“Does local law enforcement know what’s going on?” Austin said. “Do you know if these agents have carte blanche at the federal level?”
“Yes and yes.” For a moment, Walt and Austin seemed to measure each other. Then Walt shrugged. “We’re not able to confirm that last one, but it seems to be the case given their presence here at all.”
Austin nodded.
The blond man sat back and drummed his fingers, and a pang passed through Lee. Sam’s famous pondering pose. She hadn’t let herself think of him before. Couldn’t now, either. In front of her, Marcus was a stone. Perhaps he was collecting words, would identify himself any minute, but … no. The tension in him wasn’t easing.
The conversation moved on. Wrapped up. Walton twitched a smile and said, “That’s all, folks,” but no one left.
Marcus might need their protection. If only his pride stood in the way, Lee would enlist Austin and Violet to help her combat it. Many people knew him, in Michigan and in Ohio, though no one knew the entirety of his work. The miles upon miles he’d driven, transporting fugitives to safety. The Macomb County network map he held in his head—half a dozen safe houses he’d recruited, every deck and shed that word of mouth had turned into an overnight hiding place until he could reach frightened people and take them to better concealment, to food and a bed.
The exhaustion, the constant stress, burdens too heavy that he’d carried anyway. Heath had seen it. Still, the Constabulary knew more about Marcus than anyone in this church knew. Lee’s teeth gritted on that fact.
She gripped the back of Marcus’s chair. She needed to understand this silence, but she might have forfeited the right to ask.
She looked away from the line of his shoulders, the cowlick at his neck, and her gaze found Austin. He had faded into the corner and now spoke quietly with Walton. The man’s beefy hand gripped Austin’s shoulder, and a frown creased his face. Arguing? No. Austin’s words were easily read on his lips. “Yes, sir.”
A gentle hand squeezed her arm. “You okay?”
She nodded without looking at Violet.
“You seem … I don’t know.”
“I’m fine.”
Walton crossed the room halfway and raised his arms, and the few conversations faded. “We all need to get some sleep. Let’s adjourn the same way we opened.”
With prayer. Lee didn’t let herself leave, but couldn’t they do this independently?
The prayer circulated throughout the room, beginning with Walton, continuing in what seemed a spontaneous fashion—not only the words, but also who spoke and who didn’t. People spoke to God about every detail—explaining the situation as if He didn’t already know, then asking for guidance. Asking for safety, especially for Becca Roddy. Praising God for bringing them all together. Trusting His will no matter the danger or the outcome.
If He had entered the human drama not to wreak havoc but to redeem … then perhaps their trust wasn’t unfounded.
The praying voices wrapped around Lee and constricted, shortening her breath. She gripped Marcus’s chair and watched the group, their closed eyes, bowed heads, some hands linked and some lifted, open. Across from her, Austin watched them, too, and frowned. Beside her, Violet’s hands were folded under her chin, like a figurine Lee had once seen of a kneeling child.
Walton ended the prayer after a long silence. “Father, we offer up all these prayers in the name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.”
Heads lifted. Hands lowered. People stirred.
“Could we close,” someone said, “with a hymn?”
This brought out a few smiles. A woman blocked from Lee’s view called out, “Something to give praise.”
“I know the one.” Benjamin grinned, and then his baritone filled the room.
“All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing, alleluia! Alleluia!”
Voices joined in, first following the melody, then breaking into harmonies. About half the people only listened, perhaps not knowing the song, but the spirit of it enfolded the whole room.
“Thou burning sun with golden beam, Thou silver moon with softer gleam, O praise Him! O praise Him! Alleluia!”
The images soaked into Lee. Lovely. Stirring, somehow. As the alleluias resounded on, Marcus shifted in the chair to find her gaze, but when she thought he would speak to her, he turned to Violet instead. To someone with whom he could share this.
“A song for God,” he said.
“It sounds old,” Violet whispered. “It’s beautiful.”
Lee closed her eyes and let beauty buoy her, though the song, the praise, did not belong to her.
“Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness … Alleluia! Alleluia!”
So this was required for worship—humility. That made sense.
“Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son, and praise the Spirit, Three in One! O praise Him! O praise Him! Alleluia!”
The blended voices believed these words. God was to be trusted, praised, not resented, certainly not mocked. But for these people, for Marcus and Violet, there was more. Devotion. And …
The song ended, and in the quiet, a young female voice began a new one.
“I love You, Lord, and I lift my voice …”
Yes, that. Lee stood in the midst of their love and tried not to let herself ache.
45
Esther and Olivia had been texting him a lot in the last twelve hours, mostly pictures of Esther’s cast decorated with neon markers and some juvenile stickers he teased her about. He’d woken up multiple times in the night to the vibration of his phone, hiding the light so as not to wake the other guys in the room. Not that a buzzing, lit phone would rouse Will. The guy had slept through Tommy’s snoring and the thud when Harrison dropped his Bible. The thing was massive, too heavy for the skinny table that needed a few additional screws.
