by Sharon Sala
With their appetizer finished, the conversation pretty much ended until their entrées arrived. By the time they’d waded through all that food, almost two hours had passed.
“Do you want dessert?” Charlie asked.
“No. All I want is a bubble bath and a bed.”
Charlie frowned. Now he had the image of her deep into a tub of bubbles, with the red-and-black dragon’s head just above the suds, peering at him with those fiery yellow eyes.
He signed the tab to the room, adding a hefty tip to celebrate the end of a case, and left the sports bar.
“What time do you want to leave in the morning?” Wyrick asked as they exited the elevator onto their floor.
“After breakfast,” Charlie said.
She shuddered. “I can’t even think about food.”
“You will tomorrow,” he said. “I’d like to be back on the road no later than nine. We’ll go down to breakfast around seven thirty. How’s that sound?”
“You’re the boss,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. They both knew that was a joke. But he was a gentleman, and so he waited until she was safely in her room before he went into his and locked up for the night.
As soon as Wyrick turned the dead bolt, she headed for the bathroom, stripping off her clothes as she went. It was a practice of hers to never welcome the night until she’d washed away the day.
* * *
The next day was the last leg home, only this time when they left Nashville, Wyrick was driving and Charlie was sleeping off a stack of pancakes and bacon.
She was rolling down the interstate, thinking about shopping for a permanent home in Dallas, when Charlie mumbled something about Annie in his sleep.
She glanced at him then, allowing herself five seconds to appreciate his broad chest and flat belly. And, since she wasn’t into masochism, ignored everything else below his belt buckle.
It was midafternoon when the Dallas skyline appeared on the horizon, and Charlie was driving.
“We’re almost home,” he said. “I’ll bet Tara and Jordan are already back. Hope the kid is able to settle in okay.”
Wyrick thought about her own childhood for a few seconds, then put away the memories.
“She’ll find a new level of being. That’s what you do. All those little girls will struggle. Maybe the ones with babies, the most.”
“Do you think the Feds will be able to pin any of this on Universal Theorem?”
Wyrick shrugged. “I don’t know. Cyrus Parks is no fool. He’s good at covering his tracks. I’m proof of that. I gave the Feds everything they’d need to prove UT was funding the cult, but they’re going to be sadly disappointed if they didn’t get their own information in time.”
They rode in silence the rest of the way until Charlie reached his parking garage. He drove up to his level, then pulled in beside Wyrick’s Mercedes and parked.
They got out and began unloading her things into her car.
“The office is still closed today,” he said. “Go home and unwind. I’m going to check on Annie. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she said, and then jumped into the Mercedes and started the engine.
She backed out of the parking spot, then burned rubber on the concrete as she took off.
“That was entirely unnecessary,” he said and then shifted focus. He still had camping gear to get back in storage, but everything else could wait until later. He was going to Morning Light. It was getting harder and harder to psych himself up to go, but as long as Annie still drew breath, she held his heart in her hands.
Twenty-Three
Charlie pulled into the parking lot at Morning Light and then grabbed the sack he’d brought with him.
Pinky, the daytime receptionist, looked up from the desk as he went inside.
“Hello, Charlie.”
“Hello,” he said and signed his name, then walked to the door for her to buzz him inside.
As always, it was the scents that got him first. Industrial-strength cleaning solvents, the very faintest hints of urine as he passed by resident rooms, and the odor of old bodies still hovering between a heartbeat and decay.
He went straight into the common room first, searching the faces of the residents scattered about. A few were in front of a television, watching a game show, but the TV was on Mute. For some, too much sound was agitating, so they left the shows playing, and the color and movement was enough to entertain them.
An elderly man was asleep in a wheelchair near a window. The garden beyond was awash in color, but the scene was wasted on him. And an elderly woman was pacing back and forth, from a table in the middle of the room to an empty chair near the wall, scolding a nonexistent person for misplacing her purse.
The knot in Charlie’s stomach tightened as he continued to scan the room, but Annie was nowhere in sight. Then one of the aides saw him in the doorway and hurried to him.
“Hey, Charlie, Annie is in her room today.”
Charlie frowned. “Has she been there all day?”
He nodded. “She does that a lot now.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said, then left the common room and turned left. Annie’s room was the third one down on the right.
He paused outside the door, then took a deep breath and walked in.
Annie was lying on her bed, watching a show on a wall-mounted television, but it was also playing without sound. They’d dressed her in a yellow long-sleeve shirt and gray knit pants, and she was covered from the waist down with a fuzzy blue blanket. It could be ninety degrees outside, but sick people and old people were always cold.
He pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat down so he wouldn’t appear to be looming, but her focus never shifted from the screen. Most of the bruising from her fall was fading, but the staples were still in her head, and for the first time ever, her hair was disheveled. She looked ten years older than she had the last time he’d seen her.
“Hey, baby,” he said and tested the waters by putting his hand on her arm.
He blinked away tears when she didn’t respond. It hurt to breathe.
