All That Remains

by Janice Kay Johnson

She doubted that had even crossed her mother’s mind. “No.” She cleared her throat. “She didn’t suggest it.” Her life must seem so pathetic to him.

  He was frowning slightly. “Good. I was afraid she’d try to talk you into it.”

  “No. She did say James called looking for me the day I left. She hasn’t heard from him since.”

  “So he hasn’t come knocking on her door.”

  “I think he’s here,” Wren said, in a small, tight voice.

  “Yeah. I do, too.”

  He stepped toward her, but on a flare of anguish she stepped back.

  “I think I’ll go to bed. I’ve got to sleep while Abby does, you know.”

  There was a brief pause. “Go on,” he said, sounding gentle in that way he had. Tender, even, although that was probably her own wishful thinking. “Sleep tight.”

  She stood very still for a moment, wondering if he’d intended to take her into his arms. Hold her tight, comfort her. Part of her wanted that, yearned for it. The more sensible part—and, mostly, she was sensible, because she’d been raised to be that, too—knew it was better if she didn’t let Alec hold her, because that would only make leaving harder.

  “Good night,” she said, and left him. Alone, as he’d been before she came, and would be again after she was gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “YOU DEFINITELY SPOKE to your brother?”

  “Yes.” The young woman’s face was flushed with relief. She’d been lying curled on her side staring into space when Alec reached her cot in the shelter. “I was so scared. But it turned out he’d driven all the way to Beebe and couldn’t get back after the flood. Neither Mama nor I have a cell phone, but he finally reached a neighbor.”

  Alec smiled. “Good. I’ll cross him off our list of potentially missing persons.”

  He moved on to the next cot and asked the same questions. He checked the names of individuals here in the shelter as well as the names of family members against the list of missing persons. He asked about neighbors and close friends, as well. By the time he had made his way through the shelter set up in the community room of the First Baptist Church, he’d drawn a decisive line through four names on the list.

  Unfortunately, he’d added two more names with question marks.

  The lists were slowly shrinking. Each night volunteers correlated them. People were popping up all over the county, or, as with Ginny Griffith’s brother Judd, had been out of the reach of the flood entirely.

  Alec had yet to identify any of the three bodies in the morgue, however. He wasn’t looking forward to having to bring family members to view the remains in hopes of identifying them.

  Alec could see his breath when he walked out of the church. The clearing weather had brought a cold snap that was increasing the misery of people who were still inadequately housed. He turned up the heat in his Tahoe and sat waiting for the engine to warm up. Dogged all day by a headache, he wasn’t in the best of moods.

  He swore Abby had woken every hour and a half all night long. He wasn’t even the one who had to get up with her, but his eyes would snap open and he’d lie there tense until the soft sounds across the hall told him Wren was lifting her unhappy daughter from the well-padded drawer that was serving as makeshift crib and talking to her. Then he’d start wondering if she was nursing, and if so whether she simply bared her breasts when she was alone in the night. Was she rocking Abby in the walnut rocker that had been in Great-Aunt Pearl’s room as long as he could remember? Or did she take the baby into bed with her, and lie on her side smiling sleepily at her suckling daughter?

  The worst part for him was wishing he was in that bed with them, helping position Abby and guide her mouth to her mommy’s nipple the way he had in the attic. Staring into the dark, he’d remember the mixture of tenderness and lust he had felt then until his body hardened and sleep retreated beyond hope of him achieving it.

  Oh, he’d slept eventually—for half an hour, an hour, when the baby’s cries had startled him awake again to start the cycle.

  He didn’t think he’d ever been so tired in his life, and that was saying a lot, given the grueling week he’d lived through. Frequently interrupted sleep was more torturous than no sleep at all, as far as he was concerned.

  When he’d asked Wren this morning if she thought Abby was getting sick, she’d shaken her head. She looked exhausted herself.

  “She’s not warm, and she settled fine every time I picked her up. I don’t know why she was so restless. If she gets feverish or anything today, though, I have the number of the pediatrician who saw her at the hospital.”

