After All These Years

by Sally John

  Which was why she hadn’t called Tony. Blubbering wouldn’t communicate anything, and it seemed that was all she could do since reading the article he had faxed to her. Well, blubber and thank God.

  She would start with Brady and Gina. Brady had been the catalyst for Tony’s visit to Valley Oaks. He would get the first copy. If they weren’t at his house, she would leave the papers stuck in between the doors. Next she would drop a copy off at Celeste and Peter’s, and then at Cal’s.

  After that she would go home and blubber some more. She would reread the beautiful, haunting words of the article he had entitled “Just Come In.” It was an intriguing look at Brady’s stories, of their influence on readers. It was a human look at Saint Brady without the innuendoes or details of exposé. It was an honest representation of Christianity. His sister’s story was woven throughout.

  And it was all written from a broken heart where Jesus surely must be living now.

  Forty-One

  The wind almost whipped the pharmacy door from Lia’s grasp as she shut it behind her last customer. She turned the lock. It was one o’clock on Saturday, the end of a long week. Another long week. It was time to take stock again.

  She sat on the stool behind the front counter. Chloe was content in the back room. It didn’t seem to upset her the way it did Lia, who had even started parking her car on Fourth Avenue and using the front door exclusively.

  She knew Chloe lounged on a new rug with Soot, watching the little television Nelson had sent to make up for missing the father-daughter outing. His excuse had been work, which seemed to satisfy Chloe along with the TV.

  The store wasn’t what it had been. Merchandise was sparse on the shelves. The gift section was a quarter of what it had been, but she couldn’t afford to replace the Christmas items lost in the fire.

  She missed Dot. No, she didn’t miss Dot. She missed Dot’s help with prescriptions. Lia needed to hire and train someone new. Just today one of her regular customers highly recommended a friend who would soon be looking for a job. No, if she were staying, she would hire someone new. For now, she could manage.

  Next week a potential buyer planned to visit again. She was comfortable with that, with moving forward on the sale.

  They would live in Isabel’s house. She would shut down December 31, whether or not the business sold. Between Chloe’s school semesters in early January, they would leave Valley Oaks and move in with her parents. Temporarily. She was comfortable with all that.

  This day had been like most of her days in the store. The minutes stretched like a gold chain. Each customer, with a personal story of laughter or tears, was like a pearl or a precious stone attached to that chain. She felt as if she had to return the necklace to the jeweler. She wasn’t comfortable with that.

  Cal had strung a more precious kind of necklace through her world. But…but he would only break it again and again if she stayed. She wasn’t comfortable with that.

  The phone rang. She scurried to the back of the store, wishing she could afford an extension up front.

  “Hello?”

  “Lia, is Nelson there?” It was Cal.

  “Not yet. We’re meeting him at Isabel’s at two.” Chloe’s dad was coming to take her to Rockville for a movie and dinner. Lia wasn’t looking forward to that, but—

  “Listen carefully. I want you and Chloe to stay at the store. Lock the doors. Turn on the alarm and don’t let anyone in.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Lia.” His exasperation came through loud and clear. “Just trust me and don’t go meet him. I’m on my way from the courthouse.”

  “Cal! I will not disappoint her again—”

  “Mitch Conway just confessed that Nelson Greene paid him to discredit you and put you out of business. He wanted evidence that you were an incompetent guardian for Chloe. He’s got no business taking her—The point is, there’s a warrant out for his arrest. If he shows up at Isabel’s, we’ll pick him up there. Highway Patrol may find him first.”

  Lia’s knees buckled. “Cal!”

  “Honey, don’t panic on me now. I’m 20 minutes away. Just wait for me there. Please!”

  “We will.”

  “All right.” He hung up.

  Lia clung to the counter. Why had Mitch started the fire? Did Nelson want her dead? Chloe had been in Chicago that weekend. How convenient. But why the attack on Cal?

  “Aunt Lia, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh, Chloe.” How was she supposed to explain this to a child?

