“It doesn’t matter. We’ll do it again. We’ll do it over and over if it means that there is even the most remote possibility of finding the truth.”
Cheryl turned away from him and crossed the room. “Until you show up with a search warrant, you can get out of my house. You’ve done me enough damage, Curt. I hardly think it fair that I should have to be confronted by my baby’s killer. Why don’t you send someone else next time?”
“Someone else might not be as generous as me,” Curt said seriously. He came to stand beside her, and his expression softened in a way that Cheryl would just as soon forget. “Cheryl, I know you’re hurting. I didn’t stop caring about you just because I became a DEA officer and married Christy. You’re like a part of the family to me. Don’t shut me out.”
Cheryl shook her head. “I’m nothing to you, and you’re nothing to me. If you want to care, that’s your problem, but maybe a better way of showing it would be to just stay away from me.”
Curt sighed. “I’ll go for now, but I’ll be back later. Don’t even think of not answering the door. I think you know me well enough to know that a locked door won’t keep me out.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’ll plow right through any obstacle in order to get what you want,” she answered, barely able to keep her anger in check.
She walked to the door and opened it for him. The sunlight didn’t blind her as before, but the heat of the day hit her like a blast from a hot furnace. Stepping back, she let Curt pass. Curt turned to face her as if to say something more, but Cheryl read an instant sorrow in his expression that forced her to see his feelings were genuine. I don’t care, she reasoned. I don’t care how sorry he is.
“Cheryl,” he began, “I hope that somehow, one day, you will forgive me my part in this. I hope that one day you’ll understand my need for the truth.”
“The truth is that you have ended my life in every way but one. I don’t know how you live with what you’ve done. I don’t know how you sleep nights or look at yourself in the mirror without wanting to put a gun to your head for the things you, alone, are responsible for.” She saw his shoulders slump a bit and noted that his eyes grew moist. She hated him for making her feel like an ogre, but she pressed home her final point. “I’ll never forgive you for killing the people I loved most, and I’ll never forgive you for putting me through this misery.”
nine
Mary,” Cheryl began, coming into the kitchen, “I need for you to do an errand for me. Do you mind?”
The older woman straightened from where she was bent over the dishwasher, stacking dirty dishes. “Not at all, Cheryl. What do you need?”
“I want you to go to the bank for me and see about cashing this check. I have no idea if this account is frozen or not, and I certainly don’t want to call up and ask. I’m afraid that would only lead to them becoming suspicious if it’s not.”
Mary nodded. “What should I do?”
“Just take it to a teller and ask to cash it. Since it’s drawn on that bank, they’ll be able to access the account immediately, and there should not be any problem. Unless,” she paused, biting at her lower lip, “unless the account is frozen to my use.”
Mary closed the dishwasher and pulled off her apron. “And if they will cash it?”
Cheryl handed her the check. “If they will cash it, there’s enough there to stock up on groceries, pay your salary, and keep a little cash in the house.”
“Do you want me to go ahead and stop by the store on my way back?”
Cheryl nodded. “That would be great.”
Mary gathered her things up and let herself out the back door. “There’s an omelette on the warming tray,” she said nonchalantly. “Don’t forget to eat it.”
Cheryl knew Mary would only make a big deal of things if she didn’t eat, so rather than argue, she went immediately to the tray and pulled out the plate. “Looks good, Mary. I’ll eat it right now.” The old woman nodded approvingly and closed the door.
Cheryl picked up a fork and began to eat. At first she just picked around the edges, but soon the aroma and the taste made her hungry for more, and she polished it off in record time. In the old days before her father’s death, worry had always given her a ravenous appetite. That, in turn, had given her more than a little bit of a battle to keep her rather voluptuous figure neat and trim. Now she was downright skinny, and the look was not good on her.
She paced the kitchen for a few minutes before deciding on a glass of orange juice. Would Mary be able to cash the check? Curt had warned her that sooner or later her money would be tight due to the feds putting a hold on her financial affairs. Thank goodness he didn’t know about the fifty grand, she thought. That would be her salvation, thanks to her father’s foresight. Still, she would have to be careful. Fifty thousand was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what she was used to having at her disposal. She immediately set her mind to ways of economizing and had just headed to her father’s study when she heard the unmistakable roar of Erik’s truck.
Going to the window, she pulled back the curtain enough to assure herself that it was him, and him alone, before opening the door.
“Erik, what a surprise.” And for once, it seemed quite nice to have him show up unexpectedly.
“I tried to call, but they said your number had been disconnected. Is everything okay?”
“Not disconnected, just changed and unlisted,” she said and mo-tioned him inside. “Might as well come in since you’re already here.”
Erik grinned. “I’m not imposing?”
“Would it matter?” she asked with the slightest hint of good-natured teasing to her voice.
“Nope, not a bit.”
“I didn’t think so,” she answered, and this time there followed a smile. “Come on in.”
Cheryl led him to the family room and offered him a seat. “I suppose you heard about Curt’s interview with me last week?”
