True Light

  She’d been way out of his league.

  Now she sat here, holding his hand and stroking his skin with her thumb, her mouth brushing his. He wanted to linger at her lips.

  “You were the brightest spot in the last two dark days,” he whispered. “You made everything bearable. You were a gift.”

  Her smile was soft. “A gift? From whom?”

  “From God, of course.”

  She looked back at him with expectation and mirrored longing.

  Her words at the hospital played through his head. He hadn’t had time to dwell on them, but they’d sunk deeply into his heart. Why did I have to fall in love with a hero? Was it true? Had she fallen in love? Or was it just a figure of speech?

  He hadn’t answered her. His feelings had trapped themselves in his throat. He thought of telling her now, but what if he made too much of it? What if she pitied him for misunderstanding?

  But that kiss was no misunderstanding. Deni had made it clear that she wasn’t just his friend. Hadn’t she?

  He had stood face-to-face with killers — but he’d never feared anything more than rejection from her.

  As if coming to his rescue, Doug stepped into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need my reading glasses.”

  Mark took the reprieve and got up. “No problem. I was just about to leave.”

  Deni looked disappointed. She stood up, her eyes round, vulnerable. “Can’t talk you out of it, huh?”

  He took her hand, squeezed it. “No, I need to go.”

  She followed him to tell his mother good-bye, then trailed him to the door, and stepped out on the porch with him.

  His heart pounded as he looked down at her. “Well . . . good night,” he said.

  “Good night.” She raised up to kiss him one more time.

  He was almost lost then. Declarations of love rose to his head, flushing out reason, banishing fear. He stroked her face with his knuckles as he gave himself to that kiss.

  Suddenly, she pulled back. “Wait. You forgot your gun.” She disappeared inside, got his holster he’d laid on the table, and one of the solar torches. He gratefully took his gun, and she helped him strap his holster on. Then he took the torch, realizing his feelings for her were killing his brain cells. He’d never forgotten his weapon before.

  Pulling himself away from her, he stepped off the porch and walked out into the darkness.

  FIFTY-TWO

  MARK’S FATHER’S VICTORIAN WAS UP THE STREET FROM his mother’s house. It had been purchased as an act of spite, to plague Mark’s mother after her new marriage. Vic had purchased the biggest house in the neighborhood, and at first, Mark believed that his dad had moved to Oak Hollow subdivision just to be closer to him.

  But Vic hadn’t spent all that much time with him, which had been baffling. It had taken a few years to figure out that the move had nothing to do with him.

  He’d inherited the house after his dad’s death, and it had sat just as Vic left it, except for the pornography. After his father’s crimes were exposed, Mark had taken the boxes full of smut and burned them in a pit in the backyard. He planned to sell the house after the Pulses, when banks reopened and the economy rebounded and real estate prices returned to normal. Now he wondered if he should make it available to a family like little Ruth’s.

  Instead of going in the front door, he went around back. In the light of the torch, he saw the pool thick with algae, and all the patio furniture his father had bought for the parties he loved to throw. Against the back fence, Mark had stacked up parts he’d gathered for the solar equipment he’d learned to build — old doors, windshields, broken and discarded mirrors, television boxes, broken microwaves. It was beginning to look like the yard in Sanford and Son.

  He walked across the grass, still wet with melted snow, and looked through the items he had collected. It was all still there.

  He’d learned about solar energy when he sought out the owner of a solar panels store in Birmingham a few months ago. He’d found the store closed, but questioned other merchants in the area and found out who owned it. Finding the man’s name in the phone book, Mark went to his house. He found Norman Phillips doing what almost everyone else with land was — planting vegetables in his yard.

  Mark introduced himself. “I want to talk to you about what it might take to build homemade solar panels for energy,” he said.

  Delighted at his interest, Norman walked him around his house, where he showed him all the ways he was using solar energy. Most of his equipment had been professionally manufactured and installed by his own crew long before the outage, but he allowed Mark to examine them to learn how they functioned. Mark realized that if he could find someplace to get glass panels, reflective items like chrome sheets or tin foil, and things that could pass for insulation, he could harness the sun to bring energy back to homes.

  Norman took Mark back to his empty store. Digging through his file cabinets, he found a stapled booklet that he handed to Mark.

  “Some guy had a website that I printed this from a couple of years ago. Tells how to assemble free stuff you can find around town — like glass storm doors or cracked mirrors — to make everything you need to use solar energy.”

  Mark skimmed the booklet. The information was pure gold. “Would you mind if I take this and give it to my friend who’s a reporter for the Crockett Times? It’ll help a lot of people.”

  Phillips considered that for a moment. “If I ever intend to open my business again, letting you publish that would be pretty stupid.”

  Mark wasn’t surprised, but he didn’t give up. “Mr. Phillips, do you have any idea how many people are going to die this winter? The families living in apartments already have it bad enough. This could save their lives and make the winter bearable.”

  Norman nodded. “Maybe I should go back into business. Start making these things for money.”

  “The people I want to help can’t afford to pay for them. Come on, Mr. Phillips. Don’t you want to help keep people alive during such tough times?”

