Shadow in Serenity

by Terri Blackstock

  Still, as the preacher spoke in mesmerizing tones about the fallen nature of the world and the pain that sin caused in the hearts of young and old, he couldn’t help locking in. The man had a way of driving the point home.

  As he stood to leave after the benediction, Logan realized that this was the first time he’d ever sat through a church service without nodding off. If he was still in town next Sunday, he might come back.

  Monday afternoon, Carny sighed, almost disappointed, as she hung up from the last of the phone calls she’d made about Logan. Something was wrong. All the sources he’d told her to call — his former employer, his college, had all checked out. She hadn’t been able to reach a human at King Enterprises, though. A recorded voice transferred her around, but all she got was voicemail. She left messages asking about Logan, but no one had called back yet.

  Carny had spoken to the secretary at A&R Marketing, who still remembered Logan and described him in an awestruck voice, leaving little doubt that they were talking about the same man. She described him as the best salesperson they’d ever had, and in a near-whisper, told Carny he’d been cheated out of his pay, and she hadn’t blamed him for leaving.

  When Carny spoke to those of his professors who were still at the college, they’d described him to a T. Charming, with a devilish grin. Smart. Charismatic.

  But it was the call to the Selma, Alabama, county clerk’s office that had given her the most insight into the man. Just as Logan said, his mother’s birth certificate was on file there, dated fifty-five years ago. When she’d asked the clerk about the woman’s only recorded child, she’d been directed to Human Services.

  Telling the woman at Human Services that she was investigating a case, Carny persuaded her to find Brisco’s file. The woman read bits and pieces over the phone — enough to tell Carny that, from the age of five, Logan Brisco had been shuffled from one foster home to another until he’d run away at the age of fourteen.

  That was the source of the pain in his eyes when she’d mentioned his mother. Carny couldn’t help feeling a little ashamed of herself. That kind of pain never went away. Pain like that had the power to mold a person into something he might never have been, to drive him toward the kind of life where he thought he was in control and created his own destiny. Where close attachments were rare, and abandonment was impossible.

  Knowing about his childhood made her see him in a different light. For the first time, she allowed herself to wonder whether he really was the grifter she believed him to be. Nothing she had discovered about him suggested that he’d ever been on the wrong side of the law.

  But there were giant holes in his life — from the time he’d run away at fourteen until he’d gone to college, and from his resignation from A&R until now.

  She hadn’t found any evidence of Brisco’s duplicity. But as she gazed out her hangar window at Jason washing her Baron, she decided that didn’t matter. She still didn’t trust the man, and she couldn’t let her sympathy for his difficult childhood color her thinking. She rarely doubted her instincts, and she wasn’t about to give up on them now.

  Jason was almost finished washing the plane. She smiled at the serious way he went about it, talking to himself the whole time, as his imagination rambled. She wondered what part he was playing today. Was it fighter pilot with his guns aimed at the enemy? Was it firefighter, putting out a monstrous blaze?

  She went outside and headed toward him. When he saw her, he grinned and aimed the hose in her direction. Ducking, she reached for another hose coiled beside the hangar, turned on the water, and aimed her own spray at him.

  Screaming and laughing, he ran behind the plane and sprayed at her over it. She ducked under it and got him good from behind. Squealing with laughter, he reciprocated by drenching her.

  “I got you first!” he shouted. “If those had been bullets, you’d have been dead before you reached for your hose!”

  “Flesh wounds, my boy,” she said in a bad English accent. “Mere flesh wounds. But your wounds were fatal.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I can take a few bullets without even feeling them.”

  “Good,” she said, and pulled her hose back up into his face, spraying him at point-blank range. He screamed and wrestled with the nozzle, and by the time they collapsed on the tarmac laughing, they were both sopping wet.

  “Tell me two things,” she said, finally. “Tell me how I could have raised a little boy without guns, without toys that look like guns, and without allowing television shows or video games with guns, and you can still manage to make a gun out of a garden hose.”

  “You can make a pretend gun out of anything, Mom,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s a guy thing.”

