On the bunk, nothing stirred. Through eyes dull with shock, Dixie watched a finger of flame uncurl from Charlie’s chest; it crept snake-like down the length of the mattress, down Charlie’s length. Suddenly something took hold of Dixie--he'd say later it was God's hand--and he grabbed his own mattress from up top. Within seconds, he pulled it to the floor and shoved it over Charlie, pressing it down with his hands and then lying across it to smother the last of the flames.
Unholy screams filled the air. Were they him or Charlie? Dixie didn't know or care. The howling brought the guards. Clouds of smoke seemed to boil from the cell. The stench of gasoline and burned flesh and hair and bedding filled the barred concrete box. The cell door rolled open. Two guards rushed in and more were coming.
“What the hell went on in here?” one of the guards asked.
Others came and scooped Charlie onto a stretcher.
Dixie flattened himself against the wall and shook his head. Tears rimmed his eyes. “Is he going to be okay?”
The guard shrugged. “We'll get him to the infirmary. Get the doc to take a look.”
Dixie turned his face to the wall, bent his head against it. “I got to pray now, pray hard.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “You know there'll be an investigation.” The guard spoke slowly. Dixie knew he was one of the good ones. “You can tell me what happened, okay? It’ll go better for you if you do.”
Dixie closed his eyes, saw Sanchez’s face and Chapa’s. He hugged himself. “Don't know nuthin',” he whispered. “Didn't see nuthin'. Was asleep.”
“If he lives it'll be because of what you did--smothering the fire. That was a brave thing to do, Dixie. Real brave.”
Tears coursed down Dixie's cheeks. Not brave, he thought. Not brave at all. Should of stopped them. Should of kept them from hurting Charlie.
o0o
They weren't equipped to treat wounds as serious as his at Walker. So at a little past two AM on Saturday morning, Charlie was life-flighted to the burn unit at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston. He wasn't expected to live. He knew that.
Knew more than they would have thought, earth-bound as they were. He'd escaped his body on arrival at the hospital, abandoned that suit of battered bone and charred flesh that lay stretched on a gurney in the ER. He’d watched them perform CPR--twice--from a vantage point below the ceiling. He could clearly hear the doctor and a couple of nurses, who'd been called in to treat him, talk as if he were already a corpse. And not much of a loss either.
“He's as stable as he's going to get for now.” The nurse who spoke eyed a monitor close to where Charlie's blackened carcass lay. “You ask me, this is a waste of the taxpayer's money.”
“One of the officers who flew with him said he's in for murder. Some woman up in Wither Creek.” The other nurse supplied the information as she fiddled with an IV drip, thumping the line a few times.
“Well, if he lives, I'll be surprised. Whoever smoked him wanted him to die.” A doctor spoke casually as he wrote on a chart.
“You believe in the death penalty, Doctor?”
“Yeah. But I don't mind if these outlaws want to save the state the trouble.”
The first nurse laughed. “You're an Old Testament kind of guy, huh? Believe in an eye for an eye.”
“Amen, sister,” the doctor answered.
Charlie might have added his own amen, but at that moment, he felt himself slammed back into the charred shell of the body on the gurney. Awareness of his agony extended in radiant circles; his breath expelled in a shrill bark of pain, and then everything went dark.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
It was late when Jane and Tim returned from their evening out. Arm in arm, they climbed the stairs to her apartment. Her heels and an umbrella dangled from his hand. Turning at the door, she shushed him. “I'm not supposed to have a man in here this late.”
“So, come back to my place.”
“I don't think I should.”
“Why not?” he asked, and in the dim yellow glow of the porch light, she could see the glint of mischief in his eyes, the soft tenderness. His look of mock innocence made her laugh.
She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Too much champagne,” she said.
He handed her shoes to her and traced a pattern on her cheek with his index finger. “You had two glasses, hours ago.”
“You kept me busy dancing.” Her gaze held his.
“I'd like to keep you busy the rest of your life.” His voice was soft.
