“I feel like such a loser.”
“Well, you’re not. There’s no sin in being tempted, Issie. And there’s no sin in needing time to recover from a trauma.”
He slid his hand down her long black hair. In the moonlight, even with these tears on her face, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“We’ll just have to give ourselves some time to get over this,” he said, stroking her hair. “But God’s not mad at you, Issie.”
“Well, I’m mad at him.” She looked at him, clearly startled at her own confession. “My partner is dead, Nick!” She pulled out of his embrace and slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “There are holes in the whole department, on this very shift. Nothing’s ever going to be the same. And don’t tell me that God’s taking care of everything, because he didn’t. I thought it was supposed to be better when you were a Christian, that there was protection and peace, that God would watch over us. Remember the psalm where he said he wouldn’t let us strike our foot on a stone, that if we stumbled he wouldn’t let us hurl headlong? Some of us stumbled the other day, Nick. And some of us were hurled headlong. Explain that to me!”
It was an honest question, uttered from the deepest pain in an anguished heart.
He just wasn’t sure he could answer. Not for the first time, Nick wondered what he was doing posing as a minister. He couldn’t think of a single word to comfort his own wife.
“I need for it to make sense, Nick,” she said. “Did God cause that explosion?”
“Of course not,” Nick said. “That explosion was caused by someone evil. It was an act of terrorism . . . hatred.”
“Then why didn’t God stop it?” Issie asked. “Why would he let so many people die, innocent people who hadn’t done anything wrong?”
“Did he let them die?” Nick asked. “There are 135 confirmed dead so far. There were at least 8,000 in the building that day. If 7,865 people got out alive and 135 died, do you really think Satan won?”
“Some of those 135 people were our friends, Nick! He destroyed their families!” She got out of the car, and slammed the door behind her, and started walking to the yard behind the station. Nick got out and followed.
She walked to the bayou behind the property and stood there weeping into the wind.
Nick suddenly felt very tired.
“Issie, all I meant was that I’m trusting God with this. I believe that there’s judgment for the evil ones who did this. We do know that God has punishment for this crime. Evil people do not prevail, even if it looks like they do for a while.”
She went to a bench someone had put on the bank of the bayou and sat down, her hair flapping in the wind. He wished he’d brought a jacket out with him to put over her shoulders.
“I read parts of Job this morning,” she said, “and Satan comes to God and gets permission to strike Job and take his whole family and his kids and his livestock and everything he owns. And what does God say? He says, ‘Sure, go ahead. Just don’t kill him. He may wish he was dead, but you can’t kill him.’ Is that what happened here? Did Satan go to God and say, ‘Oh, you know that Icon Building over there and all those people in it, those people you love? How about I let one of my men go in and plant a bomb and blow the place up and bury those people alive? How about that?’” She smeared her tears across her face. “And God just looked at him and said, ‘Sure, go ahead.’”
Nick sat down next to her and said a silent prayer that the Lord would give him the right answer to this complicated and important question. If he couldn’t talk his wife through her anger, how could he hope to talk a congregation through it? And more importantly, how would he give the mourners at five funerals anything substantial to comfort them?
“Issie, God put Job into the Bible to show us that there would be times when we would suffer and would not be able to explain it, no matter how hard we tried. That Satan still works on this earth. That sometimes we’re tested, and sometimes we’re refined, but that God is still in charge. I don’t know why God allowed Satan to wreak havoc on New Orleans a few days ago. I don’t know why he allowed September 11. But I do know that many more people got out of those buildings than didn’t. God was there for Mark and me when we were buried. He made a pocket for us when there shouldn’t have been one. He was there for Jill, and got her out just minutes before it went down. He was there for Dan. It’s a miracle that he lived. How can you think God just turned his head and let it all happen?”
She was quiet then, staring out at the water. Moments crept by as she thought that through. “I guess I don’t,” she whispered finally. “He did come through, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“But why didn’t he come through for Steve and Karen and the others?”
Nick sat silent for a moment and set his elbows on his knees. “Before they were born, honey, God knew the number of their days. This was no surprise to him.”
She sighed and blew her nose. “I’m not cut out to be a preacher’s wife.”
He took her hand. “I’m not cut out to be a preacher.”
“I just wish things were as clear to me as they are to you,” she said.
“I didn’t say they were clear. But when I doubt, when I question, I can go back to Scripture. It’s all there. And I can stand on it, Issie. I can bet my life on it. God is good, even when things go bad.”
“Pray that the Lord will have patience with me as I work through this anger.”
Nick put his arm around her and started talking to the Lord as if he sat before them, knee to knee, listening to their hearts’ cries. And Nick was certain that was exactly where he was.
Chapter Sixty
The Walgreens across from the Piggly-Wiggly had seen better days. It needed a fresh coat of paint and some repairs to update the building. Potholes marred the parking lot, shaking Ashley’s Subaru.
The place was full of Saturday Christmas shoppers, but Ashley managed to find a space as someone else was pulling out.
