by Ginny Aiken
“I didn’t say that.” Cissy pursed her lips for a moment, then let out a slow breath. “No, this one begs and borrows too. But he calls it ‘investments’ in computer hardware. And he did bring the machines and strange gadgets for Darlene and Jacob to see. Not that they knew a thing about electronics, you know.”
I figured Jacob didn’t know much of anything by then— who knew how long the poor man had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Bella didn’t let up, even though Cissy seemed on the up-and-up. “But this one pays his rent and food and junk, right?”
Cissy shrugged. “Who knows? Over the years Darlene gave him a lot of money. He could still be living off the latest sum.”
“And when did he snooker that wad out of her?”
Bella does have a way with words.
Cissy paused and thought. “About a year ago. I figure he’s probably due for another transfusion into the Larry-the-Bill-Gates-wannabe dream fund. A refusal might have made him mad enough.”
“What’s he need more for? How many computers can he want?”
Bella had a point. Where would Larry put more computers? And he wasn’t sinking the cash into his house; the paint was peeling worse than a blonde with a sunburn. Clothes? He didn’t dress for success.
“Larry says computers become obsolete the minute they leave the manufacturer’s warehouse.” Cissy looked uncertain. “I don’t know much about electronics, so he could be right.”
I’d heard it said a number of times. Living in Bill Gates’s part of the country made even the staunchest of techno-phobes aware of certain realities.
Then Bella really kicked it up a notch.
“So where are you getting your regular fits of MGM?”
“Fits? MGM?” Cissy asked.
“Hey, I’m hip. That’s what kids call druggies’ daily helpings of their poison.”
Maybe I’d just slip under the table. How could Bella flat out call Cissy, a woman who could quite possibly be as innocent and nice as she again seemed, a junkie?
With great dignity, Cissy said, “You must mean fix, Bella. And I’ll have you know I’m no drug addict. I’m a retired nurse, a student of health sciences. I support research and development. And just you wait. One of these days everyone will line up for their routine HGH shot just like me.”
Bella pushed her lips out. “Ooh, baby. Not me. No way, no how. You won’t ever catch me shooting up with some voodoo juice cooked up who knows where by who knows who.”
Again Cissy took offense. “It’s produced at a research lab in Mexico, Bella, and Dr. Díaz is very well respected in the medical community. He knows what he’s doing.”
My head began to throb; the mental ping-pong game had everything to do with it.
Bella went in for the kill. “I bet he does. Do you?”
I cringed. Bella’s antics had to stop. “What kind of question is that?”
She pounded the table. “The kind that gets real answers, Haley girl. If we want to get to the bottom of this, then someone’s gotta do that kind of asking. I’m doing it ’cause you’re just sitting on your butt watching lettuce wilt.”
She was right. I had sat like a lump from the moment she’d taken up the reins of the conversation. Unfortunately, we hadn’t learned a thing. Well, some. But not much. Not enough that I could take it to Lila and get anywhere with her.
“I think what Bella means,” I ventured, “is that we don’t understand why you’re willing to risk your health on an unproven remedy.”
“I want to do my part. I want to help those who are working to prove the value of HGH. I want to give people hope. I want . . . I want to help eliminate the threat of death.”
The fear Larry had mentioned cast a shadow across her face. I reached out and covered her hand. “Why would you want to do that?”
Her fingers trembled. “Because it hurts so much to lose those you love.”
“I’ll buy that. I still miss my mother, and she’s been gone a couple of years now. Also a friend who died after her. But I’m okay. I’ve moved into a new place in my life. Everyone does that after the loss doesn’t sting so bad.”
Her hand spasmed into a fist, and she looked away. “But don’t you worry what she went through? How scared she must have been? Where she is now? How hopelessly lonely she must be?”
“Oh dear . . .” Bella’s bulldog feistiness was gone.
I met her gaze. Cissy had no faith. What a sad way to live. I knew it too well.
“I don’t worry about my mother,” I said in a gentle voice. “I never have. I know where she is and who is at her side.”
Cissy yanked her hand away. “How? How can you possibly know?”
“Because I know the one who holds our lives in his hand. And my mother knew him too. Today she’s face-to-face with him, and all her pain and fears are gone. The God of heaven takes care of his own.”
“Everyone’s got a God story,” Cissy said with a shrug. “I’ve never come across one that sounds right. There’s the New Age guys who say you’re your own god; there’s the pagans who worship Egyptian deities and trees and rocks; and then there’s the Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and everything else in between. Everyone’s got a story to tell.”
“There is a difference,” Bella said.
“What’s that?” Cissy asked.
“Only one story tells about when God became a man and died on a cross for us—you too. None of the other stories hold water; they’re missing the love, the sacrifice, that real, live, here-today-to-stay truth.”
“You’re talking about Jesus, and I know he taught good things. But all religions teach different versions of the same kind of thing. There’s no difference there.”
My heart broke at the bleakness in her voice. I remembered when I turned away from God’s love. I’d felt so alone.
“The God of the Bible promises forever at his side,” I said. “All we have to do is accept his Son’s sacrifice on our behalf.”
