“Rob Turney. Paul mentioned the name.”
“Yeah. Banker type. I keep telling Evie if she moves on, this is not going to be the last guy interested in her. Evie outclasses him.”
“Odd you’d have such a strong opinion,” Gabriel mentioned, amused, though he had to admit Ann rarely voiced such a firm one.
“The day after Flight 174 crashed,” Ann said, turning serious, “Evie did this impromptu puppet thing with the kids at church, a brilliant teaching moment about life after death. And Rob sat in the back of the room, listening politely, then smirked as she finished. I had violent thoughts.”
“That would do it,” Gabriel said. “And Evie’s point was . . . ?”
“She said something like . . .” Ann closed her eyes, recalling. “‘People die. But when they love Jesus, they don’t stay dead. They are raised to life again so they can be with Jesus. And for all eternity, for years and years and years of forever, they never have to think about death. It will never be something that will happen again. They will always and forever be alive, in heaven.’”
Gabriel waited until Ann opened her eyes. “Agreed. He’s a jerk.”
Ann slapped her hand on the table. “Thank you! I knew I wasn’t overreacting to that arrogant smirk. The kids got the point, and that was the reason it mattered. Rob didn’t see that. He just reacted to the ‘years and years and years of forever’ way she chose to phrase it.”
Gabriel smiled. “I once explained it not quite so eloquently as: Death is similar to a sneeze—you can feel it coming, but then you sneeze and it’s over. You can tell people you sneezed, but you can never do that same one again even if you wanted to . . .”
He stopped as Ann started laughing. “You know I’m going to tell that to Paul,” she said between chuckles, “and he’s going to mention it to Bryce, and a few weeks from now Bryce is going to write on a chalkboard in front of a thousand people, Death is a sneeze, and have them in stitches. So, tell me, how much attribution would you like? I’ll go with your initials if you want to save yourself some humorous fame.”
“Anonymous might be best,” Gabriel replied with a grin. He turned his mug in his hand as he enjoyed her humor, then finished the thought. “We think about death, you and I, cops in general, more than most people. It helps to tame that monster down to size occasionally. I’m going to enjoy heaven. The weight on my shoulders that I’ll die in a work-related tragedy will one day be gone forever. That’s enough reason for faith right there. Alive forever with Jesus, death never again being something you have to think about . . .”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Ann said, getting up to pour herself more coffee and topping off his too. “When Evie talks about death, she’s remembering a lot of crime scenes. You can hear that reality in her voice. Similarly, when she says Jesus loves everyone, she’s got faces in mind—both those who have done horrific crimes and those of innocent victims. Her faith is part of her life. Evie’s an optimist about justice and life and things working out. Rob doesn’t seem to connect with that. He says the right words, but that’s all it is—words.”
“You sound worried.”
Ann lifted a shoulder. “I have a lot of friends, but female cop friends are a special lot. I like her personally. Professionally she’s simply a solid cop.” She stopped to smile. “No, let me rephrase that. She’s a solid detective. Evie doesn’t like being a cop in its broad definition. She doesn’t want to be the officer someone calls when the couple next door are fighting, or there’s a car crash, or someone is shooting up a store. She wants to be the one called when a car is stolen or someone is dead in an alley. She does the cop part when necessary so she can have the part she loves—being a detective.”
“She would hate being a sheriff. It’s ninety percent cop, ten percent detective.”
“Precisely,” Ann said. “What she enjoys is solving real-life puzzles.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Gabe’s hands circled his mug. “I’m enjoying the conversation, but you rarely take a turn like this by accident.”
“You’re going to be around Evie for a couple weeks,” Ann replied. “I want you to have a sense of her, and I want her to get a sense of you. You’re a cop and good in that role. If she marries Rob, leaves state investigations because of its travel demands, takes a job at the local police department, she’s going to get squeezed back into that cop role. I want her to be sure. If she quits entirely—Rob would prefer that, I’m sure—I don’t know what Evie does. In my case, I quit because I knew writing was as powerful a passion for me as being a detective, and there was a transition already in place. Evie doesn’t have that in mind, at least not yet.”
