“Don’t tell me—” Jonathan smiled—“let me guess. When you move out, you want permission to date Karen.”
Gus took Karen’s hand in his. “Not exactly, mon. I don’t want your permission to date her. I want your permission to marry her.”
Morgan caught her breath so hard that she almost choked. Jonathan touched her back as she coughed her way through the shock. She got up and grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filled it with water, and threw it back. Able to breathe again, she turned back to them.
“You all right, babe?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry, I just…Wow. I didn’t expect that.” Gus and Karen were beaming. She forced herself to smile.
Now it was Jonathan’s turn to clear his throat. “Well, I have to say…This is uncharted territory for Hanover House.”
“I know it is, mon. It’s uncharted for us, too.”
Morgan searched her mind for the right response. Just a few weeks ago, Karen had come to them nine months pregnant, fearful that her baby’s abusive father would endanger her child. She had a history of drug addiction and had served time in prison. Though she had done well in their program so far, it was no guarantee that she was strong enough for marriage.
“Gus, we appreciate you coming to us,” Jonathan said, “and we’re happy that the two of you want to commit to each other. But Karen, you’ve only been here a few weeks. I’m not sure you’re ready for this kind of thing. You thought you were ready to stand on your own when you got out of prison, but you’ve said yourself that you backslid and went back to your old ways.”
“Not the drugs,” Karen said. “I didn’t go back to the crack. I been clean of drugs for three years now, so it’s not like I have that calling to me. I did get weak and wound up pregnant with Emory. I know all that, Jonathan, but this is different. Gus is the kind of man I been dreaming of. He’s a good man, who can take care of us. And he loves Emory.”
“Emory needs a daddy, mon,” Gus told Jonathan. “You know he does.”
Jonathan couldn’t argue with that. “The thing is, I don’t want Karen to always turn to a man for her security. I want her to learn to lean on Christ.”
Karen took Jonathan’s hand and made him look at her. “I am leaning on Christ. I really am, Jonathan. And Gus will help me. You told me a husband is s’pose to be a spiritual leader. Gus is a strong man who loves the Lord. He’ll help me grow, like you help Morgan.”
“But you haven’t known each other but a few weeks,” Morgan said. “Wouldn’t it be better to take some time to date and get to know each other better?”
Karen let Jonathan’s hand go and put her hands over her face.
But Gus wouldn’t give up. He put his arm around her shoulders. “We do know each other, Morgan. We been spendin’ lots of time getting to know each other. Nothin’s happened, so you don’t have to worry, but we been around each other a lot. I seen what kind of mama she is to Emory. She’s a good woman. I know all I need to know.”
Karen slid her fingers down her face and met Morgan’s eyes.
Silence passed between them, and Morgan just stared at both of them. “We need to pray about this.”
“We been praying already, Morgan, ever since we knew we were in love.” Gus took Karen’s hand in both of his. “And what we came to is that we need your blessing. If we don’t get it, we’ll wait until we can.”
That surprised Morgan even more. She looked at Jonathan and saw that he was equally moved. “You would do that? Wait, just because we wanted you to?”
Karen nodded. “If we knew you’d been praying about it and still felt we should wait, then we would. If we’re s’pose to do this now, like we think God is telling us, then he’ll tell you, too. I know I still need what I can get at Hanover House. I need the Bible study and the structure. It makes me strong. I like being part of your family.”
“We thought of two ways to go about this,” Gus said. “We could get married and I could stay at Hanover House. I could just give up my room and move in with Karen, so’s she could stay in the program. Or she could move in with me in my new apartment and come back here for the Bible studies every day.”
They heard the front door open, and Morgan knew that Sadie was home. “Let us pray about it, okay? We want what’s best for you. We really do.”
“We know you do, Morgan,” Gus said. “And I want what’s best for Karen and Emory, whatever that is, but I want to start thinking of her as my wife, and him as my son. The apostle Paul said it’s better to marry than to burn with lust.”
Morgan thought she might choke again, so she grabbed her glass and went for more water.
“But lust is not a good reason for marriage,” Jonathan said. “That’s not what Paul meant.”
“That ain’t all, mon,” Gus said. “I love this woman. I want to spend my life with her.”
Morgan gulped the water down and turned back to them. When Jonathan met her eyes again, he was grinning. She couldn’t help answering that smile.
“Well, I have to say that it’s good to have some happy news,” she said, “after all that’s happened today.”
Sadie stepped into the kitchen, looking haggard from her long drive. Morgan went to kiss her on the cheek. “Hey, sweetie. Come in and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“No, I got something on the way.” Sadie looked around. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Gus said. “We just be talking, Sadie. We’re done. How was your trip?”
“Long.” Sadie went to the refrigerator and got out a drink. “How was your day? Did anything happen with Lisa?”
Morgan’s fragile joy for Gus and Karen faded. “They found her body at the bottom of the river.”
Sadie spun around. “Oh, Morgan. I’m so sorry…Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Her poor husband. How is he?”
“Not well. He’s taking it hard.” She didn’t want to talk about it now, so she changed the subject. “Sit down and tell us about your visit. Was your mom okay?”
