Finding Stefanie

by Susan May Warren

  He’d experienced a slight panic when he saw her get up and start to leave. All he could think of was how he’d let her go, without telling her how he felt.

  Only . . . despite the dress and the way she’d said she believed in him, right here in this theater, despite the way she flushed tonight when he told her she was beautiful . . . what if she didn’t want him?

  With a whoosh, he realized it was this exact thought that kept the words glued to his chest. I love you should be freeing, not paralyzing. But maybe it took a special kind of strength to rip those words from inside, to lay out everything he wanted to be with her and let her write the ending.

  If he didn’t tell her right now, he might never find that strength again. If she responded with even the faintest of smiles, he’d sort out the rest later. He wanted her with him. On Spotlight Ranch. Even as that truth sank in, another followed it. He wanted Haley and Macey and Gideon here too. And horses, lots of them, and someday little dark-haired cowboys of his own.

  He wanted it so badly, it loosened the words from the hard place inside him and they floated to the surface.

  But what about his MS?

  Lincoln watched himself on the screen, saw the smile that always seemed too brilliant, the stunts he knew were fake, and heard Stefanie’s words: “You bring to life all the dreams and hopes of your characters so well that it makes us feel that we know you and that we can be like you. You make us feel that we, too, can overcome those things in our lives that scare us.”

  Maybe it was time for Lincoln Cash to step off the screen and into life. To tell the world about the real-life challenges facing him and thousands of others every day.

  “But God used the man’s blindness to bring him to Jesus. To healing. And He’ll do the same in our lives.” Pastor Pike’s words from that first sermon filtered back to him, accompanied by the soundtrack on the screen.

  God had used Lincoln’s disease—not to destroy his life but to make him stronger. To make him need God. Because, like the Bible said, when he was weak, that’s when God was strong inside him.

  What had Libby said about doing good? “The only good we do that counts with God is the good we do in faith, in cooperation with Him.”

  Lincoln smiled. He wanted that—to do something good and eternal.

  Something that would make him respect himself.

  And he’d start by being honest. With himself. With Stefanie. With his heart.

  He closed his eyes, blocking out the dialogue, the music. God, I see now that Stef was right. You’ve been answering my prayers for years. Maybe even now this is an answer—to show me that I can’t be strong without You, but in my weakness, You can use me, make me the man I’m supposed to be. Please forgive me for forsaking You—thank You for not forsaking me. Please use this disease—my triumphs and my defeats—for good in my life and others’. And—he opened his eyes, smiling at the man he saw on the screen—help me tell Stef I love her.

  Now. He felt the press of urgency even as he prayed the words.

  Now . . . yes. He loved her, and he wasn’t waiting another minute to tell her.

  Getting up, he moved past Dex out of the row and ducked his head as he walked up the aisle. Piper and Nick were shuffling out of their row also. Piper had her hand on her stomach. Lincoln followed them into the lobby.

  Nick looked like a man just taken out by a bull, pale and sweaty. “She’s in labor. We gotta get to Sheridan.”

  “Oh.” Good one. He scrambled for a better response. “Do you need help?”

  Piper grabbed his arm. “Find Stefanie. Tell her to meet us there at the hospital.”

  He nodded as Nick led his wife toward one of the waiting limos. Lincoln opened the door. “Sheridan hospital,” he said as if he might be talking to a cabbie in NYC.

  Nick helped Piper into the backseat and crawled in beside her.

  Lincoln closed the door on Piper doing deep breathing. Someday maybe he’d be the one sitting next to a pregnant wife. He nearly ran to the house. “Stef?”

  He knew Delia had gone to the movie, but he expected to see Karen in the kitchen amid the population of caterers in white attire as well as another troupe in the backyard. “Anyone seen Karen?” he asked, thinking that she might have put Stefanie and Gideon upstairs.

  He fielded a few negatives, then decided to check himself. The upstairs bedrooms were empty.

  Returning to his office, he sat down at the desk. Stefanie had felt pretty bad. . . . Maybe . . . He lifted his phone and let the line at the Silver Buckle ring until he finally put down the receiver.

