Justifiable Means

  “You’re a genius, Larry,” Melissa whispered. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  Larry laughed softly as he leaned back against his car’s fender, his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. “No, actually. They haven’t. Why am I a genius?”

  “Because I think I can feel safe here. I really do.”

  Taking her hand, he pulled her closer. “I want you to be safe, Melissa. And I want you to trust me. I’m going to get Pendergrast.”

  She looked away then, and he could see the weight of worry and fear she carried. It was hard for her to believe that the nightmare would ever end. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure he believed that himself. Pendergrast had walked before. The system didn’t always work.

  Her blue eyes looked paler in the moonlight as she scanned the darkness. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?” she asked. “There are times like this, when the world seems so peaceful . . . so quiet . . . You can look around, and breathe in the serenity. You can almost believe that there’s nothing evil out there. Anywhere.”

  “But then reality always hits, doesn’t it?”

  She sighed. “Under these same stars, Pendergrast is sitting somewhere. Or driving around looking for me. And if not me, then some other woman who thinks there’s no evil out there.”

  He cupped her chin and made her look up at him. “Leave the evil to me, Melissa. You concentrate on the good for a while.”

  She drew in a ragged breath. “I don’t know if I can.” When he pulled her closer, she slid her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.

  Something about that small gesture sent his heart reeling, and he touched her hair, stroking, comforting. What a feeling. This was something he’d been missing. Something he had occasionally prayed for, without expecting it to happen.

  Was he losing his perspective, as Tony suggested? Or was he gaining something important? Something God had offered him?

  “The truth is,” she said in a whisper, “even after this is all over, and Pendergrast is locked up forever, I don’t know if I can trust goodness again. I know too much.”

  “No,” he said. “I used to think I knew too much, too. But evil is not going to prevail. That’s a promise. It’s in the Bible.”

  “But how do you see through the evil?” she asked, looking up at him. “How do you look past a sister’s suicide? How do you look past rape? How do you look past that face that wakes me up in my sleep?”

  “You let God fill your life with more of himself, so that he crowds Pendergrast out. You surround yourself with his goodness. When’s the last time you went to church?”

  She hesitated. “I haven’t been since ... since before Sandy died.”

  “Will you go with me?”

  She stepped out of his arms and turned her back to him. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “How do you get ready? There are no prerequisites.”

  “It’s just that—I don’t have anything to wear. And I haven’t gone in so long.”

  Frowning, he turned her around, made her look at him. “Melissa, what are you afraid of? It’s just church. It’s a good place. It’s God’s house.”

  Again, she turned away. He waited for an explanation as she leaned back against the fender next to him. “Larry, what do you think it means to blaspheme?”

  The question surprised him. “Blaspheme? Why?”

  “I just—think about it sometimes. I remember reading in the Bible somewhere that blasphemy was one of the worst kinds of sins. Maybe the worst. And I wonder sometimes just what it is.”

  He shrugged, wishing he’d come more prepared. “Well, I guess it means denying the deity of Christ. What do you think it means?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Mocking him, maybe?”

  Larry tried to imagine where she was going with this. “Well, I guess that could be a form of blasphemy. Melissa, what does this have to do with your going to church with me?”

  She hugged herself and took a couple of steps farther away from him, shaking her head. “I just can’t, Larry. I don’t think everybody belongs in church. Some people have no business there.”

  “The church should be open to everyone,” he said. “No one should be excluded. Melissa, if you think you’re tainted in some way, that God doesn’t want you anymore—”

  “I can’t talk about this,” she said, preventing what she sensed he was about to say. “Just—just accept that I’m not ready to go back to church. I can’t do it. Not yet.”

  He let that sink in, then finally said, “All right.” The curt tone of his voice made her look up at him, and the pain on her face looked so intense, so deep, that he couldn’t help reaching for her again. “Melissa, I care about you. You have the most beautiful smile I think I’ve ever seen. It lights up my heart every time I see it. But I haven’t seen it very often. I want to help you find your smile again.”

  She met his eyes then as tears rolled down her cheeks, and he touched her face gently and pulled her into a kiss.

  It was soft, sweet, gentle, and it tasted of her tears.

  When he broke it, he pulled back and looked at her again. “This isn’t about police work anymore, Melissa,” he whispered. “I’m taking this case very personally.”

  She smiled. “I don’t deserve you.”

  He laughed softly. “Tell me about it. You probably deserve some hunk who can give you everything.”

  Her smile grew wider. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He knew what she meant, and he kissed her again, this time sliding his arms around her, holding her as he had long wanted to do, only this time it wasn’t for her, for her comfort. It was for him.

  “I’d better go,” he said finally, dragging in a deep breath and letting her go.

  She smiled and looked down at her feet. “Yeah. Thanks for bringing me here, Larry.”

  “You’ll be safe. He doesn’t know where you’ll be working, and he doesn’t know where you live. You can relax a little. Just be careful.”

  “You, too,” she whispered as he got into his car.

  He watched her go back into the house before he started his car.

  Lynda was putting the finishing touches on the master bedroom when Melissa came back into the house. “I think you’ll be comfortable here,” Lynda said with a smile. “Paige was. She’s the one who stayed here before you.”

