Now a photo of Momma flashed on the screen, followed by one of me—both taken at The Motte the year before. We both looked pretty and polished.
Next came a mug shot of Henry, looking like a blond version of Frankenstein.
I gave a shriek, and Drake came from wherever he had been and sat beside me.
“Bourdy, this isn’t helping you at all,” he said, and he clicked the power button on the remote. “Or this,” he added, as he picked up my cell phone from where it sat beside me and put it in his jeans pocket. “You go see Momma Jo for a little while. I’ll stay here. Milton and I will take care of Aunt Kit when she returns.” He gave me a wink.
I shrugged and stood up, letting Drake enfold me in a hug—warm, sturdy, secure.
An officer took me out the back of the house and through a wooded path to another part of the subdivision where his patrol car was waiting. I had a baseball cap pulled low on my head and was wearing sunglasses. If this was what being a celebrity felt like, it stunk. Looking back, I saw that cars were still snaking up the mountain road to our home.
When I got to Momma’s room, I felt deeply grateful that she was sleeping peacefully.
Hannah met me at the door, eyes shining. “She’s been calmer!” she whispered excitedly. “She’s understanding everything I say. She doesn’t seem as agitated, thank the Lord.”
“That’s great news,” I said, and I meant it, but my voice lacked enthusiasm.
“Mrs. Swanson and Aunt Kit left a little while ago,” Hannah said, and we grinned.
“Between Mrs. Swanson and Drake and Milton, I think Aunt Kit will be in good hands.”
“But what about Daddy?”
“He’s finally resting at home. Poor Daddy. I think his confession wore him out.”
Hannah and I spent the next hour with Momma, who remained asleep. I had put the Lucidity Lath on the windowsill in between a flourish of bouquets. Now I plucked one of the flower arrangements from the sill and asked Hannah, “Do you mind if I go down to the Pediatric ICU to check on Jase?” I cleared my throat. “And Libby?”
“You don’t need to ask my permission, Paige. Of course, go. Momma would want you to offer comfort to them too.”
I bent down and kissed Momma’s cheek. “I love you, Momma.” Holding the flower vase in one hand, I gathered up her laptop in the other and just shrugged when Hannah looked at me quizzically.
The policeman sitting in front of Jase’s room gave me a sympathetic smile and motioned for me to go in. Libby was lying on a long bench that had been transformed into a bed. She had a blanket pulled haphazardly around her, and her strawberry-blond hair fell to the side and brushed the floor. She looked almost as vulnerable as Jase. I set the bouquet of yellow roses beside the orchids and tiptoed over to his bed. When I looked down at him my stomach cramped, seeing his immobile form. But the machines were beeping their proclamation of life.
I plopped down in the chair by his bed and tried to process the last week, from the terror of the assassination attempt to the dread that had invaded my heart when I thought about Daddy and The Awful Year, to Drake’s declaration that he was waiting on me and then Henry taking me hostage. I thought of my father’s confession this afternoon and of the thousands of emails and Facebook posts and tweets and snail mail letters declaring their love and prayers for Momma, and I thought of the CaringBridge site, which had garnered not only hundreds of personal comments but quite a few donations. I wondered why someone had harassed Momma for so many years with those pink letters and why Momma and Daddy never reported it to the police before or after The Awful Year. And I wondered how hard it would be to find the letter writer now.
I tried to understand the way my heart had gone out to Henry and Libby and this frail little boy lying so still in front of me. And what were we to make of the crowds watching our life on the news and over social media as if we were the newest series on Netflix?
It all felt incredibly heavy.
I sat beside Jase’s bed while Libby slept, and I whispered almost like a prayer, “Open your eyes, little boy. Please wake up and get well. Please.” Then I repeated the gesture I had made with Momma—I brushed Jase’s hair from his forehead and kissed him there.