  He dialed again.

  She must have been either really sick or sleeping. He guessed an hour had passed since the start of the movie.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he tasted a surge of panic. He picked up the phone and dialed the chief security officer. According to him, Stefanie and Gideon hadn’t left. He also reported that he hadn’t seen anyone resembling Gina.

  The cell phone on his desk trilled, indicating a voice mail. He picked it up, hoping to hear Stefanie’s voice. But as he listened to the voice of his private investigator, Lincoln felt his heart begin a slow drop to his knees. Gina had been on a jaunt to Vegas and had returned to her home in LA last night.

  Maybe Karen had seen Stefanie and Gideon. Lincoln passed the kitchen and climbed the stairs to Karen’s apartment. When he knocked on the door, it cracked open to reveal darkness. “Karen,” he called, feeling like a thief for the way he crept into the room. “Karen?”

  He stood there, his heart thumping. Where had she gone?

  Crossing to stand at the window, he looked out over his ranch. Dark shadows enveloped the hills, and he could barely make out the curve of the land from the sky.

  He was about to go back to the theater when his gaze fell on a scrapbook, wedged behind the Queen Anne chair next to the window. Remembering all those times when Karen had clammed up about her past, he picked it up.

  He turned on the light by the chair. Obeying the sick feeling of panic inside, he sat down and invaded her privacy.

  Wedding pictures. Karen and her husband, a good-looking man with a thin face and rectangular wire-rimmed glasses. Taken in the nineties, based on Karen’s Jennifer Aniston haircut. More pictures showed a honeymoon and a first house. Five or six pages later showed Karen with a pregnant belly.

  What had happened to this happy couple to produce the quiet, sullen Karen who cooked a mean Denver omelet?

  He found his answer near the end of the scrapbook, contained in a series of newspaper articles . . . about Gideon.

  Gideon and his role in the accident that had killed Karen’s husband and child and put her in the hospital.

  Lincoln shut the book, clicked off the light, and let the ice slide through him.

  What was she doing here?

  Their conversations rattled him as he remembered bits and pieces from the last couple months.

  “I don’t have a family.”

  “I needed a job, and this is what I was looking for.”

  “I fixed up the leftovers for Stefanie to take home to that nice boy who lives with her.”

  Karen had fixed the plate of food the night Stefanie came to dinner. For Gideon.

  The vet said that Stefanie’s dog had been poisoned. . . . Could Clancy have eaten poisoned food meant for Gideon?

  And the map of the ranch . . . “Could I keep it? Just in case I might want to go exploring someday?”

  Lincoln stood, dropping the scrapbook onto the carpet with a soft thud.

  “I’ve always wanted to write a screenplay, maybe be a filmmaker.”

  He walked over to the tiny desk, pulled open the drawer, riffled through the papers. The script titled The Last Ride lay buried beneath receipts and scraps of paper. He remembered reading it. Rough at best, it had spooked him with its violence, the hopelessness of a story starting with a man driving his car over the edge in a fiery death. An edge like Cutter’s Rock?

  Oh, please, let me be wrong.

 
But ten years of reading movie scripts based on real-life horror stories told him he wasn’t. Please, God, help me get there in time. Please . . .

  “Call security!” he shouted to the army of caterers as he hustled down the stairs and outside. The movie was still in full swing, a few photographers milling around. He stood at the base of his porch stairs, waiting, but no one came. He grabbed a caterer. “Tell security to meet me at Cutter’s Rock. Hurry!”

  He raced to his four-wheeler and gunned it, praying that God would give him one more chance to save the girl.

  “This is really kind of you, Karen. Thank you.” How Stefanie could talk with her stomach rampaging like a bull inside her seemed a miracle, but at least she’d had the good sense to take Karen up on her offer to drive her and Gideon home. After discovering him sprawled on Lincoln’s sofa, she realized that they might as well suffer in their own house.

  Lincoln probably wouldn’t notice her absence much anyway.