  “But this is the master bedroom,” Melissa said. “Lynda, I could just sleep on the couch.”

  “I don’t sleep in here,” Lynda said. “It was my parents’ room. There are too many memories.” She sat down on the bed with a sigh and ran her hand along the smooth bedspread. “My dad hasn’t been gone long. Just a few months. I really miss him sometimes. Mom, too, even though she’s been gone longer.”

  Melissa sat down across the bed from her, and looked around the room. On the dresser, there was a silver tray with a brush and comb, and an open box with a tie clip and a key ring. A tie rack hung on the closet door with her father’s ties still carefully lined up. “You kept their things.”

  Lynda smiled. “Yeah. I haven’t made myself get rid of anything yet. I used to hate this house and everything in it. I wanted more. And I got more. But when I lost it all, I started to realize how precious all my memories were. I guess I realized that things don’t fill up your life.”

  “I have memories,” Melissa said. “Of my family. My sister. We were so oblivious.”

  “Oblivious to what?” Lynda asked gently.

  “To what was going to happen.” She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “Sometimes I wish I could go back and dwell on those memories. But the bad ones keep interfering. It’s hard for me to be with my parents now, in their home. I keep remembering when my sister was there.”

  Larry had told Lynda most of Melissa’s story, and she reached out and took Melissa’s hand. “It’s normal to grieve, Melissa. How long has it been?”

  She shrugged. “About three years.”

  “Well, wha
t’s just happened to you has probably brought it all back. Stirred it all up.” Lynda pulled her feet up beneath her on the bed and fixed her thoughtful, compassionate eyes on her. “It takes time, Melissa. Grief has a way of hanging on.”

  Melissa dipped her head, unable to meet Lynda’s eyes with the intimacy of her tears.

  “You’ll never be the same,” Lynda admitted softly. “The world will never be the same. You’ll look back on your life before and it’ll seem like some kind of surreal dream.”

  “It already does,” Melissa said. “Like those fuzzy old reels of home movies. All laughter and no pain. Just a dream.”

  For a moment, there was a gentle silence between them, as if they knew each other well enough to share quiet together. “Larry brought you to Jake and me for a reason, Melissa. We’ve had to grieve, too. We’ve both had to plunge headfirst into a new era of our lives—whether we liked it or not. We’ve both survived.”

  Melissa wiped her eyes with both hands. “Maybe I’ll be a survivor, too. Maybe there’s hope.”

  Later that night, after she had gone to bed, Melissa lay awake trying to sort out all the thoughts in her mind. Why had God blessed her by bringing her here to Lynda, where she truly did feel safe, and cared for, and no longer forsaken?

  The sweetness and mercy in it was almost more than she could bear, for she saw nothing in herself that merited it. God shouldn’t even be able to look upon her, not after the shame of all the events that had brought her here.

  In the darkness, she saw a Bible lying beside the bed, where Lynda had put it. Turning on the dim lamp on the bed table, she opened it. By memory—how long had it been since she had held an open Bible?—she turned to the Beatitudes in Matthew, a passage that had given her so much peace as a child. She had learned the whole passage in vacation Bible school once, but it had been years since she’d recited it, even longer since she’d read it.

  Now her eyes fell on the one verse she needed to read tonight. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

  She closed the Bible, realizing how unpure her heart was, how far from seeing God she had come. Her heart had been tainted by events—many of them out of her control, true, but many of them well within it, and God could never be pleased with that.

  Feeling the abyss of mourning and emptiness growing deeper inside her, she went to the door of the bedroom that opened onto the patio and gazed out into the darkness.

  Lynda and Jake were sitting out there on a swing, snuggled up together, talking softly. It hadn’t occurred to her that the two were a couple, but now, as she saw Jake lean over and kiss Lynda gently, she realized that something very special was happening between them.

  Something she would probably never experience.

  She went back to the big bed and lay staring at the tiles on the ceiling, remembering the way Larry had kissed her tonight. It was no longer just business, he had said. It was personal.

  His interest in her sent a warm feeling spiraling through her, but she quickly quelled it and sent it away. She couldn’t fall in love with Larry, and he couldn’t fall in love with her. Nothing good could come from it. Only pain. Larry needed someone with a pure heart, someone like Lynda, who wasn’t plagued with hatred and bitterness. Someone who didn’t cling to her anger and injustice like an old, familiar—but lethal—friend.

  When this was all over—when the trial ended and Pendergrast was behind bars for good—would she then be able to explore these feelings for Larry?

  Something—that fatalistic voice that seemed to drive her these days—told her that she would never get that chance. Larry did have a pure heart, and the last thing he needed was someone like her in his life, separating him from God.

  She turned over, adjusted the pillow, and tried to find sleep, but it wouldn’t come. It wasn’t the threat of Pendergrast that kept her awake. Tonight, it was the threat of what lurked inside herself. The threat of who she had become. How far she had strayed.

  But that was why she was here. Lynda took in strays. Lynda, who loved Jake. Lynda, who missed her parents. Lynda, who had a pure heart . . .