  Isabel jumped at the crack of thunder. Out here at the studio in the middle of acres and acres of farm fields, storms were always wild. It could be frightening, but she loved the intense display of God’s power.

  The lights flickered. No problem. The generator would kick in if the power went out. She knew her way around the workings of the station. The only problem was her own energy. She had been there since five that morning. If she wanted to drive she was free to go, leaving everything automatically programmed. But she wanted to stay. Even without the storm as an excuse, she probably would have stayed. It would be a good last day on the job, long hours of howling wind and talking into her microphone to familiar listeners. And she felt like talking since she couldn’t dance on the wind.

  The impact of Tony’s article still burst like the thunder and lightning. It was another type of an intense display of God’s power. She hadn’t been able to call Tony yet. She truly did not know what to say to him. She hoped he would call. But maybe he didn’t know what to say either. Perhaps it was all said in the unsaid.

  Lia had moved the stool to the front window. She sat as if glued to it and watched the storm. The bare trees in the town square across the street were almost bent double. The rain battered against the sidewalk, bouncing crazily. Streams ran along the curbs. An hour had passed since Cal called. He said he was 20 minutes away. She shivered. It was past two o’clock, the time they were to have met Nelson.

  Chloe had reacted badly. She yelled that Cal was making it all up; her daddy wouldn’t be mean. Lia had not told her details, just that Nelson was in trouble and wouldn’t be coming today. Cal had told them to wait at the store. She ran upstairs then, and Lia had heard her footsteps pounding into her bedroom.

  She wrinkled her nose now, thinking of Chloe burying her face in bedclothes that still smelled of smoke. Lia reconsidered going up to console her. Maybe she had calmed, but…she needed time alone to deal with it as best a nine-year-old could. Lia would step in later for damage control. Quite honestly, at the moment she didn’t think she was up to it. How could she have ever trusted Nelson? She knew better. She knew all along. She had known ever since Kathy became involved with him. He had promised he would always take care of Kathy, that he was leaving his wife. And then, while Kathy was being sick in the bathroom, nauseous in her pregnancy, he put the moves on her little eighteen-year-old sister out in the living room. Revulsion swept through her at the memory. There had been other occasions, Lia crushing his ego every time. The man probably truly hated her.

  To top it, he understood how to play the Neumans as the fools. “Fools for You, Lord. Where are You in this?”

  “Lia!”

  She cried out and leapt from the stool.

  Cal was striding up the center aisle, rain dripping from the rim of his deputy’s hat and short jacket. “I told you to lock the doors and set the alarm!”

  “I did!”

  “Well, I just walked right in. Where’s Chloe?”

  “Upstairs.” Their eyes met.

  Cal beat her to the staircase and flew up them two at a time. “Chloe! Chloe!”

  They frantically raced through the small apartment. Chloe and Soot were gone. Only her favorite stuffed animal—the red teddy bear she and Cal had won—remained, lying on her bedroom floor.

  “Oh, Cal! He took—”

  He grabbed her and held her tightly, the rain from his jacket soaking her lab coat. “No, no. We picked Greene up at Isabel’s. He’s in the back of
a squad car on his way to Twin Prairie. He can’t harm her now. Was she very upset?”

  She nodded against him.

  “She knew how to turn off the alarm. She’s just run off, mad at the world. She can’t be far. Maybe she’s back at Isabel’s. Or my house. She knows where I hide the key. Let’s go.”

  In less than five minutes they had roared in his cruiser halfway across town while he radioed in the situation and a description of Chloe. “Is she wearing her red jacket?”

  “And blue jeans. Black boots.”

  Together they dashed into Isabel’s house. Lia’s voice grew hoarse from shouting Chloe’s name.

  Cal grabbed a raincoat from a closet and draped it over her. “Come on. Let’s try my place.” He held her arm as they ran, sloshing through puddles that dotted the back yards.