Gabriel drank the last of his coffee, thoughtful. “You worry Rob’s going to do a Christmas-party proposal in front of family and friends, and Evie’s going to say yes because she’s got a tender heart, didn’t say no before it reached that point, and doesn’t want to embarrass him or others present.”
“I am. Call it intuition, whatever. I can see a problem coming, and as her friend, I’m worried. I don’t want that to be the decision point for her, that path of least resistance. I want her to have a future with the right man, like I have with Paul.” She smiled. “Rob might turn out to be a fine husband, and I think anyone getting Evie will have a very good wife, so it’s not doom-and-gloom ahead. I’m just concerned about something less than I would hope for her.”
“I kind of doubt Evie gets pushed into something this big unless she wants that direction.” He turned to stir the logs in the fireplace, added another one. “Though this topic does make me curious—did you ever consider declining Paul’s proposal?”
Ann didn’t answer for a long moment. “I thought seriously about declining, yes.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that from this vantage point.”
“My caution wasn’t about Paul, but about the necessary accommodations—on both sides—that being married would require. I’ve always functioned best with significant blocks of solitude. Paul loves me enough to still give me that time. The hours alone in the plane for the flight here today, the flight home tomorrow, are as important to our marriage as the fact I shared an early breakfast with Paul before I left this morning, and will be back to have dinner with him tomorrow evening.”
“You are at your best, Ann, when you are alone with God. That’s probably true of every Christian to one degree or another.”
She nodded her appreciation of the simple but profound truth. “It’s a fundamental fact about me. Had Paul not seen it, understood, and accepted what it meant, our marriage wouldn’t have been able to flourish. I don’t draw energy from being married, I draw energy from being alone, which I can then feed into my marriage. Cut the solitude out of my routine and I’m in trouble. It’s not the same degree with everyone, but for me it was core.” Ann paused for a moment. “That’s what I worry about when I look at Evie, that Rob hasn’t grasped the critical few things that make her who she is. She’s going to marry him, then struggle to make life work. I don’t want that for her, Gabe.”
He got up and lifted the gallon of ice cream out of the refrigerator, scooped generously, set two bowls on the table, and slid the container back in the freezer. He sat back into his chair before he answered. “I rather doubt Evie’s blind to the concerns you’ve mentioned, Ann. And if she hasn’t seen all the ways a marriage can go wrong, she’s no doubt seen the majority of them during her first years being a uniform cop on patrol. Trust her judgment, is my advice. I doubt she got to this point in her career without being willing to do hard things. I’m sure she’ll tell Rob no to a marriage proposal if that’s what she decides is best.”
“I hope that’s the case.”
Gabriel studied his friend as he dug into his ice cream. “A final comment and then we’ll leave the topic of Evie. When she’s wearing an engagement ring, but before the wedding ring, tell her your concerns once more. Until then, you’re writing the future. That’s something you’re gifted at doing, but it’s n
ot real yet. So let it set.”
“Let it set,” Ann repeated, scooping up another spoonful from her bowl. “Okay. Letting it set.”
Gabriel considered her a moment, smiled. “You’ll figure this out, Ann. There’s a reason God brought the two of you together to be friends.”
“Thanks for that.”
He ate more ice cream, his thoughts shifting to why she’d come over this evening. “All right, now tell me about Karen Lewis.”
“Before I do, is it your opinion the relationship between your brother and Karen is serious on Will’s part, and a good thing for him?”
Gabriel didn’t have to reflect on his answer. “Yes to both.”
“Then I’m going to tell you a story tonight, because Karen and I have talked at length today, and we’re in agreement that your opinion would be useful to have. But what’s said here stays with me, with Karen, possibly with Paul—no one else—until Karen comes to a decision about the situation. If a circumstance develops where security is a concern, if it’s an imminent safety issue, you tell anyone you feel is crucial for need-to-know.”
