Seeking the Shore

by Donna Gentry Morton

  Soon, very soon.

  He had never been so tired. Every muscle screamed for rest, and the itchiness in his throat had worked its way up to his eyes and nose. His bag seemed to weigh a ton, but he continued to trudge along until he came to an empty farmhouse, its “For Sale” sign barely visible behind its wild and weedy fields. He remembered this farmhouse and the man who once owned it, how he had pleaded for more time but the People’s Standard foreclosed anyway.

  Not that he ever doubted the actions of the bank, but Leyton was glad to find the house empty now. He broke the glass out of the back door and let himself in, finding it cold but lacking the bite in the outside air. There were some mattresses left behind in the bedrooms; they were old and musty, but worlds better than the ground.

  He sat on one and dumped out the contents of his bag, using his flashlight for illumination. Cigars, bourbon, some hard cheese, and a little bread, a couple of bottled sodas and one change of clothes. That was about all he had taken time to gather, but it was enough for now, enough to hold him until Julianna returned him to the lifestyle he was accustomed to.

  Tomorrow night. He smiled, trying to imagine Julianna’s face when she discovered that he had come to call. “She’s certain to be scared,” he said to the empty room. “And that’s good. She should be scared.”

  He fell back on the mattress and crossed his arms over his chest. His next move, he decided, was not to move at all. For now, he would rest, using the house as his refuge tonight and tomorrow.

  But when the sun goes down . . .

  He would leave the house then and continue through the country, when all was dark and it was easy to fade into the blackness.

  Dreamland was only a few miles away.

  Once again, Julianna spent the evening with her father, watching him sleep. Her mother, though, was being released in the morning, her concussion mild and her only orders being bed rest.

  Julianna wanted to get the room ready herself, but Cassie insisted on helping. They ripped the sheets off the bed in the master suite and were putting on fresh ones when Cassie thought aloud, “I wonder where that Leyton devil has gotten off to.”

  Julianna hated to be the voice of doom, but it was important that she be realistic, that she not let her guard down. “Unfortunately, Cassie, I don’t think he’s as far away as the police think.”

  “That’s probably a sad fact,” Cassie said as she tucked one corner of the sheet under the mattress. “You say he hasn’t got much money on him. I say I’m glad the police are outside.”

  “I am, too,” Julianna said. “If Leyton isn’t caught, though, I just wonder how long the police will stay. At what point do they decide it’s safe to leave us alone?”

  “Don’t know, but your daddy will hire us some private guards if he reckons we need them.”

  That made Julianna feel better, but there was another question on her mind.

  “What is it, baby girl?” Cassie asked, her keen sense picking up on Julianna’s concern.

  “It’s my marriage to Leyton,” Julianna said, her frustration evident by how hard she jerked the bedspread over the sheets. “If he’s never heard from again, how do I get out of this marriage?”

  Audrey arrived home with great flutter and fanfare, transported by ambulance, escorted by police, and placed under the surveillance of her private nurse, Roberta. Jimmy Mac and Chester put all other duties on hold to care for Audrey’s abundance of get-well flowers, all of which she wanted carried upstairs and placed in the master bedroom.

  Her bruises were still evident, but not as vivid as a few days before. Her movements were stiff, but overall she seemed to be faring well.

  Cassie smiled as she helped Roberta get her patient settled against the pillows. “You’re taking this mighty well, Miss Audrey,” she said.

  “All this fuss isn’t necessary,” Audrey said.

  Cassie laughed. “Since when do you not want all the fuss?”

  “Since I stopped being a spoiled social queen,” she said. “A little face powder, my lipstick, and a snack is all I need.”

  “Oh no,” Roberta said. “You’ll get lunch when its time, but right now you have to rest. R-E-S-T, Mrs. Sheffield. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Rest, indeed,” Audrey said with a defiant flip of her hand. “Cassie, the hospital food was terribly bland. What I need is some of your pecan pie.” She beamed at the thought. “All the sugar and molasses will give me energy.”

