Evidence of Mercy

  Acquiescing, she pulled a chair across the floor and sat down. Her eyes were tired and dejected, and he longed to see in them the fiery spirit he had grown accustomed to.

  Without thinking, he reached out and took her hand. Closing her eyes, she brought his hand to her face and squeezed it. For an instant, it made him feel needed, as if his existence gave her strength, as if he had some purpose other than lying flat in this bed. “You’re in trouble, Lynda,” he whispered.

  “Tell me about it.”

  He could see from her eyes that she wasn’t taking this lightly. “What did the doctor say?”

  “He said not to do any more leaping from two-story buildings for a while.”

  “I’m serious.”

  She smiled. “I’m okay. Just tired and sore. He told me to get plenty of rest and try not to exert myself.”

  “So, what are you doing in here?”

  She closed her other hand over his and looked down at it. “Visiting a friend.”

  He wanted to tell her how much he appreciated it, how it changed his day, but something inside him kept him from saying it.

  “Have they found out who did this? Do they have any promising leads?”

  “They’re working hard on it,” she said. “I guess I can’t complain.”

  “But it could happen again. Are they protecting you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Twenty-four hours a day. Larry’s right outside.”

  As if to take the focus off her, she stood and leaned on his bed rail again. “So how are you doing?”

  “Not so good today,” he said. “I’ve had visions of you wasting away somewhere from smoke inhalation or living in some homeless shelter or making yourself an open target for some insane sniper.”

  He could see that his concern pleased her. “I should have called,” she said. “I guess I didn’t realize it was all over the news.”

  He grinned. “That’s okay. My phone was kind of broken anyway, remember? They replaced it today.”

  She laughed softly, and he joined her as his eyes swept over her. It felt good having her so close, and he wondered if it were Lynda Barrett he was growing attached to or just the idea of having anyone he could touch.

  To be honest, he really couldn’t say.

  “So how was physical therapy today?” she asked.

  “Oh, peachy,” he said. “My therapists are a laugh a minute. We’re still working on getting me upright.”

  “You have to start somewhere, Jake.”

  He breathed a laugh. “What’s the point?”

  She thought about that for a second. “Don’t you want to sit up?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just trying to be realistic. It’s such a simple thing, but when I try it, my system goes haywire.” He fixed his eyes on the ceiling. “I’m trying to accept. That’s what the shrink told me to do.”

  “You’re not being realistic or accepting,” she argued gently. “Realistically, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. All you can do is work with what you have and make it the best it can be. And pray. Hard. I’ve been praying for you, Jake.”

  “No offense, Lynda, but if there is a God, it doesn’t look like he’s on your side.”

  Instead of the fight he expected, she wilted. The defeated look that crossed her face startled him, and he hated himself for putting it there. Lowering herself back into her chair, she said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  He frowned. “So you’re backing down from your beliefs now?”

  She shook her head, and he saw the tears reddening her eyes. “No,” she said. “I’m not backing down. I guess I’m just confused. Is God really dealing with me through all this? Maybe it’s just a really loud wake-up call.”

  She saw the emotion cross his face, and finally, he whispered, “I’m sorry, Lynda. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to rile you—to see some of that famous Barrett passion in your face again.”

  She kept those haunted eyes on him for a moment, but finally, the humor in what he’d said seeped in, and a rueful grin returned to her face. “I’m still going to pray for you, Jake. I’m going to pray that you’ll stop being a jerk.”

  He smiled.

  “I’m also going to pray for your therapy,” she said. “Maybe if you get more mobile, you’ll have a better disposition.”

  “Don’t waste your time praying for me,” he said. “I’ve got this under control.”

  “Is that why you can’t sit up?” she asked. “Is it better to keep telling yourself that you’ll never walk?”

  That question irritated him, but she didn’t seem to care. He let go of her hand. “Do you think I want to lie here like this?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said, standing up again. “So don’t do it. Work hard and do what the therapists tell you, and stop thinking how this is the end of your life. Start thinking of it as a beginning.”

  “The beginning of what?”

  “The beginning of your learning how to be a human being.” When he gave her a surprised look, she went on. “You know, you weren’t my idea of a terrific guy when you had functioning legs and a flawless face.”

  “So you think being paralyzed is going to build character?” he asked, growing angrier. “Hey, I didn’t need to have my world ripped out from under me to know how to be a human being.”

  She looked regretful. Setting her elbow on his rail, she dropped her forehead into her palm. “I’m sorry, Jake. I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut. I really didn’t come here to lambaste you.” She slid her hand down her face and lifted her brows as she gazed at him over her fingertips. “I was really just trying to get that famous Stevens passion back in your eyes.”

  He didn’t find that amusing, as she had. For a moment, he was quiet, focusing his eye on the ceiling to keep from meeting hers. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “I’m not a charity case. I don’t even know why you’re here. Tell the truth,” he said glumly. “They hired you to give me an aerobic workout, didn’t they? You come in here, get my blood boiling, then leave. It’s probably covered under my health insurance.”