Four guys in a little classroom, sleeping on mattresses. Strangers. Christians. Austin hadn’t slept much, even when the girls weren’t texting him.
When morning dawned, he found Violet with hair wound up in a towel. He pulled her outside, down the street, to Rosita’s.
“Look at my face,” Violet said when she realized their destination.
“Looks clean to me.”
“Exactly. Scrubbed down, mascara free. And then there’s the towel around my head. Pretty sure there’s a sign on the door about this. Shoes and shirt required, dripping hair strictly forbidden.”
Austin took a silent breath and a risk and wrapped his arm around—okay, not her waist, her shoulders. For today. Still had to earn a lot back. But I will. Violet stiffened only for a moment. Surprise, not objection. She leaned into his arm as they walked.
“I don’t really care about my makeup,” she said.
“I figured.”
“Are you leaving?”
They ambled up the walkway to the outdoor tables. He pulled out a metal chair and motioned her to sit, then took the one across from her. “Not yet. Lee’s right. I can’t do anything without … well, money, at least.”
Violet rubbed her wrist.
“I … I want to talk to you,” he said, as if that weren’t obvious, the way he’d dragged her to this restaurant when the church was serving breakfast in the gym. (Did those people ever run out of food?)
She lifted her eyes and met his and waited. His heart started to hammer, not too much adrenaline, not stress or anger. Something less familiar. Admit it, you’re nervous.
“Uh.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you some things, after the meeting last night. First … I’m not going back to the Constabulary, and it’s not because of the threat from Jason.”
A tiny smile curved her lips. “I was hoping.”
“They’re violating the sovereignty of Texas as a country after the government said they wouldn’t violate
that. And I just … it’s just …”
“Messed up.”
He leaned back in his chair, and a sigh poured out of him. “The second thing—”
“Good morning.” The smirking Mexican girl stood at his shoulder, though today she smiled. “Burritos?”
He fisted a hand at her timing, then loosened it. Stress. A lot of stress. He wasn’t really mad. “Two boring American ones for me, the one with the sausage.”
“And for you?” The girl turned her smile on Violet.
“Um, do you have kind of an omelet in a burrito? I like tomatoes … and, um …”
“Let me bring you a menu.”
The girl disappeared into the restaurant and whisked back to their table in less time than Austin needed to form his next sentence. She offered a single laminated sheet to Violet.
“Take your time. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Those two statements were not conducive to each other. Focus, man.
Violet flipped the menu over—“Oh, lunch stuff, gross, it’s barely nine o’clock”—and flipped it back. After less than thirty seconds, she set it aside, and the girl popped back into view. Watching, of course.
“What can I get you?”
“The one with eggs and salsa and cheese, please.”
“To drink?”
Violet shrugged. “Orange juice, I guess.”
“Coffee,” Austin said.
“Coming right up.” She took the menu and vanished again.
“She’s kind of like a genie.” Violet giggled.
“Um.”
Her smile melted. “And you were saying the Constabulary is messed up.”
“Actually, we’d moved on to the second item, which is … um …” His face heated. The hammer of his heart kicked up a notch. Nerves versus stress response? Or they were teaming up. Great.
Violet leaned forward and folded her arms on the table. “Go ahead.”
“I think it’s possible that … well, you already know this, but I think there’s possibly something … wrong with me. The way I lose it over things. Or over nothing. I’m going to do some research on it, but I think it might be possible that I …”
He shut his eyes. His chest burned, but he had to get this out. Violet had to know, deserved to know.
“I might need to talk to someone. A … um, a counselor.”
“And you’re embarrassed about it?”
He opened his eyes. “It’s really not something you want to admit to your …”
Her lips parted on a whispered syllable. “Oh.”
“That’s the third—well, the third and fourth thing.”
Her mouth curved. “These sound like thousand-dollar things coming up.”
“What was the last one?”
“Eight hundred and fifty.”
Their server materialized at Violet’s shoulder with a tray, two plates, a glass of orange juice and a mug of coffee. She set their plates and the juice in front of them, set the mug to the left of Austin’s plate, and chirped something cheerful that Violet smiled at but Austin didn’t fully hear. Because the next item was worth at least a grand.
Violet used her fork to take her first bite. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Mmm. Salsa.”
“But not chive and onion.”
“Right.”
He cleared his throat. Stared at his food for a moment, but no way he could take a bite until he said everything. “Violet, this whole … star-crossed thing of ours.”
She laughed around a sip of juice. “Seriously?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
She set her glass down. “Uh-huh. Austin, I …”
“I’m not asking you to date me.”
Red suffused her cheeks. “Oh. Well, I—that’s cool, I—”
“No, listen, babe. I’m not asking you to date me today. You’d have to say no, which would make me feel like crap, and I’d deserve it for asking you to choose.”
“There’s no choice,” she whispered.
“I know that.” And for some reason, the knowledge didn’t make him want to throw things. “So … look. I want us to … I just …”
“You kind of like me.” Her smile held no flirting, no playfulness, only an unsure pleasure.