  “I guess so.”

  “What’s the second thing you want me to tell you?”

  She sat up. “How we’re going to get home on that motorcycle soaking wet. We’ll freeze to death.”

  “Nah. It’s 80 degrees. Almost summer. Hey, you know what, Mom? This summer, Nathan’s dad said he’d buy us the lumber and stuff, and we can build a fort between our houses. Won’t that be cool?”

  “It sure will. Can I help?”

  “No way,” he said, aggravated. “Girls don’t know anything about building stuff.”

  “Sure we do,” Carny said. “When I was growing up, we used to have to tear down the whole carnival everywhere we went, then put it back up when we got where we were going. I know a few things about construction. Come on,” she said, tickling him. “Let your old mom help!”

  He squirmed and held back. “Sure, if I want my fort to look like a carnival booth. I don’t think so.”

  “How’d you get to be such a male chauvinist at seven?”

  “What’s a male chauvinist?” he giggled, defending himself from her tickles.

  “A guy who thinks building a fort is a guy thing. And I suppose if I don’t get to help build it, I won’t get to play in it, either, huh?”

  Jason held her hands to stop the tickling and tried to catch his breath. “It’s a boy’s fort, Mom. No girls allowed.”

  “That’s it,” she said. “I’m suing.”

  “Mom!” he said. “You’d bump your head on the ceiling, anyway. It’s for kids.”

  “Keep going. I’ve got two counts of discrimination so far. Gender and height. I can take you for everything you’re worth. I’ll probably even get the fort. I’ll paint it pink and turn it into a doll house.”

  He giggled frantically. “Mom! That would be gross! Besides, you can’t sue us for something that isn’t even built!”

  “Oh, yeah.” She got up and wrung out the front of her shirt. “And if I die of pneumonia, I probably can’t sue, either. This was all a clever ploy to intimidate me out of taking you to court, wasn’t it?”

  He laughed and popped his wet shirt away from his skin, then let it stick back. “Hey, Mom. Are we going to the dance Friday night?”

  “Why? You got a date?”

  “I sorta told Amber I’d meet her there. I might dance with her this time.”

  Carny made a face. “But she’s a girl!”

  “Girls are okay once in a while,” he said, skipping behind her in the puddles as she turned off the hoses. “I mean, you can’t have ‘em coming in your forts and stuff, but they’re okay to dance with. Are you going with Mr. Joey?”

  Still chuckling, she shook her head. “Nope.”

  “He said you were. He told me you’re his girlfriend.”

  “Joey’s got a lot to learn. I never told him I’d go with him to the dance.”

  “Then who are you going with? Mr. Paul? Mr. Sam?”

  “None of the above. I thought I’d just go as your date.”

  His face sobered. “Okay. I think that would be okay. Amber probably wouldn’t mind if it was just you.”

  As he skipped into the hangar, Carny knew she couldn’t do better than Jason as her date. He, after all, was the man of her dreams.

  ten

  Thursday, Loga
n swung around in his chair at the Clippety Doo Dah, where he spent as much of his spare time as he could, buttering up the ladies. He grinned at the proprietor. “Tell me, Lahoma,” he said, “do you consider yourself single-handedly responsible for the abundance of beauty in this town?”

  Her laughter had a sweet, infectious ring to it. Eliza Martin, whose hair she was working on, hooted right along with her, and the ladies under the dryers chuckled as well, even though he doubted they’d heard his question.

  “You’re such a talker,” Lahoma said in her deep southern drawl. “By the way, have you heard about the dance tomorrow night? Down at the bingo hall?”

  “I sure have,” he said, “and I intend to be there.” “And have you got a date?” Lahoma asked with a wink. He grinned. “You got somebody in mind?” She blushed, then recovered. “Well, if I was fifteen years younger, I’d snap you up myself. Might anyway, now that I think about it.”

  The other ladies guffawed, and Lahoma preened in the mirror, proud of herself. “No, Logan, I had someone more your age in mind. My daughter, Mary Beth, doesn’t have a date yet. Or there’s Jean Miller, who works at the drugstore. Or Bonnie … you know, the little waitress in the diner? Take your pick. There’s plenty of gals in Serenity who wouldn’t mind going on your arm.”