  “You shouldn’t have gotten up for me,” he told her, but she ignored him and flipped the pancakes.

  She’d been quiet this morning. Actually, it had started after she spoke to her mother. Wren liked to talk, but he hadn’t been able to get anything more from her beyond the basics. Her mother hadn’t suggested she come home. James had called. She was sending money.

  He couldn’t tell if Wren was disappointed, hurt, indifferent. He knew she hadn’t raised her voice when she was on the phone—he would have heard that—so they must not have argued. All he knew was that Wren had retreated inside herself. Not so obviously that he could press her for answers, but the blank way she looked at him reminded him of how she’d been when he cut her off so sharply because she was asking questions about his girls he hadn’t wanted to answer.

  He guessed her mother had hurt her.

  None of his business. Wren had already made it clear that she and her mother didn’t have a close relationship. She was an adult who must have mostly come to terms with it. Maybe it had gotten to her last night because of her circumstances. Most of the flood victims he was seeing had family they could turn to. Despite having a mother, Wren was as alone as anyone he’d ever met. Alone except for a newborn, utterly dependent on her.

  And him.

  Panic moved in his chest at the thought. He’d shut down these past months, told himself he was done with the kind of involvement that meant someone depended on him long-term. He couldn’t do it again. He simply couldn’t.

  Find her friend Molly.

  Yeah, in his spare time.

  His cell phone rang and he reached for it instantly, his heartbeat quickening. What if Abby was sick? But the number was his sergeant’s, not his own home phone.

  “Harper,” he said.

  “Where are you?” Pruitt asked.

  “Just leaving First Baptist. Why?”

  “I’ve got Colt Burgoyne here. His father’s been missing since day one.”

  Alec reached for his clipboard and saw the name immediately. Donald Burgoyne.

  “They got word his pickup’s been found. Empty. Colt says his father set out for the feed store. He was sure he could get there and back before any flooding.”

  “And he didn’t make it.”

  “His father’s fifty-six years old. Brown hair, some arthritis in his hands. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, carpenters pants, lace-up work boots.”

  “Oh, hell,” Alec said softly. There wasn’t much doubt that one of the bodies in the morgue was Donald Burgoyne. “Can you ask Colt to meet me at the hospital? He’ll have to make a positive ID.”

  “I’ll send him. Damn,” his sergeant said. “I’ve known Donald most of my life. I was hoping—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Alec met the son at the hospital and remained present when Elijah Bailey pulled out the sliding steel drawer and folded back the sheet to expose the face.

  The stocky farmer, about Alec’s own age, recoiled, swallowed, swallowed again and said in a stifled voice, “That’s him.”

  “You’re certain?” Dr. Bailey asked. “Let me show you the mark on his shoulder—”

  “It’s a birthmark.” Colt retreated a step. His unwilling gaze stayed on his father even as his Adam’s apple bobbed a couple of more times.

  Alec gripped his shoulder and led him away. “Let’s go sit down.”

  Colt stumbled
, his head turned to allow him to keep staring. Not until the drawer slid closed did he dash at his wet eyes and follow Alec from the room.

  “If he wasn’t so damn stubborn. We had enough feed to hold out, but he wouldn’t listen. Never would.”

  Hell of an epitaph, Alec thought, letting Colt talk about his father. A good man, but rigid.

  “My Kylie softened him some.” Colt’s eyes focused briefly on Alec, as if he’d remembered he had a listener. “Kylie’s my wife. And we’ve got a little boy, too, Damien. Light of my father’s life.”

  He wept some, then finally pulled himself together enough to sign the necessary papers and leave with the promise that he’d have the body transferred to the funeral home today if possible.

  One down, two to go, Alec thought wearily.

  He was still in the hospital basement when his phone rang again.

  “Are you avoiding me?” his sister demanded the minute he answered.

  “I’m a little busy.”

