“Stop,” he said.
Her mouth hardened.
Marcus had stepped into the damp garage with hardly a nudge of energy left. Now his legs pumped, up and down the center line in the cement floor. Sam Stiles. He’d managed Lee’s inheritance since before it was hers. From financial adviser to Constabulary agent? Well, there were weirder things.
Lee’s eyes marked his repetitive path. “You don’t appear to be reconsidering.”
“No.”
“I expected you to credit God with this arrangement.”
He shook his head. “There’s no ‘arrangement.’”
“I’ve known him twelve years. I’m a capable judge of his character.”
“I know.”
“Then why the stubbornness? Besides the fact it’s your routine state.”
Marcus’s feet halted. “The charges against you wouldn’t be passive anymore.”
Her eyebrows rose. Surprised at his worry for her, though by now she should have learned to expect it. She wandered away from him, to the random tools propped in a corner alongside plywood shelves.
She fingered the handle of a snow shovel. “It’s unlikely they would be able to establish a connection.”
“They might.”
“I accept that risk.”
“No,” he said.
“You act as if this choice belongs to you.”
To protect her, no matter what he had to do—that choice did belong to him. The stare-down crystallized, then shattered against the concrete in Lee’s voice.
“It does not.” She headed for the side door.
“Lee,” he said. “Stay out of it.”
From Lee, no response meant no promises. Her hand grasped the doorknob. He rushed forward, and his left arm barred the door closed over her head.
“If someone else offered you this information,” Lee said quietly, “would you use it?”
He tried to separate them, the information and the source. Tried to imagine that Janelle, or Clay, or Abe knew Sam Stiles instead. But they didn’t.
“Marcus.”
“You offered it,” he said. “Not somebody else.”
“I’m speaking hypothetically.”
Hypotheticals were meaningless. Lee wanted to throw herself into the dangers of his work, and she wanted him to approve. Nobody else would do that.
“You’re not certain?” Her gaze was unwavering.
“It wouldn’t happen that way. Just stay out of it, Lee, all of it.”
“All right.”
God, did You do that?
“You do the same,” she said.
Hope vanished. “I can’t.”
Lee nodded. “I know.”
“This is mine now. But it’s not yours.”
“Reverse the situation, and tell me you would agree to that.”
His knuckles dug deep into his neck. Convince her to stay away. Come on. Get the words.
“Move, Marcus.”
“Lee. Please.”
Her hand abandoned the doorknob. Smooth, unhurried strides headed back across the garage. Of course. He could have darted after her again, physically hindered her again, but he could do that for only so long. The idiocy of his actions finally sank in and drained everything left inside. Lee pressed the garage door opener, and the rumbling pulley raised the door. Plenty of space for her to step through.
Her eyes locked onto him. “Take care of yourself for a few more days. Try not to overexert. Don’t subsist on coffee.”
“This fight isn’t for you,” he said.
“And consider searching the Internet for the lack of addictive properties in Tylenol. Several thousand articles exist.”
Of course, she had to repeat that point. She wouldn’t if she’d ever been in his head. He was pretty sure he could get addicted to anything. Lee walked to her car and backed it into the street, pulled away from the curb, shrank, disappeared. Minutes multiplied. His feet decided to go into the house. Indy’s nose shoved between his fingers and through the fog of his thoughts.
“You look like you need to eat,” Aubrey said from the doorway.
Marcus lifted his gaze from the wood floor. Aubrey leaned against the door frame, her eyebrows wrinkled with thoughts. Her face might have lost color since he found her four days ago, staring at a display of lightbulbs as if she could wish the Constabulary away.
“I warmed up some soup earlier, but you weren’t here. I’ll throw it back on the stove, if it sounds good.”
Marcus shrugged past her into the kitchen. “I can do it.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I don’t need help. With anything.” He yanked open the fridge door.
“Literally? Wow, okay then.”
Marcus brought out the half-empty glassware, a steel pot, and a spoon to stir the soup while it heated on the stovetop.
“I wasn’t questioning your kitchen abilities,” Aubrey said from behind him. “Look, I’ve been pacing holes in your floor all day. Six times today, I had to talk myself out of getting on your computer to check my email. Not because anyone important emails me—it’s mostly spam—but that’s how desperate I got. Desperate for spam. So … soup warming would be a great diversion. But then, so would jury duty. A root canal. A zombie attack.”
Marcus turned on the burner, then met her eyes again. One hand tugged at her earlobe, and the other hung at her side. Had Marcus never really looked at her before? How had he missed the emptiness that dripped off her like too much paint off a roller brush?
“The house looks good,” he said, something he’d meant to tell her sooner. Her forehead gathered more wrinkles. “I mean, clean.”
“It kept me busy for a little while.”
“Well. Thanks.”
Halfway through dinner, his cell phone buzzed. The number looked familiar. “Hello.”
“Hello, this is Pamela Mayweather. Is this Marcus Brenner?”
“Yeah.” He tilted his shoulder against the phone.
