It was suddenly difficult to be angry with either of her parents. Their child had died, and so had the love they felt for each other. It must have been a terrible time. But they still had me. The thought—that she hadn’t been enough—cut deeply. One person to love and be loved by was more than she’d ever had, and somehow she’d survived all these years.
Sarah hugged her knees to her chest. “Why did you kill yourself, Mom? How could you abandon me?” She squeezed her eyes shut as tears tracked down the sides of her face. How different her life would have been with a mother and a sister. Maybe even her father would have been different—been the kind and good man she’d seen glimpses of throughout the years. But she was never going to know, and imagining what if would only make her crazy.
Sarah leaned her head back, looking up at the late afternoon sky. A few rays of the setting sun shone through a break in the thick clouds, bathing the city in orange light. If she left now, she might make it back to the station before dark. But instead of getting up, she sat unmoving, willing the warmth of those feeble rays to reach her and dry the tears on her cheeks. As if in answer to her unspoken prayer, a whisper of a breeze—unnaturally warm—whisked by, touching not only her skin but filling her soul and heart with peace.
You don’t know the whole story, the wind seemed to say. Then who am I to judge? she thought, and felt some strange measure of relief. She didn’t have to judge her mother, didn’t have to be angry anymore. It wasn’t up to her to decide what was right and wrong when a person’s world fell apart.
And what about Jay? Some of her newly discovered peace ebbed away. That question she couldn’t answer yet. It was a hurt too new, a wound too fresh.
She looked at Emily’s stone again, reading the words precious and dearly loved. Sarah wanted to believe that she had been dearly loved as well. But if that love hadn’t been enough to keep her mother from leaving her—from giving in to the demons of addiction—then how could she ever trust that Jay would be strong enough to win his battle?
When he’d held her in his arms it felt so good. She felt love, even if neither of them had dared express the word out loud yet. But how could she ever believe that would be enough to enable him to keep his promise? And if he didn’t, could she live through losing him?
Sarah picked up the rose and pulled a few of the vibrant petals from it. These she sprinkled across her sister’s grave.
“Emily,” she whispered as a smile formed on her lips. She had a sister. Once upon a time, she hadn’t been all alone.
Turning, she placed the rose across her mother’s newly cleaned stone. A lump formed in Sarah’s throat as she pulled her hand away, wondering if that was the first flower ever laid there. Once this woman had held her close and loved her—Sarah was sure of it. And she felt only regret that she hadn’t thanked her mother before.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah whispered. “I’m so sorry I was angry with you for so long.” She sat there another minute then stood, brushing dirt from her jeans, and looked up at the sky again.
Her life was still cloudy; in fact, not much had changed at all. But somehow, like the rays of light illuminating the city, her world seemed a little brighter. On her own, she would find a better future. It was time for the past to stop holding her back.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“How was Relief Society?” Kirk asked as Christa and Sarah came through the front door.
“Fun,” Christa said. Her smile faded as she took in the messy living room, blaring television, and her husband sprawled across the couch. “Though something tells me I’m going to pay for those two hours away.”
“Make any new recipes tonight?” Kirk asked.
Christa shook her head. “Gingerbread houses. Show him our masterpiece, Sarah.”
Sarah turned from the coat rack where she’d been awkwardly trying to remove and hang up her scarf with one hand while balancing the “masterpiece” in the other. “This is my first gingerbread house, so it isn’t perfect.” Holding it out for inspection, she walked to the couch.
Kirk sat up for a closer look. “Are those wafer cookies on the roof? Yum—my favorite. And Rolos lining the walk? Looks perfectly good to me.”
“Uh-uh.” Christa shook a finger at him. “It’s a centerpiece, not your midnight snack. Quick, Sarah, put it on the table.”
“It’s gonna be in pieces when the boys see it,” Kirk grumbled. “Ought to at least let your husband have first pick.”
“Sorry.” Sarah smiled apologetically and started toward the kitchen, pausing to step around a Lego creation. An image on the television caught her attention as she walked past.
She gasped at the picture on the screen in front of her. “Jay!” The gingerbread house slipped from her fingers, falling to the floor, shattering both the confection and the Lego building beneath it. Neither Sarah, Christa, or Kirk paid any attention to the mess. Their eyes were riveted to the TV and the mug shot of Jay in the top right corner.
“After a month of baffling thefts on the Harvard campus, police now have a suspect in custody,” the news anchor said. “They believe third-year law student Jay Kendrich is responsible for stealing more than three thousand dollars worth of hypodermic needles and other equipment used for administering and cooking various forms of cocaine and methamphetamine. Large quantities of both drugs were found in Kendrich’s apartment earlier today, along with several of the items stolen from the Armensie Building on campus.”
The camera panned to Jay’s picture, and it filled the screen.
“An anonymous phone call led police to Kendrich, who they say has a history of drug abuse.”
Sarah stared at Jay’s face—looking solemn—until it was replaced by the news anchors sitting at the desk. Feeling both nauseated and faint, she staggered back, collapsing on the couch.
“Are you all right?” Kirk and Christa asked at the same time. Christa sat beside Sarah, placing an arm around her.