“She was great, and she had some good news. Well, maybe some good news. She may be getting out early.”
Morgan wasn’t sure she’d heard her right. “What? How?”
“Some new law that says nonviolent offenders only have to serve twenty percent of their sentence because of overcrowding in the prison. She’s not sure if she qualifies, but her lawyer is looking into it.”
A fifth of her sentence? Morgan looked at Jonathan, quietly passing her concern to him. If that was the case, her time served would be all that was required of her.
Jonathan leaned on the table. “Sadie, I don’t want you to get your hopes up about this. Morgan and I have been working in prison ministry for a while. It happens all the time—the inmates hear rumors about new laws and think they’re getting out early. Mostly, they’re disappointed. They want to be released so bad that they cling to every remote hope that comes along.”
Karen agreed. “It’s true. Whole time I was in jail, I just knew that I was gon’ get out the very next week. First I thought somebody would post my bond. Then when they didn’t, I thought I could get my public defender to file for a motion to reconsider. Then I tried to figure out ways to work off my sentence, get house arrest, whatever. Never did happen. Half the time I couldn’t even get the lawyer to come see me.”
“Me too,” Gus added. “You turn into a mathematician when you’re in the can. You get your time, minus time served, and then you get a day’s credit for every day you work, time off for good behavior, and then the sixty percent law or the forty percent law, or the possibility of parole, or a mistake in the DOC office…”
“And it never added up the way we thought.”
Morgan thought Sadie might cry. “Honey, it’s something to pray about.”
“But it could work out.” Sadie’s pleading expression broke Morgan’s heart. “Maybe it will. Maybe God’s just giving her a second chance. He does that. I know he does.”
Mor
gan took her hand. “Of course he does. He’s the author of second chances.”
Morgan could see from the girl’s face that they had ruined her hopes. She wished she had just kept her reservations to herself.
“I’m tired,” Sadie said. “I think I’ll go on up to bed and read for a while.”
Morgan hoped she wasn’t going upstairs to cry. “Honey, I’m sorry we brought you down.”
“Yeah, Sadie, we didn’t mean to do that,” Karen said.
Gus’s face softened. “We hope your mama does get out. It happened to my cell mates sometimes, just never to me.”
“It’s okay.” Sadie looked back at Morgan. “I’m sorry about Lisa. I know she was your friend.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“Good night, everybody.” Sadie left the room, and silence fell over them all.
“She’s right,” Karen said quietly. “God does give lots of second chances.” She reached for Gus’s hand again.
Morgan knew they had an awful lot to pray about that night.
CHAPTER 25
Well, there’s no blood,” McCormick said after five hours of searching the house, “but that’s no surprise since there weren’t any open wounds. But the telephone doesn’t bode well.”
Cade had to agree. They had found a phone without a cord in the living room, suggesting that the murder weapon had come from the house. If Ben had removed the cord to kill her, wouldn’t he have thought to replace it? Even if he’d forgotten, he would have been reminded each time the other phones in the house rang.
As they’d searched the premises, they’d found a good deal of evidence suggesting that these two people had a future together. They hadn’t found a thing suggesting marital discord or even a struggle of any kind.
They bagged a truckload of things that might later prove to be evidence, vacuumed the floor for fibers, and dusted for fingerprints. They confiscated her computer and canvassed the neighborhood for anyone who might have information.
And then they found the shoes.
They were the same size as the shoes that made the prints at the crime scene, with the same Nike design on the bottom. But it was a common running shoe, so the find didn’t mean that Ben had been the one to push his wife into the river.
Unless the lab could prove that the dirt on the bottom was the same dirt that had been on the riverbank.
The officers also sealed off Lisa’s office and confiscated Ben’s boat and car. He handed everything over freely and got a rental car to drive.
By ten-thirty, Cade put night-shift officers outside the real estate office and the Jackson home to stand guard so he and McCormick could call it a night. They would all need some sleep if they were to make any sense of the evidence they’d gathered.
It was after eleven when he got into his truck, wincing as he pulled his swollen leg in. He sat behind the wheel for a moment and stared out the window into the night.
He was bone-tired and drained, yet he didn’t want to go home. His day felt unfinished. He needed to see Blair.
She was probably in bed already, sleeping soundly, but it wouldn’t hurt to drive by and see if the lights were on.
He drove down Ocean Boulevard, his eyes scanning the moonlit beach and the businesses along the road. Did a killer lurk there somewhere? Was he laid up in one of the condos along the beach, or watching the local coverage of his murder on a hotel room TV?
Anger surged through Cade. He loved this town and the people who lived here and he wanted to protect them from evil, but sometimes evil slipped through anyway.
He rounded the island, where the road was darker along Wassaw Sound. Some of the houses were dark for the night, with lone porchlights the only security other than a locked door.
But Blair’s house was still lit up, and relief flooded through him as he pulled onto the gravel parking lot she shared with the library. Maybe she’d waited up, hoping he’d come by. Warmth flooded through him at the thought.
He went to the door and tapped lightly on it. He saw her pull the curtains up from the window. She opened the door and smiled out at him.