“Oh, good. That banister you told me about—you were right. It came right off. It’s not broken, just needs reattaching. I was hoping you could squeeze us in sometime tomorrow.”
A railing repair wouldn’t take long, but the Mayweathers lived half an hour from Chuck and Belinda, whose kitchen was going to consume his time for the next few days. He tried to shuffle the locations in his mind and couldn’t make it happen.
“Pamela, I’m sorry. Tomorrow’s booked. I could do the day after.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine, I’ll call around and see if there’s anyone that can do tomorrow. If there’s not, I’ll call you back.”
“No, don’t.” He was crazy to risk this, but he had to. God, don’t let her be suspicious. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
Aubrey shot him a questioning look as he swiped his keys off the counter.
“Aren’t you off work for the day?” Pamela said.
“Guess not.”
“What’s your after-hours rate?”
“I’ll charge you regular time.”
He dug through the junk drawer. There. A paper clip. He shoved it into his pocket.
28
The railing job was half finished before Marcus figured out what was missing. Not what, who. He kept working, wondering, until Pamela started up the stairs, carrying the littlest boy and keeping herself between the middle one and the gap in the banister.
Marcus moved to the top of the stairs to clear their way. “Where’s J.R.?”
Pamela inclined her chin toward the far end of the hall. “He’s in his room. After I called you, he confessed. You never know what your kids are overhearing.”
“What?”
“Came to me ducking his head. ‘Mom, I wanted to see if Mr. Brenner was right about the rail coming off. So I tested it, and he was. He’
s real smart.’”
A chuckle lightened the weight that had sat on his chest since he walked through Jason’s door. If anybody was smart, it was J.R.
“Don’t laugh, Mr. Brenner.” Pamela’s half grin disappeared into a frown. “He’ll hear you and think what he did was fine. He could’ve fallen eight feet.”
True enough. Marcus nodded.
“If you need anything, let me know. It’s bath and bedtime for these mini monsters.” She bounced the baby on her arm.
They disappeared around the corner, into the bathroom. The middle one started to whine but was cut off by Pamela’s voice. The faucet came on, and Marcus’s heart pounded. She wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t hammering anymore. She wouldn’t leave kids that young for any reason, not in water.
He waited half a minute, then stole down the steps, down the hall, to the French doors. He tried the doorknob and sighed. Unlocked this time, no paper clip needed. Jason must use the locks for privacy while he was inside working. Well, he was too arrogant for paranoia, and a man’s house wasn’t supposed to be infiltrated by his enemy. A finger of cold traced Marcus’s spine. He slipped into the room.
Sage green walls, bookcases, a gilt-framed painting of a volcano at sunset—the details of the room blurred as Marcus focused on the L-shaped mahogany desk. It stood centered on the back wall, spread with manila folders, phone, laptop, and fax machine. Beside it sat a printer-copier.
Okay. Work fast. Touch as little as possible.
He crossed the room and stood behind the desk to open its drawers. Not much in them, until he opened the top right one. But these were personal items—cinnamon gum, nicotine patches, a few ballpoint pens, and … the picture. Marcus’s hand trembled on the back of the desk chair.
Only one picture. Did that mean Jason had only killed one person?
He couldn’t stop to think. He shoved the drawer closed. The computer was probably a gold mine, but far too risky to touch it. Instead, he poked at the papers on the desk. The clutter might be ordered, or Marcus might move a piece of paper without Jason ever noticing it had moved. But maybe nothing here was helpful, anyway. An arrest report, half complete. Transcription of a few phone calls, but the callers talked about things like box office totals for the latest movies and which fast food place had the best French fries. What, did Jason think Christians talked on the phone in code? “French fry” for “Bible” and “McDonald’s” for “black market distributor”?
Marcus’s hand stilled on four pages of copied driver’s licenses. Two dozen of them, or more. Handwriting in thick black ink scrawled all over the sheets, right over the copied images sometimes. Abbreviations, dates, a few of the licenses boxed in orange highlighter. Shorthand everywhere. He flipped to another page. God, help me figure this out.
From the top left, a woman smiled at him through a thick black X. He didn’t have to read the license, but his eyes did anyway. Karlyn Elisabeth Cole.
His fingers left creases in the page. He fought to relax his grip. Jim’s license was copied below hers, also crossed out. Pain clawed Marcus’s chest. What did the X’s mean? That they were in custody? Or that they were dead?
Stop thinking, stop feeling. Get out of here. Most of these licenses were scribbled on but not crossed out. He set the pages into the top tray of the copier, but it was asleep. He hit the green button, and its face lit up. WARMING UP. PLEASE WAIT.
He dug his knuckles into his neck and shifted from foot to foot. Come on, come on. Finally, the display changed. READY. He hit the green button again, hoping it was the right one. He hadn’t used a copy machine in years.
The whir sounded more like a roar in the silent room. Marcus paced two steps while the paper fed through the tray—oh heck, face up or facedown? But a few seconds later, the machine spit the first sheet out, copy complete.
He folded the four warm sheets into quarters, then eighths. He slid the originals back under the other papers, pushed the chair back into place, and scanned the desk. Unless Jason had positioned things deliberately, he’d never know.
