She knew her scars were probably blood red again, so she turned back to the window. “That’s nice, Cade. But soon enough you’re going to meet one of these blonde tourists breezing through town, fall in love, marry her, and have tanned little children running around crabbing on the beach.”
He grinned. “Or you could,” he said. “There are plenty of tanned men breezing through town.”
She smiled a sad smile. “Not going to happen,” she said, “not to me.”
She dug into her purse, pulled out two dollars, and set them on the table. “You better get back to the service, before somebody misses you and turns you in to the spiritual police.”
He smiled and slid out of the booth. “You won’t run off to Colorado without letting me know, will you?”
She sighed. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to leave in the next few days. Too much is unsettled. I fight to win.”
She started past him to the door, but he caught her arm and stopped her. She turned around and looked up at him. “Are you okay?” he asked in a low voice. “I mean, really okay?”
She felt exposed, and she didn’t like it. “I’m fine,” she said. Then before he could say anything else, she pulled out of his grasp and headed back to Hanover House.
C H A P T E R
74
Morgan found Blair lying in their parents’ bedroom at Hanover House, curled up on the bed, clutching both of her parents’ pillows.
“We missed you at the service,” she said.
Blair sat up as if she didn’t want to be seen that way. “I saw that it was a big crowd. I’m glad it went well.”
Morgan came in and closed the door behind her. “Jonathan was wonderful,” she said. “He did a good job. And Wilson Riley offered to preach next Sunday. He’s a retired preacher, you know. He wants to do it.”
Blair breathed a laugh. “No one can fill Pop’s shoes. You know that.”
Morgan sat on the bed and pulled her feet up beneath her. “What’s the matter, Blair?”
“Nothing. I’m just a little amazed at how easy it is for you.”
“What’s easy?”
“Just moving on,” Blair said, “picking up and filling Pop’s shoes. Mama’s too.”
“All I did was go to a church service,” Morgan said.
Blair pulled herself off the bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.” She fiddled with something on the bed table, then turned around and looked at her sister. “I think I’ve changed my mind about selling Hanover House.”
Morgan grunted. “Why? I thought we had decided that we wouldn’t. I thought we were going to fight it, stand firm, and not let the city council intimidate us.”
Blair’s eyes were misty as she turned back around. “But I’m tired, Morgan,” she said, and the weariness was apparent in every word. “I need help moving on.”
“How would it help?” Morgan asked. “Selling our home and everything that belonged to Mama and Pop—how in the world could that help?”
“I could use the money,” Blair said.
Morgan’s mouth fell open. “For what?”
“To move out of this place, to start over someplace else where no one knows me.”
“How’ll that help?” Morgan cried. “Why would anybody want to go where no one knows them?”
“Because they could start over,” Blair said. “There’d be hope for a future.”
“You have hope here. You were happy before all this. You never wanted to move before.”
“I’ve always wanted to move,” Blair said, “but I never did because they were here, and it would have broken their hearts. But now it’s easier. I want to do it, Morgan. I want to sell this house.”
“Well, I don’t! Mama and Pop would have wanted us to keep going. The church service, Hanover House, they were all tools to Mama and Pop to help them reach people, and I want to do that too. I have it in me and so does Jonathan. We can do it. It can be my mission field just like it was theirs.”
Blair ground her teeth together. “Don’t you tell me you feel called.”
“That’s exactly what I feel.”
“Oh, please!” Blair shouted. “You make me want to throw up. Why is it that every time a Christian gets a bee in his bonnet they say they feel ‘called’?”
“Because it’s true.”
“It’s not true,” Blair said. “It’s just another manipulative technique that ends the conversation. If you feel ‘called,’ then nobody can argue with it. But you know what? I don’t believe, so it doesn’t work with me.”
“So you don’t believe,” Morgan said, smearing a tear across her face. “Mama and Pop couldn’t change that, and I haven’t been able to change that. But you don’t have to mock my beliefs. I do feel a calling and so did Mama and Pop.”
“That’s right,” Blair shouted. “They felt that calling to serve God. They gave him their lives. They served him night and day. And look how protected they were! Look how blessed! They were murdered, Morgan! Where was he when they were screaming for their lives? Where is he now, when that killer is still out there, walking around free and laughing because he got away with it?”
Morgan sank back down. “There’ll come a time when God’s wrath will come down on the person who did this, Blair. When God’s anger over Mama and Pop’s deaths is avenged.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it says so in the Bible, and I believe it.” She wiped her tears and tried to find the words. “Blair, we live in a violent, dark world. It wasn’t the way God wanted it in the beginning.”
“Oh, right,” Blair said. “The fallen nature. Adam and Eve sinned, so our parents had to be murdered. Makes sense to me.”
Morgan looked helpless. “Blair, I ask the same questions. Where was God? Why did he let this happen? And I don’t know the answers. But I know that our parents are in heaven because Jesus shed his blood so that this world wouldn’t be imprisoned to sin anymore. The person who did this will have to face God one day. His knees will bow and his tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And he’s going to pay for what he did.”