  Grinning, he swung around in his chair again. “Well, you see, that’s just the problem. There’s so many I’d love to go with. It’s hard to decide. I think I might just go stag so I can dance and flirt with all of them.”

  The women laughed again, as if that suited them just fine. Logan pulled up out of the seat and sighed. “Well, ladies, I’ve sure enjoyed shooting the breeze with you. And like I said, if any of you want an appointment with me, you know where you can find me. Time’s running out, though. I have to have all my investors registered pretty soon, or we’ll have to move on to another town. My employers don’t like to be kept waiting. And the idea, of course, is to get the park started by the end of the year, so we’re really under the gun here.”

  “My husband’s gonna call you today, Logan,” one of the ladies under the dryer said. “His name’s Jess. When you hear from Jess, you’ll know who he is. My husband.”

  Logan leaned down and took her hand. Kissing it, he said, “I sure will, ma’am. And if he’s half as delightful as you, it’ll be a pleasure going into partnership with him.” He went to the next lady under the dryer, kissed her hand, then reached for the third. They all tittered like birds.

  Then he grabbed Lahoma, pulled her into a waltz, and spun her. “Tomorrow night, you save a dance for me,” he said, kissing her cheek.

  “I will,” she said, almost swooning. “‘Bye, Logan.”

  On the sidewalk, Logan checked his watch. He’d talked Carny into giving him a private lesson today, and he had just enough time before it to stop by the barbershop and shoot the breeze. It was these intimate little gab sessions, unscheduled and relaxed, that inspired the kind of trust he needed to make the people of Serenity part with their money.

  He stood by the red-and-white barber pole outside and looked in the window. Slade was cutting the mayor’s hair, and Cecil was cutting that of a man Logan didn’t know yet. There was one other man waiting, and they were all laughing.

  Friendship. Camaraderie. It was something he’d missed terribly since Montague died. But he couldn’t break Montague’s rule of getting too close now, just because it felt good. A lot of things felt good, but they could also land him back in jail. The goal now was to get to know the folks as well as he could while still holding himself aloof from them. That was the trick. Fortunately, he was good at it. It was what made it easy to leave the towns behind.

  Serenity was something else, though. 20/20 was right. It was just like Mayberry, for Pete’s sake. And this was Floyd’s Barber Shop, and the men in the chairs could have been Andy and Barney. He hadn’t really believed such towns existed. No wonder Carny was protective of it. But he couldn’t let that influence him. A man had to make a living, after all.

  Logan slid his hands into his pockets and strolled inside. Everyone turned and greeted him. “Logan!”

  Slade and Cecil shook his hand, and the mayor, almost completely hidden by a voluminous chair cloth, freed his hand and reached for Logan’s too. As if he were the town celebrity, the other men introduced themselves and told him they had been at his town meeting.

  Slade looked over at the chair where his dog sat, and said, “Jack, get up and let Logan sit down.” The dog jumped down immediately and went to lie beside Slade’s chair.

  Laughing, Logan stooped to pet the dog. Jack sat up and licked Logan’s hand. The gesture broke the shell of a memory Logan had kept stored away for years. Butch, a lab mix with big, soulful eyes — the dog he’d come to love in his first foster home. At five years old, Logan had curled up with Butch in bed every night, crying softly for his mother. Butch had been the only one who could comfort him.

  When Logan was taken from that home, he’d begged to take Butch with him. But the family wouldn’t give their dog to the homeless boy.

  “Logan?” Slade said. “You need a haircut?”

  Logan shook himself out of his reverie. “No thanks, Slade,” he said as he stroked the dog. “I just had a few minutes to kill before my next meeting and thought I’d see what you fellows are up to.”

  Fellows. Wasn’t that how they would have said it in Mayberry?

  “Well, oddly enough, we were just talking about you.”

