Carry Me Home (Paradise, Idaho)

by Rosalind James

  “It’s Cal Jackson,” Cal said, his voice coming out too tight. “That’s my girlfriend. Zoe Santangelo. That’s her place. Is she all right?”

  A flashlight scanned him, then lowered, a hand coming off the barrel of a gun. “Hey, Cal. Jesse Hartung.”

  “Zoe,” he said again.

  “She’s okay,” Jesse said, and Cal’s knees buckled a little.

  “Okay how?” he insisted.

  “All the way okay. Well, shook up,” Jesse amended. “She chased him off. Let off a shotgun doing it.”

  “What about the guy?”

  “We’re checking with the neighbors, doing a search, but he’ll be long gone.”

  “She in there?”

  “Yeah. Hang on a minute.” Jesse was raising his radio to his lips, but Cal was already moving around him.

  The door was unlocked, and the two men standing in front of Zoe’s couch turned at his entrance, opened their mouths to say something. What, he never found out, because he was already past them.

  She was wrapped in a blanket, sitting dry-eyed and straight, but shaking. She started to stand up at the sight of him, but he grabbed her, pulled her back down onto the couch, and held her, fighting the emotions back.

  She hung on. He could feel her trembling, and he was smoothing her hair, kissing her forehead. “It’s okay, baby,” he told her, even though it wasn’t. “It’s okay. You’re all right.”

  She nodded jerkily against him, and he could feel the struggle for control as if he were inside her body, maybe because he was fighting the same fight. She took a few deep breaths, and he did the same, and then she pulled away and sat back.

  He kept his arm around her, because he couldn’t let her go. “What happened?” he asked.

  “We’re just getting her statement now,” the guy in charge said, somebody Cal didn’t know. He said it pretty pointedly.

  “And you can wait about two minutes until she tells me what happened,” Cal said, because his rage had to go somewhere. “She might have told you that I was around the last time this scumbag went after her.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Check with the sheriff’s office,” Cal said. “Jim Lawson. It’s all on report. For that matter, check with the university cops, too. Maybe if you guys worked together, you could actually catch the guy.”

  “Sir,” the cop said with a sigh, “that’s what we’re trying to do. If you’ll calm down, maybe we can get the lady’s statement and make some progress.”

  “Two minutes. What happened?” he asked Zoe again.

  “He cut the window glass,” she said, jerking her head toward the corner of the room, and Cal realized for the first time that it was freezing in here and the cops still had their jackets on.

  “Pretty professional job,” the cop said, apparently deciding to forgive him. “Didn’t break it. Cut out a semicircle with a glass-cutting tool, probably used some putty to remove it, took it away with him. Quiet. Neat. He’s practiced that.”

  “I didn’t hear it,” Zoe told Cal. “I heard the wind chimes. He wasn’t expecting the wind chimes. Thanks.”

  “That your idea?” the cop asked.

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “I figured it might give her a couple seconds, just in case. Jim said shots fired, though,” he told Zoe. “Who fired? Him?” He tensed even more at the thought. If the guy was willing to shoot her, that cast a whole new light on things.

  “No,” she said, and actually looked a little proud. “Me.”

  “But you missed? Damn, baby, that’s real disappointing.”

  The cop looked startled, but she smiled, because yeah, she was just that tough. “On purpose,” she assured him. “He said I wouldn’t do it. I was just trying to be convincing. I think I was pretty convincing.”

  “Buckshot has that effect,” the cop said. “Pretty dangerous letting that off in an inhabited area.”

  “Pretty dangerous for me if I hadn’t,” she snapped back before Cal could answer.

  “Just keep in mind,” the cop said, “you start carrying concealed or anything, you need a license.”

  “She was in danger,” Cal said. “I gave her a pump-action and taught her how to use it, and you can assume we’ve applied for that concealed-carry permit, too. Not her fault that the system takes forever. You didn’t see him applying for a license to rape her. So if arming her was a crime, I guess I’m going to jail.”