  “Too busy to stop by for five minutes?” Her voice held a sting—anger and the potential for tears, neither of which he believed in, neither of which he could ignore. “We were scared to death when you went missing.”

  He knew exactly what she was trying to do and wouldn’t have had any problem resisting if he hadn’t had to watch Colt mourn his father. Alec sighed and looked at his watch.

  “Wren will have dinner on. But I can come by now.”

  “Fine,” Sally snapped, then hung up.

  Swearing, Alec drove to his sister’s place, which irked him every time he saw it. As much as he loved Sally and his two nieces and nephew, he didn’t like to come here.

  The house didn’t have a foundation—it sat on concrete blocks. The couple of steps to the front door lacked a handrail. Paint peeled, a new roof was ten years overdue—or tearing down the whole place was ten years overdue, depending on your point of view. The yard had been nice—Sally was a gardener. The huge vegetable garden out back would have been fallow, so it would be less painful to look out, but the lawn and flower beds were under a thick sludge. Not much had been done to remove it. The handlebars and front tire of one of the girls’ bikes showed above the crusted top of the mud.

  Angry, he parked on the street and stomped up the walkway—which had been shoveled although more mud had oozed onto the cracked concrete—to the door.

  Sally came to the door with Evan ensconced on her hip. His sister had been an exceptionally pretty woman with dark hair and blue eyes like his, white skin and a leggy, curvaceous body that had boys panting after her from fifth grade on. She was still good-looking, but three children had thickened her waist, her hands looked ten years older than she did, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her wear makeup or do anything fancier than put her hair in a ponytail.

  She met his glower with a grin. “Nice to see you, too.”

  “This place looks like hell.”

  “Not any different from the neighbors’.”

  Most of the houses on the street were run-down. Some were rentals, some were owned by young families scrabbling for economic survival.

  He’d offered Sally and Randy Great-Aunt Pearl’s house after Mom died. He still couldn’t believe they’d said no.

  “Una Alec.” His two-year-old nephew beamed and stretched chubby arms to him.

  “Hey, Ev.” Alec reached for him and Sally let go. Evan wrapped his arms around Alec’s neck and, carrying him, Alec followed his sister inside. He did his best to ignore the familiar stab of pain he felt at seeing his sister’s kids. “Thanks for the baby stuff. It’s been a big help.”

  “There was nothing I’ll need again.” Sally took Evan and set him on the floor. “Listen, Maribeth just put The Little Mermaid in. Do you want to watch it?”

  He trundled off to join his sisters in the small living room. Alec might have followed to say hi to his nieces, except Sally planted her hands on her hips and said, “Okay, why do you have a stick up your butt today?”

  “Where the hell is Randy?”

  Her expression hardened. “Helping out friends who are worse off than we are. Which is exactly what he should be doing.”

  Thinking of that dumb-ass grin and the beer can casually snatched out of the air, Alec unclenched his teeth. “Ever occur to him to put his own family first?”

  “Have you heard me complain? Even once? Maybe we don’t have the standard of living you think we should, but we own our own home, we have enough to eat and we’ve got three great kids. Randy holds a job and brings home a paycheck, he makes me laugh and he’s good with his children.” Her voice had been rising as she went. By the end she was yelling. “So you tell me. What’s so wrong with him?”

  “He’s a loser, that’s what!” Alec yelled back. “He’s lazy and self-centered. Open your eyes, Sally.”

  “Mama?”

  Both adults swung toward the kitchen doorway. Six-year-old Maribeth stood there, eyes alarmed.

  “Why are you mad, Mama?”

  Sally’s gaze skewered Alec, then she smiled at her daughter and said, “For the same reason you get mad at Amanda and Evan. Because Uncle Alec is my brother and sometimes he’s such a jerk I can’t believe it.”

  The little girl’s expression was still anxious, but her body language loosened. “Do you ever want to hit him, the way I wish I could hit ’Manda sometimes?”

  “Frequently,” her mother assured her. “But he’s bigger than me, so I have to yell at him instead.”

  She was rewarded by a tiny giggle.

