by Nancy Rue
“How did you know I was looking for her before you came here?” Sully said.
“You said it yourself. You came to the church in Little Rock trying to find her. I got wind of that, put together from your podcasts that something major had happened to you. When I decided to come here and saw that you were here too—it just worked. What did you call it? ‘All God’?”
Sully was chilled. “I take it you don’t believe in ‘all God.’”
Kyle stood up and sent the chaise lounge sliding across the tile. Sully rose and moved toward the door to the house and stood with his back to it. Kyle stared into the fire.
“I grew up being told that God has some vast eternal plan for our lives. When he didn’t protect Hayley from Cox, when he let her kill herself and let me find her in the bathtub swimming in her own blood, I figured I better come up with my own plan.”
“It was a pretty thorough one,” Sully said. “Did you have it all mapped out before you came?”
“I was just going to let you lead me to her. But then when I saw how much alike we are . . . same build, same coloring . . .”
“Same car.”
“I bought that when I saw yours.”
“How did you get my fingerprints on the murder weapon?”
Kyle looked at Sully over his shoulder. His eyes were dark voids. “I took you out for a steak dinner. Look, I knew you could afford a good lawyer. I even recommended one. He’ll get you off.”
“He doesn’t have to get me off,” Sully said. “You just confessed.” Kyle turned to face him. “You don’t have any proof of that.”
Sully didn’t answer. Kyle’s eyes came down to pinpoints on Sully’s sweatshirt pocket.
In an explosion of profanity, he hurled himself at Sully and threw his arms around his waist. Sully pulled his hands from the pouch, but he was already too off balance to stop the backward smash into the wall. He heard his own breath groan from him. Gasping for air, he clutched at Kyle’s sleeves as Kyle flung him to the patio floor. Sully’s neck snapped back, and his head smacked on the concrete. Even as the pain blinded him, Kyle drove his forearm into Sully’s throat and groped in the pouch. Sully felt the tape recorder being pulled away. Kyle’s sweat dripped into Sully’s face.
“I had to pin it on somebody. I’m sorry it had to be you.” With one hand still at Sully’s neck, he pitched the tape backward into the fire, and with it Sully’s hope. “Now it’s just your word against mine.”
“And mine.”
Sully closed his eyes. From the open gate, the voice of Levi Baranovic settled over him like a prayer.
In a surge of energy that lasted no longer than ten seconds, Kyle was pulled off Sully and planted against the wall, face smashed to the stucco. Two uniformed officers searched him roughly and pinned his hands into cuffs.
“I want a lawyer,” Kyle said.
Sully barely recognized his voice.
“Fine,” Baranovic said. “I’ve already got your confession right here.” He tapped his forehead and waved his other hand toward the gate. “These gentlemen are going to take you in. You can call your lawyer from there.”
As the uniforms took a silent Kyle out through the gate, Baranovic put his hand down to Sully.
“You okay?”
“I’ve been better,” Sully said.
Baranovic shook his head. “When I told you on the phone I couldn’t use a tape in court, I didn’t mean for you to let him throw it in the fire.”
Sully sank onto the chaise lounge. “How long were you out there?”
“We tailed him here.” He shrugged. “You give us a tip, we’re going to follow up. Besides, I knew you weren’t going to be able to pull off a recording.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Because, Dr. Crisp”—Baranovic smiled—“you’re not a criminal.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Cade misses Alex,” J.P. said.
I looked at her through the steam rising from my coffee. “You miss Alex, because he’s the most adorable ten-year-old boy who ever lived. And no, you can’t have him back.”
Poco squeezed my hand, hers still warm from cupping them around her mug of mocha-Valium-double-latte, or whatever it was she was having.
“But you have him back,” she said. “That has to feel good.”
“We’re doing joint custody for right now.”
“A-ha!” J.P. said, jolting Victoria from her current reverie. “For right now. That means there’s a later. You and Dan?” She poked me with her teaspoon. “Come on, you know we’re going to get it out of you.”
“You don’t have to get it out of me,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I tell you? You’re my best friends.”
“Face it, we’re your only friends. Spill it.”
Even Victoria was now wide-eyed and pulling her mass of hair out of her face.
“Dan and I are talking,” I said.
“About . . .”
“J.P.,” Poco said. “Maybe it’s private.”
“I’m not asking for bedroom details.”
“There are no bedroom details!” I said. “We’re just talking through what went wrong and how we’re different than we used to be and whether that means anything for us.”
“How was White Sands Sunday?” Victoria asked.
“Good. We rented those sled things and we all slid down the dunes. Alex loved it. I don’t think Jake is loving doing anything yet. He has a ways to go.”
“Of course he does,” Poco said.
“Dan and I took turns just sort of being there with him while the other one went screaming down the slopes with Alex.”
“So I take it”—J.P. formed invisible breasts the size of cantaloupes in front of her chest with her hands—“is out of the picture.”
“She’s in the hospital, actually. The minute they started to question her, she had a complete breakdown.”
“At least she’s safe from Ryan in there.” J.P. shook her head before anyone could protest. “Just kidding. But admit it—didn’t you just want to strangle that kid when you found out what he did?”