  “Oh yeah?” He looked up. They were smiling, so they hadn’t been raking him over the coals. “I came just in time to defend myself then, didn’t I?”

  “Oh, you don’t need defending. Not from us, anyways. From Carny Sullivan, maybe.”

  “Yeah, she’s not so bad, though. I’m taking flying lessons from her. I figure when the park gets underway, I probably ought to buy a plane.”

  “Carny’s teaching you?” The man who’d introduced himself as Joey, a younger man than the others, who had an enviable beard and was as big as a bear, gave him a surprised look.

  “She sure is. She’s a good lady. Just a little suspicious, and from what I’ve heard about her, you can’t blame her. It’s a shame about her childhood.”

  “So which class are you in?” Joey asked. “Her Monday night class?”

  “No. She’s teaching me privately. All the other classes were already in progress.”

  Joey got quiet, and Logan noticed something behind the man’s eyes. Was it jealousy? He couldn’t afford to make any enemies in this town, so he tried to rally. “You’re not the Joey she keeps mentioning, are you?”

  His eyes lit up. “She talks about me?”

  “Well, I guess it’s you.”

  “What did she say?”

  Logan laughed and bent down low to let the dog lick his face. “Well, now, whatever she said, it was in confidence. But I will tell you that she thinks a lot of you.”

  Joey smiled and looked off into space.

  “How long have you had Jack, Slade?” Logan asked.

  Slade put the finishing touches on the mayor’s hair. “Ten years. He’s been by my side almost every minute of that time. Goes everywhere I go, don’t you, boy?” Slade went over to pat the dog’s head, then resumed his cutting.

  “He looks like a loyal pal.” Logan patted the dog’s coat one last time, and, as if he knew that meant a dismissal, Jack wandered over to the corner.

  “So how are the plans for the park shaping up?” Mayor Norman asked.

  Logan crossed his arms and looked the mayor straight in the eye. “Well, sir, I’ll give the people of Serenity another week or so to get their investments in. Then I’m supposed to meet back with my employers and their big investors with my recommendation. I’m pretty sure that, if we can demonstrate enough support from Serenity, they’ll choose this site for the park. In fact, I’d bet on it.”

  The mayor laughed. “The best thing to happen in this town in forty years, and it’s during my administration. Who would have thoug
ht?”

  “You’re not tryin’ to get credit for it, are you, Mayor?” Cecil asked, a twinkle in his eye.

  The mayor shook his head. “Oh, no. No one would believe me. It’s just kind of nice to be in office when so many good things are happening.”

  Slade swung the mayor’s chair cloth out of the way and shook it out, and the mayor got to his feet. “I’m going to need an appointment with you myself, Logan,” he said as he fished through his wallet for Slade’s fee. “I’ll call you later.”

  “I’m going your way, Mayor,” Logan said, standing up and stretching. “I’ll walk with you and we can nail down a time.”

  As if he had lived there all his life and knew them each as well as they knew one another, they all waved goodbye.

  Logan’s lesson with Carny that afternoon went well, and he noticed an ever-so-slight change in her attitude. “So did you check on me yet?” he asked when the lesson was over. “Decided I’m legit?”

  “I checked, Brisco,” she said, consulting her appointment book for a time for the next lesson.

  “Good. Then I should be cleared. You want me to make you an appointment so you can talk about investing?”

  She shot him a look. “Your stories may have checked out, Brisco, but I’m still not convinced you’re on the level.”

  Not convinced, he thought. Wasn’t that better than before, when she’d been absolutely certain he wasn’t? Still, it aggravated him that she hadn’t considered his references positive enough to clear him. She was just too smart.

  “What did I ever do to you?” he said, intending it as a joke, but his words came out sounding a little plaintive.

  “Nothing,” she said with a flip smile. “I just don’t intend to sign my soul and my bank account over to you, like my friends and neighbors have. Don’t get too secure, Brisco. I haven’t given up trying to expose you.”

  “Carny, you have got to be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

  “I’ll buy that,” she said. “You’ve probably never met anyone like me.”

  “You’ve got that right.”