She smiled. “I am.”
“I want you to go home tonight.”
“No, I’m staying here like I’ve done every night.”
“But I’m out of the woods and in good hands as long as I’m in ICU. Besides, my mother’s here.”
Jill seized the opportunity to get his mind off of his legs. “What do you think about that?”
He moaned and shook his head. “I can’t imagine why she would come.”
“Why?” Jill repeated. “Because she thought you were dying. She was worried about you.”
“Come on. What’s the real reason?”
Jill grunted. “Dan, that is the real reason. She came storming in here demanding to see you, wanting to change your linens and hire doctors halfway across the world.”
“So where is she staying?”
“At our house. With Ashley.”
Dan almost laughed. “Ashley, the sixteen-year-old? My mother is staying there with her? At our house?”
“That’s right.”
“Has she called the decorating police yet, since we ruined her color scheme?”
“I’m sure it cramped her style,” she said. “I think she would have opted for a hotel room, but they were all booked up. She’s a little scared of Ashley, I think.”
“Scared of her? Why?”
“She’s a little . . . uh . . . different. She sort of has a lot of piercings and tattoos.”
Dan almost looked amused. “You’re kidding me. And my mother is really staying there with her?”
“She’s a great kid,” Jill said. “She’s got a lot on her. And like I said, your mother didn’t have much choice.”
“Oh, get me out of this hospital so I can see this for myself,” he said. “My mother with a sixteen-year-old punk rocker. That’s priceless.”
“I think they’re just staying out of each other’s way.”
“Then you definitely need to go home. Those two probably need a buffer. Besides, in a few days I’ll be in a private room, and you’ll be able to stay with me all the time. Get a good night’s sleep while you can. Please, go home. I’ll rest easier if you do.”
“Are you sure? Because I don’t want you to wake up in the night all depressed and worried. . . .”
“Even if I do, they’re not going to let you in here,” Dan said. “Not in the middle of the night.”
He was right. “Well, okay, if you say so.”
“I do.”
He looked tired, and that haunted look came back over his face. He looked down at his legs.
“Honey, it’s going to be all right,” she said. “I know it is.”
But she knew Dan wasn’t convinced.
Chapter Forty-Four
The FBI agents who came to take Amber’s statement acquiesced to her request to allow Stan to stay in the room. His presence calmed her, she said, and she was nervous.
Mills Bryan, the agent in charge of the case, had come himself, since he had already considered the possibility that Merritt could be involved. Amber’s story could be pivotal in resolving this case. Stan hoped so. The sooner they nailed the culprit, the sooner the grieving families could begin to heal.
“When you saw him the night before the bombing, did he say anything to indicate that he was going to do something drastic?”
“No,” she said. “Nothing at all. I mean, he was angry and really depressed when he left. I thought he might dump me. But there was nothing about a bomb.”
“When the two of you traveled together, Amber, did Merritt use his own name?”
Her eyebrows sprang up, as if they’d finally hit on something. “Actually, he did have a credit card under the name of Donald Miller. He used to check into hotels under that name sometimes. Come to think of it, he had checks under that name, too.”
Stan exchanged looks with the agents.
“Would you by any chance have kept any receipts for anything he bought with that credit card or those checks?”
Amber thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. But I guess it’s possible that he might have thrown something away. I’ve been so stressed out that I haven’t emptied my wastebaskets in the last week. Also, he used to shove things like that into his pockets, and he left some of his clothes at my place. I could check the pockets.”
“We’re going to need to search your apartment,” Mills said. “Will you give us permission to do that?”
Amber looked up at Stan, as if asking him if she should allow it. He nodded. She looked down at the tissue in her hand. She had shredded it into little cords. “I want to cooperate,” she said. “But I’m worried about word getting out. I don’t want my parents to know.”
“We could get a warrant,” Mills said.
Amber drew in a deep breath, as if she knew that there was no way out of it. “All right, you can search my place. But do I need a lawyer? Am I in some kind of trouble?”
“You haven’t broken any laws,” Mills said. “You’re doing exactly what you should do. You came forward as soon as you realized that things were not as they seemed. You’re certainly welcome to consult a lawyer, but I don’t anticipate any charges being filed against you.”
That seemed to satisfy her, but those tears still glistened in her eyes. She looked up at Stan. “You must think I’m awful.”
Stan wished he could sit down with her and talk to her about the laws she had broken—God’s laws. He longed to ask her what she believed about Christ if his sacrifice for her sins had not been enough for her. He longed to ask her if those days when she’d seemed so pure and zealous for the Lord were just an act.
He would have to do that later.
“We’re not here to judge you,” Stan said quietly. “If Merritt had anything to do with blowing up that building, we need to know all of this. You’ve done the right thing today, Amber.”
“Too little, too late,” she whispered. “I’d been feeling so proud of myself. So sophisticated and glamorous. My friends didn’t know who I was seeing, but they envied me because he spent so much money on me. I loved that.”
“You’re not the first young woman to be taken in by a rich and powerful man,” Mills said.