As I listened to the silence, I opened Momma’s laptop and let the thoughts that had been brewing seep onto the computer screen. If Hannah had been there she’d have given me a look that said, Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Would the police approve? But I didn’t need anyone’s approval. This was pure instinct.
First I set up a GoFundMe account for Jase. Then I went to Momma’s Facebook page and posted: Good news! Momma is stable again after the horror of last night. And we’ve also learned more about her would-be assassin. We understand now why he did what he did. He hired himself out to raise money for his six-year-old son, Jase, who needed open-heart surgery. That doesn’t make what he did right, but we don’t want Jase to be the victim of this. Even now, the little boy is fighting for his life. If you want to help the Bourdillon family, please leave the would-be assassin alone. Help us find the person who ordered the assassination attempt. If you know of anyone who has expressed anger at Momma, get in touch with the authorities in your hometown. Don’t post any names here. And if you want to make Josephine Bourdillon smile, donate money for Jase’s medical expenses here.
I inserted the link to the GoFundMe account, and attached the photo of Momma with Milton, and pressed Publish. Then I went to her Twitter account and tweeted an abbreviated message with the same information and the same photo and the hashtags #JosephineBourdillon and #SaveJasesHeart.
I left Jase’s room and went back upstairs to see Momma. Hannah was crouched over her, holding her hand, praying and whispering hope. Momma’s eyes were still closed.
In a flurry of words, I explained my Facebook and Twitter messages to Hannah.
“You’re a modern-day Robin Hood,” she said.
“Except I’m not stealing anything.”
“You’re not stealing money,” Hannah clarified. “But you’re stealing the attention away from Henry and raising money for his son. That sounds Robin Hood-ish to me. Only you would think of something like that.” She smiled. “It’s a good plan, Paige. We’ll just have to wait and see if it works.”
SUNDAY
Sure enough, as we slept, my Facebook and Twitter posts went viral. Drake, who had spent the night on the pullout couch in the den, knocked on my bedroom door early Sunday morning to announce the news. Hannah and I threw on sweat shirts over our pajamas and hurried down to the kitchen where Daddy, just back from the hospital, was making bacon and eggs. On the TV in the den, the reporter Lucy Brant was explaining to the world about my Facebook and Twitter posts and the GoFundMe account for Jase.
The comments on social media were totally polarized, from those proclaiming that Henry still deserved the death penalty to others who tweeted and posted on Facebook, Give him some grace! And little by little, money started coming in for Jase.
It felt like we could breathe again.
I couldn’t wait to get to the hospital and tell Libby.
When I reached Jase’s room I found her curled up in a chair. “I brought you a piece of quiche and a blueberry muffin and some juice.”
I watched her beautiful green eyes fill with tears, and she said, “Thank you, Paige. Thank you so much. For everything—the food and flowers and just coming to check on Jase. It means a lot.” She glanced down at her phone. “I just got a text from my pastor. He and his wife are driving over right after church.”
“I’m so glad.”
She nibbled at the food, and I hovered nearby. I almost told her what was happening out there in cyberspace, but for some reason I refrained.
———
Henry sat in the interrogation room, all forlorn and washed-out, a pale, ghostlike giant. He nodded when I came in, accompanied by a policeman.
“Hey, Paige. Right nice of you to come see me.” Then his face sagged. “Awful sorry I scared you like that the
other night. I’m awful sorry about everything.”
I nodded and couldn’t think of a reply. Finally I said, “Hey, Henry. I brought you something.” I handed him a copy of Momma’s most recent book and then sat down in the only other chair in the room. The policeman stood off in the corner.
That made him smile. “How’d you know I was reading this one?”
“Detective Blaylock told me you’d asked for it.”
“Did he? Well, that was right nice of him. I don’t have anything else to do, so I figured I could finish reading it.” He had his cuffed hands resting on the little table between us.
