once I'm down.” He hit his fist on the floor. “It’s time for all of this to end.”
“Here, let me help you sit up.” I grasped him arm and pulled while he pushed himself to a sitting position. “Now. Tell me what happened.”
He huffed and puffed for a minute. “Hard for an old fat man to catch his breath.” He attempted a smile. “I thought you'd pretty much figured it out that day in the hospital.”
Wait a minute. Was he confessing something? “I thought I had, too. But I guess not.”
“I let it go on too long. Then when I heard Kenny was so bad off, I tried to talk to him. But he wouldn't budge.”
I nodded. “I heard you say something to him like you needed to know where something was.”
“No. Not something. Someone.”
The light dawned. “Jim Janosic.”
“Yes. When all the craziness happened all those years ago, I went along with that part of it because I...” He dabbed at his lip with his sleeve, then looked me in the eye. “I went along with it because I was a coward. That's the sad fact.”
I shifted to a more comfortable position. “I still don't understand. What was it that everyone was hiding? You, June, Kenny, Marianne. And how does Maple fit in? I know Kenny and his wife adopt
ed her, but—”
He winced. “The whole story is pretty sordid, I’m afraid.”
I settled onto the floor next to him. “I’ve got time. Unless whoever beat you up is planning to return.”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” He dabbed at his lip. “I think they sent the message they wanted to send. The simple truth about Maple is that she was June’s birth daughter.”
I gaped at him. The light dawned. Kenny and his wife must have adopted Maple. But why—
“This was before June and I knew each other. June was young—still in high school. Her parents threatened to kick her out and disown her if she didn’t give up the baby. So she gave up the baby. I mean, what would you do if you were fifteen and pregnant?”
“Wow.”
“June and I met and married a few years later. She told me about it, but at the time, I didn’t realize how much it had impacted her. She didn’t know the identity of the adoptive parents, and she became obsessed with finding the child. It consumed her. Almost wrecked our marriage.”
I shook my head. It seemed sometimes that there was no end to the pain and suffering that sin created. “No man sins unto himself,” I muttered.
“Ain’t that the truth?” He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “She finally found out that Kenny and his wife, Shirley, had adopted her little girl. We moved here so she could be near her and see her, but she promised me that she wouldn’t interfere in their lives.”
The light dawned. “As an infant?”
He opened his eyes, staring at me unseeingly. “But June couldn’t stand it. She wasn’t content with keeping her distance and seeing her child as someone else’s. I realize now that I should have packed her up right then and there and moved somewhere far away. But by then, my business was well-established and everything else seemed to be going well. You can probably guess what happened.”
She ruined my life…I didn’t mean to harm your mama, Maple. I’m so sorry. I was a terrible father… Kenny’s words came back to me, and I blew out my breath slowly. “June and Kenny had an affair.”
“You got it. Right under my nose. Never suspected a thing. I always loved her, you know?”
Yeah, I knew all about that. Could love be too blind, sometimes? “But what about Jim and Marianne and all of that stuff?”
“The crazy robbery.”
Wait. What? “The robbery of the jewelry store in Temple that happened right before Jim and Marianne disappeared?”
He nodded, then winced. “It was June’s idea. Kenny and I—this was before I found out about the affair—were stupid enough to help June plan it, but at the last minute, we couldn't go through with it.”
“So who did? Jim?”
“No. He was supposed to be the fall guy, you know? June had found out that he had already served prison time for a robbery in another state. She thought we could easily pin it on him, and we’d all live happily ever after.”
“Except?”
“We were so terrible. We had invited him to go fishing with us a week or so before the robbery to get all buddy-buddy with him, so he wouldn't ever suspect it was us.” His pulse throbbed in his throat. “Went to Granger Lake. We had a freak accident out there, and Jim risked his own life to save us. He nearly drowned. Spent a couple of days in the hospital, while Ken and I felt like the worst human beings on the face of the earth.”
I gaped at him.
He groaned. “Jimmy rescued us from drowning while we were planning to take him down.” He scooched his large self over to sit against the kitchen cabinets. “Someone robbed that store, following our plan. But it wasn't us. At least not Kenny and me. And we knew it wasn’t Jim.”
“How do you know?” Wait, I knew what he was going to say. “You were at Erma’s that night, weren’t you?”
He did a double-take. “How did you know about that?”
“That’s irrelevant at the moment. Tell me the story.”
He hung his head. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but we didn’t intend to rob her that night.”
Right. They decided to visit, uninvited, in the middle of the night wearing black ski masks?
My skepticism must have shown on my face because he shrugged. “You can believe me or not, but we were putting her jewelry back, not taking it. But then—”
“Wait. That makes no sense.”
“I know. Looking back now, I don’t understand why we didn’t turn Marianne in, but—”
“What?”
