Melanie almost forgot her reason for seeking out the story in the first place as she studied verse after verse. From what she could discern, it appeared that Rahab was honored for her actions because they stemmed from her faith in the one true, living God and from her desire to protect spies she knew would soon occupy the land in the name of that God.
A strange thought occurred to Melanie. Was Joel a spy? She dismissed the idea immediately. How absurd. What could a spy possibly hope to accomplish working as a Christian education director in a small church in an obscure Missouri town?
Still, the thought niggled at her. Something did not fit with the entire scenario. No matter how objective she was, no matter how logical the facts seemed, she could not make the Joel she knew into the kind of man who embezzled money from his church while he went out of his way to return two dollars to a hot dog vendor. It certainly wasn’t enough to exonerate Joel. She could almost hear her brother’s derisive laughter if she were to relay that idea to him in an effort to clear Joel’s name. Matt would probably tell her that Joel’s action was just another way he had deceived her into believing that he was someone he was not. And perhaps that was so. Why then, did a measure of peace fill her heart now? Somehow, she knew—knew in a place deeper and more trustworthy than her human mind—that Joel could never have done the things they accused him of.
Besides, as she’d told Matthew more than once, if it really was about money, the truth was that Joel had stood to gain far more than fifteen thousand dollars by marrying her. With her comfortable salary and her share in By Design, they would never have wanted for anything.
But if it wasn’t the money, it had to be something else. Something had compelled him to leave Silver Creek. Something she couldn’t begin to imagine. And in that moment, she knew that whatever it took, she must find him and learn the truth.
Twenty-Three
Joel Ellington lay in the too-soft bed of his furnished apartment staring at the ceiling. Outside, a January wind howled and the furnace kicked on with a clank. How much longer could he live this way? He’d spent months in a hellish limbo, going through the motions, waiting. Waiting to testify at a trial that might as well have been his own.
Exhausted, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But slumber came with difficulty. Vivid pictures from the past swirled before him. And as she had in so many nightmares, Victoria appeared again.
In a half-conscious stupor, his mind followed a snarled thread of disjointed memories from a long ago night. Finally he slept, and the memories melted into the dream.
He was back in the restaurant trying to comfort Tori in the aftermath of the brutal murder. Everything around them was chaos.
“It’s all right, Tori. They’ll get him. He couldn’t have gone too far. But … they’ll probably want to question us.” He swung his head in the direction of the police officers who were directing emergency crews to the table where the dead man sat, still eerily upright in his chair.
A policewoman began steering people to the front of the restaurant. They were like sheep being herded into a pen, some bleating loudly, others mute, obviously still in shock.
He led Tori along, guiding her with one hand at the small of her back. Her dress was damp with perspiration, and he could feel her shudder with each breath she took.
The interrogation took place in the restaurant’s small office, and it lasted for almost two hours. Only four people had actually seen the gunman. The dead man’s dining partner had still not appeared, but each of the other witnesses had been asked to recount their story separately, away from the hearing and influence of the others. No one was allowed to leave until each had privately given his or her version of the events of the gruesome evening.
By the time he and Tori got back to his car in the nearly empty parking lot it was after midnight. A long black limousine was parked near the curb in front of the restaurant. The dead man’s car? Or his fellow diner’s? Even the rich aren’t immune to tragedy, he thought as he turned his little Mazda onto the city street. The thought of the restaurant’s wealthy clientele reminded him that his wallet still held the wad of cash he had been saving for weeks to pay for this dinner. He held the steering wheel with one hand and retrieved his wallet from his back pocket. With a morbid attempt at humor, he riffled through the bills. “Do you think I should go back and pay our tab? Maybe leave a nice tip?”
Victoria burst into tears.
“Oh, Tori! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking about it.” He glanced at her and saw that she was trembling and pale. Easing the car to the side of the road, he shifted into park, and took her in his arms.
“Hey, hey …” he crooned, holding her close. “It’s all right. Everything is fine now. God was watching over us. We’re safe. Everything’s okay.”
When she finally calmed down, he drove her back to her apartment. He put the kettle on for tea while Tori showered. Dressed in flannel pajamas and a thick terrycloth robe far too warm for the balmy June evening, she emerged from the steamy bathroom. She was shivering in spite of her attire.
They sat together on the sofa in her living room and talked for hours, going over and over the nightmare they had lived, remembering buried fragments of the evening’s tragedy, offering prayers of gratitude that they had been kept safe.
Finally Tori convinced him that she would be fine. “You’ve got to get some sleep.” She looked at the clock on the end table. “You have to teach a class in just a few hours,” she laughed nervously.
He took her hands and pulled her up from the sofa. Leading her back to the small, femininely decorated bedroom, he turned down the blankets for her and waited while she climbed in. He tucked the quilts tightly around her shoulders and kissed her cheek.
“You’re sure you’ll be okay?”
She yawned and waved him away. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“I’m going to go out through the back. I’ll lock the door when I leave,” he told her. “You sleep as late as you want. I’ll come and get you for lunch. Okay?”