  The cop chose to ignore that. Probably wise. He could probably tell how close to the edge Cal was.

  “I wanted to keep him on the ground,” Zoe said. “I was planning to call 911 so they could catch him. But he ran.”

  “Could have shot him then,” Cal said.

  “Hey,” the cop protested, and now Cal was the one ignoring him.

  “I could have,” Zoe admitted. “But first, it was shooting him in the back. I don’t think I could have. And second, he was on his way out the window. The Dolans’ house is right there. I couldn’t risk that, could I? They have kids. I don’t even know which thing was working harder in my brain, but I couldn’t shoot him. Even though,” she confessed, “I so wish now that I had. I so wish he’d made a move. Another step and I was going to shoot. I wish he’d taken that step.”

  “Not more than I do,” Cal said.

  “And if you’re all done here with your own investigation,” the cop said, “maybe it would be all right with you if we kept going here so the lady can get this over with, get some sleep tonight.”

  Yeah, like that was happening, but Cal made a gesture of acceptance, sat back with Zoe, and waited while she answered. Over and over. Not telling him anything they didn’t already know. Tall, because the guy had hit the wind chimes good and hard, but shorter than Cal, she thought. Big, but not huge. Dark clothes, ski mask, gloves. No zip ties, but that was because he hadn’t gotten to the zip ties. Thank God.

  “Did he do the flowers?” Cal interjected as the thought struck him.

  “Flowers?” the cop asked.

  “That’s his calling card,” Cal said. “Ask Jim Lawson. He sends flowers ahead of time. Like it’s a date.”

  “No,” Zoe said. “No flowers.”

  “Not enough time,” Cal guessed. “He didn’t know you’d be alone until the last minute. Which means he was watching.”

  “We’ve checked with the neighbors,” the cop said. “Nobody’s noticed anybody suspicious. Dark Ford F-150, she says? Not that anybody particularly saw, or remembers.”

  “How suspicious is a guy driving by in a pickup?” Cal agreed with frustration. “I’m sure he wasn’t circling the block or anything. He’s careful.”

  “So he didn’t know she’d be alone,” the cop said. “Why was that? She normally not alone? Why are you so sure he was watching?”

  “Zoe and I had a fight today,” Cal said. No point not saying it. “I wasn’t here. I’ve been here until now, or she’s been at my place. She was alone, and he saw it, and he jumped.”

  “Uh-huh,” the cop said, making a note. “Targeted, you’re thinking.”

  “Absolutely. That’s his pattern. It’s all there in the other reports.”

  More questions, more answers, over and over and over the same ground, and Zoe was clearly flagging, the terror headed straight into exhaustion now.

  “We about done here?” Cal asked after she’d described what the guy had said, what he’d done, for what seemed like the fourth time. “Because I think you’ve got it.”

  “You don’t decide if I’ve got it,” the cop said. “I decide if I’ve got it.” He closed his notebook, though. “But I’ve pretty much got it. I’ll be coordinating with the other agencies, and we’ll have a report for you to sign tomorrow, ma’am. I can find you at the university? Or here?”

  “Not here,” Cal said immediately, before Zoe could answer. “At my parents’ place.” He gave the addr
ess.

  “I could—I can’t—” Zoe began.

  “What?” Cal demanded. “You can’t stay here. Tell me you aren’t thinking that.”

  “No,” she said, and she was trembling a little again. “But—”

  “But what? Rochelle? You going to put her in the guy’s sights, too?”

  “No,” she said, her face stricken. “No. I can’t do that. Not even with the shotgun. Who knows if he’d go after her. I can’t do that.”

  “So it’s my parents’,” he said. “Only place where I know you’ll be all right, and where you’ll feel all right.”

  “Bossy,” she said, with the hint of a smile.

  “Yeah,” he told her, and his heart twisted, because he still wanted her, and what was he going to do about that? Nothing but suffer, because nothing had changed, except that it was even harder now. “Bossy.”