  “Right,” she said with a wink. “It’s all a clever conspiracy. And they wanted to find a lawyer to get your blood boiling because we’re so good at it.”

  He smiled now. “I thought so.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “I went by your hotel on the way home yesterday and got all your stuff and paid your bill and checked you out. Luckily, your things were still in my trunk when the fire hit. The garage was all that was left standing. Larry Millsaps left the boxes at the nurse’s station since I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy. They’ll be bringing them in later. Maybe you’ll feel better having your own things.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I was getting kind of attached to these air-conditioned gowns.” He smiled and squeezed her hand. “I appreciate your doing that for me. What about my car?

  “It’s been parked at the airport since the crash,” she said. “It’s just fine, locked in the hangar until you’re ready to move it.”

  “Terrific,” he said. “I hope it’s safer than your plane was.”

  “We’ll move it wherever you want.”

  Jake looked at her, his eye soft, searching. “Do you feel guilty about the accident or what? Why are you doing all this for me?”

  “Because I care about you,” she admitted with great effort.

  “Why? You hardly know me, and what you knew before the accident, you didn’t even like.”

  “I see a lot of potential there,” she said with a coy smile.

  He didn’t find that amusing. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, Lynda, but crippled and half-blind, the only potential I’m likely to reach is the potential for suicide.”

  Her face changed. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that, Jake. You don’t mean it, and when you say it, I feel just as threatened as I felt after the fire last night.”

  “Why would that be a threat to you?” he asked.

  “Becaus
e I’ve started getting attached to you, Jake, and I don’t let go of my friends that easily.” Tears came to her eyes, and she blinked them back. “I had you figured for a guy with at least a little bit of integrity,” she said quietly. “The guy who landed my plane wasn’t a coward.”

  “The guy who crashed your plane did what he had to do. But don’t worry. It’s not like I have a gun under my pillow or a knife in the drawer. I can’t get out of bed to hurl myself out the window, and I don’t have free access to the drugs they’re giving me. I’m trapped here for now.”

  “If I can go out there and fight for my life, Jake, you can do it in here. And if you think I’m going to sympathize with your fantasy to rig up a noose, then you need to call a neurologist because you have brain damage, too.”

  Someone knocked on the door, but Jake only kept staring at her, his own misty eye taking seriously the fire he had restored to hers.

  He heard the door open. “Sorry to interrupt. How are you, Jake?”

  Finally breaking the lock he had on her eyes, Jake saw Larry and nodded.

  “I’m gonna have to take you on home, Lynda,” Larry said. “Tony has a suspect in custody. He thinks he might be the one who’s been after you. I have to get to the station to question him.”

  “Really?” Lynda wiped her eyes. “Who is it?”

  “One of the guys on your list,” he said. “Doug Chastain.”

  “Doug?” she asked. “But—what evidence is there?”

  Jake frowned. “Who is this guy?”

  Larry checked the notes he’d jotted when Tony had called. “He’s a mechanic who lives in the area, and he already has one prior arson conviction. We traced the gas can we found back to where he works.”

  “You’re kidding,” Lynda said.

  Larry tried to hurry her to the door. “This might be the guy, Lynda.”

  Her face suddenly hopeful, she turned back to Jake. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Jake,” she said. “And I’ll call you tonight and let you know what they come up with. That is, if you don’t break your phone between now and then.”

  He nodded again but didn’t speak until she was almost out the door. “Hey, Lynda? Be careful, okay?”

  “You, too.”

  Jake got her meaning. He only wished he had a choice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  * * *

  Brace yourself,” Tony told Larry as he rushed into the precinct. “He’s in an even worse mood than he was when we interviewed him yesterday. He got a tad bit offended when I told him he was under arrest.”

  Larry watched the twenty-year-old kid through the one-way glass. Yesterday, when they’d interviewed him at home, Larry had been suspicious, but he’d talked himself out of considering the kid a suspect since he had no experience with airplanes. It was feasible that he could have started the fire, but could he have rigged the crash in such an expert way? “What have you got on him?”

  “Besides his prior arson conviction and his mechanic experience and the gas can we found with the name of his employer on it, we found gas stains in the carpet in his trunk. Fresh ones. You could still smell the fumes. And his alibi is weak.”

  Larry stepped closer to the glass. There was a tattoo of a bald eagle covering most of Doug’s upper arm, and his hair was doused with mousse and spiked to stand straight up on his head. He wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders and a general expression of readiness to curse the next cop who crossed him.

  “So what’s his alibi?”

  “Says he was at home. No witnesses.”

  They opened the door, and the kid burst out of his seat. “You might as well let me out of here,” he spat out. “I didn’t do it.”

  Larry gave him a long, considering look as the kid sneered back at him. Finally, he reached across the table to shake his hand. “I’m Larry Millsaps,” he said, then withdrew his hand when the kid rejected it. “Why don’t you calm down, Doug? My partner here can be a little gruff sometimes, but I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I already answered the main one,” the kid said. “I didn’t do it!”