“Okay,” she breathed sleepily. “This bed feels pretty good right now. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Eyes still closed, she smiled up at him. He reached for the lamp on the night table and switched it off.
“Good night, sweetheart,” she whispered, as he kissed her again.
Suddenly it was a horror movie playing on the screen of Joel’s mind. Tori’s face shifted and changed until it was Melanie lying in the bed. “Good night, sweetheart,” she said in her sweet Midwestern accent. The face shifted again, and the bed became Tori’s coffin.
Joel jerked to consciousness, clawing the air in an effort to shake off the horror of the nightmare that was still to come. Struggling in his mind to sort the reality from the dream, he lay paralyzed in his bed, remembering how he’d heard Tori’s steady, sleepful breathing even before he left the room that night.
It wasn’t until he was driving home from Tori’s apartment that he remembered her diamond. He had just taken it from his coat pocket when the chaos had broken out in the restaurant. He decided to go back to the restaurant the next day to get it back. But by then Tori was dead, and the diamond no longer mattered to him.
And then it had happened all over again with Melanie. He had found love once more, had the promise of a wonderful life with a warm, loving woman and a little girl he loved like a daughter. He had truly felt that he’d been offered a new chance at life and at love. But then Toliver had shown up on his doorstep, and the nightmare had started all over again.
Hot tears seeped from under his eyelids. “Why, God?” He said the words aloud, then again louder, shouting at the ceiling above him and feeling that the words never went beyond the mildewed tiles over his head.
“Why, God? Why?”
Melanie unbuckled her seat belt and stretched as far as the plane’s close quarters would allow. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her itinerary. She should be in Hartford, Connecticut, by 10:00 A.M. That would
give her time to make a few calls today.
She felt a twinge of guilt about the deceit it had taken to get here. She had left Jerica with her in-laws, telling them that she was visiting a college friend in Boston. That much was true. She’d spent an enjoyable day with Candice Powers. But she hadn’t told anyone of the remainder of her plan.
Now that she was actually on the plane, she felt a little foolish—like a grown woman playing at Nancy Drew. But she had thought long and hard about her decision. And she had prayed about it. She couldn’t say that she felt divinely led to do what she was about to do, but she did feel strongly about the need to find Joel. When Rick had become ill she’d been powerless to do anything to bring him back. But Joel was alive. And she intended to do everything within her power to find him.
Please, Lord, she prayed, open the doors you want opened, and close those that you don’t desire me to walk through. Don’t let me do anything foolish, Father.
Her first destination was Hartford. Joel’s brother worked in the real estate business somewhere in the state. She didn’t know if Tim was still there, or whether he actually owned an agency or was just employed as a Realtor in one of them, but it was a place to start. She’d hit a dead end with an Internet search. A Hartford area phone book had shown no listings for a Tim or Timothy Ellington, and the few agencies she’d called hadn’t known an agent by that name. But, armed with a snapshot she had taken of the brothers when Tim had visited Silver Creek, she hoped to track Tim down.
The plane touched down at Bradley International just outside of Hartford three minutes ahead of schedule, and by 10:45 Melanie was in a rental car headed for downtown Hartford.
She easily found the agency that the chamber of commerce had listed as Hartford’s largest, but no one in that office knew of anyone by the name of Tim Ellington. At their suggestion, she went to another agency nearby that dealt in commercial real estate.
Five agencies later, she got her first lead.
The receptionist at Bel Aire Realty was friendly and talkative and seemed eager to help. “Tim Ellington? No, I don’t think I know anyone by that name.”
“He might go by Timothy. Here.” She produced the photograph and pointed to a tanned and smiling Tim.
The woman’s eyes lit with recognition. “Oh, sure, that’s Tim Bradford. He occasionally does business in Hartford, but most of his properties are in the Manchester area now. He’s with one of the smaller agencies there … I can’t think which one right offhand.”
“Tim Bradford? You’re sure it’s Bradford?”
“That’s the only name I’ve ever known him by, honey,” the receptionist said.
“Well, thank you … I … I appreciate your help.”
“Here, hang on …” The woman went to her desk and pulled a business card from a stack and handed it to Melanie. “This is our branch in Manchester. They can probably tell you which agency he’s with.”
Melanie left the office in a daze. Back in the rental car, she checked the route on the map. Manchester looked to be about a thirty-minute drive. She should be able to get there before the office closed.
After a wrong turn, she located the Manchester branch and was surprised when an agent there knew Tim Bradford’s name immediately.
“Sure, I know Tim,” the pleasant, middle-aged man told Melanie. “I think he’s with Webber & Wright these days. Do you know your way around town?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
The man gave her quick instructions, and by three o’clock she was sitting in the waiting room of Webber & Wright Realty.
The receptionist dialed an extension. “Tim, there’s someone here to see you.”
A few minutes later, a door opened at the end of the hallway, and a tall, blond, familiar figure strode to greet her. Melanie had forgotten how much Tim looked like Joel. The sight of him reminded her what a risk she had taken coming after Joel this way. Her hands grew clammy, and she wiped them on her slacks.