  Okay, that wasn’t fair. He had come out after her and said he’d check on her. He had even told her she looked beautiful. In a Stetson and jeans.

  Maybe someday they could be friends. After her heart figured out how to be in the same room with him without breaking.

  She wanted to give Karen more than a feeble thank-you, especially after seeing how her own truck was caught in the snarl of cars parked below the house. Thankfully, Karen’s truck was by the service entrance of the house, and she was taking the back way through the fields to the Silver Buckle.

  “No problem,” Karen said. She looked tired, her hair pulled back because of her long hours in the kitchen. “I’m just sorry you’re sick.”

  “Me too,” Gideon said. He gripped the door handle and gulped air from the open window.

  Stefanie stared ahead at the headlights cutting through the darkness. She couldn’t believe she was missing Lincoln’s premiere.

  The truck went over a rut, and Stefanie braced her hand on the dash.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Gideon said.

  When Karen glanced over at him, Stefanie noticed a strange look flash across her face. A . . . smile?

  Gideon doubled over.

  Karen hit the brakes.

  “What’s wrong?” Stefanie said.

  But Karen didn’t answer as she got out, went around to the back of the truck.

  Stefanie wanted to crane her neck to watch her, but it was all she could do not to slink back into her seat and cry. She closed her eyes instead. Why, of all days, did she have to get sick today? How she wanted to see Lincoln’s film. But perhaps some things just weren’t meant to be.

  She heard Gideon’s door open.

  “Get out,” Karen said in a tone Stefanie had never heard from her before.

  Stefanie’s eyes snapped open. The pain in her stomach couldn’t compare to the shock of seeing Karen holding a .308 rifle at them. Or Gideon’s face as any remaining blood drained from his expression.

  “I said get out.” Karen was talking to Gideon, who had moved slightly in front of Stefanie. It didn’t matter whom she pointed the gun at—from this range, the bullet would tear through Gideon and end up hitting Stefanie.

  Stefanie lifted her hands in surrender. “Karen?”

  “Get out!”

  Gideon was already complying. “Calm down. I’m getting out!” He slid out of the truck, still holding his stomach.

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Shut up.” Karen tossed Gideon a roll of duct tape. “Tape her hands behind her back.”

  “What are you doing?” Gideon stood there as if caught in headlights, blinking.

  “I said tie her up.”

  Gideon stared at the tape, then looked at Karen. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because someone has to make sure you get what you have coming to you.”

  Gideon stumbled, putting his hand out to catch himself on the door.

  Karen reacted by pushing the barrel against his head. “Do that again, and I’ll have to rewrite my ending. And I don’t want to do that.”

  Stefanie couldn’t wrap her brain around Karen’s words. What ending?

  Gideon straightened, his hands raised. “Please don’t hurt her. She has nothing to do with this. Let her go.”

  Karen took a step back. “Tape her hands, Gideon. You condemned her the minute you walked into her house.”

  The look on his face as he turned to Stefanie made her weep. “What is she talking about, Gideon?” she whispered as she leaned toward the dashboard and let him tape her wrists behind her back.

  “Tighter, Gideon. Or I’ll make you do it over.”

  Stefanie bit back a cry as the tape pinched her skin. Or maybe it was just her frustration.

  “I’m sorry, Stefanie. I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s going on? Gideon? Karen?” Stefanie said as she turned and watched Karen tape Gideon’s hands, then tape his mouth. She shoved him back into the truck.

  Karen climbed into the driver’s side and tightened a piece of tape over Stefanie’s mouth before she could demand more answers. “Apparently Gideon left something out of his past when he came to live with you,” she said as she tucked the gun beside her. She patted Stefanie’s knee. “Gideon killed my family. And now I get to return the favor.”

  Stefanie glanced at Gideon. Tears rolled down his face, pooling in the tape over his mouth. She remembered Karen serving them earlier, touching her shoulder in greeting as she did it. Her mind tracked back to Karen giving her leftovers—poisoning her dog, probably like she’d poisoned them tonight. And Lincoln’s accident on the four-wheeler—had that been meant for Gideon? How long had Karen been in town?