Then there was a knock on the door and Rachel, the nurse who’d been with Annie in the hospital, walked in.
“Good afternoon, Charlie. They said you were here.”
“Hi, Rachel. How’s she doing since her fall?”
Rachel moved to the foot of the bed and adjusted the blanket, patting Annie’s foot as she did.
“She’s okay. Her health is good, but she sleeps a lot now.”
“Does she communicate with anyone?” he asked.
“Well, once in a while she sort of wakes up...you know? We can tell because there’s a flash of cognizance, then confusion, and then it usually fades pretty fast. Is there anything I can get you?”
Charlie pulled a bottle of body lotion from the sack he’d brought with him.
“I used to rub this on her feet. Is it okay if I do this, or do you think it might upset her?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea. Let’s try it and see what happens. If she rejects the touch, we’ll just stop, and if she doesn’t, it will be a comforting thing to do for her,” Rachel said. She pulled back the covers at the foot of the bed and gently removed the slippers on Annie’s feet.
Charlie moved from the chair to the foot of the bed and scooted onto the mattress, patting her legs as he spoke.
“Hey, sweetheart, it’s me, Charlie. I’m going to rub some lotion on your feet, okay? It’s lilac...your favorite.”
He took her silence as a positive sign and lifted her feet into his lap. He squeezed a dollop of the lotion into his hands and rubbed them together to warm the liquid, then began slowly rubbing it onto the top and bottom of her right foot.
When she didn’t pull away, Rachel smiled.
“I think you’re good to go. If you need me, j
ust pull the cord in the bathroom. Enjoy your visit,” she said and left him alone with his girl.
Charlie sat for a moment with his hands cupping Annie’s foot, remembering how she used to giggle that it tickled. The fact that he was touching her now without a reaction was sobering, but being able to do this for her meant a lot to him.
He began massaging in the lotion with soft, gentle strokes, rubbing the toes, and then along the arch of her foot and up the back of her calf with easy pressure, until it had absorbed into her skin. Then he repeated the process with her other foot, working the lotion up the back of her calf, then back down around her ankle, using just enough pressure to ease her muscles.
He was so lost in the process and the joy of touching her and being with her that a whole hour had passed and she had fallen asleep.
“Ah, baby...that felt so good, didn’t it?” he whispered, then eased the slippers back on her feet and covered her up.
He thought about rubbing some lotion on her hands, but he didn’t want to wake her, so he left a gentle kiss on her forehead instead and went out the door, taking the lotion with him.
The common room was nearly empty as he walked back up the hall to the door leading to the lobby. A passing aide stopped to let him out. Pinky was on the phone, so he was spared the need to speak. He stopped just long enough in the lobby to sign out.
Walking away from Morning Light into the noise and traffic of Dallas was an abrupt return to reality. He and Annie were both still living—one more than the other.
Before he went home, he stopped at a supermarket near his apartment to pick up basics. A six-pack of beer and a six-pack of pop. Cold cuts and bread. Milk and cereal. Eggs and bacon. Then he stopped by the deli bakery for sweets before heading to checkout.
By the time he got home, he was moving on autopilot. It took a couple of trips to get the Jeep unloaded. A woman who lived a few doors up from him was coming out of the apartment building as he was going in. They didn’t really know each other, so there was no need to converse. A simple nod in passing served its purpose, and once he’d unloaded the Jeep fully, he locked himself in and began putting it all away.
The last thing to put up was the lilac-scented lotion, which went in his bathroom. Visiting Annie always left him with a sense of ennui and depression, but he refused to give in to it. After pulling off his shoes, changing into sweats and a T-shirt, he walked barefoot back through the house.
He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he wasn’t hungry, so he sank into his recliner, picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Charlie was too much of a conspiracy theorist to have something in his house that not only heard what he was saying and doing, but could find shows for him to watch, answered questions and initiated conversations. That was shit he didn’t trust.
He finally found something he wanted to watch. He leaned his chair back and pillowed his hands beneath his head. The scent of Annie’s lotion was all around him now, and in a way, a kind of comfort. He’d brought a little of her home.
* * *
Charlie wasn’t the only one who had to stop for groceries. Most of the time Wyrick ordered and had them delivered to her car on the way home, but this was one of the few times she had to go inside for herself.
Too many people made her nervous, so she went only for the basics, and within twenty minutes was back in her car and on the way home. The closer she got to Merlin’s estate, the more relaxed she became. The basement apartment wasn’t luxury, but it was safe, and for her, that trumped elegance every time. However, she was still going with the notion of buying property, so elegance was bound to come with the level of security she would demand.
The lawn care company was mowing the grounds when she drove onto the property. They were a necessary evil, but strangers made her wary. They’d already mowed where she parked. She got out to unlock the door to her apartment, then began carrying everything inside. It took three trips before her car was empty, then she locked herself inside the apartment.