Sarah clutched her stomach. It felt like she’d just been punched, like the day she’d had the wind knocked out of her when she fell backward trying to save Jay from Carl and his truck. Oh, Jay. She closed her eyes, feeling her heart break into a hundred pieces. You promised.
“I don’t believe it,” Kirk said. “He’s got everything going for him. He’s about to graduate—why would he do something so stupid?”
“I don’t know,” Christa said.
“I don’t believe it,” Kirk repeated.
Still trying to catch her breath, Sarah leaned forward, squeezing her eyes shut against the memories assaulting her. Jay at lunch, joking with his friends, talking casually about the thefts on campus. He would have been lying. Jay’s head bent close to hers over the globe at the Science Center, telling her that the past month had been the best of his life. Was it because you were doing drugs? Jay’s clear blue eyes, filled with concern as he stared down at her after they were nearly hit by Carl’s truck. He wasn’t high that day. I’m sure of it. Jay standing with her in the Trinity Church, his face reverent and peaceful—the kind of peace she longed for. Was it an act?
Sarah opened her eyes and wished she could scream. This couldn’t be happening.
Kirk and Christa both stared at her, their expressions worried.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Guess it’s a good thing I broke up with him, right?” She attempted a weak smile but knew it wasn’t very convincing.
“You go on to bed,” Christa said. “We’ll take care of the mess.”
Sarah looked at the ruined gingerbread house. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Christa said. “Kirk’s right. The boys would have eaten it anyway. The important thing is that we had fun making it.”
Sarah rose slowly from the couch. Christa held her hand out to steady her.
“I’m going to look into this,” Kirk said. “I’ll find out what I can.”
She thanked him and went down the hall to her room. Once there she closed the door, then fell back on her bed without bothering to take off her sho
es or undress. She stared at the ceiling, wishing for the numbness that often followed pain. Whenever her father yelled at her, when angry words were exchanged, it hurt deeply. But after a while the pain was somehow absorbed, and she became stronger from it, numb to his criticism and cutting remarks. Her ability to feel anything would disappear for weeks or even months at a time. She prayed for that now but somehow knew this was different, that the hurt encompassing her wasn’t going to disappear so easily.
She rolled to her side, curling up around her pillow, part of her wishing she’d never met Jay, the other part wishing he were here with her right now. He had awoken all of her feelings, and she was afraid they weren’t going away anytime soon.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“I’ve got your steak and potatoes,” Carl said, depositing a couple of bags of groceries on the kitchen table. “How long, you think, until the cook shows up?”
“I don’t know,” Grant said. He sat in his chair near the door, the cordless phone in his hand, doubts about the success of their plan filling his mind. Sarah’s belongings had been destroyed, her housing burned down, her boyfriend arrested on drug charges. She had no financial support that he knew of, but what if all that wasn’t enough to send her fleeing home?
A wistful look crossed his face as he remembered a little girl with a torn dress and bloodied knees climbing into his car long ago, demanding he take her home. Even at a young age, even after facing her mother’s death, Sarah had been so resilient. Grant had a feeling that two months of freedom had only strengthened her determination. If there were any way . . . He liked to think she could make it on her own, that she could take care of herself and anyone who got in her way, but the past had taught him otherwise. He’d once believed those things of his wife.
“We’d better hope she comes soon,” Grant said. “Rossi says he knows where she lives.”
“Want me to go pick her up?” Carl asked. “I can be the shoulder she cries on.” He sniffed loudly, pushed out his lower lip, and laughed.
Grant didn’t laugh with him. “You’re to be nothing except her protection. You’re to do nothing to her—got it?” Grant’s head pounded, and the thought of Sarah at his nephew’s mercy made him ill. If there were any other way to keep her safe . . .
“I know, I know,” Carl said, dismissing Grant’s concerns with a wave of his hand. “So where’s she been staying? I bet I got close. I followed that guy who walks with her a few times.”
“I’m not sure where she is,” Grant said, massaging his temples. A full-blown migraine was coming on. He felt his ulcer acting up too. “Rossi wouldn’t exactly tell me. But he said if we don’t have her by tomorrow night, he’ll take care of it.”
“He’s bluffing,” Carl said. “He’d take her right now if he knew where she was.”
Grant slowly shook his head. “Not if she’s living with a cop.”
* * *
After her classes were over for the day, Sarah thanked and dismissed Austen—the college student from Kirk and Christa’s church who usually walked her home—turning, instead, toward the Science Center. She needed some time by herself to think. She knew Kirk would be waiting for her with news about Jay’s charges and arrest, but she wasn’t ready to hear any more right now. Whether Kirk believed Jay innocent or guilty couldn’t help her sort out her own feelings—feelings she’d wrestled with all night.
She entered the Putnam Gallery, hoping to forget about everything for a while. Looking at the telescope display, she marveled at man’s earliest attempts to understand the universe. She read about Galileo, persecuted by the Catholic church because of his belief that the Earth and other planets rotated around the sun. Like so many others who came before and after him, Galileo suffered for his convictions. Yet all these years later, those convictions had been proven true.
