David stepped out of the car and headed up the walkway.
The front door was unlocked. He went inside. “Hello?” His voice travelled into the early-evening dusk and fell away.
No answer.
“Kara? You here?” David walked farther into the house. No sign of anyone. He did a lap through the first floor, returning to the foot of the stairs. Nothing.
He ascended.
The doors that lined the hallway all opened into still rooms, except for the last one on the right—the bathroom. That one was shut, no light emanating from its edges, as he imagined it might if it were occupied. “Kara? You up here?”
Still no answer.
David walked down the hall, peering inside each room and finding no one. When he came to his daughter’s bedroom, he leaned in. Her bed was made but wrinkled and depressed, as though someone had slept on top of the covers. The little purse she carried everywhere, the blue one with silver buttons, sat on her nightstand, and on the floor next to that, her backpack. He exited, turned, and popped his head into his and Ellie’s bedroom. Another empty room.
Where was she? A fresh wave of nerves washed over him. Maybe she’d gone to a friend’s house after school. But all her stuff was here.
The only door he hadn’t checked yet was the bathroom. But why wouldn’t she answer him if she was in there? His mind would not—or could not—comprehend.
“Kara?” David placed his hand on the doorknob and turned. It was locked. He knocked. “You in there? Kara? Can you answer me?” He jiggled the knob and placed an ear against the door. Silence. “Kara, it’s Dad. You there?” No answer. Panic was building quickly, his gut tightening.
The telephone began to ring downstairs. But it was not a phone at all. In this moment, it was an alarm. That was how David heard it, anyway. Something was wrong.
He pressed a hand against the thick edge of the door and pushed, turning the doorknob simultaneously. It wouldn’t budge. “Kara, open up, c’mon, sweetie, it’s Dad.”
The hope he had so briefly felt down in his car drained from him. Now it was a sickening dread. “C’mon, Kara. This isn’t funny.” He used his shoulder—a gentle shove, then a forceful one. The solid door barely moved in its frame. The slider lock must’ve been latched, too. “Kara, please, if you’re in there, open the door. Everything is going to be okay. I’m here now. It’s over.” But of course she was in there. He wasn’t trying to break the door down with the expectation of finding the room empty.
The phone clattered on, screaming in the background. Who the hell was calling? Didn’t they know that his daughter might be…
David backed away from the door. He would have to kick it in. But, dear God, what would he find?
“Kara, please!” He yelled, sending his weight forward again.
At the last second, there came the sound of the door unlocking. Then, just like that, she stood in the doorway, an angel appearing from nowhere. It was as if David’s final scream had fallen on the ears of heaven and God had instantly answered. He stopped in his tracks as the door swung open, almost toppling forward with momentum. There she was, standing in the doorway, soaking wet in all her clothes. It didn’t matter why, because there was his daughter—alive. That was all that registered. Their eyes met, and for a moment there was only silence between the two. There were no words capable of capturing what was being communicated. But they both knew what was being said.
At last, David took a step toward his daughter, still finding his breath. “Kara, what were you—” he tried, but before he could get any further, his daughter bridged the distance and wrapped her arms around him. She squeezed tight, her frigid body finding safety in the warmth of her father. For a moment he could only stand stiff, caught off guard.
Over Kara’s shoulder the scene framed in the bathroom doorway confirmed his fear. He had almost forgotten about that razor, but now, he supposed, he would never be able to shake its image. In a future he had already begun to paint in his mind, he would forever see its rusty blade sitting there on that porcelain ledge when he closed his eyes. What it had almost been used for would be a constant reminder of how frighteningly thin the membrane that separates life and death actually was. How fragile.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay now.” David lifted his arms and embraced his daughter as she began to cry. “It’s over. They got him… they got him, honey.”
Kara didn’t ask to know more. It was enough now. She lifted her head away from her father’s chest. The look on her face wasn’t happiness or sadness or anything easily decoded. But it might’ve been the look of a person finally at peace. And that was a start. “I love you, Dad. I love you. I’m so sorry,” she said, refusing to let go.