  “Only for a spurt,” Roberta argued. “Then you’ll feel sluggish, and your head might start to hurt again.”

  “Oh, just a little bite!”

  “No.”

  Audrey looked at Cassie with pouty eyes, and Cassie shot her a quick wink. Not to worry, it promised. She was going to bake that pecan pie, and it would be her best one ever.

  In more ways than one.

  All day, Julianna alternated between reading to her mother and playing with Mari. As the lavender sky announced evening’s arrival, she considered going to the hospital to see her father, but a phone call to the nurse’s station told her that he was still extremely tired, that he probably wouldn’t know if he had company or not.

  She decided to give herself a night off, to maybe even start reading the book Virginia had dropped off. A great novel of their time, or so it seemed by the way people were pushing her to read it.

  Hoping it would take her mind off Leyton, she carried the book into the drawing room, warm from flames in the fireplace, snapping and crackling over seasoned wood. Sitting in one corner of the sofa, feet tucked beneath her, she was about to open the cover when an officer came to the doorway.

  “Mrs. Drakeworth, you’ve got visitors,” he said. “There’s a Scotty Reidman outside—”

  “Oh, send him in,” Julianna said, jumping from the sofa and putting the book aside.

  “He’s got another man with him who says he needs to see you. A sheriff, ma’am. Tucker Moll from Ambrose Point.”

  “Tucker Moll?” Julianna’s mouth dropped as her heartbeat rose. Almost dumbfounded, she followed the officer into the foyer and watched him let the men inside.

  Scotty came to her immediately, grabbing her into a tight embrace. “I just got back in town,” he said. “Only found out a little while ago about your parents. Sorry, kiddo.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured as they parted and her eyes went to Sheriff Moll. “Sheriff . . .” She extended her hand, wondering if he would take it after his chilled response to her phone call more than a year ago.

  He removed his hat and nodded hello. “I’m real sorry about being so short with you the last time we talked.” His face looked contrite, and he quickly stuffed his hat under his arm then clasped her hand. “I was misunderstanding some things back then. Um, Scotty tells me you’re a mama now,” he said. “It’s made you prettier than ever.”

  “I have a little girl . . .” she said, but her voice faded as she tried to guess why the men were standing before her.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” Scotty asked.

  “The drawing room,” she said, turning and leading them toward it. Cassie appeared in the hallway, asking if any of them wanted coffee. Everyone said no, but Julianna took Cassie’s arm and said to the men, “Is it all right if Cassie comes with us?”

  Scotty and Tucker glanced at one another and shrugged.

  As they entered the drawing room, Julianna gave a nervous laugh. “Why do I have the feeling that I need to sit down?”

  Scotty took a long, deep breath. “Because . . . you do.”

  Another nervous laugh. “All right.” She sat on the sofa, pulling Cassie with her. They sat side by side, Julianna clutching tightly to Cassie’s hand. “Why . . . what’s this all about?”

  “Look, Jules, I’ve decided that I’m just going to tell you this straight up,” Scotty said. “It’ll be like jumping into cold water, okay? Shocking at first, but then you’ll like it.”

  “Scotty!” she cried, leaning toward him. “Just say it!”

&nbs
p; “Jace McAllister is alive.”

  She fell back against the sofa, abruptly, as though a strong wind had just blown in and knocked her off her feet. Her free hand smacked across her mouth, and her eyes stared straight ahead. Not at Scotty, not at Tucker, but somewhere past them.

  Cassie was quick to speak up. “Here now, you can’t come in here and tell this child that. Not unless you’ve got proof in the puddin’.”

  Tucker cleared his throat and leaned forward in the Queen Anne armchair. They were a terrible match for each other, Tucker so large and rugged, the chair so delicate and ornate. “We can back it up,” he said matter-of-factly. “That’s why I’m here.”

