Evidence of Mercy

She looked pale, and there were red circles under her eyes. “Yeah,” she said, and tears came to her eyes again as she reached for him. “Sally’s dead.”

  He wanted to fling himself at her, hug her, but there wasn’t time. “He’s in there, Lynda. He has Paige and Brianna.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Keith! He caught her getting out of her car and dragged them in. I’ve called the police.”

  Lynda stood shocked for a moment, then turned frantically toward the street, lifting a hand—but the car was already gone. Jake pulled himself into his chair then rolled around a corner of the house where Keith couldn’t see him if he looked out. Lynda followed him.

  “That was Larry who dropped me off! I should have made him stay, but he had a lead on where Keith was—” She looked around for a weapon then saw the knife Jake clutched in his hand. “But surely the dispatcher will let him know—”

  “We can’t wait,” Jake said. “We have to do something! I think they’re in the bedroom getting Brianna’s things. If we can figure out where they are, when the police get here they can go in another door and surprise him.”

  Lynda nodded. “I’ll go look.”

  A shadow of frustration crossed Jake’s face. He wanted to go. But he couldn’t.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  Lynda crept along the side of the house. Peering around the corner nearest the bedroom, she saw them.

  Keith stood in front of the screen door that opened to the patio. He held Brianna with one arm while he pointed a gun at Paige. She was on her knees, throwing clothes into a suitcase. Lynda could hear Brianna screaming. And through it, their voices.

  “Please,” Paige begged. “Just put her down, Keith. Let her go!”

  “Shut up,” Keith snarled. He grabbed Paige and pulled her up. “Now, where’s the rest of her stuff?”

  “The living room,” Paige choked out. “Her dolls are in the living room.”

  As soon as they were out of sight, Lynda dashed back around the house to where Jake waited.

  “They’re headed for the living room,” she whispered.

  Something else crashed inside the house, and Lynda jumped. Brianna’s blood-curdling scream cut through the air.

  “He’ll kill them,” she whispered loudly. “He’s insane. What are we going to do?”

  “First, we’re gonna calm down,” he whispered. “And we’re gonna think.”

  “I can get in through the back way,” she whispered. “The door to the master bedroom.”

  “And do what? You don’t have a gun. And even if you did, you couldn’t use it.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Let me go in that way,” he said. “You wait here then create a diversion at the front of the house when the police get here.”

  She looked at his functionless legs, at his wheelchair. “No, I can’t let you do it.”

  There was another crash, and Brianna’s screaming stopped short. From the house came nothing but dead silence.

  “That’s it! I won’t let him take another of my friends!” Throwing down her purse, she sprang toward the kitchen door.

  “Lynda, stop!” he said in a loud hiss.

  But she burst through the door before he could reach her. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Let them go and take me instead! I’m the one you really want!” The door slammed shut behind her.

  For a moment, Jake sat frozen. He thought of going in after her, giving the fight everything he had. But that wouldn’t help anyone. In the distance, he could hear sirens, but they were still too far away. Lynda’s purse lay on its side on the ground; he reached for it and dug for her house key. Gripping the knife, he rolled around the back of the house, through the dirt so he wouldn’t make noise. As the sirens got louder, he unlocked the master bedroom door and rolled inside.

  He heard Keith cursing at Lynda, and Paige starting to scream again; things crashed and fell. Outside, the sirens seemed to have disappeared; had they gone the wrong way?

  What if it was all up to him?

  Grasping for help, Jake closed his eyes. If you’re up there, God, I could use a hand. Just make my body function well enough to help them.

  In the living room, Lynda tried to breathe, but Keith’s arm was brutally tight against her throat. Paige’s face was bleeding where he’d hit her, and Brianna sat hunched under a table with her arms covering her head.

  “At least let Brianna go,” Paige was crying. “Please, Keith. She’s your daughter! If you really loved her you wouldn’t make her watch this!”

  “You don’t know the first thing about love,” he bit out. “She needs to know what kind of a tramp her mother is. She needs to see how weak you are. And she needs to see you dead, so she won’t keep expecting you to rescue her when I take her. That way we can start a new life together, and she can depend on me, and I can clear her mind of all the brainwashing you’ve done.”

  Lynda struggled to loosen his hold on her. “You won’t get away with this,” she said. “You think they’ll let you keep that child after you’ve killed two more people? They’ll never let you out of here with her.”

  “Who won’t?”

  “The police!” she shouted, but Keith just grinned down at her insanely.

  “The police are idiots. They already had me twice, and they let me go.”

  “Don’t you hear the sirens?”

  For the first time, he listened. The sirens were loud now and sounded as if they were right outside the house. Venomous rage reddened his face. “Then I have nothing more to lose, do I?”

  Throwing Lynda down, he grabbed Paige’s hair and put his gun to her head.

  The doorbell rang, and a loud banging followed. “Police department! Open up!”

  The gun fired, and Paige collapsed. Lynda screamed and dove for Brianna, who clung desperately to her, shivering. Keith kicked Paige, and when she recoiled, it was clear that she hadn’t been shot. Thankful, Lynda tried to catch her breath and whispered to Brianna, “She’s all right, sweetheart. Mommy’s all right.”