Kind of? She had no idea who she was. How priceless. How beautiful. Austin reached for the hand holding her fork and ran his finger over her knuckles.
“Austin …”
“I know.” He left his hand stretched toward her, but rested it on the table. “So that’s item three.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Four is …” The one he didn’t want to say. The one she’d wrap her hopes around. But in light of item three, she deserved to hear item four. “It’s this … religion thing.”
Her eyes widened. Her shoulders lifted with a long breath. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to investigate. That’s all, Violet. I don’t want you to start believing I’ll turn into one of you, because it’s probably never going to happen.”
She blinked hard, stared at her plate. He’d known the words would pierce her, but that didn’t lessen the sting in his own chest. A slow nod, and then she took a bite of her food, as if she’d arrived at some resolution.
“What?” he said.
“You’re not lying anymore. Or hiding.” She took another bite, and she smiled. “I’m proud of you, scholar.”
Warmth filled him. Not the conclusion he’d expected from her. His stomach rumbled. He gobbled down half a burrito and half his coffee while Violet picked at her salsa concoction despite insisting it was delicious. Austin had been so hyper-focused on his list, maybe he’d missed the source of her stress. Maybe he should ask, but the quiet between them was easy right now, comfortable, and they both could use a few minutes of safety after the last twenty-four hours. The last couple days, week, months …
He gulped his coffee and set it down. “If Christians are right about things … It would matter. Quite a lot.”
“It does. I’m praying for you.”
If none of it was true, who cared? If all of it was true, he should thank her. “I guess I’m not opposed to it. As if I could stop you.”
She grinned. “As if.”
When their food was gone, Austin disposed of their trash and held up a finger. “Give me one minute?”
Violet shrugged. “We’ve got all day, I guess.”
There it was again, the uneasy shift of her gaze, the pointing of her toe into the ground. Austin pushed it away and went into the restaurant. Their server bounced up to him.
“How was everything?”
“Good. Um, is Rosita an actual person or just the name on the sign?”
“She’s my mama.”
“Could I talk to her?”
“One moment.” The girl disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen. In a minute or two, a portly woman came out and frowned at Austin.
“There is problem?” Unlike her daughter’s, Rosita’s accent was thick.
“No, no. I, um, noticed the sign in the window.” He pointed. Help Wanted.
“This is for cook.”
“Do you have to have prior experience?”
Rosita propped her hands on her apron-tied hips. “I train maybe, if I like you. What were you before?”
His stomach tightened. He never thought these words would gall him. “I worked for the Constabulary. I’m trying to … um, start over.”
Rosita stared at him for a not-so-small eternity. “How old?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Can you cook?”
“I can learn anything. And I already make a decent pizza sauce.”
Her mouth twitched, but he wasn’t supposed to see it. He maintained his expression.
Rosita’s ar
ms crossed over her bosom. “I train you one day. If you learn, I keep training you. Yes?”
“Yes. Good. Thank you very much.”
Austin exited a few minutes later with the application he had to bring back tomorrow morning at seven.
“What’s that?” Violet motioned to the single sheet of paper.
“I think I just got a job in Kearby, Texas.”
46
If anyone asked, Lee would say she enjoyed flowers and wished a closer look. She should be unobserved, though. Everyone had gathered in the gym for breakfast. In the cavelike acoustics, voices had echoed, seemingly multiplying the two dozen people. The bagels hadn’t looked appealing. No one noticed Lee leave.
She cracked open the glass door to the waterfall garden and slipped inside. The quiet cascade and the mixed scent of flowers enveloped her. High overhead, the domed ceiling was made of glass. Sunlight beamed down on the plants, sparkled on the pool and the waterfall’s slight spray. Lee walked the circular stone path, probably less than ten feet around, then sat on a rock alongside the pool. She stretched her feet toward the water but didn’t allow her shoes to get wet.
This. Solitude. Rest.
To her right, someone had arranged four potted chrysanthemums on stair-stepped plant stands. She leaned in. No other flower smelled like a mum. One could find them blindfolded in a roomful of blossoms. Like her resilient geranium. Someone should acquire more plant stands to balance these, for the other side of the pool, and alternate the mums with geraniums. Every flower arrangement ought to have at least one. She cupped her hand around a rust-red mum, and thin, smooth petals brushed her palm.
Beauty. Like the chorusing voices last night. Her grappling with it had begun while lying on the air mattress, while Marcus slept across the room.
“I don’t understand You.” She caressed the mum’s petals. “Humanity could survive and even accept the role You wish to play in their lives without this.”
What did she hope to accomplish by addressing Him?
“The only purpose of poetry and melody, and this, color and scent and texture … The only purpose seems to be … enjoyment.”
Lee stood. This was absurd. The God of all things had no desire to hear the puzzled ramblings of a woman who was damned. She crossed the garden to the door, gripped the handle, but what awaited her out there? She’d come here to breathe for a while, hoped the garden would ease the sense of heaviness that hadn’t lifted since last night in the park.
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