  Alec went over, swooped up Maribeth and smacked a kiss on her cheek. “Ignore us, Maribeth Wonder. I’m a policeman, which means I have to be polite even to sleazebags. When I can’t be nice even for another minute, I come see your mom.”

  She giggled some more, went for a reassuring hug from her mother, then returned to the living room and the movie. Sally and Alec were left staring at each other.

  “You could have done better,” Alec said flatly.

  “Oh, get out of here. I don’t even know why I wanted to see you.”

  He found a smile creeping onto his mouth despite everything. “Because you love me?” He took a step closer to her.

  She snorted. “Yes, but why? That’s the part I can’t figure out.”

  “I’m a good guy.”

  Her eyes were softer, but her mouth twisted. “So is Randy.”

  He opened his mouth, but after a moment closed it.

  “Smart,” she murmured, when he only leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

  “Of course I am.” He managed a grin, and left.

  “YOUR RENTAL CAR got towed into town today,” Alec told Wren the next day. He called at least a couple of times every day. Sometimes he actually had news. Mostly, she thought he was checking up on her, which caused an uneasy mix of emotions in her.

  She liked that he wanted to be sure she was okay. It was so Alec, a part of his protective nature. She really, really liked talking to him.

  But Wren couldn’t help remembering that James, too, had called her several times a day. At first she’d been flattered, thinking he missed her. Wasn’t it sweet that he wanted to know what she was up to? Eventually she’d realized it wasn’t sweet at all. He timed his calls randomly. If she didn’t answer the phone and produce answers to his questions that pleased him, he’d get ominously quiet and later come home sullen. He didn’t want her going out, doing anything she hadn’t cleared in advance with him. That was part of what made escaping at the end so hard. What if he raced home because she hadn’t answered the phone, and he caught her before she could get away?

  Alec’s calls were different. Wren knew they were. But then she wondered if he thought she was so incompetent, so incapable of taking care of herself and Abby, that he had to check constantly to make sure she was all right?

  She gusted a sigh she hoped he didn’t hear. He probably didn’t think any such thing. She was one thinking it.

  At least this was one of those calls when he actually d
id have some news.

  “I don’t suppose the rental company will be happy about the condition I’m returning it in.”

  “That’s safe to say.” There was a smile in his voice.

  “Should I call to let them know the car has shown up?”

  “Already done. The insurance adjuster will take a look. It’ll be totaled.”

  She didn’t like thinking about the car. About squeezing out the window and being pressed against the door by the powerful current. After a moment, she asked, “Nobody’s found my suitcase or my purse?”

  “God only knows where they ended up. Can’t imagine either stayed intact. One good thump, and the suitcase would’ve popped open.”

  Wren cringed, picturing her underwear embedded in the sludge in someone’s yard.

  “Did you drop off the clothes I packed up?”

  “Yes, and the shelter workers were thrilled. Thank you, Wren.”

  “My pleasure,” she told him, and meant it. She’d been glad to spend part of yesterday going through his mother’s and Pearl’s things, placing them in black plastic bags. The part she’d liked best was how cleansing her efforts had felt. That was a good word, she decided. Alec’s closet and bedroom looked like they might actually belong to him now. She’d spread out his suits and shirts on the rod a little, so they weren’t squeezed at one end like a shy kid at a birthday party who knew no one wanted him there. It couldn’t possibly have been healthy for him to have to see his mother’s shoes and clothes every time he reached for his own. Even if he hadn’t felt emotionally ready to sort through her possessions, she thought he would have at least packed them into boxes so he didn’t have to look at them.

  Face it: what she’d liked was feeling that she’d done something worthwhile for him.

  She wondered what he’d say if she suggested he think about tackling the living room the same way. He couldn’t possibly like Pearl’s porcelain dust-collectors. Wren thought some of the figurines might be worth selling on eBay, if Alec wanted to go to that much trouble. Or he could donate them to a nonprofit and let them do the work while he took a tax write-off.