When recognition came to Tim’s face, his expression registered mild shock. “Melanie?”
“Hello, Tim.”
He glanced around as though he didn’t wish to be overheard. “Why don’t we go into my office where we can talk.”
She followed him to the dark, paneled office, and he closed the door behind them.
“I guess I don’t need to ask what brings you here …”
“I have to know what happened with Joel, Tim. If he doesn’t want to see me, I understand, but I think I deserve some answers.”
Tim stood beside his desk, rubbing the carpet with the toe of his shoe as though trying to erase a small stain.
“Do you know where Joel is?” she persisted.
“I’m not sure what to tell you, Melanie …”
“You can tell me why you go by the name of Bradford. I don’t understand what’s going on, Tim. The way Joel told the story, you two had the same parents.” Bitterness and confusion had crept into her voice, and she struggled to remain polite. She didn’t want to blow her best chance of finally locating Joel.
Joel’s brother sat down in his chair and looked Melanie in the eye. “Joel’s legal name is Ellington, Melanie. He didn’t lie to you.”
She felt a headache starting. “Then … Bradford isn’t your real name?”
“How did you find me?” he asked.
She explained how she had tracked him down, ending by waving the photograph at him.
He slumped in his seat and ran his hands through his hair, taking in a ragged breath before speaking. “I can’t give you any details, Melanie, but if you care anything about Joel, you will not flash that picture around here.”
“I don’t understand. What is going on, Tim? Is Joel in trouble?” Her voice rose a pitch.
He hung his head over his desk and wrung his hands. “Melanie, I can’t talk to you about Joel. I … I just can’t.”
Heartsick, she asked the question that begged to be asked, “Did he take the money, Tim?”
“Money?” Tim’s expression was unreadable.
“I—I assume you heard about the money that turned up missing after … after Joel left Silver Creek.”
He would not meet her gaze.
“Do you have any idea what agony I have lived through this past year? Do you know what it’s like to have your life pulled out from under you like a rug, and to have no clue whatsoever why it all happened? Do you?” She couldn’t hold back the anger in her voice any longer.
“Melanie, I am sorry this happened to you. But Joel … it … couldn’t be helped. And there’s nothing you can do to change it. All I can tell you is that Joel … has gone on with his life. You can’t ask me any more questions. There’s nothing else I can say.”
“This doesn’t make sense, Tim. Is Joel in some kind of trouble?” she asked again.
He hesitated, then finally said, “You could say that. And if you flash those pictures around, he’ll be in a lot more trouble.”
“It must be about the money. I want to help, Tim.”
“I’m telling you, the only thing you can do to help Joel is to go back to Missouri and forget you ever met him. I’m sorry. I … I’m going to ask you to leave now.”
She was crying now, from sheer frustration and exhaustion. “I know he’s in New York, Tim. I saw him.”
Tim Bradford’s eyebrows shot up, and he sucked in a short breath. “You talked to … Joel?”
She shook her head. “He was in a cab … driving away. But I know it was him. Please, Tim, you don’t have to tell me where he is. You don’t even have to tell Joel you talked to me, but I’ve got to have some answers … I can’t live like this anymore!” It came out in a sob. “I just don’t think I can go on until I know what went wrong.”
His tone was compassionate, but steady and determined when he told her, “Melanie, what happened had nothing to do with you. I can tell you that Joel is all right. He is a good man. He would never have hurt you if he had any choice at all in the matter. Now he is going on with his life, and that’
s what you have to do.”
Tim stood and moved toward the door. It was obvious from his staid demeanor that Joel’s brother was not going to give her any other information.
Dejected, and more confused than ever, she left his office and drove back to Hartford to find a hotel. Oblivious to the stark beauty of the wintry New England countryside that whizzed by her car windows, Melanie drove on, deep in thought.
Tim’s admonition not to show Joel’s photograph around frightened her. She couldn’t imagine what reason he might have for such a warning. Had Joel taken the money after all? Was he a wanted man? She had already shown the photograph to many people, including the secretary at the agency in Hartford. That woman’s reaction hadn’t seemed to indicate anything beyond the simple fact that she recognized Tim. Besides, Joel had known she had the photo. He’d never seemed to care if she showed it to anyone.
Then it struck her: Perhaps Tim was trying to protect himself. Was he part of something shady that he was trying to cover up? Maybe it was his own picture that he didn’t want shown around the area. But that didn’t make sense either. He was working in the Manchester office for anyone to see. Maybe he was somehow involved in Joel’s disappearance. Had Tim taken the money himself? Yet he seemed trustworthy, and nothing Joel had ever said about Tim indicated that he was anything but a good man.
She remembered the warm and friendly Tim who had come to visit in Silver Creek that summer. He’d seemed different today—suspicious and cool and anything but friendly. She wondered what had caused him to change so. Could Joel have changed like that too?
A Scarlet Cord Page 20