  Phillips had finally told him to take the booklet, as long as he brought it back.

  Mark had promptly given it to Deni, and her editor had put out a special edition of the paper to publish it. After that, as Mark rode through the streets of Crockett, he’d seen dozens of people implementing the ideas in one way or another. He’d sent a copy of the paper to the mayors of large metropolitan areas in the north, hoping it would help the millions of apartment dwellers there. Whether they’d used it or not, he had no way of knowing. But he hoped they’d seized the information as he had.

  Mark had spent the next several weeks showing those in the apartments in Crockett how to make solar panels for their windows using black garbage bags and other easy-to-find items. He hoped it had lowered the mortality rate when the temperatures dropped.

  Crossing the yard to the patio, he went to the back door and unlocked it, leading his way in with the torch. As the light illuminated the living room, Mark froze.

  His father’s house had been ransacked, just like his own. Holding the lantern’s post under his casted arm, he closed his hand around his pistol, and walked through the living room. His father had hired an interior design student to decorate the place, and ignoring the Victorian architecture of the house, she’d decorated it like a tropical beach resort. The wet bar with a Tiki roof covering it remained intact, but all the cabinets beneath the bar were open, the contents pulled out. The red Hawaiian print couch cushions were pulled off the sofa, and once again, pictures had been removed from the walls. The sand-colored shag rug had been rolled back — exposing the mahogany wood floors beneath. A few of the floorboards had been pried up.

  What were they looking for?

  A chill ran through him as he realized that the ones who’d robbed his mother’s house had come here, as well.

  He went upstairs, looking through each bedroom. Some of the more valuable items his father owned had been taken, but other valuables had been left behind. Things lay
all over the floor in every room. There hadn’t been one nook or cranny they hadn’t emptied or explored in some way.

  He went to his father’s bedroom. The chest at the foot of the bed had been opened, the front of it kicked in. He looked inside — empty.

  And then it occurred to him. That was where he’d found the gold.

  The thought backed him up against the wall, and he stared at the chest for a moment. Why would anyone kick in the chest that used to hold the gold coins, unless they knew they had been there?

  His heart raced as he leaned the solar light against the wall. Sitting on the bed, he tried to think. No one knew about that gold. He hadn’t told a soul.

  Could someone from under the bridge have found out about his dad’s house? But why would they have kicked the chest in? That was the act of someone enraged that it was empty.

  It couldn’t be the escaped prisoners, since the first break-in happened while they’d all still been incarcerated. But he couldn’t tell when this break-in had occurred. It could have been the same night, or as recently as today. Or it could have been long before. He hadn’t even been in the house in over a month.

  Yes, it had something to do with the gold. The knowledge throbbed through him, making his bones ache. What did that mean? Would neither of his homes be safe until the robbers found the gold?

  He went around the house, checking the windows and doors, trying to see how they had gotten in. There didn’t seem to be any sign of forced entry.

  He thought of the gold, hidden in the tree stump. Was it still there?

  Locking the house, he used the torch to find his way into the woods surrounding Oak Hollow. It was difficult to see at night, but he made his way down the path he’d trod so many times before. In moments, he reached the stump. He looked back through the trees, hoping no one could see him. Without leaves, the trees provided little cover.

  When he was satisfied that he hadn’t been followed, he pulled out the leaves stuffed into the stump, and saw the tool box. He opened it.

  The gold coins were still there.

  If he knew who wanted them so badly, he would take the stupid box and give it to them. The gold wasn’t worth all this.

  He closed the box and placed it back inside the stump. As he covered it back with dead leaves, paranoia crept over him.

  When he’d found the gold in his father’s bedroom, he hadn’t expected it to bring him such trouble. He should have known that everything his father touched did that.

  Making his way back through the woods to his mother’s backyard, he stuck the torch into the ground and got his bike and a flashlight out of his garage. His ski cap sat on the table, so he grabbed it and pulled it on. Riding was hard with one arm, but he made it to the bridge on I – 20, to see if Ruth and her family were still there. If they were, he could talk to her father and find out whom they’d told about the gold.

  He left his bike hidden in the trees and made his way to the indigent community. A fire rippled in the same pit as the other night, and several sat huddled around it. He pulled the ski cap low over his forehead, careful not to irritate the stitches. Hiding his cast under his jacket so he wouldn’t look vulnerable, he ambled through, looking for the family to whom he’d given the coins. Their brown tent was gone, and he didn’t see little Ruth.

  He did see one of the other men who’d been here that night. The toothless man with one false eye sat beside the fire, picking through a bag of garbage.

  Mark stooped down next to him. “How ya doing?”

  The man glanced up at him. “I ain’t got nothing you want.”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  The man regarded him in the firelight. “Hey, you’re the dude brought us meat. You got anymore?”

  Mark wished he did. “No, not tonight.”

  Crestfallen, the man went back to his garbage.

  “Hey, listen,” Mark said in a low voice. “When I was here the other night, there was a family here. Had two little girls. One of them named Ruth. Are they still here?”

  Preoccupied, the man didn’t look like he was going to answer. Finally, he said, “They moved on. Came into a windfall somehow, wound up gettin’ a room.”