  He then proceeded to tell Julianna everything he knew. She listened amid a myriad of emotions, each one unique but still unified with the others. Her head rolled in disbelief at the phenomenal facts while her eyes welled over the despairing images of Jace locked away in prison. Her heart was rejoicing, but also grieving, experiencing both the sense of time lost and the sheer, utter joy of what had been revealed.

  Jace is alive . . . alive!

  “There’s one gaping hole in my story,” Tucker said. “The same hole that’s in your story.”

  “What?” she asked, but she hardly sounded as though she cared. Her mind was floating, clouds above anyone else in the room.

  “Who told the FBI agent that you’d had a change of heart? If it wasn’t you . . .”

  “Of course not!” She gasped, Tucker’s words pulling her back to earth. She came close to returning but didn’t make it all the way down. It was hard to push through her elation and look back at that awful day in the hotel room, waking up to Leyton, smiling and triumphant. “Leyton forced his way into my hotel room,” she finally said. “He knocked me out, and when I came to, he never said a word about the agent showing up.”

  “Did you say anything to him about it?” Scotty asked.

  She looked at the three people in the room, all of whom were looking at her. With a helpless gesture, she said, “I don’t remember if I did or not, but what would it have mattered? I . . . I believed Jace was dead, that everything was finished anyway.” She gestured again. “Besides, Leyton would have lied about it.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Scotty said. “I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Sorry, Jules. I wasn’t trying to grill you.”

  She had already moved past the inquiry, taken over by a sudden surge of joy that brought her off the sofa and to her feet. “Jace is alive! I can’t believe it.” She walked to the fireplace and smiled down at the flames, brilliant orange with touches of blue, crackling away happily as if they shared her feelings. But as quickly as the joy had flooded her, it drained away and she whirled around from the hearth, almost horror-stricken as she pinned her eyes on Tucker.

  “Jace has been in prison all this time, thinking that I walked away from our plans, thinking that what we had together meant nothing to me.” Her hands covered her face, and she shook her head slowly, painfully. “I can’t hardly bear that thought.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Tucker insisted, pushing himself out of the chair and joining her at the fireplace. He rested one hand on the mantle and the other on her shoulder. “He knew the ways of Leyton, knew he had old ties to the Lightfoot Gang. To this day, he thinks Leyton was the one who tipped them off, though it’s a mystery as to how he found out what the plans were.”

  Cassie piped up from the sofa. “Where that Leyton is concerned, mark my words—if there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “When everything fell apart with the FBI agent, Jace figured you had a good reason for not going through with things,“ Tucker continued. “He thought you knew something we didn’t.”

  “If only he had tried to contact me.” She grimaced behind her hands, and her voice could not hide the pain of all that had passed in the last year and a half. The conflicts and altercations with Leyton, the tearful nights as she sat in the windowseat of the nursery watching the river’s water saunter by. “It could have changed everything.”

  “He didn’t know if it was safe to do that,” Tucker said. “More than anything, Julianna, he feared for your well-being.”

  “So he kept silent while I shared a house with Leyton?” She was aghast now but shook her head furiously, not wanting any angry thoughts about Jace to work their way in.

  Tucker placed a firm grip on her shoulders and faced her head-on. “I told you, he thought you knew something the rest of us didn’t, and he also knew how Leyton worked. He was scared, Julianna, scared that Leyton would find out if he contacted you. Scared Leyton would make you pay for it somehow, scared Leyton would tip off the Lightfoot Gang that he was still alive.” He loosened his grip and spoke with more calmness. “And if the gang ever got a hold of that information, they’d have made Jace pay for sure. Either by killing him, or worse, by killing you. Leyton wouldn’t have stopped them—you know he wouldn’t have, and Jace knew it, too. Gangs like that hit people in their most tender spots, and if your heart can tell you anything, it’s that nothing would hurt Jace more than finding out your life ended because his didn’t.”

  She nodded and fell against Tucker’s chest, tears soaking the front of his shirt as she trembled in his arms. He pressed her to him and cried with her, big sobs coming from a man with a big build, big presence, and a heart that was bigger than the room they stood in.