The words warmed his heart. “I know, sweetie… I know. It’s not your fault. I’m here now.” He kissed the crown of his daughter’s head. She smelled of wildflowers. And for that moment, she was the little girl in the purple sundress, the girl who had chased fireflies in the twilight fields of long ago memories.
Through the bathroom window, the orange glow of the falling sun kissed the tops of the trees on the faraway horizon. Fiery colors painted the sky heavenly shades behind pastel clouds. And from here, a beautiful awareness came into view: somewhere, beyond that sunset, a good life waited for Kara, a life filled with joy and love and laughter. That she would find it someday would be his promise to her. It always had been.
Kara squeezed tighter, and David held her. He would hold on until she let go, forever if he had to. And that was all right with him.
That was all right.
CHAPTER 41
Machines beeped at steady paces. Nurses came and went, drawing blood and hanging IVs. Doctors hovered at the end of his bed, speaking in ominous tones. “Just nicked his aorta,” he remembered hearing while in and out of consciousness. He was lifted, rolled, scrubbed, and then lifted and rolled again. Bandages were changed and then re-changed what felt like every few hours; he couldn’t be sure. His arm was pricked and poked. His blood pressure was taken at unknown intervals. All of this went along without his consent, not that he could’ve given it anyway. For the first forty-eight hours, the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital made all his decisions for him while he floated out there in some gray area between dreaming and awake. But on the third day, Calvin Gaines opened his eyes and retook the reins.
At first, his head had been a slurry of out-of-focus memories, a spliced-together B-reel of pain and procedures. But slowly, pieces fell together as his mind gained footing. He had been shot. A cautious self-inspection of his chest revealed a calamity of tubes and dressings as well as a relentless throbbing. His wife had been waiting there beside his bed, too, attempting to sleep in a half-upright position on a small vinyl couch that had been moved into the room. Staff had tried to tell her she could not stay overnight—visiting hours only—but Linn had laughed in their faces, and now there was a couch.
It had been night when Gaines finally came around, and awaking to find himself in a dark room was reassuring, in a strange way. It felt real. Not too perfect. Had his eyes opened upon a scene of bright white hospital fluorescents, everything clean and pristine, he might’ve assumed he had moved on to the Upper Room. So in a way, the darkness had allowed for a gentler return. And there was something profoundly enlightening about that. Maybe he was connecting dots where there were none—his blood had still been rich with morphine at the time—but he couldn’t help but think being able to see a silver lining inside darkness was a significant thing.
His mind still set in the moment of his last conscious memory, Gaines’s first words upon rejoining the world, croaked through a cracked-leather throat, had been: “Is Catherine okay?” There was much he did not know. The previous chapter of his life had abruptly ended with a cliffhanger, and his mind reached, panic-stricken, for the resolution.
Linn had thrown her blanket off and rushed to the side of his bed. A nurse was called in. Gaines was inspected. Tubes were adjusted. Vitals taken. But still h
is question lingered out there unanswered and overshadowed by the relief for his awakening. He had to repeat himself after demanding a sip of water, brushing aside the concern directed toward him, to finally get an answer. “What happened? Tell me, Linn. Is she okay?” Gaines stared up at her—worried, terrified.
Linn had placed her hand on his shoulder. “Catherine’s just fine, Calvin. Tough gal. Harry Bennett is dead. Do you remember anything? He was going to kill you—both of you, because of those pictures. She says you saved her life.”