  “The next shot goes through the door!” Keith shouted. “And then I’ll kill both women!”

  “We just want to talk to you, Varner!”

  Lynda recognized the voice outside the door—Larry. She prayed that he hadn’t come too late.

  “Where’s the phone?” Keith asked, sweat beading on his face as he looked from one side of the room to the other. “I can talk to ’em—negotiate.”

  “We don’t have one!” Lynda threw back. “We used the cellular phone in my car, but you blew it up!”

  “Shut up!” Keith bellowed and kicked over the table they sat under.

  It didn’t take another gunshot to tell Jake that there was no more time. If he were going to act, he had to do it now. Opening the bedroom door as quietly as he could, he wheeled into the hallway, holding the knife in his fist.

  Keith picked up Paige again by the hair and arm, and as she struggled to free herself, Keith’s hold tightened and Paige let out a muffled scream.

  “In the name of God, let her go!” Lynda cried. “Think of Brianna. Look what you’re doing to her!”

  Jake silently wheeled to the corner where the hall joined the living room. Staying as far back as he could, he saw Brianna crouched beside Lynda. Keith stood nearby, still holding Paige with both arms. He let her go, and she fell to the floor. Bending down, he reached out to touch Brianna.

  Curling into a tighter ball, she strained away from him.

  “Brianna, it’s just Daddy,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’m not gonna hurt you again. Don’t you believe me?”

  Jake’s gaze narrowed to the revolver hanging in Keith’s hand, muzzle toward the ground, as he reached for Brianna with the other.

  Slowly, Jake came out of the shadows and began to move across the carpet.

  Tears started down Keith’s face as he touched Brianna’s hair. She hunched her shoulders higher, and her mouth grew even wider in terror, but her heaving sobs were silent.

&nb
sp; First Lynda then Paige caught sight of Jake moving across the carpet in his wheelchair, and they froze, not certain what to do.

  “It’s not too late, Keith,” Lynda said, keeping her timbre steady and low, trying to draw Keith’s attention. “You can change your life. You can be the father she needs. Just let her go for now.”

  Keith dropped his head and began to weep; the gun slipped slightly in his loosening grasp.

  Jake pushed his wheels gently one more time, easing closer to Keith’s side, holding his breath to avoid any sound that would give him away—

  And swung his arm with all the strength and speed he could muster. He hit the gun, sending it bouncing several feet away across the carpet, then swung back to grab Keith’s wrist and twist it behind his back, forcing him to his knees. “Didn’t know I was here, did you, pal?” Jake asked through gritted teeth. “Recognize me? I’m the guy you maimed in the plane crash.”

  Keith couldn’t move; the strength Jake had built in his arms over the past few weeks was overpowering. “Let me go!” he screamed, but Jake forced him forward until his face rested on the floor. Paige scrambled after the gun and stood up, aiming it at her ex-husband.

  “Take her out, Lynda!” Paige shouted. “I don’t want her to see me kill her father.”

  Lynda grabbed Brianna and rushed for the kitchen door. Paige waited until they were out of the room before she pulled the hammer back. “I could pull this trigger right now!” she said through her teeth, “and they’d call it self-defense. I’d be a hero for ridding the world of you. And my daughter could finally learn what it’s like to live without terror.”

  Keith struggled against Jake’s grip and tried to look up at her. “You won’t do it. Brianna would always blame you—”

  “Shut up!” she cried.

  There was the sound of splintering wood, and the front door burst open. Larry lunged into the room then stopped when he saw Paige holding the gun on Keith.

  “Paige, give me the gun,” he said.

  Paige shook her head. “Stay back. Jake, move away.”

  Reluctantly, Jake let Keith go and slowly rolled backward.

  Her face was red and streaked with tears. “If I blew you away,” she said, her voice trembling, “it would be for all the pain you’ve caused Brianna. All the nightmares. All the trauma. It would be for her peace of mind.” The gun began to shake.

  “Send him to jail, Paige,” Jake said carefully. “Don’t let him die knowing he finally broke you.”

  Her face twisted as she struggled between the emotion of the moment and the hope of the future. Finally, she breathed in and out deeply, her breath catching as her tears flowed anew. “He’s right, Keith,” she said. “You’re not going to break me. You’re just going to rot in prison.”

  When she lowered the gun, the house filled with deputies. Larry handcuffed Keith, jerked him to his feet, and took him away.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  As low as Lynda’s life had gotten in the past few weeks, she was certain that Sally’s funeral was the lowest point yet. As if even God mourned her passing, the sky opened up with torrential rains that morning, and it stormed throughout the day. Lynda sat between Paige and Jake, holding hands with each of them, trying to rein back the tears that had controlled her since the day of the explosion. Even Keith’s confession and guilty plea to felony murder had not relieved the pain.

  She watched Sally’s parents weep over their daughter. Sally had been close to them, even though they lived several hours away.

  “At least she didn’t leave a husband and children,” Lynda heard someone whisper behind her.

  Lynda quelled the urge to turn around and tell them that Sally had had many people who’d loved her, that she’d had as much of a family as most people had, and that her being single didn’t make it any easier to say good-bye.