“Tim, you know I'm not--”
“You don't know if you are,” he said. “You could as easily not be married. It's been three months. You need, you deserve to get on with your life.”
She bristled. “You don't want me to get my memory back, do you?”
“I think we have memories, you and I, and we could have more, if you’d let us.”
Jane looked across the darkened yard.
He said, “If we were married, you'd have a real name and a first class lawyer to help you win custody of Belle. Say you'll think about it.”
She put her hand on his arm, feeling the fine-textured wool of his coat sleeve beneath her fingers. He held her gaze and bent toward her. She dropped her shoes and clung to him as he kissed her, losing herself completely in what seemed an endless spill of urgent need. She was like a woman drinking greedily from a well after weeks of thirst.
Tim's response deepened as he felt her open to him. He kept her within the curve of one arm. But the touch of his fingers dragged fire from her cheek to her breasts, over the flat plane of her belly, the bone of her hip. His touch conveyed his adoration. He covered her eyes and cheeks with feathery kisses, tasted her neck, the lobes of her ears. She pushed her hands beneath his coat, but it wasn't enough. She wanted the feel of his skin on hers and began yanking his shirt.
“Come home with me.” His voice was husky against her ear.
Home. The word ruffled her mind and caused her to become still. Home. Wind in the pines. Deep porch and all her dolls lined up on the swing. Images crashed into her brain, dark cartwheeling shapes, terrifying, too quick to catch. She backed out of Tim's embrace, stumbling, hands clapped to her head. “Stop oh please stop,” she whispered.
“Jane?” Tim held her elbow, steadying her. “What’s happening?”
“Something's coming in here.” She jabbed her temples, moved her hands to her mouth, did a pirouette, a tight circle of pain. She felt sick with horror, a sense of impending doom.
“You're remembering, is that it?”
“I don't know. Yes, I think so.” She began to tremble.
He took her key, opened the door, took her inside and settled her on the couch. “I'll make coffee.”
And in the time it took him to say, “I'll make coffee,” the whole of it dropped into her mind. Just like that.
He paused in the kitchen doorway as she began to speak in a halting voice. “It was night ... late. I was asleep. The storm woke me up. The lightning ... thunder so loud. Mama ... ohmyGodMama....” The horrible memory of everything she had seen that night bent her over her knees. “I can't do this. Can't do it.”
Tim sat beside her, and pulling her into his embrace, he crooned softly to her and rocked her as if she were a child.
“Belle is mine.” Beth’s voice was muffled against his chest. “Christabelle. Her name is Christabelle, but we call her Chrissy, and she's three and a half, almost four by now.” She pulled out of his arms. “I want to go get her. Oh, my God, she's been so scared. I can't stand to think of it.” Sick with shame, she closed her eyes. How could she have let it happen? How could she have forgotten Chrissy? Her own child, her own darling girl?
“It's the middle of the night.”
She looked at Tim, and his gaze was baffled, concerned. She thought he must be searching for her name, and she supplied it. “Beth. My name is Beth.” She rose, crossing her arms, then as suddenly she flung them apart. “I don't know what to do, where to start. I have to get Chrissy. That's first
.”
“Beth what?”
“Clayton.” She stooped to right her heels, slipped her feet into them. Where was her purse? “Cunningham,” she added.
Tim looked bewildered again.
“I'm married.”
“But you don't have a ring.” He pointed out the lack to her as if a piece of jewelry was what it took.
“I left it on the sink in the bathroom at home.” She glanced at him, frowning as the memory returned, describing it for him as it unfolded in her mind. “I always take it off when I give Chrissy a bath,” she said, and then with a half smile, she added an explanation, “I nearly lost it once right after she was born. Charlie had to take apart the drain.”
She stopped, the off-hand affectionate tone of her voice striking a discordant note, raising heat in her cheeks, a sand of memory and emotion that she couldn't deal with now. She said, “Where is my purse?”
“Charlie's your husband?” Tim was watching her, his expression quietly grave.
