Jake considered his father who sat forward, his chin resting in his hands, his elbows balancing on his thighs. He exchanged a questioning look with him.
“Jake said before we came here he was willing to pay his debt. My thinking is he’s paid enough.”
“And, as I said, I think the judge will think that as well. But I can’t make the guarantee. I can give him a character reference, of course—”
“Can I say something? Seein’ as how this is me y’all are discussin’?” Jake breathed hard as he took in the two of them. “I remember that kid, the one who died in the car crash while he was high on drugs. I remember how Robbie felt after hearing that. I don’t want to feel that way. I want to get Ty and get him once and for all. And if the only way the judge or the court or whoever is going to listen to me is by me confessing now, then that’s what I’m gonna do.” He raised his gaze to Dex. “You want to take down my confession?”
“You sure you don’t want to call a lawyer here now? Maybe let’s reconvene in a day or two when you’ve had some time to think this over?”
There was the squeal of a chair as Jake’s father sat up and held his head for a moment. He reached in his back pocket for his cell phone. “Guess I’ll call my guy, Jake. There’s sure as hell bound to be someone in that damn firm who handles this kind of mess.”
****
The streets of Philadelphia shone in the evening dusk, aureoles of white on the pavement from streetlights overhead, scattered leaves and chestnuts covering the walk. Students were bundled against the cold, their woolen scarves flapping out behind them or wound round their necks for protection. Paige wrapped her coat close and fell into step beside Deirdre whose stride was so much longer and quicker than her own.
“Hang on. I want to stop at Wawa and pick up a donut or something. I’m starved.”
“You’re always starved, Paige,” commented Deirdre, following her into the brightness of the shop. “For such a little gal, I wonder where you put it all.”
The girls snaked through the aisles to the pastry section. Paige picked up the tongs and lifted the lid of the donut container. She grabbed a wax paper square and dropped a chocolate donut into it, offering it to Deirdre.
“No, thanks. I’m hoping they have some sort of food at this party.”
“Don’t count on it.” Paige got in line and waited to pay, already nibbling at the sweet confection and licking off the icing. By the time she was at the head of the line there was only a sorry morsel left to show the girl on the cash register.
“Well, that was good,” she commented as she followed her roommate outside into the chill of the night. Waves of frosted breath fogged the air as she dusted down her hands and breathed deeply. “Anything round my mouth?”
Deirdre shook her head.
“Well, let’s go.”
This was the first party in nearly four years, other than one of her mother’s, Paige had been to without Steven. She and Steven had never done things separately while at school together. Yet, he had never suffocated her, or maybe she had never comprehended she was being suffocated, subsumed under Steven’s bigger personality, his commanding being. She had never considered herself anything but independent, a free agent, a free will. But here was what she now recognized: she had been half of a whole, a one of two, and what she had taken for independence had really only been the freedom to stay with Steven, the ability to join in a consensus of opinion as to what activities to pursue, or even what decisions might be reached.
This new vacuum presented a conundrum, and Paige suddenly found herself wondering, there—right there as she walked to a party she would have previously attended with Steven—if law school was what she really wanted. Had she been hauled along by Steven, thrust along by her family history? Had she ever thought of, considered, the alternatives?
The apartment was sultry with the press of bodies and the blue haze of cigarette smoke and the aroma of drink. A single spilt beer, not properly mopped up, gave off a sickening sweet smell intensified by the humidity of the room. Some unidentifiable music blared in the background as Paige and Deirdre inched their way farther into the crowd, nods of recognition and excuse me’s serving as passports to the kitchen. Opened bottles of wine and paper cups and salad bowls of chips were laid out haphazardly on a table and the worktops while fellow guests conversed in the crowded space. Deirdre gave a wave to someone stuffed into a far corner and made her way over to them while Paige swerved back into the main room, her coat still hanging loose about her.
She hid against the wall behind a couple in heated discussion, and put her drink down on a table to peel off the coat.