  Zoe hesitated a little upon entering her bedroom, and Cal stepped through first, ducking under the wind chimes that had saved her. That, and her own quick action.

  “Suitcase,” he said, trying to stay businesslike at the sight of the bed with its covers twisted to the side, the shotgun against the wall. “And did you unload it?”

  “Oh.” She looked blank. “No.”

  “Never mind.” He picked it up, racked the slide, gathered the shells, opened her bedside table, and put them into the ammo box he’d installed there, then lifted the whole thing out. “Take this with you,” he advised. “Keep it in your car.”

  “In my car?”

  “Hell, yeah, in your car. You want to land in the ditch with him behind you without it?”

  She flinched, straightened again, and said, “No. I don’t.”

  He said, “Good,” and that was that.

  He studied the neat pattern of holes drilled into her closet door as she opened it, hauled out a big suitcase, and tossed it onto the bed. “Good job,” he said. “Center mass. Just wish it had been his center mass.”

  “I know,” she said, with another of the flashes of spirit she’d showed that night. “But would you quit saying that? I should have just shot him. I’ve wished and wished I had. Your saying it doesn’t help.”

  “Sorry,” he said with surprise.

  She sat on the bed with a thump. “I just . . . couldn’t. If he’d been coming at me, I could have. But I couldn’t stand there and shoot him.”

  “Fairly hard, I imagine, to shoot somebody in cold blood,” Cal said. “Unless your brain tells you it’s him or you. We’re pretty wired not to kill, I’d say. Most of us.” He smiled a little, sat beside her, took her hand. “Hey. Here I am comforting you because you didn’t kill somebody. Not what anybody would have thought a few weeks ago, huh?”

  She laughed, sounding better. “I guess I’ve changed.”

  “I’d say you have.”

  “Have . . . you, though?” she asked cautiously. “I mean . . . what you said before. Is that still . . . the same?”

  He stood up again. “Yeah. It is. I’ll keep you safe. And I can’t promise not to care about you. But I can’t just put my heart right out there to get broken. Not again.”

  “Okay. I understand.” She looked rattled, but she stood up again, went to her closet, and started to pull clothes out, because nobody had more guts than Zoe.

  She carried an armful to the bed, tossed it down, began to strip items from their hangers, and stopped. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  “What?” he asked in alarm, because she sounded truly distressed.

  “I . . .” She picked it up. Her black jacket, punched neatly through in two places. Two round places. “I shot my suit.” And then she started to laugh.

  He went for the skirt that lay under it. Another couple of holes. The blue blouse beneath. Also wrecked.

  “Five yards away,” she said, her shoulders beginning to shake with it. “That means a pattern five inches across. I shot up my entire professional wardrobe. All five inches of it.”

  She was flipping through one ugly item after another. Those black pants. Another blouse, a pair of khaki pants that had fully deserved to die. All of them ventilated now, and he was laughing with her, both of them overcome, sinking down onto the bed again, and she scooped everything up and flung it into the air, watched it land on the floor.

  “Sayonara,” she said, gasping a little, wiping her eyes on the sheet. “You said you hated them over and over. And now I’ve shot them all, and the only thing they’re good for is a bonfire.”

  “I can’t think of any clothes that deserve it more,” he said. “Death by firing squad. I told you that you were a natural shooter. Right through the closet door and everything.”

  “I’m going to be wearing jeans to work,” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He went to her closet again and pulled out the blue sweater dress, a short knit skirt, a white blouse with a V-neck. “I’d say some of your better investments survived.”

  “Those are too feminine for work,” she said. “It’s better to look more . . .”

  “No,” he said, pulling them off their hangers and beginning to fold as she stared at him and shook her head. Probably thinking he was bossy again, and too bad. “It’s not. You don’t look masculine, and you’re never going to, so you can just give it right up. You’re not a man, and nobody’s ever going to mistake you for one. So, look like a woman, get them off guard, because nothing messes a man up more than a good-looking woman. And then hit ’em with your smarts. One-two punch. My advice, and you don’t even have to pay for it. Ten Tips for Showing Them Who’s Boss.”