Erik shook his head. “Curt’s not telling me anything. I think I’ve been branded a traitor in the camp. After I came clean with him about sneaking you off that first time, he hasn’t been too inclined to include me in his moves.”
Cheryl curled up on the sofa and considered this for a moment. “I was pretty hard on him, but he deserved it. He has to know that his little game has hurt a great many people. I just didn’t want to be bothered any more by it, and yet he storms into my house and demands that I remember the very things I’d gone out of my way to forget.”
“Is that why you changed your telephone number?”
“That and the twenty to thirty calls I was getting from complete strangers. Most wanted to do an interview with me and just came right out and left a message on the machine. Others were more subtle. I’ve had calls from so many so-called ‘friends of the family’ that I was ready to scream. I’ve had calls from doctors, lawyers, politicians, security people, and a dozen others, all who professed to be deeply concerned, old friends of Dad who wanted to lend me support in my hour of need.”
“Maybe they were legitimate,” Erik suggested.
“Not a chance. Daddy didn’t have that many friends. He was too cautious after losing Doug and Jan O’Sullivan and…,” she paused to take a long drink of the juice before adding, “my mother.”
“But surely there were some of those who actually thought themselves to be friends,” Erik replied. “Maybe they really were concerned about your well-being.”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug, “but they were nowhere around when he killed himself four months ago. It wasn’t until the DEA case was revealed and the shoot-out took place that any of this sudden interest in my well-being started up.”
Erik nodded. “I guess I can see where you’d be skeptical.”
Cheryl found herself relaxing in Erik’s presence. It was strange, she thought, but he made her feel as though no one else in the world cared quite as much as he did. He made her realize that she didn’t have to be alone, and yet, he was also mixed up in the whole affair.
“So how did your interview with Curt go?” Erik suddenly asked.
“Miserably, as I knew it would. Curt only wants to believe the worst about my father.”
“Whereas you only want to believe the best?” he asked with a hesitant smile.
She nodded. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it. And why not? I loved my father and will always love him. I don’t want to see his memory dragged through the mud while Curt gets his revenge for something that might have been a total accident.”
“But you can’t be sure that what he suspects isn’t dead to rights. Didn’t he admit that your father told him of his involvement with the drug ring?”
Cheryl bristled at this. She wanted Erik to be a friend, not another adversary. “Those are Curt’s words. I don’t believe them for one minute.”
“Then why would your father kill himself? He seemed for all purposes to have the world by the tail. Why would death all of a sudden be preferable to life? Then, too, you have to admit there was something going on between him and Grant. After all, Grant was working for your father under an assumed name.”
Cheryl gulped down the remaining orange juice and tried to steady her nerves. “I know it looks bad.” She fell silent for a few moments, then surprised both herself and Erik by asking, “What was Grant really like? I mean the Grant who was married to your sister?”
Erik’s eyes widened for a moment. “He was the king of deception. I doubt seriously that he was ever faithful to Candy, and I still have a hard time figuring out why he even involved himself with her. Curt thinks it might have been as simple as the fact that he wanted to stay close to Christy’s dress design business so that he could continue to import drugs through her warehouses. I’d like to believe that at one point he really did love Candy, for whatever reason. But I don’t think he did. He was a user, Cheryl. He made Christy pay for Candy’s hospital bills, and he insisted on money from Christy in order to ‘buy’ Sarah’s adoption from him.”
Cheryl tried to imagine that it was all true. Erik had no reason to lie to her, and yet she wanted so much for the entire matter to be a terrible mistake.
“He didn’t want Sarah?” Cheryl asked, hesitantly.
“No. He told Candy that children were a complication to life that he didn’t need. He was angry when she told him that she was already pregnant. I know, because I was there when she broke the news to all of us.”
“He wasn’t happy about our baby, either,” she said in a whisper. She could remember only too well what he’d been like when he found out. He’d accused her of trying to step up the wedding before he was ready. He’d said she had set a trap for him, and he didn’t necessarily have to fall into it.
“It all figures,” Erik said, seeming to sense her turmoil.
“Grant had too many other irons in the fire. Children would have just interfered with his plans for quick breaks and easy getaways.”
“But he married your sister,” she replied flatly. “For some reason, it was important enough for him to tie himself that much.”
“But what’s a wife? It isn’t like he’d have to arrange for her care if he should suddenly need to flee the country. He could just as easily divorce her from far away, as to stay here and be married. A child, however, would be an entirely different matter.”
“Even if that was the real way Grant operated,” she said, trying hard to put the pieces together, “my father was an honorable man. He was good and kind, and I know he could never have been capable of the things Curt has accused him of.”
“Fathers don’t always turn out the way we’d like them to be.”
Cheryl frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Erik shrugged. “We’d all like to believe the best about our parents, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. Sometimes, our parents are the first ones to dispel the myths surrounding them.”
“Is that how your parents were?” she asked. Suddenly she realized that she knew nothing about Erik and his childhood.