“Here, let me help you with that.” A man dragged the article free and handed it back. “John James,” he said, offering his hand.
“I beg your pardon?” Paige’s brow knit in misunderstanding.
“It’s my name. John James. And you’re Paige Bennett.”
“I know who I am,” she replied with some annoyance, the merest hint of a smile just turning her lips.
John James stared at her, trying to catch her eye, but Paige sought someone more interesting, less fawning. She sipped at her drink and glanced around the room to see whom she knew.
“I heard you can be rather prickly,” her unwanted admirer continued.
“Have you? Well then, why bother?”
“I also heard you are rather brilliant.”
“Oh, garbage.” Pinned to the wall, for a moment she wanted to dash outside. She moved away a slight bit, but this new stalker moved with her.
“I have Advanced Tort tomorrow,” he went on, “you know—”
Paige slammed down her drink on a nearby table. “Excuse me, my phone is ringing.” She fished inside her coat pocket and brought it out, just able to see Jake’s name flashing on the screen face. Moving swiftly toward the door, she leaned into the corner there and flipped the phone to her ear. “Jake,” she yelled, “I won’t be able to hear you well. I’m at a party. Hang on a minute while I get outside.” She shuffled back into her coat and got out of the apartment, down the steps to the front door of the building and into the freshness of night air.
“I thought maybe we would no longer be speaking, Jake. Your father really screwed up my mother.” Annoyed at having gone to this party, confused and upset about being in law school, and now being forced to think of her unhappy mother, Paige was going to make sure Jake was the recipient of her ire.
He hesitated. “Well, my dad went to pieces when Carrie left. Look,” he went on after a deep breath, “let’s leave them out of this. That’s not why I called.”
“Oh, so to what do I owe the pleasure?” And then that awful John James…
“Thought you’d like to know I went to the sheriff and confessed.”
That caught her. The silence stretched so long Jake’s voice finally came back with another, “Hello?”
“I’m here. So, what happened?”
“Not a lot. Well, nothing as yet. I mean, I haven’t handed in a written confession as yet. We’re waiting for my new lawyer to decide how to handle this. He wants to make sure it’s word perfect or something. I have to go see him next week and then maybe on to the sheriff’s office again.”
“You know you can go to jail.”
“Yeah, but everyone says they doubt it. Suspended sentence is what they think, seeing as how I’m handing myself—and hopefully Ty Sheldon—in on a platter.”
“Good. Well.” Paige sat down on the cold stoop, immediately wishing she hadn’t as the damp seeped through her pants.
A couple shoved by in single file, the man glancing down with a scowl while following his girlfriend up to the front door.
Paige stood again, arranging the coat so it hit the step first and protected her. “I’m thinking of leaving law school,” she blurted out.
“No, you’re not.” Jake snickered at the idea.
“Oh, yes, I am.”
“When did you decide that?” His disbelief was audible.
&nbs
p; “Just now,” she replied with some nonchalance. “I’m not sure this is what I want any more.”
“Well…don’t make any hasty decisions, Paige. You can do an awful lot with a law degree, or so I’ve been told.” There was still a note of surprise in his voice.
“Oh, look who’s the authority on this now. Maybe you should go to law school?”
“Right. Almost. I hated studying the first time round. Hate offices, too. Best thing about being in the army was being outside most of the time.”
“Even if you were being shot at?” She voiced a hint of humor in her tone.
Jake laughed. “Yeah. Being shot at outside beats studying and working in an office in my book.” He chuckled again. “Listen, don’t leave Philly just yet, okay? I might be up there sometime soon. Soon as I clear up this mess, I need to go see some horses at a farm in Pennsylvania.”
“Near Philly?”
“Noooo. Not near Philly, but I need to fly in somewhere. Anyway, it’s close enough. Text me your address, will you?”