  “Did you read that?” she asked suspiciously, getting up and gathering more hangers full of clothes from the closet.

  “Nope,” he said. “I made that up all by myself. Might even sell it to a magazine.”

  SAFE HARBOR

  Zoe couldn’t get into her car alone, when it came down to it. Everything that had happened tonight, everything she’d done, and she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stand the thought of taking that snowy, lonely road by herself, even with Cal following behind. It was irrational, and it was stupid, and she still couldn’t do it.

  He saw her hesitation. “Come on,” he said, throwing her suitcase into the bed of the pickup and opening the passenger door to an enthusiastically tail-wagging canine welcome from Junior. She rubbed the big dog’s ugly head while he grunted his satisfaction and politely refrained from licking her, and she felt better for it.

  “Hop on up,” Cal said, “and Junior and I will take you home. Bring you out here again in the morning, follow you to the university in the daylight. With the shotgun right there in your car. As long as you’ve got the doors locked, you’ve got the time to load. If you need to practice that, my dad will help you out.”

  “I don’t need help,” she said when he’d started the truck and was pulling out. “At least, I’ll be practicing some more, yes. But I practiced before. I practiced with Rochelle, with the dummy shells you gave me. I can load fast. And now I’ll be practicing taking it out of the backseat, grabbing the shells. Like you said. Training so I don’t have to think, because you were right. There’s no time to think. No space to think.”

  “You did good,” he said. “In case I didn’t say.”

  She steeled herself for it. “And because I didn’t say, either,” she said, “I need to say it now. I appreciate what you did, and what you’re doing. Tonight. I guess it doesn’t change anything between us, and I know you’d rather not have anything to do with me right now. And you’re still doing this.”

  “Yep,” he said, and she could see the hard line of his jaw, his mouth. “I am. But no, it doesn’t change anything. So I won’t stick around, if you don’t mind. My folks can handle it. I can’t.”

  “I used to wonder,” she plowed on, something inside her dying a little at how she had hurt him, at how much she was still hurting him, “if there
was any man I could trust. If there was any man I believed was decent, all the way down. I want you to know, no matter how you feel about me, that you’re that guy. I know you are. I . . . I like you. And I admire you. So much.” And I want you, and I need you, and I think I love you, she didn’t say, because if she said it, if she even allowed herself to think it, those last fragile pieces of her will and her strength might just crumble away. And she had to hold on to those. They were all she had.

  He’d picked up speed, was on the highway, and he didn’t answer for a minute, and she sat there, her heart beating hard, and waited.

  “Doesn’t do me a whole lot of good,” he finally said. “But all right.”

  “I want you so much.” There she was, letting herself say it, and it was just as bad as she’d feared. “But I want this, too,” she tried to explain, wishing he could understand, “and I can’t just suddenly . . . not want it. This is my dream, and it always has been. You had a dream, too. You must know.”

  “I did,” he said. “And I found out there was more than one dream that worked. I found out that happiness wasn’t in just one thing.”

  “Well, I guess I haven’t found that out yet. If I’m ever going to. I’ve worked for this all my life. I’ve planned for it. I want to be with you. I don’t want to break up.” If that was begging, too bad. She was begging. “But I can’t just give up my dream, can’t you see that?”

  “So it’s all or nothing, is it? I don’t want to ask,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it. But here I am asking anyway. It’s the whole enchilada, or that’s it, you’re a failure? Because if there’s one thing I’ve figured out during all that time down there at the bottom of the bottle, the bottom of my life, it’s that it isn’t the life you have. It’s what you do with the life you have.”

  “That sounds good,” she said. “That sounds right, but it doesn’t feel right. It wasn’t for you before, and it isn’t for me. To get to the top in the hard sciences or engineering, whether it’s in research or academia? Yes, it’s all or nothing, because it’s almost all men. It’s all about your career, or it’s not. You don’t make it all about that, you’re second best. You’re not at the top, and you’ll never be at the top.”