She went in, felt the warm glow of the heater, and heard the obnoxious choral rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” She passed down the aisle of decorations and glanced at the boxes of gold tinsel, the shelves full of colored lights, the fake trees standing on displays.
It seemed wrong that Christmas was going on at all this year.
She cut across the store to the aisle of hair products and stood in front of the hair dyes. This morning as she’d looked in the mirror, she had hated what she’d seen. It was time for a change, she thought, time to turn a corner, time to become someone new.
She grabbed the color she wanted off of the shelf and made a beeline for the cash register. As she walked back out to her car, she felt as desolate as a Middle Eastern desert. Maybe instead of dying her hair, she should just check out entirely, she thought. Ending it was preferable to hanging around in this void where her mother used to be, leeching off some stranger she’d met in a stairwell on the worst day of her life. She knew where she could get the pills to do it. She could just wash them down with a bottle of Mountain Dew, fall into a gentle sleep, and never wake up.
But did she really want to do that?
Maybe she would just hold that option open, secure in the fact that this desolation she felt didn’t have to be permanent.
For now, she would just dye her hair and see what came of that.
Chapter Sixty-One
By Saturday afternoon, the team of detectives sifting the debris for evidence had found enough pieces of the rental truck to determine the serial number. They had traced the truck to the Budget Truck Rental in Newpointe, and Stan had been dispatched to find out who’d rented it.
The young man behind the Budget counter wore a dress shirt and tie tucked into a pair of Levi’s with a frayed hole in the knee. His hair looked tousled by design, and while it seemed to be oily and dirty, Stan knew that it was probably just hair product globbed in it and molded in a way that would make him look as if he’d just walked in from a wind tunnel.
> “May I help you, sir?” he asked as Stan came to the desk.
Stan showed him his police badge. “I’m Detective Stan Shepherd from the Newpointe Police Department. I need to know if you have any trucks that weren’t turned back in on time.”
“We have a few,” the guy said, “but sometimes renters keep them a little longer than they’d planned. We don’t panic unless they’re more than a week late.”
“This one was probably rented out about nine days ago, probably the morning of December fifth . . . or possibly a day or two before that.”
The kid opened his logbook and flipped to that day. “Let’s see, we rented one out on the fourth.”
Stan looked where he was pointing. “What was the name of the renter?”
“John Trammel,” he said, turning the book around so Stan could see.
Probably an alias. “Were you working that day?”
The kid nodded. “Probably. I’m usually the only one working the front desk.”
“I know this was a week ago, but do you remember anything about the man who rented it that day? Age, height, hair color?”
He scratched his head. “No, I really couldn’t say. I’ve rented a ton of stuff since then. A lot of the Icon survivors lost their vehicles, and our New Orleans stores ran out of cars, so we’ve taken the spillover. The faces are all running together.”
“What about copies of his driver’s license and credit card?”
“We just have the numbers,” the kid said. “We don’t have copies.”
Stan took the numbers. The name was probably fake, but it was possible that the DMV would have the culprit’s picture.
“Do you have a record of when he said he would bring it back?”
He looked back down at his notes again. “Well, this one was kind of open-ended. He rented it for a week but said it might be a few days longer. So technically, it’s not late yet.”
Stan thought as much. “I need to see the serial number on that vehicle.”
“Sure thing.” The guy checked the four-digit number next to the man’s name, then pulled out another large notebook and found the number. “Here it is, right here.”
It was the same number Mills had given him. Stan drew in a deep breath and pulled the picture of Merritt out of his coat pocket. “Was this by any chance the man who rented the truck that day?”
The kid looked down at the picture, then took a step back. “Isn’t that the Icon dude, the one who was in so much trouble?”
Stan didn’t answer. “Was it him? Have you seen him in here?”
“No, man. I would know him if he came in. As much as he’d been on the news before the bombing, I wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“So you’re sure it wasn’t him?”
“Positive, man.”
Now what?
If Merritt hadn’t rented the truck, who had? Someone with ties to Newpointe? Had they come here because it was convenient?
If it was at all in his power—or even in his town—Stan would find the mystery suspect.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Clara’s horrified scream shook the house.
Jill had followed her home and had just come in the door when she heard her mother-in-law’s cry. She bolted through the house and up the hall . . .
. . . and saw what Clara saw.
Ashley had dyed her hair jet black, a stark contrast to the pale face it framed, and she’d circled her eyes in thick black eyeliner. Even her lips were colored black, and she wore a black turtleneck and tight black pants.
Jill didn’t quite know what to say.
Clara didn’t have the same problem. “A vampire!” she cried. “You look like a vampire! What is wrong with you?”
Jill touched Clara’s shoulder to calm her and tried not to look shocked herself. Struggling for words, she told herself that this was not the disaster Clara made it out to be. Ashley was the same girl she had met on the stairwell at Icon. She just looked different.
“What do you call that, Ashley?” Jill asked. “Gothic?”