“That’s what they teach,” Cissy countered, “but it’s too simple, too easy. You can be as horrible and criminal as you want, then one day say, ‘Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus,’ and everything’s okay. Besides, you can’t know that any of it’s true. There’s nothing to show that God will do what he says he’s going to do.”
“That’s faith, Cissy,” Bella said. “It’s like when you fly in a plane. You don’t see anything holding that plastic and steel sausage full of people up in the air. But you do see them fly over your head all the time. So you take it on faith that your plane’s going to fly too.”
A sausage? Okay.
“There’s physics and math to explain why planes fly,” Cissy argued. “That’s a world away from taking words written thousands of years ago as truth.”
“Once you do accept that truth,” I said, “God reveals himself to you, more each day. Take it from someone who walked away from him at the worst possible time of her life.”
“I’m happy for you,” she said. “But for me, I’d rather eliminate the reality of death.”
I knew when to back down, but I also knew that Cissy had just found a home in my prayers. She needed God in her life. But she wasn’t ready to meet him, so I returned to our original tack.
“You helped yourself to Darlene’s HGH, didn’t you?”
“I’m not proud of what I did,” she answered. “But yes. I’m committed to the success of HGH research, and so I ordered twice as much serum as Darlene needed. We both took it. I know what I saw with my own two eyes.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw Darlene get her color back. I saw her grow stronger, put back on some of the weight she’d lost, and I saw her become more like her old self again.”
“And you’re sure that MGM hormone did all that?”
Cissy smiled. “HGH, Bella.”
“Same difference.” There was no budging Bella once she made up her mind. “What about that stuff? Are you sure that’s what made Darlene get better? Are you sure it wasn’t the cance
r going into recession? Or the chemo working?” “Remission,” Cissy corrected. “Yes, the oncologist did say the malignancy was gone, but Darlene went into remission before. She didn’t rebound like this that other time, and that was earlier in the course of her disease. The only difference was the HGH.”
I’d had about all I could take. I stood. “Cut it to the bare bone here, Cissy. Why are we still talking about Darlene’s death? The woman had liver cancer. She was terminal. What’s the deal?”
Her mellow brown gaze met mine. “It’s all about what I saw. I’m sure the cancer didn’t take her life. Someone killed Darlene.”
I fell back onto my chair and just sat, too stunned to say another word. For once even Bella was speechless.
“So now there are three of you,” Dutch said from behind my back. “I guess that old cliché is true: birds of a feather do flock together.”
He pulled a chair from the empty table next to ours, swung it around, and straddled it at my side. “How do you do it, Haley? How do you work yourself up and convince yourself that a crime’s been committed where nothing’s happened? How do you sell the story? How do you live with the snoop you’ve become?”
“Hi, Dutch. Fancy seeing you here. To what do I owe this uncommon pleasure?”
“You, Haley. You’re why I’m here. And it’s a good thing too. Otherwise, you’d have sent these two women out to do your dirty work.”
“I’d never do such a thing. You’re . . . you’re a . . . a . . . you’re a jerk, Merrill. And I hope I never see you again.”
My anger boiled so high that I ignored the chorus of gasps that followed me outside. I paid no attention to the flood of incoming senior citizens but marched right to my car, got in, and just plain old stewed.
How could he? That was the nastiest thing anyone had ever said to me. I wouldn’t risk the safety of a pair of elderly women. I’d done everything I could to keep Bella away from the Weikert family. And I certainly had nothing to do with Cissy’s suspicions. She came up with those all on her own.
Knuckles rapped on the roof of my car.
“Go away!”
“Wow, Haley. You sure know how to hurt a guy.”
I groaned. “I don’t have the energy for your games, Chris. Doesn’t Lila keep you busy enough at the cop shop these days?”
My former classmate opened the car door. “Scoot over. Something’s up with you, and I’m not just the goofball you remember from back in sixth grade.”
“I hope not. You’re a cop now, for goodness’ sake.”
“And a good one too. So good that I detect trouble in your paradise. Go ahead. Move over. Tell Uncle Chris all about it.”
Too tired to argue, I moved. Chris sat behind the wheel. “Do you want me to drive you home?” he asked after a couple of silent minutes.
“No. I’m sure you’re busy. You don’t have to babysit me.”
“Trust me, Haley. Babysitting is the last thing on my mind when I think of you.”
“Sure. You’re busy cooking up ways to either torment me or lock me up.”
“Not exactly.”
The serious ring of his words made me glance sideways. What I saw on his face made me catch my breath. And scared me to bits.
“If you think about it,” he said, “you can figure out I’ve had a crush on you since back in sixth grade. But sixth-grade males aren’t what you’d call suave and debonair. You never gave me the time of day, not even in high school. So I burned off the pain of my heartbreak and unrequited love by thinking up ways to torment you.”
“Give me a break! That pickup line’s so lame, it limps.”
“Did it work?”
I had to laugh. The mischief in his blue eyes was contagious. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought of you as anything other than the tormentor you mentioned.”
“How about you give me some different kind of thought now? Are you busy Friday night? A couple of guys on the force say that new Thai restaurant is really good. Do you like Thai?”