Gabriel studied her expression, having seen it on rare occasions in the past. Ann was about to give up one of her secret people, and she only did so with a great deal of reluctance. “Agreed.”
“Her name isn’t Karen Joy Lewis. It’s Karen Josephine Spencer. Three and a half years ago she was a line chef at a neighborhood restaurant in Chicago, one with a really good reputation for Italian cuisine. The couple who ran the business were killed after closing hours . . . stabbed to death. Karen saw the tail end of the murders, saw the man who did it, gave the police a sketch, picked him out of a lineup, testified at the trial. The jury didn’t believe her; they returned a verdict of not guilty. He walked away from a double murder, is now walking the streets a free man.”
Gabriel instantly knew where this was going and felt his stomach clench. Very few things bothered a cop more than the situation she just described. But he didn’t comment, choosing to let Ann give him the rest of the details first.
“His name is Tom Lander. He blames Karen for the loss of his reputation, his marriage, his business. At the time, he managed money for private clients, who promptly, wisely, moved their funds away from him. He’s a very dangerous man. He walked free on a double murder and he’s felt pretty invincible ever since. He found it amusing to set out to destroy Karen’s life, and he nearly succeeded. Saying he scared her doesn’t do justice to what happened. Paul and I got her out of Chicago, gave her a new name, a new age, for that matter—because it was only a matter of time before he would take her life. Since that trial he’s also killed his ex-wife. There’s no arrest yet on that stabbing, but it isn’t for lack of Chicago PD’s efforts to make the case.”
Not just a guilty man going free, but a violent one with a taste for payback. Gabriel had gotten to know Karen since she’d moved to Carin, and his opinion of her was rising with every word Ann said. She was young to have faced this, strong to have weathered it, war-toughened just as his brother had been, even though her fight had not been on a battlefield. No wonder Will found something in Karen that intensely attracted him. She was a realist with a strong backbone and a willingness to do what had to be done. Will would instinctively be drawn to that. It also was no doubt why Karen understood the combat-medic side of his brother.
“Lander’s still in Chicago,” Ann continued. “A friend keeps an eye on him for us. So far he has no idea where Karen has gone. Her family members and friends have had their homes broken into, laptops, phones, and phone records stolen, so we know he’s hiring people to find a lead.”
“That’s pretty aggressive on his part.”
“Very.” Ann shifted in her chair, her worry about the situation apparent. “Karen didn’t want to leave Illinois, so I chose Carin. It’s close enough that Paul and I can keep tabs, and if she needs to leave quickly, I’ve got the airport close by. She’s been able to relax here, to breathe again, and she’s not looking over her shoulder. Here she’s coming back from a deep, black hole. Having Will’s attention, the normalcy of a guy being nice to her, has literally helped save her. With Karen having to leave behind everyone she knew, cut ties to everything in her past, Will has given her something in the present to hold on to and rebuild around, which has been a lifesaver.
“The jury’s not-guilty verdict shredded something inside her, Gabriel. She told the truth, and she wasn’t believed. Add that on top of the horror of seeing the murders, and this young woman took the hardest hit I’ve seen a civilian take in recent years. When he walked free, it was like ‘Hell, Part Two’ closing in on her. She couldn’t turn around without him being there, watching her, following her, worse—walking up to her friends and introducing himself. He was toying with her, and we were going to get a call that she’d been stabbed to death.”
“You were right to get her out of there.”
Ann nodded. “Moving Karen was a drastic but necessary solution. This is behind Karen so long as Tom Lander doesn’t locate her. And if Karen one day marries Will, it buries her under another layer of name changes and public records. But if Lander finds her, it becomes a problem with its own dimensions. He’s not the type to move on, to forget a perceived wrong. He won’t let up if he locates her. He will harass her, spook her, terrify her in creative and insidious ways, and then do her physical harm, probably kill her. And I think I know your brother well enough to predict that Will moving away from here, starting over somewhere else with a new name for himself and his wife, is a lot less likely than Will finding a way to permanently stop Tom Lander from ever terrorizing his wife again. He’s got the training, the know-how.”