  Talk about Oscar-worthy performances.

  They bumped through the fields, and in a moment, Stefanie saw the familiar outline of Cutter’s Rock rise before them. Darkness gathered in the ravine.

  If she ever needed a superhero, it was now.

  She could be every bit of a director, like hotshot Dex Graves, and a million times better than Lincoln Cash would ever be. He had money, sure, but did he have talent? or courage? Especially courage.

  Like all things, opportunity was created for those with courage.

  Karen hadn’t expected this turn of events, for everything to line up. She’d simply wanted Gideon to pay for his crimes.

  When Lincoln had announced his scholarship program, she knew fate had dealt her another chance. Just like it had the day she watched Gideon exit juvenile hall, hike out to the highway, and lift the run-down Impala.

  Fate had been good to her then, payback for the way it treated her the three years before and every moment after until she got out of treatment.

  And tonight, fate, more than anything, had been her codirector, culminating in a production that turned out better than she could ever imagine.

  Lincoln had to choose her film, The Last Ride, for his scholarship, especially when he discovered that the author had been living under his nose for three months. Watching, plotting, cooking, cleaning. Did he know how difficult it had been to film the story? She’d had to work backwards from Gideon’s giddy smile as he met Libby and worked at the diner—that had been a sheer stroke of luck. And yes, she’d taken a few artistic licenses, like cracking his distributor cap, not once but twice, to make his car cooperate with her loosely written script.

  She’d have to thank Dennis for that, too, when she gave her acceptance speech for her award-winning movie. If it weren’t for her husband’s car repair hobby, she would have never known how to disable Gideon’s car and Lincoln’s truck. She’d planned only to scare Gideon. She hadn’t meant for Lincoln to get in the way. In fact, she’d thought Gideon would walk home alone, but Lincoln had nearly destroyed everything with his sudden do-gooder offer of a ride home on his four-wheeler.

  She would also thank her supporting characters—Luther had played a circumstantial part in kidnapping Libby. She’d have to acknowledge him. And then the fire, the glorious fire—it had been her inspiration.

>   It had all come full circle, despite the mistakes. She hadn’t meant to kill the dog. She’d been trying to test the amounts on Gideon, see how much poison might render him ill. How much more might then kill him.

  And tonight, Stefanie Noble had been a last-minute powerhouse addition to the cast.

  Power rushed through her as she finally took her life back, right here, before her eyes and on film. She held a torch, letting it illuminate her face. To her left was the pickup truck—gleaming black in the moonlight. From the gas tank trailed a rag, which she’d already soaked in gas.

  She’d parked the truck at an angle, the nose pointed toward the cliff, a rope in her other hand connected to the emergency brake release. It would be a glorious crash, and she’d positioned two cameras at the bottom of the ravine, checked to confirm the angles.

  A spectacular explosion would open the film, and in the editing room, she’d then backtrack to the moment, to the look on Gideon’s face when he realized who she was and the fate waiting for him at the bottom of Cutter’s Rock. She’d made good use of the duct tape, just like they did on CSI. Gideon and Stefanie would be together forever.

  “I dedicate this film to Dennis and Gretchen Axelrod,” she said to the camera positioned ahead of her. It would capture the truck’s catapult over the edge. “Without them, this would never be possible.”

  Her throat tightened at that. Her husband, Dennis, still visited her—he was the one who’d given her the idea. But Gretchen gave her endurance, encouragement. Karen could still hear her baby daughter’s squeals of laughter deep in the night, when she thought she was alone.

  This was for them.

  “Karen!”

  The voice startled her, and she turned, watching as a light scraped the ground.

  “Karen, stop! It’s Lincoln.”

  She smiled. “You came!” She knew he’d figure it out. And he wanted to watch, wanted to—

  “Karen, don’t do this.”

  Her smile fell. She gripped the rope and backed toward the truck. “Don’t, Lincoln—stay there.”

  He stopped outside the pool of light from her torch, a dark shadow that showed off his size.