Paige surveyed the night sky, pinpoints of stars just showing through the leaf canopy thinning with autumn. She liked the thought of seeing Jake again. If honest with herself, she looked forward to it.
“What are the stars like in Texas tonight?” She smiled to herself, knowing immediately what his answer would be.
“‘Big and bright.’” He laughed. “I don’t know. I’m inside at the moment. Why?”
“Maybe I’ll go practice law in Texas,” she mused out loud. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Immigrant law or animal law or some such thing. Go into practice with Deirdre.”
“Who the hell is Deirdre, for goodness sake?”
“Oh! Didn’t I tell you? She’s your wife.”
****
When Jake could stop laughing about Paige’s idea he was going to marry some leggy, blonde lady lawyer from Texas, and had hopefully convinced her this notion was going nowhere, he hung up and laid back on his bed for a moment, absently petting Crockett’s head. Star was curled at his feet and gave a whine of complaint as Jake first stretched and then swung off the bed, planning to have a look at the computer screen relay from the new stable cameras. The light was now out under his father’s door. His dad had been turning in early, reading in bed most nights since Carrie’s departure, no doubt an attempt to keep her absence—and drink—off his mind.
Glancing out the front windows as he passed through the living room, everything outside remained still. The cricket and cicada songs were like fiddles without strings, no doubt playing a country song. But that was the only sound he could hear as he switched on the office lights and moved the computer mouse so the picture came into view. He clicked into the camera icon and waited while it opened.
No movement. The camera gave a perfect view right down the line of stalls and accounted for every horse. Jake sat back in the desk chair, which creaked as he tipped it back, cracking his knuckles with mild satisfaction. He yanked the blinds closed on the blackness of night and stared at the screen for a last survey. All good.
And then, just as he reached across to click the mouse to close, he saw the barn door slowly open.
Chapter Fifteen
Frantic, Jake started to scrabble through the desk drawer for the key to the gun vault, but it was useless as he couldn’t remember the combination.
“Dad,” he shouted, panic rising. “Get up and bring your gun to the barn. He’s here.” He dashed for the front door, not knowing whether or not he had woken his father, or whether his father had made sense of what he had yelled.
Flying down the front steps, he hit the lane leading to the barns and stable at a run; gravel pierced through his socks to remind him he hadn’t put on boots. The whine of insects met him as an owl suddenly rose out of a tree. And then there were the horses whinnying. Up ahead, there was no car or other vehicle to be seen, but he was sure Ty was in there, sensed it in his bones, knew it as a fact.
And then, in front of him, was the hint of light coming from under the stable door.
“Stop!”
Jake flung open the door and faced Ty who had a hurricane lamp at his feet and his hunting knife in one hand. He was about to lead a horse from its stall.
“Stop, Ty. It’s enough. Stop.” He strode toward his enemy, facing him down. His shadow loomed in the orange glow from the hurricane lamp, making it feel more like a romantic tryst than a hostile confrontation.
“Well, look who’s here. Just in time to join the party.” Ty sneered. “Which one shall I take, do you think? This one looks pretty good to me. How much horsemeat is that? How much is he worth? Couple of thousand? Ten thousand? What? You know, I have no idea about these things.”
He put out his hand. “Give me the knife, Ty. You’re not going to do anything.”
Face to face, he didn’t predict the sudden change, the sudden movement of Ty’s arm to bring the knife down on his own. Jake yanked back too late, the cut catching the side of his hand, blood rising and beading along the line of the incision.
His opponent took a slow step toward him. “What are you going to do now, Jakie? Huh? Tell me. What are you going to do now? You want to be a hero like your brother? You ridin’ in to save the day? I tell you what. I’ll put down the knife and we can have it out. Man to man. How’s that?” There was a mocking laugh as his face twisted into scorn, the scar down his left cheek pinching the skin into two ripe drupes.