That was all Gaines needed to hear—that he hadn’t lost another deputy, another friend. Everything after that could be taken in at a casual pace as his mind continued to re-center. For the next twenty minutes, Linn filled him in on all that he had missed. She told him what had transpired in that second floor hallway of Town Hall after he had lost consciousness: The shootout (the newspaper’s account, anyway). How the aftermath of those photos was still slowly unfolding. How stories of Harry’s violent past were starting to emerge as the media began digging into who Harry Bennett really was. She warned him about how the story was already in all the papers and how more and more angle-hungry reporters were showing up every day in their vans, many of which were camped outside the hospital. Catherine had done her share of interviews, relayed the facts, and given statements. But mostly they wanted to speak to Sheriff Gaines, the man who had been shot and was fighting to stay alive against all odds. The dramatic edge, that was what America wanted, a hero injured in the line of duty, serving his public, whether it was true or not. That was the last thing Gaines could think about, though, and he had expressed that fact by suggesting exactly where the media could stick their cameras and microphones. And on that note, Linn had laughed and recommended he get some rest. Then she left to call Maddie at her aunt’s to let her know her father was awake and acting like himself.
The moment his wife had left the room, Gaines closed his eyes and was out, back into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning his daughter had come into his room bright and early, and soon after there were tears and love and nervous smiles that gave way to more tears and gentle one-armed hugs. He was told how lucky he was and how he had almost died on the operating table, a small detail his daughter had revealed proudly, which Linn had conveniently left out the night before. “Didn’t want to scare you,” she’d said, shrugging it off lightly. He asked if the doctors had saved the bullets they had taken out of him. They had. And that was good because he wanted a souvenir. But behind all this love and these small tension-cutting stabs at lighthearted humor, Gaines continued to feel the cold edge of terror lurking in the shadows of his mind. Hiding this from his family just seemed like the only option.
His family stayed a while longer, Linn adjusting his pillow every so often, Maddie rolling around lazily in a spare wheelchair she had discovered in the back of the room. It was the anxious energy of a kid trying to hide just how terrified she really was. After about an hour, a nurse showed up and topped off his morphine, and his eyes began to grow heavy again. Before the drugs completely took hold, he urged his wife to take Maddie and go home and get some real sleep. He would be fine on his own for a bit.
Reluctantly Linn had agreed with a kiss to his forehead and said, “I’ll be back tonight.”
Then his daughter planted one on his cheek.
He was a man surrounded by love.
“Don’t you dare come back tonight. I’ll have them throw you out.” He had laughed weakly, staying under the radar of his pain. “Get some sleep. I love you—both of you,” he’d said, watching with one eye starting to close as his wife and daughter exited the room. Then his eyelids grew heavier still, and sleep came for him again. There was no fighting it, so he went along peacefully into the darkness.
When he awoke, the room was dark again. Instinctively, he glanced at the couch where his wife had been before. Empty. A crippling loneliness rippled through him. He had told Linn to go, but the truth was he liked knowing someone was there, even while—especially while—he slept. It was like having someone stand guard to keep him tethered to the world while he dreamed, lest he should drift off and never wake up.
Then a familiar voice cut the silence of the room.
“A lot of people are mighty pissed, Cal. Had to postpone the festival. They wish you’d waited a few more days to find those photographs.” Catherine’s face emerged from a dark corner of the room, a humble grin set across her face.
“Good. Let ’em be pissed,” Gaines said, and smiled. “How long you been there?”
“Not too long. Fifteen minutes or so.” She took a seat on the couch beside his bed. “How you holding up? You look like hell.”
“Yeah, well, getting shot a couple times will do that. But I’m okay. I’ll be here a little while, I guess. They want to wait until my staples heal a bit. Worried about infections or something. That’s what the doctors tell me, at least.” Gaines looked down and adjusted his covers, pulling them farther up his lap.
“That’s good.” Catherine put her hat on the seat beside her. “So I gotta know. I haven’t been able to figure it out. Where did you find those pictures? Where the hell did they come from?”
Gaines smirked. “Right to the point. A girl who knows what she wants.” He scratched the scruff of his chin. “You won’t believe it. It was a damn accident. Remember that ammunition box Millis had, the one full of cigarettes?”
“Yeah, I remember. But Millis? How was he involved in all this?”