  There was something comforting in that, and finally, surrendering to her exhaustion, Melissa drifted into a troubled sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Edward Pendergrast watched her apartment until the wee hours of morning, then finally decided that she wasn’t coming home. Like the other night, she had disappeared.

  His mistake had been in trying to get in, but he hadn’t been able to resist. Picturing the fear on her face E when he had called to let her know he was watching her had spurred him to frighten her even more.

  He chuckled now at the thought. When he’d gone to her door and tried to pick the lock, she’d really gone off the deep end. He had heard her calling that cop, just before he cut the line and took off. And while he was off setting up his latest alibi, she had left the apartment to hide from him.

  Despite his frustration that he couldn’t find her tonight, Pendergrast at least felt the satisfaction of knowing that she was terrified of him, and that she would be constantly, exhaustingly on alert, listening for sounds, vibrations, clues that he was near. He loved these mind games. If only he could see that fear on her face. That would make it complete.

  Tomorrow, he thought, heading home. He’d find her tomorrow. She wouldn’t be able to hide for long.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The red Porsche that was blocking Melissa’s car in had not been in Lynda’s driveway last night. Melissa was sure of it. She stood at Lynda’s kitchen window, dressed and ready for work, wondering who the car belonged to. The idea of someone new being here made her a little uneasy. Besides, she had to be at her new job in half an hour, and the car was blocking her way.

  “Morning, Melissa. Did you sleep well?”

  Melissa turned and saw Lynda, dressed in a blue business suit that completely changed her look from soft to professional. Now she looked like a lawyer.

  “Yes,” she lied. “I was really comfortable, thanks. You look nice.”

  Lynda smiled and set her briefcase on the table. “Thanks. I have to be in court this morning. I made biscuits. Are you hungry?”

  Melissa shook her head. “No, I’m not hungry.” She looked out the window again. “Is someone here? I mean, besides you and Jake?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lynda said. “That car belongs to Jake’s mother. I don’t think she’ll be here long. I can get her to move it if you need me to.”

  Melissa turned from the window. “Jake’s mother drives a red Porsche?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a long story.” She glanced over Melissa’s shoulder to the window. “Uh-oh, here they come.”

  Melissa looked out the window again. Jake was coming out of his apartment with an older woman with platinum blonde hair and black roots, and a cigarette in her mouth. “Brace yourself,” Lynda said with a grin as she went to the door. “Doris is never dull.”

  Jake winked at Lynda as they came in, then he grinned at Melissa. “Hi, Melissa. I’d like you to meet my mother, Doris Stevens.”

  Melissa stepped toward her, extending a hand. “How are you, Mrs. Stevens?”

  The woman shook with the tips of her fingers. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, call me Doris,” she said in a nasal twang.

  “Mama’s from Texas,” Jake said with a slight smile. “She came to pick up her car, and decided to stay awhile.”

  “It’s a beautiful car,” Melissa said.

  “My boy gave it to me,” the wiry woman said. “And I got a job here, so I may not ever go back to Slapout. That truck stop is gonna have to get used to not havin’ me to kick around anymore. I can be kicked around just as good here as I can anywhere in Texas. Besides, I been workin’ on my tan.”

  Melissa didn’t know how to answer; the woman’s leathery complexion looked as if it had had all the sun it could stand. “It is nice here, isn’t it?”

  “Hot, though,” Doris said. “Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to meet someb
ody.”

  “Who, Mama?”

  “A customer I met at the diner last night. He’s takin’ me to breakfast.” She tossed a wave at Melissa.

  “It was nice meeting you,” Melissa said.

  “Pleasure,” the woman returned, then bounced out to the car.

  They all watched through the window as Doris cranked up the sports car and sped out of the driveway.

  “What was she doing here so early?” Lynda asked Jake.

  “The usual,” he said. “Wanted money.” He opened the refrigerator door and took out a carton of orange juice.

  “And you gave it to her.”

  He shrugged and reached for three glasses. “She’s my mother,” he said.

  Lynda smiled and turned back to Melissa. “A few months ago, they weren’t even on speaking terms. Jake doesn’t want to admit it, but that Porsche was a peace offering.”

  “Not a peace offering,” Jake said, pouring into the glasses. “Just an opening.”

  Melissa smiled and took the glass of orange juice Jake offered her. “I’ve been seeing a change in her, though,” Lynda said. “Slowly but surely. I think the change in Jake has had a lot to do with it.”

  “Change?” Melissa asked, glancing at Jake. “You mean, your injuries?”

  Jake shook his head. “Nope. She means my change of heart. A few months ago I had a lot of bitterness toward my mother. Frankly, I didn’t care what happened to her, one way or the other. Now, I can actually say I love her. Of course, it makes her real uncomfortable when I tell her.”

  “So he told her with the Porsche.”

  He laughed. “I kind of thought she’d sell it and invest the money in a house or something. But she’s had the time of her life driving around town in it. Truth is, it’s been kind of good for me to have her back in my life. Humbling.”

  Lynda couldn’t help laughing. “If you knew him before the accident, you’d know what an understatement that is. Jake, there are biscuits in the oven. Melissa, are you sure you don’t want any?”