“Hey.” The word was soft, drawn out, packing more punch than a simple greeting. It said she was glad to see him, that she’d been hoping he would come.
“Sorry it’s so late.” He leaned against the casing.
She looked sleepy and disheveled in a pair of sweat pants and a wrinkled T-shirt. “It’s not too late. It’s exactly the right time.” She took his hand and pulled him in, and he felt the stress of the day melting away as he entered the warm glow of her living room.
“Sit down,” she said. “Your leg is killing you.”
He hadn’t realized how badly he was limping, but he didn’t argue. He sat down, and she got a cushion to put his leg on. “Here, prop it up. You want some aspirin?”
“No, I’ll live.” He slid down, resting his head on the back of the couch. It was the most comfortable he’d been all day.
She sat down next to him, pulling her feet beneath her. “Rough day, huh? Did you find anything in the house?”
“Blair, you know I can’t talk about it.”
“I know. But I’ve been doing a little searching on my own. You might be interested in a few things I came up with. But if you don’t want to talk about it…”
He grinned. This was her way. She played that game of you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours whenever there was an important investigation going on. The truth was, she usually had better information than he did. She had a gift, one that law enforcement officers would kill to have, and he didn’t discount it.
“Okay, Blair. Tell me.”
Clearly delighted that he’d taken the bait, she shifted to face him fully. “Okay, so I’m looking around town and interviewing people to find out who might have seen Lisa Jackson last. Lo and behold, Alan Freeman told me that maybe Lisa went looking for Ben’s girlfriend.”
“That guy? Alan Freeman is a well of misinformation,” Cade said. “You know that. He thinks he’s an expert on everything.”
“I realize that, but I wanted to know where he heard it, so I drilled him as hard as I could, and I found out that he heard it from some of the women in the ladies’ book club. Well, I don’t have to tell you, I know every one of them, so I got on the phone and started calling around. Every single one of them had heard rumors of Ben Jackson’s affair. No one had a name. No one knew anything except that there was some mystery mistress.”
Cade sat up straighter. “Yeah?”
“Finally, I traced the rumor back to Sarah Grady, and she refused to tell me who told her.”
Cade’s hopes crashed. “Blair, you’re starting to sound like one of those high school girls on the telephone.”
“I know, but don’t you see, Cade? It’s not just the rumor that’s important.” Her eyes widened. “It’s where the rumor started. Tracing this rumor back to its roots is going to take us either to the mistress or to the person who started the rumor, who ultimately may have written the letters.”
Cade closed his eyes and sighed. “I didn’t tell you about any letters.”
She waved the comment off. “My sister let it slip out when I called her this afternoon.”
Cade might have known. “Morgan knew better than that.”
“Don’t worry. She was horrified after she did it, but I’m pretty good at prying information out of people. She hardly had a chance.”
“She still shouldn’t have given you that kind of information. You’re the media, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well, don’t blame her. Her defenses were low. She’s really depressed today and she was hoping I’d find the killer.”
“You? I’m the one leading this investigation!”
“Yeah, but she knows I’m just like you. I don’t give up until I have answers that make sense.”
He rubbed his eyes, realizing he was more tired than he thought. “So did you follow the rumor mill any further?”
“Not quite, but tomorrow I’m going to g
et to the end of it, I can promise you that. Either there’s a mistress or there’s a liar trying to stir up trouble. Either one could be our killer.”
Cade chuckled softly and stroked her hair. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”
“I’ll keep you updated, even if you don’t return the favor. And Cade, go easy on Morgan. She’s not herself today.”
Cade relaxed his head back again. “I guess the murder rocked us all.”
“It’s not just that. It’s something else. Just between you and me, Morgan had a miscarriage yesterday.”
“What?” He dropped his leg and sat up straight. “Jonathan didn’t tell me she was pregnant!”
“They had just found out. Hadn’t even told me yet.”
“Oh, no.” He thought of the blow that must have been to his best friend and his wife. “That’s awful. I need to call him.”
“Not tonight. They’re exhausted. But see, that’s why she called Lisa, because Lisa’s been infertile all these years, and they’d gotten to be friends through that common bond. Morgan wants a baby so bad.”
Cade knew Jonathan yearned for a child too. His poor friends. They must be heartbroken. “I wonder what went wrong.”
“They don’t know. They’re making an appointment with the fertility doctor Monday. The same one Lisa was seeing.”
“Sims?” Cade had heard plenty about the doctor from Ben today. He got comfortable again and propped his leg back up. “I’ve heard he’s pretty good.” He reached up and pushed Blair’s hair back from her face. He knew she didn’t like it when he did that. Her self-consciousness about her scars made her hide behind that hair, but he liked having a clear view of her eyes. “Do you ever think about having children?”
Those scars turned pink, and she looked away. “Sometimes. It’s hard to picture—me, as a mom. I’m probably better aunt material.”
“I can picture it,” he whispered. “You’d be a terrific mom.”
She studied his face—a million thoughts and twice as many emotions flashing across her features, but for once, she didn’t voice them. Instead, she got up. “You want something to drink?”
She was changing the subject, so he let her off the hook. “Yeah, I’ll take some water.”