“By going to hell? So let me get this straight,” Blair said. “Because I don’t believe, I’ll be in hell with the same person who killed our parents?”
Morgan slammed her fist into the mattress. “Oh, Blair, God never wanted you to go to hell. We were all headed there, anyway. Jesus died on the cross to save us from that. He died to save you too. He probably mourns every day because you haven’t reached out and taken the life preserver he’s thrown out to you. You’d rather drown in your confusion, in all your unanswered questions, in all the pain you carry around.”
“And you’d rather drown in your faith.”
“Faith doesn’t make you drown, Blair. It makes you walk on the water. It makes you go on when life doesn’t make sense, when it isn’t fair, when horrible things happen. It reminds you that you’re not alone. That Someone is there with you, carrying that burden that’s so crushing that you can’t even stand up straight.”
Blair only shook her head and wiped the tears on her face. “I can carry my own burdens.”
Then she left the room, ran down the stairs, and out the front door. Morgan just curled up in the same place her sister had been, and wept into her father’s pillow.
C H A P T E R
75
Blair crossed the street and headed along the beach, her feet digging into the powdery sand. She tried to flee from her rage at the God she didn’t believe in, tried to escape the cares that crushed her, just as Morgan had described. But there was no escape. They went with her, wrapping around her throat and constricting it, keeping her from being able to swallow or breathe. Where had they come from, these tears? They came in a torrent streaming down her face, stinging her eyes, dripping from the bottom of her chin. She walked faster and faster as that anguish poured out of her.
She passed the South Beach Pier, where tourists lay as limp as the towels beneath them. She glanced up to the pier, hopi
ng no one she knew would see her in this condition. No one even noticed her.
She walked faster, the angry wind whipping through her hair. Black clouds blew up from the east, threatening furious storms that would slow the island down. She welcomed that storm, longed for the lightning and the claps of thunder, the sound of pouring rain on her roof. It would feel like justice.
She kept walking until she ran out of beach; then she took to the grass and the occasional sidewalk and the packed dirt, walking from pier to pier around the cape.
She had meant what she said about leaving Cape Refuge. Somehow, she would make it happen. She could sell her half of Hanover House to Morgan and take off to Colorado. She could find a research job or a librarian’s position there, rent a little apartment overlooking the mountains, soak up the peace and the newness of the place, and put the past, with all its questions and maddening answers, behind her.
She trudged along the river wall, through backyards, and around boathouses. A few residents waved at her and asked how she was doing, but she just waved and walked on.
She rounded the northern tip of the island, only a mile across the river from Tybee Island. The back of the Simmons’s house came into view, and she saw the judge and Nancy sitting out beside their pool. A red-haired man, dressed in a Miller Light T-shirt and jeans, sat with them, deep in conversation.
She didn’t want Nancy to catch her with tears on her face and drill her with a million insincere questions, and she wasn’t up for a fight about the article Nancy hadn’t printed. So Blair chose, instead, to turn around and head back the way she had come, before they even saw her.
She’d be glad to put people like Nancy in her rearview mirror, she thought—along with their arrogant opinions and lethal tongues and complete lack of regard for the things that made this island great.
Her house would sell quickly, as property on Cape Refuge always did. She would make enough to get started. She’d call a realtor tomorrow, she thought. She wouldn’t let Morgan convince her to stay. And she wouldn’t let Cade’s soft, knowing gaze change her mind either.
Her mind was made up, but as she walked the perimeter of the island, she realized that, no matter how fast she walked or how far she went, Cape Refuge was still with her.
She wondered if she could ever really escape it.
C H A P T E R
76
Sadie’s first paycheck came the next day. It was such a thrill that she didn’t know what to do first. When she left the office that afternoon she hurried through the rain down to the bank a block away and cashed the check. With her money tucked into her pocket, she hurried back to Hanover House, anxious to pay the rent and show them that she could indeed earn her keep.
Soaking wet and almost running by the time she got to the front yard, like a child with a straight-A report card, she bounced up the steps and across the porch.
“Morgan, you won’t believe it!” she cried as she burst into the kitchen. It was empty. She went through the rest of the downstairs rooms, searching for someone to tell, then looked outside and realized that Morgan’s car was gone. She would have to wait.
She heard movement upstairs, a door closing, footsteps across the floor . . .
She ran up the stairs, turned the corner—and stopped cold.
It was Jack.
The man who had beaten her leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette and watching the shock on her face.
“Surprise,” he said in that voice heavy with evil.
She screamed and started to run down the stairs, but he was on her in seconds. He knocked her legs out from under her, and she tumbled down, her cast breaking as it hit against the stairs.
She managed to get up before he was on her again, but he grabbed her and knocked her to the ground. His fist cracked across her cheek, producing a bloody gash, but she got her feet under her again and ran. She stumbled out the back door and took off into the trees, knowing he was behind her. She could hear him panting and calling her name.
“Thought you could hide, did you?” he was saying. “Thought you could report me to HRS and get away with it? You can’t hide from me, Sadie. You ain’t smart enough.”