“Dumb luck, I think. I figure he must’ve stumbled upon Harry assaulting Kara and snapped a few pictures, not quite sure what or who he’d seen. Who knows what he was planning on doing with those pictures? But it’s good for us he saved them.”
“I thought you searched that box. It was nothing but cigarette packs.”
“I did, and it was. But the box had a false bottom.”
“How’d you figure that out?”
“I didn’t really. I knocked it onto the floor by accident and the bottom came loose.”
Catherine sniffed and slapped her leg. “Talk about cracking the case. Jesus, what’re the odds? I won’t lie, I was imagining something a little more…”
“Exciting? Yeah, me too,” Gaines said. “I told you, it was an accident. I’m no great detective or anything.”
“No, I guess not,” Catherine said lightheartedly.
They looked at each other, admiring the sheer coincidence of the situation until the moment faded.
Catherine leaned over to the window behind her, pushed aside a shade, and looked out into the parking lot. “Boy, those cameras can’t wait to get a hold of you.”
Gaines shook his head. “I heard. I have no idea what they want with me.”
“You’re a hero, don’t you know that?” Catherine smiled.
He couldn’t tell if she was being serious. There was an ambiguity in her voice. Gaines looked up at the ceiling as if searching for help. “Gotta be kidding me,” he muttered. “How many’re out there?”
“Half dozen or so.” She turned away from the window. “I’ll tell ’em not to wait up.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Gaines said. “But thank you.”
Catherine spread her arms out over the back of the couch and started absently tapping her fingers. “Heard one of those bullets barely missed your heart. You got lucky. I figure someone must’ve been looking out for you.”
“Yeah, real lucky,” Gaines said sarcastically, gesturing to all the tubes in his chest. “So how about you? How’re you doing with all this? Sounds like you have your hands full.”
Catherine rubbed a hand over the back of her neck, glancing around the room. “Me? I’m fine. Been so busy with everything, I haven’t really had time to think about it.”
Gaines doubted that was true. “That’s good,” he said.
“Yeah, I suppose it is.” Catherine nodded.
Their conversation stalled, and they both stared down at their hands. Slowly a pocket of silence grew between them. G
aines sensed the inevitable thing hanging out there, the thing thickening the atmosphere between them. It needed to be gotten out of the way. It was coming.
Catherine sat forward, the vinyl couch letting out a squelch. “Listen, I just want to get this out there. I know what you did. I saw you step in front of—”
Gaines waved a hand. “We don’t need to do this. I was only doing what anyone would do. Hell, from what I hear, you’re the real hero in all this, not me. You should be the one the reporters talk to. So please don’t thank me. I honestly don’t deserve it.” He believed that too. This might’ve never even happened had he done his job with a little courage from the outset. Her gratitude was like a knife twisting in his side, reminding him of that fact.
Catherine exhaled the breath she had reserved for her thank-you speech, her face grimacing into a veteran look of annoyance. “Dammit, don’t be a stubborn idiot. Just let me say thank you. Maybe you don’t care, but I do. You saved my life. You can’t just step in front of a gun for me and expect me not to say something. Jesus, you can be a pain, you know that?”
Gaines snorted an agreeable laugh. “And I’m the stubborn one? Says the girl who can’t take no for an answer.”
“I mean it, Cal. When I came around that corner, I was already dead in Harry’s sights. If you hadn’t done what you did, I don’t think I’d be here right now. At the very least I’d be laid up in a bed beside you. And I don’t know about you, but I think that deserves some show of appreciation.”
Gaines searched the room for something else to focus on, but eventually he surrendered to her gesture, his smile fading. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jerk.”
“You’re not being a jerk. There isn’t really any right way to react to all this, I guess. Neither of us have ever dealt with anything like this before. I just wanted you to know that I’m very grateful for what you did.”
“I do know that.” Gaines hesitated. “And if you weren’t I’d be mighty pissed. It hasn’t exactly been fun being here.”
Cicada Spring Page 30