Since she didn’t see Merlin when she drove onto the property, the first thing she did was text him to let him know she was back, then she began putting up groceries. Setting up the computers she’d taken with her was next, and finally, getting her things back to her bedroom.
Since she’d incinerated the prototype of her plane, there was no need to hide the remote controls, so she shoved them into the bottom of a closet before unpacking her clothes and tossing them in the laundry.
As soon as the washer was humming, she stripped down and showered, silently acknowledging her dragon as she dried off and dressed.
It was almost 3:00 p.m. and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so she dug through the groceries she’d just bought and put a chicken potpie in the oven to bake. She poured Pepsi into a glass full of ice and headed for the computer.
She had multiple messages from her stockbroker, Randall Corne, so she checked in with him first.
“Hello, this is Randall.”
“Hey, Cornie. It’s me,” Wyrick said.
“You know I hate it when you call me that,” Randall muttered.
“You called me four times. I am returning the calls,” she said.
He sighed. “Yes, well, the opportunity to buy what I was going to suggest has come and gone, so that’s one phone call. The others were regarding your gaming company. You banked about six hundred million in the last six months.”
“Okay,” Wyrick said. “I just got home. I’ll check everything out and email you in a day or two. I have a little research to do, but I’m thinking of selling all of my shares in the shipping company.”
“Sure. Your call,” he said, and then added. “Was it a fun trip or a work trip?”
“It was a trip to hell and back,” she said. “Thanks for calling.”
She took a sip of Pepsi, then went down the list of emails, deleting some, responding to others. She paid her rent via Venmo to Merlin and transferred money from four different US banks into a numbered account in Switzerland. And then, as she was logging out of her personal account, the oven timer went off.
Lunch was served.
She got her potpie from the oven, upended it onto a plate, then stuck a fork in the bottom crust to let out the steam. It rose through the cracks as she dug it apart to let it cool, and then she carried it and her Pepsi into the living room to eat.
She found a movie she wanted to watch and then blew on her first bite until it was cool enough to eat. It wasn’t cordon bleu, but it was food she liked, and she settled in to eat.
* * *
Tara and Jordan were up early the next morning. Tara couldn’t sleep, and Jordan kept dreaming the Master was chasing her with a gun and waking up in a panic.
When it came time to get dressed, Jordan threw away her tennis shoes and both sets of clothes she’d worn at the compound, leaving her with sandals, a red miniskirt and a red-and-white floral top to wear home. She even used a little makeup on her bruises, and after a quick glance in the mirror, saw remnants of her old self again. She packed Brownie Bear into her bag, giving him a kiss and a thank-you before zipping it up.
A brief cab ride to the airport later, they were escorted to a runway off to the side, and then they crossed the tarmac to the waiting jet. She went up the airstairs, a young, dark-haired girl in a miniskirt, with a bag over her shoulder and a weird, makeshift spear in her hand, knowing her mother was right behind her. And when they were boarded, the pilot pulled the stairs up inside the plane and helped them settle for takeoff.
Jordan’s heart lifted with the plane as it took off down the runway, and the farther and faster it went, the closer she got to home.
Having the luxury of Dwight’s plane at their disposal didn’t end with just a flight home. The plane had been stocked with a sumptuous breakfast buffet, and as soon as the pilot radioed they could get up and move around, Jordan headed straight for the food.
“I
have Dramamine if you feel airsick,” Tara said.
“I’m good,” Jordan said and forked a small piece of red, juicy watermelon into her mouth.
Tara smiled, but she knew Jordan’s “good” was still debatable. After Tara chose some food for herself, they sat down at a table for two by a window and began breakfast, talking as they ate.
Jordan had been worrying about returning to school ever since her rescue, and now it was an inevitable fact. The girls at the compound had not been allowed that option, and she wasn’t going to give up the gift of education and hide in some kind of shame for what had happened to her.
“Mama?”
“What, honey?” Tara said.
“Do you have to notify my school ahead of time that I’m back, or do I just show up?”
Tara blinked. “Uh... I hadn’t thought past getting you home safe. I don’t know. I’ll find out.”
Jordan nodded.
“Are you worried about it?” Tara asked.
Jordan shrugged. “Worried is the wrong word. But I’m not looking forward to being treated as if I’ve been tainted, or something.”
“We can see about homeschooling for the rest of this year if—”
“No!” Jordan said, suddenly angry that this was even being discussed. “They took away my freedom once. I won’t ever let that happen again.”
Tara reached for Jordan’s hand and then held it.
“You know I have your back.”
“Yes, Mama, I do. The whole time I was there, I told the girls you would find me. I told them you’d never quit looking.”
Tara blinked back tears. “And you were right. I put the best man I knew on the job, and he came through for both of us.”
“Charlie Dodge saved my life,” Jordan said. “And then he waited with all of us while the FBI agents arrested all the men. He told the girls he’d made up his mind to rescue all of them when he came after me.”
“He did?” Tara asked.
“Yes, and I keep thinking about that, Mama.”