“I thought you already knew the part about Marianne. She was the mastermind behind everything. It took a while for Jim to realize she had a huge operation going on out of their dry cleaners, fencing stolen goods. Right under his nose.”
I gaped at him. “But what does that have to do with Sister Erma?”
“Erma had apparently taken clothes to Jim and Marianne’s dry cleaners, then realized afterwards that she had left a valuable necklace in the pocket of her dress. She asked Jim about it, and that led to him finding out about Marianne’s side business. He confronted her.”
“And?”
“Marianne was furious and threatened to turn Jim in to the authorities.”
“For what? If he wasn’t in on it...?”
“Well, for one thing, it would look pretty bad since he had already served prison time for robbery. Also, he had apparently committed another serious crime before he went to prison, for which he was never caught or prosecuted. She knew about it and held that over the poor man’s head forever.”
“Wow. So she basically blackmailed him.”
“Yes.”
“And Erma’s necklace?”
“Jim was able to, uh, recover it from the person Marianne had sold it to without Marianne’s knowledge.”
“So why didn’t he go to her house and hand it to her? Why the sneaking into her house in the middle of the night?”
“Marianne forced him into it. She figured that Erma must have more jewelry, and she threatened him until he agreed to steal it.”
“But?”
“But he was done with all that. He pretended to go along with her plan. She was sitting in the car outside, ready to drive us away. But we planned to give her the slip so Jim could get away from her once and for all. It like to killed him to think about leaving the kids with her, but he figured he’d get them back from her somehow once he got away.”
Unbelievable. “Why were you willing to go along with this?”
He snorted. “Because I was young and dumb. It sounded exciting, I guess. I didn’t really think about the reality that we might get caught. But then Erma came creeping out with that golf club…”
“I heard about that.”
“I’m pretty sure she recognized us, but she never let on.” He choked, then cleared his throat. Annie pushed herself nearly into his lap, trying to comfort him. He patted her head, then pushed her away gently. “She stared at us over that plate of cookies, and said, ‘Young men, God has better plans for you than this.'” Kenny kind of laughed at that, but I think it hit Jim and me between the eyes. I’ll tell you, I was never the same after I got out of there that night.”
“I can imagine. So, after Sister Erma finished preaching, y’all just walked out of the door and left? And Jim was never seen again?”
“More or less.” He squirmed, not meeting my eye.
“Meaning?”
He sighed. “Jim took his mask off then and got down on his knees and asked Sister Erma to pray for him. He also asked her to watch out for Shelby and Benji until he could come back for them.”
“Wow.” Go, Sister Erma! “And then what?”
“She gave him a big hug and said, ‘Jimmy, I pray for you always.’ Then she prayed for him and hugged him again and said she would do what she could for the kids. Then we snuck out the garage window. We walked through the back way to Jim’s house, so he could hug the kids one more time, then we drove him to the bus station in Temple.”
“And Marianne?”
“Once we
knew Jim was out of the state, we reported Marianne to the sheriff. But she must have realized what was going on, because she and the kids were out of here within a few hours of Jim leaving.” “But if you didn't go through with the jewelry store robbery, then...” My mind was racing. “Marianne again?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But she didn’t like to do the actual dirty work.”
“June?”
He winced. “She swears she didn’t.”
“And so, Kenny and I swore that we would protect Jim. He was a good guy, Callie. He had made some bad choices in the past, but he was getting himself straightened out. All he wanted was to be a good husband and a good dad to those kids and to make an honest living.” He scrubbed his hand over his eyes. “And look what he got instead.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Kenny knew where he went. He had money saved up and told him he’d help him make a new start.”
I furrowed my brow. That didn’t make sense. How could Kenny have enough money to help Jim out, but not enough to hang onto his own land? Unless Erma hadn’t paid the land off for him. Maybe the land was collateral for a large loan? Hmm. “But Kenny didn't tell you where Jim went?”
“After their fling, he never trusted June. He said it would be easier for everyone if I didn’t know.”
I could understand why. “But ...” I fell silent, trying to fit the pieces together. The ones that I thought I had in place were all jumbled again. “That’s what you were trying to get Kenny to tell you that day at the hospital.”
He nodded. “I felt responsible too. If Ken was going to die, then I needed to take over with Jimmy where he left off. But he wouldn't give me even a clue.”
“Because he was afraid that someone would harm Jim?”
“That’s all I can surmise.” He shifted his position and moaned. “I feel like I've been run over by a truck.”
I stood up, suddenly noticing how dark it was getting in the room. I dug around in my purse for my flashlight. “You came out here to Kenny’s house to see if you could find something that would tell you where to find Jim.”
“Yes. But I’m afraid I wasn’t the only one with that idea. The back door was already open when I got here. I figured vandals had come in and left the door open.”
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