“I saw Jase and Libby a little while ago,” I offered. “Jase is hanging in there. The doctors say his pneumonia is clearing up. Lots of people are praying for your boy, and the pastor and his wife are there with Libby. They’re staying at the Rathbun House too.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Paige. I’m hoping they’ll let me see Libby soon.”
“Yeah, that would be great, wouldn’t it?”
I took a breath, rehearsing Detective Blaylock’s suggestions. “You might be able to ask questions in a way that takes him off guard.” Unfortunately, so far I’d been lousy at following the detective’s advice.
I didn’t mean to be so blunt, but it came out. “Do you know why they let me come see you, Henry?”
He narrowed his eyes and then shrugged.
“They want me to try to get information out of you. To see if you’ll tell me the name of the person who hired you.”
That didn’t seem to worry him. He shrugged again, his big shoulders hunched up. “I told that detective the truth—I have no idea who’s really behind it. Just the man who talked to me, Nick.”
Then his eyes got wide, and he looked scared, like he was afraid he’d said too much. But I just placed my hand over his and said, “Can you tell me what this man said to you, Henry?”
“He called me on the phone with the instructions. Can’t say anything else about him.” He turned his eyes down. “But the thing is, he’s just a middleman. He’s not the one who pays the money or pulls the trigger.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. “Is there anything else, Henry, any other information that you could give us?”
He shook his head too quickly, then looked down at his cuffed wrists. “Naw.”
After an awkward pause, he turned his pale eyes on me and completely changed the subject. “Paige, what do you make of all those people on the TV and the internet wanting me dead? I mean, of course they’re right. I tried to kill someone. I deserve to die.” Tears came into his eyes, shocking me. “But what’s been bothering me is that your momma’s books have all those religious themes, and lots of the people who read them call themselves Christians.
“And those same Christians are some of the ones wanting me dead. Your momma, in her books she talks about grace. I thought that was the point of Jesus coming. I thought Christians were supposed to be different.” He reached his burly hand up and wiped his eyes.
He grabbed my heart with that statement. I knew just what he was talking about.
“Well, I used to go to church,” I told him, “until two of the people I respected the most turned out to be horrible hypocrites. And even though my sister always says that I shouldn’t judge Jesus by His people, I can’t help it. The Bible says we should be able to tell people are Christians by their love. I feel the same way as you, Henry. I want to see love, not hate. I want to understand what grace is.”
“Yeah. Well, I sure hope they ain’t all hypocrites. Least your momma isn’t. And I just bet there are other good people out there too.”
He looked pitiful to me, like a gentle, remorseful, defeated giant.
“Anyway, thank you for the book.”
“You’re welcome.” I stood up to leave and said, “If you want to talk any more, Henry, I’ll come again. I’m happy to come again.” Then I added, “But you need to get yourself a lawyer. Promise me you’ll do that, Henry.”
The look he gave me said he understood.
As soon as I was out of the room, I called Detective Blaylock on my cell. “He said the middleman’s name is Nick. That’s the only thing I got from him.”
As soon as I said it, a little voice sneaked up behind me and whispered, Way to go, Paige. Now you’ve ratted on Henry too.
HENRY
I sat on the little cot in my cell and thumbed through Miz Bourdillon’s latest novel, the one I’d started listening to on CD, till I found the place where I’d left off. I kept on reading and was surprised by all the ways that rich lady in the story was showing love, real love, like I wanted and like Paige wanted.
Then all the sudden I could hardly breathe, and my pulse throbbed in my head.
I’d gotten to a part about the slave girl—except now she was a freedwoman. Well, she’d had so many really awful things happen in her life that I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. And now they were gonna take her boy away from her, and that was just the last straw. And she’d been real strong and brave before, when they took her son away, she fell to the ground and wouldn’t talk to anyone but the Lord Almighty. And she was singing that same hymn, the very same one that that person who hired me had quoted. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Then, with her heart breaking in two, she stopped singing that ole hymn and just kept saying, over and over, “Lord, take my life! Take my life! I don’t want to live anymore. Please, Lord, take my life.”