  His two-story house took longer. There were more closets, more nooks and crannies. At last they huddled together in the kitchen and asked each other, “Where would she run to?”

  Lia said, “Mandy’s? I’ll call the Suttons and other—”

  “The phone lines are down.” He grasped her by the shoulders and leaned over to make eye contact. “Honey, the phone lines were down when I called you.”

  “Huh?”

  “God let me get through. He’s here. He’s in this. He protected you from going to Isabel’s. Are you with me?”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll find Chloe. All the fire volunteers heard the report. They’re out looking.”

  “In this storm?”

  “Yes. Listen, I want you to wait back at Isabel’s.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Chloe’s favorite place.”

  Lia couldn’t think straight. “Where’s that?”

  “It’s behind the Suttons.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “She told me once, over checkers. I’m sure that’s where she would go.”

  “I’m going too.”

  “No. She may show up back home.”

  “She’s my responsibility!”

  “She’s ours, Lia. I should have nailed this guy a long time ago and not let him hurt her or you. I’m sorry. You’ll only be in the way. I will find her. I promise. Your responsibility now is to pray.”

  Forty-Two

  Forty-five minutes outside of Rockville, Tony’s car radio picked up Izzy’s voice.

  That voice. The lilting tones were more musical than music itself.

  “The national weather service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning. That means it’s here, folks. It also means stay put. If you’re out driving, well, you shouldn’t be. Go home. If you’re not near home, find other shelter. The temperature is dropping. This rain may turn into sleet by evening. It looks like you’re stuck with me for the duration because I’m not driving in this. It’s 3:00. There’s a glorious display of God’s power right outside my window. Lightning is dancing across the sky. Unfortunately, all that power knocked out the phone lines. That means you can’t call in and complain—or keep me company. Enough chitchat. Let’s listen to some more music.”

  That answered the question of why he couldn’t get through with his cell to the station or her house. At least he knew where she was.

  The car hydroplaned. He eased his foot on the accelerator, both hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. This trip was going to take a lot longer than the 45 minutes to Rockville. Valley Oaks was another 30 minutes, the station ten minutes beyond that on a good day. If this storm kept up, he was looking at over two hours.

  “The first song we’re going to hear is from Margaret Becker. I’d like to dedicate it to a special friend who recently decided to ‘Just Come In.’ Welcome home, Tony.”

  A sensation flowed through him, an overwhelming, indefinable sensation that took his breath away. Did one ever get used to these surprises? Things like this had been happening right and left for over three weeks now. Things like selling the article in spite of its change of focus… The timing of picking up her broadcast… The words she spoke… That song… His world collided with the cosmic on a daily basis.

  Thank You, God.

  On top of everything, Izzy understood his article. But was it enough to keep her from moving to Mexico?

  He didn’t know. That’s why he kept driving through this horrendous thunderstorm, hoping sleet wouldn’t force him off the road. No, not hoping. Praying.

  Cal parked at the barn behind the Suttons’ old farmhouse on the edge of town. Neither of their cars were in the drive, but he spared two minutes to bang on their back door. It was locked and nobody answered. Typical Sutton family Saturday. They wouldn’t be home.

  He jogged around the barn and hit the grassy waterway that ran through the field. The rain still pelted him. The wind howled across the barren plain. Bits and pieces of cornstalks left behind by the combine swirled in the air. Thick clouds hung low in the sky, darkening the area as if it were evening.

  His lungs burned. His legs ached. His side throbbed. He was seriously out of shape.

  What hurt worse, though, was this love for a woman and her child. It was indescribably all-consuming. He never would have thought such feeling possible. He had searched for lost children before, but that was a mental process. This tore at his insides. If Chloe were hurt… If Lia was dealt that blow… If Lia left…

  He couldn’t think this way. Now he understood why you didn’t get personally involved with a case. Your brain shut down.

  But he knew where he was going because he knew how Chloe reasoned. He had been watching her up close now for three weeks.