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “I didn’t set her house on fire! They keep asking me if I had a grudge against her, if I was in the area last night, if I was near the airport when that crash happened—I’m telling you morons, I’ve never even been down that street, and I wouldn’t know how to get to that airport. I was sitting at home last night. Reading.”

  Larry’s eyebrows lifted. Somehow he couldn’t picture this kid reading. “Reading what?”

  The kid threw up his hands. “What is it? You don’t think I can read?”

  “You don’t look like the type who stays at home and reads.”

  “Yeah? Well, you don’t look like the type who gets out of work by pinning crimes on innocent people.” He sat back and cocked his head arrogantly. “I was reading Hamlet. You got a problem with that?”

  “Yeah? Who wrote it?”

  “You tell me,” the kid challenged. “You’re the one with all the answers. What do you do? Go down the list of ex-cons in the area and assign one of them to each crime that comes down?”

  “We found a gas can that belongs to your employer,” Tony said less patiently.

  “Yeah? Well, maybe he did it! Were my fingerprints on it?”

  Neither Tony nor Larry answered, but they both knew that no fingerprints had been found on the gas can. The arsonist must have been wearing gloves.

  “How do you explain the gas stains in your trunk?” Larry asked.

  Doug mouthed a curse. “I mow yards on weekends, okay? I always take extra gas in case I run out. I’d have been more careful not to spill some if I’d known somebody was gonna be sniffing around trying to pin something on me.”

  “What do you carry it in?”

  He looked from Larry to Tony then back again. “In a can, okay? Probably a J.R.’s Auto Repair can. We have them all over the shop. People stop by and borrow them all the time. Lots of people have them.”

  Larry only watched him as he rambled, giving him enough rope to hang himself.

  The kid realized what was going on and crossed his arms obstinately. Flopping back into his chair, he said, “I’m not talking anymore without a lawyer.”

  “Do you have one?”

  “Sure, man,” he said facetiously. “Got one on retainer.”

  “You don’t have one, do you?”

  “So appoint one,” the kid said through his teeth. “Only don’t appoint that witch whose house burnt down because she’ll string me along and dump me at the last minute. Besides, there’s somebody out there still trying to kill her. I don’t want to be around her.”

  Tony shot Larry a telling look, and Larry nodded.

  The door opened, and one of the officers stuck his head in. “Tony, can I see you a minute?”

  Larry watched his partner leave the room then turned back to the kid. “I’ll have an attorney appointed, but he won’t do you any good if you’re not telling the truth.”

  “You don’t want the truth, man. You want a scapegoat.”

  The door opened again, and Tony stepped back in. “I just got an interesting bit of information.” He pulled out a chair and set his foot on it. Leaning on his knee, he looked down at the kid. “Seems somebody you work with called your house three times last night, and you weren’t home.”

  “So I didn’t feel like talking,” Doug said, his face reddening. “I’m taking a night class at the college, and I had to read Hamlet. I swear. You can call and check. Search my house. You’ll find my Shakespeare book.”

  Tony shot Larry a skeptical look.

  Doug slammed his hand on the table. “Hey, man, last time I checked, it wasn’t a crime to unplug your phone!”

  “No, it isn’t. And neither is going to the Monroe Street Lounge, where several people saw you earlier last night.”

  Larry breathed an incredulous laugh. “Still want to stick to your story about being at home reading?”

/>   “You asked me where I was when the fire started. I was at home. So I had a few drinks earlier. That’s no crime either.”

  “And it just slipped your mind?”

  For a moment, Doug sat still, his face a study in belligerence and hatred, but finally, he leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of his face. “Go ahead and get that lawyer,” he said. “I’m not saying another blasted word.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  * * *

  The radio news blared in the background as Keith Varner checked out the suit he would wear in court tomorrow. He would look like a competent businessman when he faced the judge, he thought, and Paige would play the role of a stringy-haired waif about to have a nervous breakdown. And the lawyer—he chuckled for a moment at the thought that she was going to appear in court to represent Paige. When he’d seen her on the news after the fire, she’d looked like someone who’d been beaten up. He could just see the judge’s reaction to her propping herself up in the courtroom—complete with bruises and scrapes and the stitches that held her together—fighting for Paige. Her very presence would be all the argument he needed that she herself was in danger and, therefore, Brianna was in danger. By tomorrow night, he’d have Brianna at home.

  He went into the empty bedroom in his apartment, kicked aside the piles of dirty laundry, and considered where he would put the child’s bed. There, in the corner. Once the judge awarded him temporary custody, he’d ask him if he could get her bed from her home. That way she’d be comfortable with him. He just hoped she didn’t cry all night like the last time he had her.

  But that he blamed on Paige. She had filled the child’s head full of lies, and until he got that woman out of his daughter’s life, he would never get Brianna to bond with him. He had so many plans for them. She would learn to be dependent on him, to obey and respect him, to need him. . . .

  He went back into his small den, knocked the newspapers out of his chair and onto the floor, and flicked on the television. Maybe there was another hint about where they were. Maybe they’d have something about the sheriff department’s pitiful hunt for the arsonist.