  Cassie and Scotty dropped their heads, quietly respectful until the moment passed. When it did, Julianna spoke hoarsely. “Maybe Jace believed that in the beginning, but as time went on and I made no contact, he must have thought the worst about me.”

  “Maybe some doubts tried to worm their way in,” Tucker admitted. “It’s only human, especially when you’ve got time to just sit and dwell on something, but he never gave up.”

  “How do you know that?” She looked up at him, hopeful.

  “Because I tried to call the prison last night after Scotty told me everything,” Tucker said. “I found out that Jace had been released earlier in the day.”

  Her heart jumped. “Released? You mean, he’s free?” She fanned one hand toward the window. “He’s out there, out from behind bars?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean.” Tucker gave a broad smile. “There was a prison riot during the governor’s tour. Jace saved the governor’s life and got a full pardon in return.”

  “Glory be, it just hit me!” Cassie cried as she got up from the sofa and came to Julianna’s side. “Your first husband isn’t dead!”

  Julianna looked at her, confused until she realized what Cassie was talking about. “Oh Cassie, we were wondering about my marriage to Leyton yesterday, how I would get out of it—”

  “The devil don’t count!” Cassie laughed and slapped her thigh. “Why, he’s null and void, child. Null and void.”

  The women laughed together then, and the men joined in, not knowing what else to do. When it began to die down, Tucker looked at Scotty and said, “I never did finish telling her everything, especially the best part.”

  Scotty grinned. “If the ladies would rather stand there and laugh all night . . .”

  Julianna looked excitedly from Tucker to Scotty. “What’s the best part?”

  “Scotty should tell you,” Tucker said. “We wouldn’t be here had he not come to see me.”

  “No, we wouldn’t.” Julianna spoke softly as she turned and smiled warmly at Scotty, the man who had wanted to love her, the man who now knew it would never be.

  “Nah, it would’ve all worked out somehow,” Scotty said modestly. “Anyway, Jules, when the sheriff and I got to town, we went to the train station and checked all the arrivals coming in from the depot closest to the prison. Then we checked the passengers list.”

  Julianna held her breath, eyes glued to Scotty, waiting.

  “The Cannon Blaze gets in at nine tonight,” he said. “Jace is on it.”

  She couldn’t decide what to do—leap to the ceiling or faint to the floor. A delirious mist seemed to settle around her,
and her mind could only focus on Jace and the fact that he was drawing closer by the minute.

  “There’s one other thing you have to know,” Tucker said, his voice sounding almost distorted through the fog. “He wasn’t released as Jace McAllister.” Just then, Tucker saw the book, closed shut, only its spine visible as it was about to slide down behind a seat cushion. “He was released as J.M. Tanner.”

  Leyton made it to Dreamland around eight o’clock. He considered his options from the outskirts of the estate.

  He went to the far back of the property and hoisted himself onto the retaining wall, its brick surface covered with bare, sleeping vines that would explode with Morning Glories come summer. Dropping to the ground, he kept low and crept around the edges of the garden until he reached the backside of the servant’s quarters. There he took cover, peering from around Jimmy Mac’s quarters and seeing that two police officers were on duty, stationed at either end of the wraparound porch. If they were waiting for him on the backside, he knew they were out front as well, but he wondered if they had thought about the basement entrance.

  Not many people did. It hadn’t been used in ages, Richard once said several years ago while showing Leyton around the grounds. The door was underground, on one side of the mansion, and accessed by a concrete stairwell that ran from the ground down. Evergreens grew by the house, almost covering the stairwell’s opening, making it something that wasn’t easily noticed.

  Leyton knew it, though. From his hiding place, he looked eagerly at the side of the mansion, knowing he only had to dart one hundred yards or so to reach the steps. Such a short distance, one he could make if the good man in blue just turned away for a minute.

  He would need some tools to pry loose the rotted boards that sealed the door. Easy enough, thanks to Jimmy Mac’s truck being parked right here behind the quarters. He kept his toolbox in the bed.