Those tears escaped and ran down her face, leaving a mascara trail on her cheeks. “I can’t believe he would deliberately do that. So he cheated on his wife, lied, stole money from his company . . . but he built that company from the ground up. That building was like a monument to his dream. And those people were innocent . . .”
The agent who’d been taking notes handed her a box of tissues, and she grabbed three out and pressed them against her face.
“I feel like I helped cause this,” she cried. “I feel like maybe I pushed him too far and he snapped. But those other people should not have to pay for my stupidity.”
Stan watched her as she sobbed into her hands, and he could see traces of the girl he used to know. She did have a conscience. Maybe now she would stop ignoring it.
Chapter Forty-Five
The phone was ringing when Ashley came back to her mother’s house. She didn’t answer it, but when the answering machine picked up, she stood frozen as a concerned woman’s voice asked for Ashley by name. She listened as the caller said she’d heard about Debbie’s death and wanted to know if she could help with the funeral.
The funeral home had called her at Jill’s earlier, asking Ashley to provide some pictures of her mother. She hadn’t had any with her, so she had been forced to come back home.
She looked around the house, realizing for the first time that every framed picture was of her. Debbie hadn’t had any made of herself. She was always the one behind the camera when snapshots were taken.
Why had it never occurred to Ashley to take the camera out of her mother’s hand and turn it on her?
She rifled through the drawer where her mother kept her snapshots, always planning to organize them chronologically and put them into a scrapbook. There were hundreds of photos of Ashley, chronicling every stage she’d ever gone through, from her
pixie stage at four to her compliant stage at five. Later she’d become a tomboy who wouldn’t wear anything but pants, then a girlie-girl who only wore dresses. Then she’d discovered the joy of denim, then spandex, then Salvation Army vintage.
She didn’t know what stage she was in now, but whatever it was, she wished she could move past it and step into new skin . . . be someone else.
She flipped more quickly through the pictures, growing frantic. Of those few of Ashley’s mother, none flattered her. She was such a pretty woman, and Ashley wanted everyone to know it.
She found one of the two of them together when Ashley had been only six years old. They’d been on a riverboat on one of their rare vacations, and another tourist had taken their picture with their faces close together.
Ashley hardly recognized herself now. She had almost forgotten that her hair had been that rich shade of brown, her teeth so white and perfect before she’d begun to lose them and replace them with oversized permanent teeth. Her mother’s face glowed in the picture, thrilled that her daughter was enjoying riding the Mississippi.
She would give them that one. They could blow it up, and then when the funeral was over, she’d have it to keep.
She dug further, found a couple more that would do, and stuffed them into her bag.
She found a duffel bag in the closet and dumped the rest of the photos into it. She wanted to go through them one by one, reflecting and contemplating, trying to find her mother among them. But she didn’t want to do it here.
If she fell apart in this house, she would scatter like shrapnel and never be able to put herself back together again. No, she had to do it on neutral ground.
She thought about the funeral tomorrow and what would be expected of her. Stepping into her mother’s bedroom, she stood in front of the mirror.
She looked like a bad reproduction of one of those horror house characters at Halloween. Smeared mascara darkened the circles under her eyes, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed her hair. It stuck up the way she usually wanted it to, but today it just looked silly and sad.
She wore a pair of wrinkled black stretch pants and a black stretch tank top under one of her boyfriend’s big flannel shirts. Her frayed denim jacket, a find for ten bucks at Goodwill, was shorter than the plaid shirt. Her shoes were brown hiking boots that laced up to the ankles.
It was how she’d wanted to look, carefully designed to make the statement she wanted to make.
Yet now she couldn’t remember what that statement was.
She couldn’t go like this to her mother’s funeral. Her mom deserved better. For once in her life, Ashley would conform.
But what would she wear? She hadn’t put on a dress in at least two years. Her mother had bought her things that she’d never worn, but Ashley didn’t know if any of them still fit. She went to her room and scanned the clothes still hanging in the closet. She found a classy-looking black dress that still had the tags on it. Her mother had bought it for her less than a year ago, hoping she could lure her back to church.
It was dorky, Ashley had said at the time. It looked like something a schoolmarm would wear, and schoolmarm was not in her repertoire. Her mother had held onto it anyway, as if she expected Ashley to change her mind.
She took it down from the hanger and held it up to her in front of her dresser mirror. It had a scooped neck and a high waist and little white buttons down the front. She pulled off her clothes and slipped it over her head.
It still fit. She closed her eyes and wondered if it had ever occurred to her mother that she had bought this dress for her daughter to wear to her funeral.
Not in a million years.
But again her mother had provided for her.
“I’ll wear the dress now, Mama,” she whispered, and carefully took it off and laid it on the bed to take back to Jill’s house. She rummaged in the closet until she found a pair of black pumps that her mother must have bought to go with the dress.
She rummaged in her dresser drawers until she found a pair of pantyhose. The phone rang again, and she grabbed the dress, the duffel bag with the pictures, and the shoes, and went back to the living room.