And just like that, I had to face the one thing I’d avoided for a long, long time. A real, live, walking, talking, breathing man had just asked me out. I hadn’t gone on a date since . . . since that hideous night five years ago when my date raped me.
I met Chris’s gaze. I saw more there than I expected. I saw understanding, compassion, caring, and admiration. I also saw uncertainty, the fear that I might say no.
Sincerity glowed in his gaze. I couldn’t look away.
“You can trust me, Haley. You know you can. I would never do to you what that animal did. It’s your choice, and I understand if you can’t.”
Tears filled my eyes. The tenderness in his voice moved me. Fear held me back.
Something wafted up from the fog of my past . . .
“Perfect love drives out fear . . .”
Oh, Lord . . . why did you let this happen? What am I going to say? What should I do?
As I sat in my car and prayed, a nugget from the Bible rang in my heart. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Chris had asked me to trust him. I didn’t think he had it in him to hurt anyone, but I had no way to know for sure. Only God knows the heart of any of his children. So this wasn’t really about trusting Chris.
This moment, this possible date, was all about my love of God, my trust in him. I thought back to what I’d told Cissy. And that’s when I knew. I knew I had to put my money where my mouth was. Was I really ready to trust him, even in this?
Had I really come home to my heavenly Father? Dare I try and minister to Cissy, to help her face her fears, if I wasn’t ready to take that step myself?
Oh, Father, help me. Give me strength, courage, faith. Hold me; keep me in your hand.
“Sure, Chris. Let’s give it a try.”
8
“How could I have done that?” I wailed later that night.
“What, Haley?” Tedd asked. “How could you have done what? Agree to go to dinner with an old friend from school? That doesn’t sound all that strange or difficult to me.”
Although her voice sounded scratchy over her cell phone, Tedd’s point came across loud and clear.
“It would be normal if I were normal. But I’m not.”
“Are you going to stay ‘not normal’ for the rest of your life?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you saying you can’t trust God to heal you? To maybe even restore some of what was stolen from you?”
I took a sharp breath. “But how can I know? How do you know a date with Chris is what God wants me to do?”
“That’s faith, Haley. You take God on faith. You trust him to see you through even this.”
Her words brought the crazy conversation with Cissy and Bella to mind. I’d tried to share my love for the Lord with Cissy, but now I faced a real test: I had to put that love into action. I had to live that trust before I could expect Cissy to see it in me.
It wasn’t good enough to talk; I had to walk the walk.
My chuckle came out kind of choked. “Funny how God works sometimes.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Listen, shrink lady. Are you anywhere near?”
“I was on my way home, but I pulled off when I saw your number on my phone. Are you home?”
“Want to stop by?”
“Sure. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Tedd arrived, and as usual, we had to allow for Midas to greet his guest. They played fetch with his favorite rope knot, and then Tedd rewarded him with a doggy cookie. He plunked down at her feet and stared up at her with an excess of adoration. He wanted more: more games and many, many, many more cookies.
But I needed to sort through an avalanche of jumbled feelings. And after I convinced Midas that no more cookies were to be had, we left the kitchen and went to the living room. Tedd sat in a corner of the white-slipcovered couch, and as usual, I c
hose my late mother’s rocker. I told my therapist-turned-friend about Cissy’s lunchtime grilling. When I’d brought her up to speed, she sat for a handful of silent minutes.
“What’s your take?” she finally asked. “Do you still think Cissy killed her friend?”
“My head says she had the best motive of all—she inherits a good-size estate. But my heart? My heart tells me she didn’t do it. If she did it, then why would she question the coroner’s report? You’d think she’d be planning a party or a trip to Brazil for Carnaval.”
Tedd took a minute to digest. “If I had to go by what I learned in criminal psychology as well as my clinical experience with a wide variety of minds, I’d have to say you’re right. I don’t think Cissy Grover killed Darlene.”
“Cha-ching! Chalk one up for me. I did pretty good. And I didn’t spend a bundle or half my life to become a shrink either. How’d you like that?”
“Ah . . . but you can’t tell people what to do like I can, with my kind of authority.”
I snorted. “Yeah right. I’d like to see you give me one single, solitary direction. Your style runs more along the lines of a dentist’s drill: dig, dig, dig.”
“Does scuba ring a bell?”
“That was a dare. That’s different. You don’t command.”
“I make you think, and that’s moved you from that dark pit where you were to this new, lighter place. That’s what I’m trained to do. And with God’s help, I’m going to see you come all the way out on the other side.”
“Are you there?”
“Talk about dig, dig, dig.”
I mimicked obeisance. “I learned from the best.”
Tedd glanced at her laced hands. “I think I am there. And I won’t tell you I’ve forgotten one second of the rape, but I turned the rage and pain into resolve to heal myself and help others heal. After a while of despair, I came to the Lord, and he’s brought me here. I have to believe he’s kept his promise.”
“You’re still not married.”
“I’ve come close.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“You know, Haley? Sometimes I forget we haven’t known each other all that long. And I do tend to keep much of myself inside.”