“Yes.” Beth overlooked the mental landscape of her recollection. What had been so obscure only minutes ago seemed surprisingly clear now. “I didn't pick up my ring. I went downstairs to talk to Mama.” She looked into the middle distance. “If only I’d told him about Jason right then, maybe-- But I thought he'd hate me.”
“Hold on,” Tim said. “Who’s Jason?”
“It's my fault.” Beth paced a short path. “He walked out, and Mama's dead; Jason killed her, because of me.”
“Who is Jason?” Tim repeated.
“My stepfather. Oh God.” Beth dropped to the couch. “You've got to help me. I'm in real trouble.”
“I want to, but I'm pretty confused. Can you take a deep breath and tell me how all this started?”
“You don't know what you're asking.”
“Try me.”
So Beth did, beginning with the nights Jason came into her room. “He’d wait until Mama passed out, and then he’d come and lie down with me and tell me how lonely he was. He touched me and said I was beautiful; he said what he was doing was all right. 'Your mama doesn't care,' he said.”
“How old were you?” Tim asked.
“Sixteen the first time. It was right after he and Mama married.” Beth went to the apartment window and through her own reflection, she saw his image, Jason's image form from the darkness of her fear. It printed itself on the glass, and she shivered. Now another image began to form of Jason and Mama on the stairs, and Beth turned from it, speaking quickly, desperate not to see. Confession of her own disgrace was preferable, and in one corner of her mind, she wondered if, like Charlie, Tim would despise her too. Would he leave her, the way Charlie had?
She said, “I hated Mama for marrying Jason. He’s almost young enough to be her son, and he’s good looking, too, you know, so people talked. I was ashamed of her. Jealous. I wondered why she needed him when she had me.”
Beth paused. She could sense Tim waiting, giving her the right to continue at her own pace. She knew because of the sort of lawyer he was that he was accustomed to hearing terrible stories, probably even worse stories than hers, all of them told to him in confidence. If she kept her back to him, he seemed almost anonymous. And so far, he showed no sign of leaving. Maybe that was why she could admit the most shameful part.
“I--I was attracted to him,” she said, “and I hated myself for it as much as I hated my mama for not stopping it.”
“You told her?”
“Yes, but she didn't believe me, not until the day I had to tell her I was pregnant.” Beth faced Tim now. Slightly widened eyes seemed to be his only reaction to the news that she had once carried her stepfather's child. Until now, Maizie and her mama were the only ones who had known. Beth bound her chest with her arms. “Mama blamed me; she said I was teasing Jason. She said I wouldn’t be happy until I broke up her marriage.”
“Did you have the baby? Is Belle, I mean, is Chrissy--?”
“Jason wanted to keep it. He had some crazy idea he would divorce Mama, and marry me, and the three of us could be a family.”
“What happened?”
“Mama brought me here to Houston for an abortion. All very hush hush. I couldn't live in the house after that, so as soon as I graduated, I left. Mama made Jason promise he'd leave me alone, but I knew he wouldn't. I knew he'd come to my bed every time Mama was drunk and couldn't give him what he wanted.”
“You were just a kid.” Tim came and took her into his arms. “He took advantage of you. I don't know what to say about your mother, except drinking twists people, makes them careless, makes them do stupid things they would never do if they were sober.”
“Mama tried to tell me she was sorry, but I wouldn’t listen, and now she's gone. I just can’t believe it.” Beth choked. Sorrow was a bone in her throat. There were no tears; she was dry, undeserving of release, of forgiveness.
Tim lifted her chin. “You said Jason killed her. Did you see what happened? Were you a witness? Did he come after you, hurt you?”
Tim’s questions were too huge and filled Beth with such terror. She made herself breathe; it was a conscious effort not to black out.
He led her back to the couch, settled her down gently, and when he asked, she told him what she remembered about the night of her mama’s murder. She described leaving Maizie’s cabin and making a run for it. “I remember falling now; I hit my head.”
“That crack on your skull and the shock cost you your memory.” Tim held her hand on his knee, absently smoothing his thumb across her knuckles.
“I have to get Chrissy now and then see about Maizie.”