As soon as I read that I closed my eyes, trying to pull those exact words out of my memory. What had Nick said? Sat still for a long time until I finally got it. “She started quoting some song to me. Like it was a twisted kind of prayer to kill someone. She said, ‘Take her life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee! Take Mrs. Bourdillon’s life. That’s your job. Take her life!’”
This time, I didn’t just think it was kinda strange to quote words from a hymn with directions about how to kill somebody. This time I knew it was strange, and suddenly I knew why. I knew just as sure as I had shot Miz Bourdillon who had hired me to shoot her. And it wasn’t any crazy reader.
It was Miz Bourdillon herself, telling me plain as she put it for that freedwoman in her story. Take my life.
CHAPTER
15
THREE WEEKS LATER
PAIGE
The leaves turned brown and found their way to the ground, the trees stood naked and embarrassed-looking in the November wind, and the sky threatened snow but none came. I went back to school, Hannah returned to Aix-en-Provence and Drake to his university, and Momma was transferred to a rehabilitation center not far from the Mission Hospital campus. Henry was assigned a lawyer who had him plead not guilty at his arraignment. Evidently, even though everyone knew Henry was guilty, this was typical procedure—a five-minute formality where the judge accepted the plea and set the trial for some time within the next year. No bail was posted, and Henry was taken to a maximum-security prison about an hour from Asheville to await his trial.
But Jase stayed on the third floor of Mission Hospital, fighting for his life.
I’d gotten into a routine; I’d go by the rehab center every day after school to visit Momma. I winced at all the ways the physical therapist was torturing her, but her stiff, immobile limbs were gradually starting to move in ways that showed Momma had some control. She kept making incredible progress, considering that she needed to relearn how to do life—everything from talking and moving her limbs to thinking. She communicated through eye blinks and hand squeezes and, occasionally, with short spoken sentences, and she understood what we said to her perfectly well. She didn’t remember anything about the shooting, but when Daddy talked to her in private about the thing during The Awful Year—the suicide attempt—she evidently remembered that perfectly well.
With the secret off his chest and Momma making steady progress, Daddy acted more like the playful father I’d always known. He brought Milton to all my soccer games, and he rarely refrained from letting the re
feree know if he’d made a bad call.
Aunt Kit visited Momma on weekends and stayed at the house with us and actually helped out a little with meals, which surprised both Daddy and me.
Hannah kept up the CaringBridge site from France, and I posted photos of Momma and Jase on Facebook and kept reminding people to contribute to Jase’s GoFundMe account.
Detective Blaylock found several sets of fingerprints from the pink letters that weren’t mine or Hannah’s or Momma’s or Daddy’s, and the police were looking to see if any of those could lead them to whoever sent the letters. If they did, I didn’t hear about it, no matter how often I badgered Detective Blaylock for more details.
And the police had another lead. They’d found a number on Henry’s cell phone that was also on Momma’s. We found that quite surprising, and frankly, had no idea what to make of it.
But Henry sat in his cell and kept his mouth clamped shut.
Drake and I texted numerous times throughout each day. I didn’t particularly like long-distance dating but thankfully, we knew each other so well that when we miscommunicated (which happened often), we’d give each other the benefit of the doubt. He came back home on the weekends, and he and I would visit Momma at rehab and then venture into Asheville’s art district on Saturday afternoons, peeking into the industrial-buildings-turned-art-galleries.
Sometimes he held my hand, but he never kissed me, not once. Finally I confronted him about it. “I hope you didn’t take one of those vows where you can’t even kiss a girl until after you’re married,” I blurted, and he laughed so loud and long that I felt my face turn beet red.
“My, aren’t you a judgmental little snob, Miss Bourdy,” he teased. He saw my eyes flash anger, and he laughed again. “Please just hurry and grow up. This phase you’re in now is maddening.”
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