  Her favorite place was also one of his favorites as a kid. This pathway veered down a hill, giving way to a meadow that was never planted. In the middle of the meadow stood a magnificent lone oak. At some point through the years, boys had nailed boards to its trunk, making a crude ladder up to the lowest limb. Cal remembered falling out of it one spring and breaking his arm. Fortunately, it hadn’t interfered with his sixth-grade football season.

  The reason the meadow was never planted was because it flooded. When the creek overflowed during heavy downpours, it gushed over its banks, and the meadow became a rushing stream, at times almost a river.

  He catapulted himself down the hillside now, the wind whipping away his shouts of “Chloe!”

  Squinting as he ran, he took in the scene at a glance. Like some giant cardinal, a red jacket caught his attention through the oak’s brown leaves. Bless Chloe and her favorite color. All runaways should wear red jackets. She wasn’t on the lowest limb. What was she doing? Dark water raced at the base of the tree, surrounding it 20 feet out. At least she was up in the tree.

  At least the lightning portion of the storm had moved from the area.

  Thank You, God.

  He calculated as he raced to the stream’s edge. How low had the creek been? Average. It had been a wet autumn. The meadow was probably saturated when the rain started. When had it started? A few hours ago. Last he heard two inches had fallen. The worst wouldn’t catch up to this area for a while. How had the ground shifted in the years since he’d been here? Ruts? Gullies? He didn’t know.

  But he knew he would wade into it.

  The ice cold water took his breath away as it rushed up over his boots.

  “Chloe!”

  “Cal!”

  “Stay put! Wait for me!”

  His right foot sank into a hole. The water whooshed at his thighs. He pressed on, and then he was out of it.

  He reached the tree, grasped a board, and climbed. Reaching the lowest limb, he heaved himself onto it and sat in the crook, his legs dangling. He looked up, panting.

  Chloe stood above him, two branches up, hugging the tree. The red hood of her parka was tied tight under her chin. “Cal, Soot won’t come down. Can you get her? She’s up there. See her? You can reach her. You’re tall enough.”

  Cal waited to catch his breath before replying. The words “hug” and “strangle” came to mind. Here she was, risking her life and
tearing out his heart and Lia’s, worried only about a stupid cat! “Chloe! Soot can take care of herself. We’ve got to get out of here right now, before the water gets any deeper!”

  “But she’s scared! Look at her!”

  Cal craned his neck. He could easily reach the kitten…if he climbed to where Chloe stood.

  Lord, is this what being a dad is all about?

  Forty-Three

  Isabel was in her element, no doubt about it. The storm raged outside. The satellite was down. National news was on hold. Her future—as in where she’d be living and working next month—was undecided.

  But she sang at the top of her voice, twirling through unoccupied rooms, looking out windows in every direction. She had her unseen, silent audience scattered about surrounding counties, a studio full of music, and the means to share it.

  And she had the letter from Chicago, addressed to her at the station’s post office box rather than the house. It waited in a pile of mail for the secretary to deal with on Monday. Nosy Mendozy had been snooping.

  And covering it all, like her silky pink security blanket of childhood, she had the knowledge that Jesus would work it out. Hadn’t He always?

  Headlights flickered now past a window, turning off of the highway. Who was out driving through this? The storm had tapered, but only within the last 15 minutes.

  A long set of songs had just begun playing; nothing required her attention. She hurried to the front door and saw through the glass someone approaching.

  Tony?

  Isabel unlocked the door. “Tony! What are you doing out in this?”

  He grinned. “You didn’t answer your phone.” 329

  “It’s out of order. Did you drive from Chicago? Here, give me your coat.” She took it and hung it on the coat tree in a corner.

  “The trip only took twice as long as normal. Didn’t seem that long, though. I’ve been listening to you. Great radio personality, Izzy.”

  She smiled back at him. “Thanks.”

  They stared at one another. Evidently he didn’t know where to begin either. “I heard the song.”