I took a hot sip and considered that. Although for the most part I had concentrated on Jake, I’d definitely had my moments in the last four days when I wanted to do nothing more than take Ian’s neck in my hands and squeeze it. Ginger’s too. That was part of the reason I was bent on keeping my appointment with Sullivan Crisp. I glanced at my watch. He said he was leaving town this afternoon, but he wouldn’t go before we had a session.
Still, it was hard to leave Milagro with the three of them around me, nudging out my personal information and holding it in their pretty smiles and their girly chatter and their womanly wisdom. How had this happened? How did I end up part of something only a group of females could be?
“Ryan, are you crying?” Poco said.
“No,” I said.
“Liar,” J.P. said.
Victoria gave me a misty look. “Crying is God’s way of cleansing your soul.”
“Then my soul ought to be pretty well scoured out. I’ve gotta go.”
“See you at practice this afternoon,” J.P. said. “We’re getting down to the end of the season.”
“We are?” I said.
“Well, yeah. It doesn’t go on forever.” J.P. shook her head at Poco. “Five weeks of soccer, and she still doesn’t know a thing about it.”
I gave her an eyebrow and started toward the door. When I turned back around, they were all watching me.
“You know what?” I said. “I think this is the body of Christ.”
Poco was right about one thing. Some of the details of my time with Dan since Friday were private, for the most part because I was afraid that saying them would put them out there where someone else could tell me they didn’t mean what I thought they did.
I pulled into the parking lot at the clinic and let the dependable New Mexico sun warm me through the windshield—and went over the scene for the twentieth time, at least.
The boys were exploring the gift shop at the White Sand
s monument Sunday, Alex with more enthusiasm than Jake. Dan and I opted for a bench out front where we could watch them through the window and count our sledding bruises. Dan had fallen into a ponderous silence, and I couldn’t tell whether he was pulling away from me or gearing up to get closer. There was so much I didn’t know about him. So much that perhaps I’d never known.
“This whole thing with Jake isn’t the only reason I can’t be with Ginger,” he said suddenly.
“Did you figure that out before or after you got engaged to her?” I put my hand up. “I’m sorry. Old habits die hard.”
He blinked at me. “Engaged? Who said we were engaged?”
“She did. The afternoon I came by your house after the bomb.”
“You came by the house?”
I felt myself squinting. “She didn’t want me anywhere near you, so she shut you down for the weekend. It’s a done deal. Why do we need to hash that all out now?”
“Because I want you to know I found out I couldn’t marry her.”
I hid my relief behind a shrug. “Okay. Good. You know a crazy lady when you see one.”
Dan ran his hand through the hair on the side of his head. “Ryan, would you just shut up and let me say it?”
I put my hands to my mouth and nodded.
“I thought I could—I mean, she made me feel—”
Sexy and desirable? I smashed my fingers harder into my lips.
“But when you came here, and we went through all this and I saw you—” He swallowed down the thickness in his voice. “I knew I couldn’t marry Ginger or any other woman.” He looked at me and into me. “Because none of them are you.”
Alex had burst from the gift shop then with an oversized rubber white lizard, and Dan and I hadn’t returned to the moment yet. I wasn’t sure what to do when we did. I knew what I wanted to do. I just didn’t know if I could.
That was the other thing I wanted to discuss with Dr. Crisp.
The clinic was quiet when I went in. There was something at once peaceful and sad in the air, and I had a fuzzy image of Sullivan emerging from a cell, arms outstretched to embrace a cloud.
“Dr. Crisp will be right with you,” someone said timidly.
I looked up to make sure the same receptionist was at the desk. She had the usual I-just-got-out-of-bed look, but the lilt was gone from her voice.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m early.”
She stared at me like I’d grown an additional head.
I settled onto a couch, striped by the sun through the blinds. I realized I’d never actually sat down in there before; I’d always been too busy pacing a furious path into the rug.
I pulled my yellow legal pad out of my bag. When the trial was over, I’d asked Will Yarborough if I could have it back—just because.
Jake’s journey was still in black, Alex’s in red. I uncapped a blue gel pen and wrote into the gaps Jake had filled for me over the last few days.
• I never had anybody like Ian since you and I used to talk. Then you left.
That one was hard to write down. But then, we were all facing the tough truths now.
• The day it happened—with Miguel—I wouldn’t talk until I could see Ian and find out why he left me there. I wouldn’t go home with you because I knew you could get me to tell, even though I was already mad at you for leaving Dad. And I couldn’t tell—not without Ian. I knew there had to be a reason he ditched me.
• When I got home to Dad’s, Ian said not to talk to you. I was going to anyway, but Alex said Ian would hurt him if he said anything about what he heard. I didn’t believe it. Alex makes stuff up sometimes. But just in case, I had to be mean to you in front of Ian so he would know I wasn’t telling.
I paused, squeezing the pen. There were moments when the urge to smack Ian was almost overwhelming.
• When you got too close to the truth, he said I shouldn’t talk to you at all. Period. He kept saying he was working it out for me, that I’d never have to go to jail. He said Miguel would wake up and say it was an accident.