Erik’s face contorted as if the pain of answering such a question had become too much. “My parents definitely dispelled any myths I had formulated in my mind.”
“How?”
“My father, in particular, was a ruthless man. He did whatever he had to do, walked over whoever he had to walk over, all in order to get things his own way. He was unfaithful in every single relationship I ever saw him have. And that included those with my mother and sisters.”
“What about your relationship with him?”
“Especially mine,” he said and took a deep breath. “The man’s corrupt, and he corrupts everything he touches. He uses people to get what he wants, and then he throws them away as though they were nothing more than wrappings on Christmas presents.”
Cheryl frowned. Hadn’t she done much the same in life? She knew that she could be ruthless when the situation presented itself. She had been heartless where Curt was concerned and had gone out of her way to say the most hurtful, mean-spirited things she could think of. She felt hot tears form in her eyes, but Erik didn’t seem to notice them.
“I hated him for a long time. It took coming to God and begging Him to take the anger and rage from within me. I still can’t say that I miss him or have any desire to see him, but I no longer hate him like I did.”
Cheryl sniffed back tears, and Erik seemed to notice for the first time that she was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said very softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
His kindness only made matters worse. Cheryl began to cry in earnest. “I’m just as bad,” she finally managed to say. “I’ve used people and walked over them on my way to the top. Grant was the only man I couldn’t wrap around my finger and manipulate in the manner to which I was accustomed. He became a challenge and I took the bait without considering the cost. I threw myself into harm’s way over and over again, and all in order to have my own way.” Her voice was ragged with sorrow. “You must hate me. I sound just like your father.”
Erik got up from his chair and came to sit beside her on the couch. “There’s a great difference between you and my father,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. With great tenderness, he lifted her face to meet his.
“There is?” she said, wishing against all odds that he was speaking the truth.
“Absolutely. My father has never once been repentant of his ac-tions,” Erik said quite seriously. “Where as with you, I see nothing but regret and the desire to be free from the part you once played. That woman doesn’t live inside you anymore.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, choking back a sob.
Erik smiled, and it gave her such warmth and hope that she wanted to throw herself against him and hang onto him as though he alone could show her the way to peace.
“I see it in your eyes,” he replied. “I see it in your face, even though you try to keep your mask in place. I even see it in your actions. You’ve rid yourself of the clothes that once represented your lifestyle. Your clothes and hair and all that goes with them were visual symbols of what existed in the past. When you finally realize that they don’t truly make the wo-man, you won’t be so afraid to go back to wearing nice things.
“But I also know that you won’t return to the lifestyle you lived back then. You’ve seen too much, and you know too much to go back and pretend that it doesn’t hurt anyone—that it doesn’t hurt you.” He paused and let go of her face. “I think if you give it some thought, Cheryl, you’ll see for yourself that it’s true.”
She continued to look at him for several moments before speaking. “There’s nothing back there for me. That woman is dead, or should be.”
“No,” Erik replied and his voice held unmistakable tenderness. “That woman needs to live again, but not in the old way. She needs to repent and find peace with God and to realize that she isn’t alone. The Bible says that when we come to accept God, we become new creatures and the old is cast off. Wouldn’t you like that assurance for yourself?”
Cheryl felt g
oose bumps form on her arms. Erik had opened a door that she’d thought forever closed to her. The only question now was whether she’d ever have the courage to cross the threshold.
ten
I’m really glad you agreed to talk to me,” CJ Aldersson said, taking a seat in the living room. Cheryl attempted a smile and took a place on the sofa. “I figured you weren’t going to give up.”
“You didn’t give up on me.”
“Yes, I did,” Cheryl stated quite seriously. “When I grew tired of being unable to help you after the plane crash, I took off for Europe. Then when I came back to Denver and made plans for marriage to Strat—Grant, well I could see that you needed a great deal of help, and again I didn’t know what to do.”
“But you didn’t stop caring about me, did you?”
Cheryl studied CJ for a moment and considered her question in earnest. For far too long she’d given flippant answers and generalized speeches. Always, she kept in mind what people wanted to hear, and somehow she managed to play the game and tell them what they needed her to say. But no more. She was determined to be honest and straightforward.
“No, I didn’t stop caring,” she admitted, “but I replaced the importance of our friendship with other things.”
“What about now?” CJ asked, pushing back her shoulder-length, copper hair.
Cheryl shook her head. “I don’t know, and that’s the honest truth. I’m afraid to care about anyone, and I can’t let go of my anger at Curt.”
“But you loved him once. Can’t you draw on that for the moment and remember the good things about him? Can’t you try to realize how important it is for him to resolve this situation?”
“But at what cost, CJ? Where do you stop? Curt’s need to resolve the situation, as you put it, has taken its toll of victims.”
“Why can’t you see that Curt never created the victims to start with?” CJ’s voice took on a hard edge. “Cheryl, I’m going to tell you something that I never thought I would.”
Cheryl watched her friend twist her hands together as if seeking some kind of inner strength.
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