“And then we’d have another murder to deal with.” Gabriel shook his head, leaned forward to steeple his hands in front of him. “From Will’s perspective, the guy found her once, he’ll find her again, so end the problem for good,” he finished softy.
“Exactly,” Ann said. “Staying hidden for a year is different from staying hidden for five years, or ten. Something’s going to give this sanctuary away. Karen’s going to want to go back to Chicago to visit a family member in hospice care, attend a funeral or a wedding. She’ll eventually make contact with Chicago and leave a trail. Or Lander is going to get creative on how to find her, launch one of those social media campaigns, ‘help me find this woman,’ posting Karen’s last-known photo, and someone’s going to want the money and send a response, ‘I saw her yesterday in Carin, Illinois.’”
Ann’s expression turned more troubled. “There is no way to protect Karen from ever being found again. The only protection is to move her if she’s discovered. Maybe it’s next year, or five years from now, but the day will come when for her own safety and the safety of those around her, Karen needs to leave here and cut all her ties to Carin County. And if she’s married to Will, what’s the answer to that dilemma? What if she has a two-year-old daughter . . . ?” Ann didn’t try to finish the thought.
Gabriel was already there. “I’m running that story thread into the future, seeing those collisions too.”
“Karen wants a future with Will, she wants to be free of this, but there’s no answer that gives her that,” Ann said. “Until Tom Lander is in jail or dead, Karen and everyone she cares about is at risk.”
Gabriel absorbed that. “What does Karen need to hear from me, Ann?”
“Her question is simple. If she tells Will this story, says she doesn’t want to marry him because of it, will he accept that decision?” She hesitated, then added, “My read of it—she’s not going to marry him and take the risk that trouble could find her again and touch her new family. That’s her bottom line. Maybe she sees it differently in three years, five, but I don’t know. She’s not the first person I know to face this catch-22, and it has no real solution. For right now, she wants to stay here in Carin with Will as a friend, if she can do that without having to carry the burden of knowing he’s put his life on hold for her.”
“Okay.” Gabriel sai
d it quietly, mentally getting his arms around the problem. “Okay,” he breathed again. He’d been a cop a long time. He had lost his naïveté about the world years ago. Ann was right that there was no solution—at least no good one—to this problem. Tom Lander would do what he could, and Karen would have to respond in whatever way she could. Not pulling someone else into her problem was instinctive on her part. To the extent she could keep Will at arm’s length, a friend but no romantic entanglement, she could protect him should she need to again cut ties and drop out of sight. Gabriel understood how Karen had reached this point.
But he also knew Will was not a man easily shifted off his own course of thinking. Will hadn’t mentioned marriage in his casual conversations yet, he hadn’t changed direction in his plans for the next year, but it was clear to any who knew him well that he was carving out room in his life for Karen. When she walked into a room, his face would light up, and he’d often say softly, “There’s my girl.” His affection for her, his demeanor in public, was clearly staking a claim. It was clear to family and friends the relationship was deeply serious on his part.
Gabriel’s opinion of the two as a couple hadn’t changed with Ann’s news and the insights it gave. He’d thought last night Karen was right for his brother, and he still thought the same tonight. But how they could get past the implications of this was an enormous hurdle.
Ann rose to pour them the last of the coffee. “That’s the story, Gabriel, at least the highlights. I apologize that it got this complicated, that your family got pulled in, before I told you this. I was walking a narrow line on what was best for Karen. She needed this last year to heal, and I watched that happen in large part because of Will. I haven’t wanted to take her away from that. But it has reached a decision point. It may well be that the better course is not to tell Will. Instead, she simply tells him she’s not interested in pursuing the relationship further and he should look for someone else to date.”
Traces of Guilt Page 5