The machine kicked in after four rings. “Ashley,” the voice said, “this is Sara Jean.”
She could tell that her mother’s friend had been crying. The woman had been laid off from Icon just a month earlier. She should be counting her lucky stars.
“I just read the obit in the paper. It’s the first I knew for sure what had happened to your mama, and I just wanted to tell you, honey, that I’m so sorry, and if I can help you with anything, please call me. I’ll come to the funeral early tomorrow and see if you need anything.” She left her number.
Ashley wondered how many other messages there were on the machine. She would have to listen to them eventually. But she wasn’t up to it right now.
She loaded her car and headed to the funeral home to give them the pictures.
When she finally got back to Newpointe, Clara’s rental car sat in the driveway at Jill’s, but she was apparently locked in her room again when Ashley went in.
Quietly, Ashley slipped into her room. As she closed the door behind her, she realized the absurdity of her being here at all. She hadn’t known Jill more than four days, yet she had moved in with her like she was an old friend. But Ashley couldn’t explain, not even to herself, the inside-out feeling in her soul, the desperate, sick feeling that kept her from going to her friends or reaching out to anyone who knew her mother.
She climbed to the center of the bed. Carefully, she dumped out the contents of the bag she had brought with her. Pictures of herself and her mother lay faceup like a mockery of the life they had led. She wished it had been she who had died instead of her mother. It would have been only right. After all, it had been Ashley who had been disobedient and rebellious, with her death-defying stunts and her careless abuse of her body.
She thought of the time she had ridden standing up in a friend’s topless Jeep, or the time she had climbed on the hood of a friend’s car and held on for dear life as he pulled out into traffic. Both things had given her a rush, but either of them could have gotten her killed. Her mother had probably never done anything like that in her life. In fact, she probably spent a lot of time on her knees asking God to protect her careless and reckless daughter.
That image of her mother on her knees reminded Ashley of the prayer journal she hadn’t been able to finish reading yesterday. She took it from the bed table and began to turn the pages. Almost every page had a plea about Ashley—a prayer that she wouldn’t quit school, then later, after she had, a prayer that she would go back.
I come to you in tears today as the mother of a prodigal.And, Lord, it’s not drugs or sex, tattoos or piercings that have me the most afraid for Ashley. What I’m most afraid of is that she may never turn her life over to you. If there’s only one prayer you’ll answer for me, Lord, only one I could ask for the rest of my life, let it be this one. Please make yourself known to my sweet Ashley. Take the blinders off her eyes, shine your light in her darkness, and send her godly people who can love and guide her. I’m asking for a miracle, Lord.
Trusting you,
Debbie
Tears dripped off of Ashley’s chin as she turned the page and read another entry . . . then another. Her mother’s prayers marked events in Ashley’s life. So many of them had been answered.
Many more had not.
She heard the door closing, and voices as someone came into the house. Had Jill come home? She closed the prayer journal, then stacked up all the photographs and put them into the bag. Lying back on the bed, she listened for a friendly voice.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jill was glad to be home.
She stepped inside and looked around for any sign of Clara or Ashley. They both seemed to be in their rooms. She wondered if they’d been carefully avoiding each other since yesterday.
A door at the end of the hall opened, and Clara came
out, wearing a long white robe with fur around the collar and wrists. “What are you doing home?”
Jill swallowed her instinct to react sarcastically. “Dan urged me to sleep at home tonight. Since he’s doing so much better, I decided it wouldn’t hurt.” She went into the kitchen and set her bag down on the table. Clara followed her. “So how are you?” Jill asked.
Clara got a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with water. She threw it back, as if it were a shot of liquor. “I’m doing very well, considering.”
Jill knew she was still angry. “Look, Clara, I’m really sorry about this morning. I hope you understand why I didn’t want Dan to know that so many of his friends had died.”
Clara just stared down at her glass. “I don’t know why I even came here, really. Everything I do is apparently wrong.”
Jill began to make a pot of coffee. “Actually, it turned out all right. Now it’s over with. He knows, and he’s okay.”
“Then you should thank me for being the only one who was honest with him.”
Jill bit back her chagrin. Being gracious was one thing—thanking her was another. “Where’s Ashley?” she asked.
Clara snapped her chin up. “I am not that girl’s keeper. I have enough on my mind without trying to chronicle her comings and goings.”
Jill’s face tightened. “Is she here or not?”
Clara went back to the sink and filled her glass again. “I heard someone come in. I assume it was her.”
Jill got up then and left the woman standing alone in the kitchen. She didn’t know why Clara couldn’t find an ounce of kindness within herself. Why couldn’t she see how much Ashley was hurting? Why couldn’t she care?
She wished Clara would just get on a plane and go back to Paris. It would be such a relief.
She knocked on Ashley’s door. “Ashley?”
“Come in.”
Jill opened the door and saw her sitting in the center of the bed, her legs crossed and her elbows propped on her knees. She’d been crying.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“Yeah.” Ashley wiped her cheek, and Jill went to the dresser, got the box of tissue, and handed it to her.