Jake’s right hand throbbed. He glanced at it and sucked at the blood that was flowing, but from experience, he didn’t panic, bleeding always appeared worse than it was. “You think there’s any point, Ty? I’ve got you now. You’d have to kill me to get away. I’ve caught you. It’s finished. My dad’ll be in here any minute now.”
“Your dad? That old drunk? You expect me to believe that, Jake? Why he’s prob’ly out cold. You haven’t got me, not if you can’t speak, Jake.” Knife still in his hand, Ty darted another step toward him.
Jake backed against a stall door.
His adversary gave a quick look over his shoulder toward the side door into the tack room and connecting door to the yard. “You know, your brother,” he went on taunting, “he used to bring girls round here and have them, out there in the tack room. Him and me. Then one night, he brought Lucinda. I know you remember Lucinda, how she was back then, Jakie. All that long blonde hair, big blue eyes, real mean on a horse, rode the barrel races for a time like your mom.”
Jake inched sideways. He should be holding his arm above his head to stop the bleeding, but hesitated doing anything that might alarm this maniac. “I remember,” he said quietly.
“You know, I was in love with that girl. I was so crazy ’bout her I would have done just about anything to have that girl. ’Course, Robbie knew. You looked up to your brother, didn’t you, Jake? ’Course you did. And your dad, well, your dad thought the sun shone out of Rob’s backside, didn’t he? Thinks that of you, too.” Ty’s face pinched in on itself, his eyes narrowing with the harsh memories that made his face pucker like he’d swallowed a bitter pill. “You know how I got this scar?” His dirty finger skipped down the rucks of his weal as if he were making sure it was still there.
“You fought with Rob.” Jake let out a slow breath as he tried to move farther away. “You fell and hit your head on the end of the pitchfork…”
His opponent ignored him. “He didn’t have to do that, did he? Rob. He didn’t have to take my gal. He could’ve had just about any girl he wanted, could Rob. They adored him. The dark eyes like his daddy. What is that? Some Injun blood? You got Injun blood in you, Jake? Comanche? Apache?”
Keep him talking, keep him talking. “Something like that,” he replied in a whisper.
“Yeah, Rob was real sneaky. Just like the Injuns. Tell you what,” he said, his voice getting low now, “maybe I got some Injun blood in me, too.” He made a sudden turn toward a horse, the knife glinting with the low light of the lantern as the animal reared up, whickering in panic.
He l
unged for Ty, grabbing him with his bleeding hand, while the other man found his footing and twisted, sinking the knife into Jake’s shoulder, drawing back and going for another stab. Jake moaned through gritted teeth as pain shot through him, electricity traveling the nerves of his body. He crumpled as his legs gave out, and he skimmed down the stall door.
Rolling to his side to avoid another thrust, he kicked Ty’s foot out from under him, causing the wrangler to trip. As Ty fell, shadows played on the walls, the horses panicked and were nickering in their stalls, and there was the smell of the hay scattered about the floor. Jake’s shoulder pounded now, and for a moment, he wondered if those sights and sounds would be his last, but Ty was scrambling for the knife he had dropped. Jake reached out, aching, shoulder throbbing, but the handle wasn’t within reach, and he just managed to get his fingers near the blade. Ty hastily shuffled to his knees, spotting his stretch and, standing, brought his foot down on Jake’s cut hand, pounding his fingers onto the flat edge of the knife blade.
The pain was too much.
Jake yanked his hand away, rolling on his back, fighting his body’s desire for oblivion, to pass out, for the pain to stop.
Ty stood over him now, loathing etched across his face, his old scar whitening with the intensity of his hatred. “You’re an idiot, Jake,” he spat. “You could’ve made good money. We could’ve been in business together, expanded, and got more in. It was working well. But you, like Rob, had to quit. You got morals?” He reached into his pocket now, lifting out a box of matches. He tossed them into the air, playing with them several times before opening the box and selecting one. “I’ll show you what morals I got.” He struck the match and held it up, showing the bright yellow flame before he let it fall.
Dances of the Heart Page 23