  Mark’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? A windfall, huh? What’d they do, win the lottery?”

  “Got me. I thought the lotteries went out with the electricity.”

  Maybe they’d used the coins as he’d intended. “Good for them,” he said. “I’m glad to hear that.” If the man didn’t know about the gold, maybe they’d kept it to themselves. If that was true, then who had come looking for more?

  The man found a brown apple core and scarfed it down.

  A conversation was growing heated on the other side of the fire, and Mark looked over and saw a group of men huddled in the trees. He couldn’t see their faces, but one accented voice rose above the others. It sounded like Tree House.

  He backed away from the fire, stepping back into the shadows. Making his way around the fire, he got in close enough to the huddle to hear what they were saying.

  “We can’t be seen in town in de daylight. If we gon’ do our stealin’, it has to be in de night.”

  “But I can’t go tonight.” It was Gus, who’d held Pete during Tree House’s charade. “I got two kids and a wife fit to be tied. Night’s the only time I can go see them without being caught.”

  “Hey, we stand together or we fall. Now, are you in dis wit’ me or not?”

  Mark held his breath as he waited for Gus’s response.

  “I said, are you in dis wit’ me or not?”

  “I’m not, man.”

  Mark moved around a tree and saw the two men facing off.

  “I’m sick of this,” Gus said. “I want out. I’ll go get my family and we’ll leave town. But I don’t got to put up with this. They catch you, you’re going down for life. Killing two deputies? Almost killing the sheriff hisself? What you got to lose? I don’t want to be with you when you start gunning down more people, bringing attention on all of us. You ain’t got fear, man, but I ain’t ashamed to say I do.”

  Tree House grabbed Gus’s throat and slammed him against a tree. “Man, I broke you out. You owe me.”

  Gus wouldn’t back down. “I don’t owe you nothing!”

  “Hey, man, calm down.” It was the third guy, one of the men who’d been in a different cell. He came between them and made Tree House let go. Gus rubbed his neck.

  “We have to stick together, man, like brothers. Tree House is right. There’s just no other option.”

  So what did that mean? More people dead?

  Mark’s mind raced. He had to get word to the deputy before these men carried out Tree House’s plans — whatever they were. Mark couldn’t possibly arrest them himself, not with his injuries. No, he’d have to hurry to the sheriff’s department and hope Wheaton was still there.

  Quietly, he went back through the woods, got on his bike, and with one arm on the handlebars, headed for the sheriff’s station.

  FIFTY-THREE

  FOUR OF THE ESCAPED PRISONERS WERE SITTING IN THE front room of the sheriff’s department, hands cuffed and feet shackled, when Mark dashed in. Six volunteer deputies were processing them. They’d clearly been hard at work since he left the station.

  He found Wheaton in the jail, where he’d just locked up another three. “Deputy, I found Dante Miller, Gus Cole, and one of the other prisoners. We’ve got to go get them now, because they won’t be there long.”

  Wheaton looked exhausted, but his reaction was instant. Hurrying out of the jail room, he started barking out orders. “Roberts, Hernando, Jackson, and Ward — you guys come with me. We’ve got some more prisoners to round up.” He glanced back at Mark. “Where are they?”

  He told them of the tent community under the bridge. Surprisingly, Wheaton knew all about it. The men grabbed extra boxes of ammunition, and Mark followed them out to the van. He started to get in, but Wheaton stopped him. “Hold up, Green. You’re not coming. With your in
juries, you’re a liability.”

  “But I have to show you where they are.”

  “I know that place better than you do. I can’t tell you how many arrests I’ve made there.”

  “But the men — do you even know what they look like?”

  “Those men have rap sheets as long as my arm. I’ve gotten to know Cole and Miller real well over the years.” The others climbed in and slammed the door.

  Mark stood there, frustrated, as they drove away. Under his breath, he prayed that they’d capture the three criminals without any bullets flying.

  He went back inside and helped the two remaining volunteers march the shackled men into the jail cells. When they were locked up, and he wasn’t needed anymore, he decided to go to the Brannings’ house. Maybe Doug could help him figure out what was going on with the break-in at his father’s house.

  IT WAS 12:30 A.M. BY THE TIME MARK KNOCKED ON THE Brannings’ door. He knew the family was probably sleeping. He hoped those in the upstairs rooms wouldn’t hear him. But Doug and Kay’s bedroom was downstairs. Maybe Doug wasn’t a heavy sleeper.

  He heard movement in the house, and he shone his flashlight on his own face, so Doug could see through the peephole that it was him. The deadbolt clicked and the door came open. Doug looked out at Mark. “What’s wrong?” Doug stood barefoot, his rifle at his side, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, his hair mashed on one side and sticking up on the other.

  “Doug, I’m really sorry to wake you up. But I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure,” Doug said. “Come in.”

  He led Mark to his study, and quickly lit an oil lamp on his desk. “Has something happened?”

  “Yeah, something has.” Mark told him about finding Tree House and the others. “But there’s more. I was at my dad’s house tonight, and it’s been broken into also. Something occurred to me that may explain some of what’s going on.”