“It's the middle of the night. You can't just go over to the Pearson's and take her. You're going to have to prove you're her mother.”
“How can I do that?”
“You need her birth certificate.”
“It's at the farm with the rest of our things.”
Tim glanced at his watch. “Well, there's nothing we can do until morning. Really, I doubt anything can happen until the weekend’s over.”
“I can't wait that long! Chrissy's my daughter. She's been left with strangers long enough.”
“Maybe you should see your doctor first.”
“Why? What can he do? At least I can go to the farm tomorrow and get Chrissy’s birth certificate. I’ll look in on Maizie, too.” Beth bit her lip. “What if Jason's there?” She was thinking out loud. “I can't let him see me.”
“I know a lawyer in Wither Creek. Bert Jessup. I don't think much of him, but since he lives in the area, maybe he’ll know something about what’s happened.” Tim scooted to the edge of the couch. “You do realize you have to go to the police.”
“No,” she said, leveling a hard stare at him. “No police. Especially not those deputies in Wither Creek. They’d go straight to Jason. He wants to kill me, Tim. My God....” Her certainty of this was solid, as solid as her fear.
“What about Maizie?” Tim asked. “She must have talked to the cops by now. Jason could be in jail.”
“She was so weak,” Beth said, remembering how she’d left the old woman bedridden and frail. “Her heart’s not good.”
“Can you call her?”
“She doesn’t have a phone.”
Tim took her hand again and wove his fingers in with hers. “Maybe this is none of my business, tell me to butt out if you want, but what about your husband? You said he left. But what if he came back that night? He must be out of his mind with worry.”
“He can’t be too concerned. Obviously he’s never filed a missing persons report, not even for his own daughter.”
“Well, with the memory loss and the confusion about names, isn’t it possible--?”
Beth shook her head.
“You think he left for good. Is that it?”
“Yes. That’s it.” She spoke to her knees.
Tim touched her cheek. His gaze held her, a tender visual embrace. “None of what happened was your fault beginning with the first time that sick bastard cam
e into your room. Your husband was wrong if he left you because of it.”
Beth stood up, chafing her upper arms as if she could rub away the chill that had penetrated her to her core. “I can’t think of anything now except Chrissy. Do you know what the procedure is to get her back, after I get her birth certificate, I mean?”
“There'll be a hearing. The judge will ask to see the documentation.”
“Another hearing?”
“I'll be there whatever it takes, however long it takes; I’ll be there for you.”
Her heart turned over. She started to say she couldn't promise she would be there for him in the end, assuming there was an end, but as if he read her misgiving, he stood up and raised his fingertip to her lips. She closed her eyes, felt his kiss on each lid, the loosening feathery tickle of mutual desire. He tilted her chin, kissing the corners of her mouth, but he lifted himself away from her before they could abandon control.
He offered to stay with her. “As a friend,” he said, “I'll sleep on the couch.”
But it was late, and she refused, pleading a need for time alone to think.
Later, dressed in sweats and an over-sized T-shirt, she stood in the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Stared as if she had never seen herself before.
“Beth,” she spoke her name, grappling with the enormity of what “Beth” had awakened to, the person who “Beth” was. She left the bathroom and walked through the darkened apartment to the kitchen. Small, three rooms, not much different than the ones she'd lived in with Chrissy and Charlie.
Had he come back that night? Or kept going....
While she'd been running through the woods praying to make the road, praying to bring herself and their child to safety, had he been putting as many miles as he could between them? Did he know what had happened to her? How had he found it possible to leave Chrissy?
Beth leaned against the countertop, fighting to keep her mental balance. The sense of herself still seemed soft, mushy and off-center. She went back to the bedroom, and crawled into bed. But not to sleep. She couldn't stop seeing Jason, couldn't blind herself to the awful montage of scenes that rose in her brain from that night. Maybe the memories were a mistake. She pored over each resurrected detail, but added together, they kept playing to the same hideous end: Mama bleeding and dying at the foot of the stairs where Jason had tossed her as if she were nothing more to him than an old rag doll.
The Last Innocent Hour Page 17