Ashley folded her arms. “Just Goth.”
Jill swallowed and touched Ashley’s hair. “It’s soft,” she said. “Must have included a good conditioner.” It was an absurd comment to make when the girl really did look like a vampire. But it was the most benign thing that came to her mind.
Clearly, Ashley wasn’t going for “soft.” She wanted to look hard and heartless, cold and dark. Jill wondered if this was her expression of what her soul felt like these days.
Ashley thrust her chin up. “Do you like it?” It was a challenge, meant to provoke.
Or maybe it was a test. “Well . . . let’s just say it’s different.”
“Different?” Clara cried. “It’s evil looking. For heaven’s sake, she looks like blood ought to be dripping out of her mouth!”
Jill sighed and looked back at Clara. “I could use some coffee. Would you mind making a pot, Clara?”
Clara was still breathing hard, her hand against her chest. Clearly glad for an escape from the girl, she headed back up the hall, muttering under her breath.
Jill turned back to Ashley and decided to cut to the chase. “Honey, why’d you do this?”
Ashley went back into her room and dropped down on the bed. “I was sick of the way I looked,” she said. “Couldn’t stand myself in the mirror. It was time for a change.”
Jill sat down on the edge of the chaise. “I can understand wanting a change. But are you sure this is the direction you want to go?”
“Pretty sure,” Ashley said, looking up at the ceiling. “If you have a problem with it, I can leave.”
It was a dare, no question about it, but Jill couldn’t stand the thought of Ashley walking out of here, wearing the darkness of her soul on the outside. What would she do with it then? How would she fulfill the fantasy of this dark mood?
She remembered the prayer Debbie Morris had written in her prayer journal, for someone to guide her daughter.
Lord, give me the right response.
“Of course I don’t have a problem with it.” She got up and went to the bed, rubbed the girl’s shoulders. “Have you eaten?”
Ashley looked surprised that Jill had dropped the subject. “Not hungry.”
“I want you to eat, anyway,” she said. “I picked up a pizza on the way home. Come on. Don’t tell me you want to miss Clara’s face as she bites into pepperoni.”
“She expects me to sink my fangs into her neck.”
Jill grinned. “Don’t pretend you don’t like that.”
The comment seemed to send Ashley back into her thoughts. She fixed her eyes on a spot on the wall.
“Ashley?”
She shook out of it. “Maybe I could eat a little.”
“Then maybe we can sit together and watch a movie.”
Ashley looked up at her. “You don’t have to go back to the hospital?”
“Not tonight. Dan’s getting moved to a room tomorrow, and I’ll be staying with him constantly after that. He wanted me to sleep at home tonight. And who knows? Maybe I’ll dye my hair too. Got any more of that color?”
Ashley smiled then. It was the first real smile she’d ever seen on the girl. “No, I used it all.”
Jill snapped her fingers. “Darn it.”
“We could buy more.”
Jill laughed and looked at her watch. “We’ll never make it before the stores close. Too bad.”
The girl was giggling under her breath as she followed her to the kitchen.
Jill thought it would be worth dying her hair to keep that smile on her face.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Dan was sick of lying on his back.
He couldn’t sit up or turn over, and the catheter and colostomy bag robbed him of his last bits of dignity. As they moved him from ICU into his own private room Sunday afternoon, friends from the waiting room met him in the hallway, high-fiving him and cheering as if he’d just crossed the finish line.
Some of them stood looking
through the door as they moved him like a sack of cement from the gurney to his bed.
Clearly, Jill couldn’t understand why he wasn’t happy about getting out of ICU. He couldn’t explain it to her without looking like some wimp who couldn’t take the hand he’d been dealt.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” she asked him, fixing his covers and hovering over him as if he lay on his deathbed. He almost wished he did.
“Yeah, fine.”
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He felt sorry for her, really. She hadn’t signed up to nurse a vegetable for the rest of her life.
He hadn’t signed up to be one.
“Dan, tell me what’s wrong. I don’t want you pulling into your shell and hiding your feelings from me. It’s a bad habit, and it’s self-destructive.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just that it’s Sunday and you haven’t been to church.”
She frowned down at him as if he’d just insulted her. “I wanted to stay with you.”
“I think you should go,” he said.
“Of course I’m not going. I’ve been looking forward to getting you in here so I could be with you all the time. Why would I leave?”
She looked hurt, so he tried to soften his face and reached out for her hand. “There are people you need to thank for their prayers.”
She let out a hard sigh. “You’re trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?”
He pulled her hand against his face. “No, of course not.”
“No, you are.” She sat down beside him and leaned her elbows on his mattress. Touching his face, she said, “Talk to me, Dan. I need to understand what’s going through your mind.”
He swallowed and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. “I’m just . . . I need to have a little time alone tonight. I need to have a talk with God.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and her eyes filled with tears. “Can’t you do it with me here? I could pray with you.”
“I’m not a little kid,” he said. “I can be left alone for a couple of hours.”