Sarah thought of the great courage it must have taken to stand by his beliefs when everyone thought him a fool or the devil or both. But through the telescope Galileo had glimpsed much more of the universe than seen by man’s eye. He’d discovered truth, and that had become understanding and knowledge—undeniable no matter what the circumstances.
She pondered this as she walked through the rest of the exhibit and found herself at the globe where she and Jay had talked in hushed whispers. Over the past couple of months, he had shown her truths about herself she never would have known. And in return, he’d laid bare his own soul, sharing all that was good and bad in his past. He had trusted her completely, and she’d thrown that trust back in his face.
Feeling the same crushing weight as when she’d seen his mug shot on television, Sarah grasped the arm of a nearby chair and sank into it for support. She, more than anyone else, had seen glimpses into Jay’s soul, and there were truths there she couldn’t deny. Like the Founding Fathers he admired so much, he wasn’t perfect, but he was a good man—an honest one. When he’d told her he would never use drugs again, he hadn’t been lying. She was sure of it. So what was she supposed to think—to do—now?
Buttoning her coat, she left the museum and walked toward Kirk’s house. Darkness had fallen, and scattered snowflakes drifted from the sky. Sarah knew she should hurry, but her conflicted thoughts slowed her steps and she found herself wandering the longer, out-of-the-way campus paths she didn’t normally take. The night was quiet and clouded, the only glow coming from street lamps and distant Christmas lights twinkling in the falling snow. Bare tree limbs bowed under a fresh coat of white. Words of a Christmas carol . . . peace on earth, good will to men . . . trailed through her mind. The world did seem peaceful tonight, and she felt grateful to be out in it, free to wander alone as she pleased.
An image of Jay, sitting alone in a jail cell, flashed into her mind, shattering the brief serenity of a moment before. It hurt to think of him like that. Hopefully someone had posted bail by now. But who? She felt suddenly ill. Maybe no one had. And even if Jay were out, she wasn’t certain his landlord would let him return to his apartment. Where would he go? Would there be someone to help him the way he’d helped her?
Sarah stopped at the 1870 gate leading to the Old Yard and glanced down at the sundial at its base, reading the words inscribed there.
On this moment hangs eternity.
The simple thought went straight to her heart. Whatever she did tonight, right now, was going to determine everything about her future. The time for wavering had passed. The time for standing up for her convictions—what she knew in her heart to be true—had come.
Her decision should have been simple. As a police officer, her father was the icon of everything good and true. While Jay, with his record of drug abuse and his current legal troubles, represented everything she’d spent her life avoiding. But appearances were often deceiving, and people weren’t always as they seemed on the surface. If she based her judgment on the obvious, she’d be lying to herself.
“I know he’s innocent,” Sarah said, needing to hear the words aloud. “I believe him—I believe in him.” Having acknowledged what she felt, she suddenly wanted to shout Jay’s innocence to the world. But the feeling of euphoria was short-lived, followed quickly by shame and distress that she’d judged him so harshly, that she hadn’t trusted him. That she’d doubted his word when he’d given her no reason to, when he’d been nothing but good and kind.
Jay was innocent. No matter what the evidence, she knew he hadn’t stolen or used drugs. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew he’d kept his promise.
With hurried, purposeful steps she left campus, heading for Jay’s apartment. The feelings of comfort she’d had at her mother’s grave returned, enveloping her, giving her the courage she needed to act on her newly discovered convictions.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kirk paced back and forth in front of the television, his eyes straying to the front door with every turn. In the other room he heard Christa hurrying through the bedtime routine with Jeffrey and James, and he knew she was as worried about Sarah as he was.
It was after
eight, and she still wasn’t home. That was cause enough for concern; however, Sarah’s absence was made infinitely more alarming by the news that Austen, the young man who usually escorted her, had been found beaten to within an inch of his life and left to bleed to death in the snow.
Kirk thought about calling the hospital again to see if Austen was out of surgery and conscious enough to talk yet but decided against it. The Cambridge police knew how concerned he was, and they’d call as soon as there was any news.
Christa joined him in the living room, her eyes following his to the front door. “Are you going to call her father?”
“I don’t know,” Kirk said. “If it’s her cousin who’s done this—and taken her—then it’s probably at her father’s request. And if that is what happened and I play my hand now, then I lose the chance to help her later.”
Christa wrapped her arms around him. “What about Jay? Have you decided—”
“No.” Kirk sighed with frustration. “He had his hearing today, and I could have gone in and posted bail this afternoon, but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do either. Again, if the chief hears about it, he’ll put two and two together and figure out we’ve been helping Sarah.”
“Have you prayed about it?” Christa asked gently.
Kirk nodded. “I keep getting the feeling I shouldn’t do anything, that I should wait, though the police officer in me—who knows missing person stats—doesn’t want to do that.”
The sound of a car door slamming sent both of them to the front window. A young woman stood on the sidewalk, directing the driver of an Oldsmobile into a tight space along the curb.
“Does that car belong to anyone in our young adult group?” Christa asked.
“I don’t think so.” Kirk walked to the front door and opened it, stepping onto the porch. He and Christa watched as the Olds backed in with jerky, halting movements. After several attempts the car was finally in place, and the driver stepped out.
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