• I told him one day I thought you were right—that we ought to just tell the truth. Then he got really mad—like he was the day it happened. He said, “I maimed one kid. What makes you think I won’t do it again?” He wouldn’t even come over to the house. That’s why I had to go to the debate tournament and see him, to make him believe I wasn’t going to tell. I was afraid he’d hurt Alex.
• When I got caught, I picked jail so he wouldn’t think I was talking to you. But I couldn’t take it in there. Some guy was an epileptic or something, and they didn’t give him his medicine. He had this huge seizure, and nobody even did anything to help him. Stuff like that just gets to me. I was still scared Ian was gonna hurt Alex, but I had to get out of there.
• And then I went on assignment with you, and I saw what Miguel’s people were like, and I didn’t want to be connected to that crime anymore. I didn’t want anybody thinking I’d hurt them. Then we found out Miguel wasn’t going to wake up, and I knew Ian was wrong. I was also figuring out I could trust you because you were different than you used to be. That day you left me at home, I was planning how I was going to tell you when you came back, and then Miguel died. I knew it was too late—nobody would believe me.
• Then when the lawyer told me the soccer field was bombed and you got threatened, I had to protect Alex. I had to find a way to make it work in jail because I was probably never coming out. You said to imagine God, and that’s what I did.
My throat was as tight as it was every time Jake and I’d talked about this. I saw it all when it was happening, and yet I’d truly been powerless to change it.
• It tore me up that Ian was letting me take the blame for everything. I thought if you figured it out, without me telling you, he wouldn’t hurt Alex because it didn’t come from me. I gave you hints, like that I was the one who called 911.
• And then Ginger came to see me in jail and told me that Ian was going to testify and tell the truth. That’s when I wrote you that note, so you’d know it was going to be okay. I know it was stupid, but I thought his conscience got to him. Ginger said Dad and her were getting married, and I thought Ian would do it so Dad wouldn’t find out later and be mad. I wanted to tell him that Dad didn’t get mad—that he would have helped Ian if he’d told the truth in the first place. He just didn’t get that. He’s never had any other dad except mine.
“Ryan? You ready?”
I blinked and nodded at the blurry figure in the doorway. “Ya think?” I said.
She climbed into her chair and looked around. “Where’s my sandbox?”
Sully shook his head. “The police took it in their search, and I haven’t gotten it back.”
“What did they think they were going to find in there?”
“You got me.”
“Never mind. I think both of us have about had our fill of the police department.”
“I kind of have a soft spot for them right now,” Sully said.
“I’m not there yet.” She looked at him almost shyly. “I know we’re not supposed to talk about you in here, but I’m glad you were cleared.”
He grinned. “That’s okay. It’s my new favorite subject.”
“I hear you.” She pulled her feet up and hugged her knees. “I guess I’ll have to manage without the sandbox.”
“Are you in need of some calming down?”
“I already went to White Sands, for real—with my boys—and my ex-husband.”
“Was that a good thing?” Sully asked.
“That’s one of the two things I want to talk to you about. We should get started.”
Sully let another grin spread across his face. Just when he was seeing the changes in her, she reminded him that some things would always stay the same.
“What?” she said. “Am I amusing you?”
He sat back and crossed his ankles. “Cut to the chase.”
“Dan and I are talking. About us. We haven’t actually used the wor
d us. We’re kind of tiptoeing around it.” She stopped and shrugged.
Sully tilted his head. “I thought we were cutting to the chase.”
“I don’t know what I’m chasing.”
“What are the possibilities?”
Up came the goalpost hands. Sully pulled a leg up across his knee. He wasn’t sure before she came in if he had the spirit for this right now, but she was bringing it back.
“I think there are two,” she said, focusing between the posts. “One, we’re doing pretty well just being our boys’ parents together. It’s actually sort of comfortable. That could be all it will ever be.”
“And the other possibility?”
“That maybe we belong together after all, and we can put the past behind us and start over.”
Sully let out a buzz.
She squinted at him. “I thought you weren’t going to do that with me.”
“Sorry. Conditioned response.”
“To what?”
“To the idea that we can ever completely put the past behind us.”
“Huh,” she said. “You’ve made me dredge it up and look at it until I want to punch it in the face—to use my younger son’s phrase.”
“And has it helped?”
“Okay, yes. But I know what happened with Dan, at least my side of it. I think I have a pretty clear idea of his side too. Are you saying I can’t just move us forward?”
Sully lowered his foot to the floor and leaned on his knees. She leaned on hers, too, and opened her eyes to him. He’d once thought she was the most challenging client he’d ever had. But she might also very well be the most eager to find the path.
“Are you listening to yourself?” he said.
“What am I saying?”
“You know what happened with Dan, both sides of it. You want to move the two of you forward.”
She dropped her forehead to her knees. “There’s my answer. I am always going to be a control freak, so I might as well give up the idea of getting back together with Dan and having the life I’ve started thinking we could have.”
“Is that your answer?” Sully said. “Or is it just that you have more work to do?”
“How much more? I don’t even think I’ve gotten anywhere.” She brought her head up. “No offense to you.”