  The car ride home was quiet, and when they had been back at the house for a while, Paige came out of her room with her bags packed.

  Lynda had known they were going back home today, but she’d tried to put it out of her mind. Now there was nothing she could do but face it.

  Dropping the bag, Paige reached out to hug Lynda. As they clung together like sisters, Lynda realized that, for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like an only child.

  “I’m gonna miss you,” Lynda whispered.

  Paige wiped her tears. “Me, too. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you for what you’ve done for us.”

  Lynda tried to smile. “Well, for starters—I need a new secretary.” Tears rushed into her eyes again as she got the words out. “And frankly, I don’t think I can get used to someone new right now. How about taking Sally’s job?”

  Paige seemed confused, wary. “Do you really mean it?”

  “I sure do.”

  “But how do you know I’m qualified?”

  “You can do anything,” Lynda said. “I have a lot of faith in you.”

  Again, they embraced, then Lynda stooped to kiss Brianna. The child had been quiet and withdrawn since the scene with her father, but she’d already expressed her wish to go back to “school” soon. Paige thought it was a good idea to get her life back to normal as soon as possible.

  Jake offered Brianna a final ride on his lap as they hurried through the rain to the car, and Lynda smiled sadly as he hugged the child who had brought him so far, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and then helped her into the car.

  The rain poured harder as the car pulled away, but neither Lynda nor Jake made a move to go inside.

  “Are you all right?” he asked when the car was out of sight.

  Lynda was still gazing in the direction they had gone as raindrops mixed with the tears on her face. “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “That day in the plane,” she said. “When they asked us if we had anyone to contact. Neither of us had anyone, really.”

  “You had Sally.”

  “Sally the secretary,” she whispered. “But not Sally the friend, not then. I didn’t really have any close friends then. I thought I was happy, all alone.”

  “We’ve both come a long way.”

  She looked down at him, saw how wet his hair was getting, how soaked his clothes, but he didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t the same man who had gotten out of his Porsche that day wearing his designer clothes, expecting crowds to part and women to swoon. “I like having people to love,” she said.

  He nodded, swallowed, and she knew that the mist in his eyes had nothing to do with the rain. “I like it, too.”

  For a moment, they smiled at each other as the rain dripped down their faces, and finally, she said, “It’s going to be awfully quiet around here without them.”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can do about making a little more noise.”

  She wiped her tears. “You’ll have to eat my cooking now.”

  “I’ve been keeping it a secret, but I’m a pretty talented cook myself,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I was thinking of making my special Texas stew for you tonight. Paige left all the ingredients in there. I already checked.”

  Slowly, the despair left Lynda’s eyes, and she began to smile. “Then we’d better get busy peeling potatoes. You do have potatoes in your stew, don’t you?”

  “Among lots of other things, which shall remain secret.”

  “Well, I’ve survived four brushes with death in the last few weeks. I guess one more won’t hurt me.”

  His smile faded. “That’s not really funny,” he said softly. “Matter of fact, it’s downright chilling when you think about it.”

  “You’re telling me.” Looking around at the trees surrounding her house, she rubbed her arms and shivered. “Let’s go in before we get sick and your chair starts to rust.”

  “I’d better change clothes first,” he said. “If I don’t, I’ll ruin your kitchen floor.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  She went
back into the quiet house and felt the assault of silence again. But it wasn’t so bad because she knew Jake was coming. Quickly she changed out of her wet clothes and towel-dried her hair.

  When she went back into the kitchen, he was already at the table, peeling potatoes.

  The sight of him there stirred her. Feeling awkward, she pulled out a chair and sat next to him. There were things she needed to say, things he needed to hear.

  “We haven’t talked much about that day,” she said. “It’s been kind of busy, and Sally’s been on my mind. And we were all worried about Brianna. . . .”

  “Yeah. There hasn’t been much time for reflection, has there?”

  She looked down at the table, tracing the pattern of the wood grain with her fingertip. “I’ve been meaning to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For coming to the rescue when Keith was here. My bursting into the house was really stupid. If you hadn’t come in when you did—”

  “I got lucky,” he said. “If he had turned around and seen me coming, things could have turned out a lot differently.”

  “No, I think you would have been able to defend us even then. I didn’t realize how strong you are, Jake. Even without your legs, you overpowered him. He couldn’t fight you.”

  He smiled, but that smile quickly faded. “I just kept remembering that morning, when Brianna agreed to go outside because I was with her. I realized that she expected me to protect her. My legs weren’t a factor to her. If I was to help her, then they couldn’t be a factor to me, either.”

  She leaned on the table and faced him squarely. “Did you learn anything from that, Jake?”

  His smile was subtle, but it reached all the way through her. “I think I did.”

  He didn’t have to explain. She already knew that whatever he had learned, it was miles ahead of where he’d been before the plane crash.

  “The important thing,” he said, returning to his work, “is that that slimeball is behind bars.” He finished peeling a potato then grew still for a moment, staring down at it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

  He shrugged. “I was just thinking. That day when I called the police about Keith being in the house. They told me about the car blowing up, and said there had been a death.”