But she was smart enough to get away. She had walked this way too many times and she knew which routes might lose him. She ran for her life, through yards and behind houses, into the heart of Cape Refuge, running, running until she thought she had lost him. Because if he ever did catch her, she knew this time he would kill her. There was no mistaking it.
Her breath sounded amplified in her ears, and her heart beat rudderlike against her chest. She stopped and hid in a cluster of wet bushes in someone’s yard and waited there as rain drizzled down and the moments ticked by. She listened for him, smelled for him, but when he never made a move, she knew she had lost him. Finally, she made her way to a convenience store with a pay phone. She thought of calling the police, but she’d never had good luck with them before. Morgan wasn’t home. So she called information, got Blair’s number, dropped in some more coins, and dialed.
Lightning shocked overhead, making her jump, and she put her back to the wall and clutched the phone tight as she waited, watching for him to come upon her and finish the job. Blair’s phone rang once, twice, a third time.
“Please answer!” she whispered.
The voice mail picked up.
“I’m not home right now,” Blair’s voice said, “but if you’d like to leave a message, wait for the beep.”
She waited for the beep, then in a breathless, panicked, high-pitched voice said, “Blair, I went home, and Jack was there waiting for me, trying to kill me, and he chased me, and I got away, but he’ll find me.” She stopped on a shivery sob and brushed her wet hair back from her eyes. “I don’t know where Morgan is, so I’m going to Nancy’s to see if I can hide there so he can’t find me. Please, when you get this, come get me there. I’m so scared.”
She hung up the phone, then took off walking to the judge’s house, praying that Nancy would take her in.
The light on Blair’s machine was blinking when Blair got home from the library. She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She had spent the day secluded in the back room. Because of the storm, hardly anyone had come in, and those who had were not interested in conversation.
Still, she pushed the button and went into the kitchen as she listened.
The tape beeped. “Blair, it’s Morgan. Call me, please.”
Blair got a can of Diet Coke from the refrigerator and poured it into a glass. The tape beeped again. Sadie’s high-pitched, panicked voice fired across the line: “Blair, I went home, and Jack was there waiting for me, trying to kill me, and he chased me, and I got away, but he’ll find me . . .”
The glass slipped from Blair’s hand and shattered on the tile.
“I don’t know where Morgan is, so I’m going to Nancy’s to see if I can hide there so he can’t find me. Please, when you get this, come get me there. I’m so scared.”
Blair crunched the glass under her shoes and reached the phone. She dialed the police station and waited as the call was routed to Cade. “Cade, Sadie’s in trouble,” she blurted. “She left me a hysterical message that Jack is in town, that he broke into Hanover House and was waiting for her. She’s hurt.”
“Jack? The mother’s boyfriend?”
“Yes. Cade, you’ve got to catch him before he kills her. She said she was going to Nancy’s because he wouldn’t look for her there.”
“I’m on it, Blair,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”
C H A P T E R
77
Limping and clutching her broken arm against her body, Sadie made her way to the northern tip of the island where the Simmons lived. She rang the bell, then banged urgently on the front door. After a moment, Nancy opened it. “Sadie, what happened?”
“He’s here,” Sadie cried, stumbling in. “Jack’s after me.” She closed the door behind her, and looked out the window.
“Jack who?” Nancy’s voice was lace
d with irritation.
“Jack! My mother’s boyfriend. He tracked me down. I can’t ever get away from him! Please, can I stay here, just until they catch him?”
“Of course you can,” Nancy said.
“We have to call the police,” Sadie cried, running from window to window to check the locks.
“Sadie, calm down,” Nancy said. “Let’s clean that cut—”
Sadie was wet and cold, shivering so badly that she could hardly stand. “They have to find him before he tracks me here. They have to catch him . . .”
“Sadie, stop!” Nancy turned her from the window and looked her in the face. “You’re bleeding, and your cast is messed up. One thing at a time.”
“The police,” Sadie cried. “Please, the police . . .”
Nancy walked her into the bathroom and made her sit down. Sadie hugged herself and wished for a blanket. Her clothes were wet, and she couldn’t stop shaking.
Her eyes shot to the window, and she wondered if it was locked. He could break the glass and come in after her.
“Here,” Nancy said, pouring two pills into her hand. “It’ll help.”
“No!” Sadie squealed. “The police—”
“Take these, Sadie,” Nancy insisted, filling a glass with water. She thrust the pills into her trembling hands. “They’ll help the pain and calm you down.”
Sadie took the pills, and Nancy came at her with a cotton ball and alcohol.
“You need stitches,” she said. “And your arm—we need to get you to the hospital.”
“No,” Sadie cried. “I can’t go out. He’s waiting for me. He wants to kill me.”
“Okay,” Nancy said. “Let’s just stop the bleeding, and we’ll call the police.”
Sadie felt the fight draining out of her. “Yes,” she whispered. “Tell them . . . he’s after me . . . little Caleb . . .”
Nancy walked her to the guest room and turned on a lamp. There were family pictures, plants, a clock that ticked too loudly . . . and windows. “Lie down and rest now,” Nancy said, “and I’ll call the police. Just keep this towel pressed against your face to stop the bleeding.”