Marcus slipped from the room, back upstairs, and buried the pages at the bottom of his toolbox. If you looked hard enough, bright white paper peeked through a few gaps in the tools. He shut the lid and breathed.
He’d done it.
Jason, you should’ve bought a deadbolt for those doors.
Jim and Karlyn’s crossed-out faces kept imprinting on his eyes. He finished his job only a minute before Pamela exited one of the bedrooms and shut the door behind her. She approached Marcus with a smile.
“They’re all tucked in. And it looks like you’re wrapping up?”
“Yeah. It’s solid now.”
“Thanks for coming so fast. You’ll be getting referrals from me.”
Trust was such a weird thing. She had no real reason to assume Marcus hadn’t raided her husband’s office. But she also had no reason to assume he had raided it. So she didn’t. He latched the toolbox and followed her downstairs.
They were halfway to the kitchen when the back door crashed open and banged shut. His every muscle coiled to fight. Jason must have some kind of silent alarm in his office.
If Marcus bolted now, he’d make the front door.
But wait. Pamela didn’t look shocked or even worried. She threw her hands up in a gesture that wasn’t aimed at Marcus. She stalked past him with a huff.
“Wait here a minute.” Her voice came from the kitchen a few seconds later. “Do you have to treat doors like—”
“I’m getting a work fax,” Jason said.
“A work fax is what finally brings you home from work?”
“I was out, closer to home, I need this right away and my cell phone’s not accepting the attachment. I have to take that stupid thing in and—”
“You could simply shut the door, Kyle will be screaming like a banshee in—”
“Whose truck is that?” His voice clipped around the corner less than a second before he charged into view. Marcus stepped back to avoid a collision.
Jason’s blue eyes widened. He glanced over his shoulder at Pamela. “What’s he doing here?”
She twisted one of her silver thumb rings. “The railing broke, going up the stairs. J.R. was leaning on it.”
“Oh. Thanks for coming by, Brenner.”
“Jason.” Pamela reached a hand to his shoulder before he could vanish down the hallway. “J.R. didn’t fall, but he could have. He was leaning on the railing on purpose, to see if it would break.”
Jason turned to face her, but his hand twitched and impatience stiffened his shoulders. “Why would he go and do that?”
“I just put him to bed. I told him if you got home before he fell asleep, you’d be up to talk to him. He needs to know what he did was dangerous. I think he’d take it more seriously, coming from you.”
From the office, the fax machine started ringing. Jason’s eyes darted to the closed doors. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“He—”
“Pam, I said I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Jason headed down the hall. “Catch you later, Brenner.”
The doors shut behind him with a quiet click. Pamela cleared her throat. “Let me get the checkbook.”
Oh. Right. Marcus trailed her into the bright kitchen, which smelled like homemade cookies. While she wrote out the check, he counted seconds. A minute. Jason would have noticed the intrusion by now, if he was going to.
Pamela signed her name with a sweeping flourish and tore out the check. “The picture you saw, the girl.”
His heart misplaced a beat. “Yeah.”
She ran her thumb over her signature, then met his eyes and handed him the check. “It’s Rochelle. Shelly. Jason’s sister.”
Marcus folded the check and stuffed it into his pocket. “Why are you telling me?”
“That picture’s nearly ten years old now. She was w
orking at Springfield. You know, at the clinic.”
Of course he knew. The whole country knew.
“She was a receptionist, Marcus. Collateral damage. Or maybe not, to them.” Bitterness tiptoed into her words. “After all, she was making appointments for abortions. That definitely deserved a death sentence.”
Marcus swallowed, tried to work his jaw.
“Jason requested a copy of the photo from the case file. I asked him once to get rid of it, and he said when his work is complete, he’ll bury it in the plot with Shelly.”
Not a trophy. A mission statement. Jim and Karlyn, Frank, everyone else—the images of them, bloody and lifeless, washed out of his head in a tide of relief that squeezed his chest and almost knocked him over. He reached one hand to the counter. Get a grip, before she notices.
“And I’m telling you because you’ve just seen my husband in a negative light, again. He is his worst self, but everyone has a worst self, and—and I didn’t want you to leave here seeing only that.”
“Okay,” he said.
Pamela ruffled her hair and paced to the other end of the counter. “That Christian friend I had in school—when Springfield happened, we talked about it for weeks. She said she was appalled and that no true Christian would do what those people did. At the time, I believed her.”
Injustice gripped Marcus’s shoulders. Janelle lived in fear of owning a Bible, Aubrey woke up screaming because her baby was gone, Jim and Karlyn and a thousand others were imprisoned because some sociopaths blew up a building filled with people and took the name of Christ in vain as their battle cry.
He shoved his hand into his pocket and rubbed his thumb against the edge of the check. “The people who did it should pay for it.”
“And the people who would do it, if they could?”
“That’s not how it works.” If he’d crossed a legal line with that sentence … well, then he had.
“It is now, fortunately.”
Seek and Hide: A Novel (Haven Seekers) Page 17