A Time to Gather (33 page)

“And I think I should be the one to check in on her.”

“I agree.” Claire nodded. “Which one first? We’re halfway in between.”

“Danny’s backpacking who knows where. Let’s call Mom and Jenna. If they haven’t heard from her, I’ll go to her apartment.”

A moment passed in silent, palpable fear. Claire shoved aside the thought of the evening’s mist and the curvy road up to Santa Reina.

“Claire, what would she do?”

“Cope with the pain.” She winced. “She probably stopped at the market and loaded up on comfort food and videos. She’ll turn off her phones and be watching a movie.”

“And eating.” He reached across the space between them and grasped her hand. “She’s not so much like Tuyen she would . . . ?”

A cry of anguish tore at her lungs, its cut so deep there was no breath left to give it voice.

“Dear God.” Max prayed with his eyes on her, his grip tight around her hand. “Protect Lexi. Give me words of life and love. Give her a heart to receive them.”

“A . . .” Claire gulped for air and gave his hand one final squeeze. “Amen.”

  
Fifty-Nine

A
fter reining in her emotions and calling Claire, Rosie returned to the table with a large pitcher of water and three glasses.

As she poured, Bobby said, “Everything under control?”

“Yep. All set to hear exactly why it is this guy tricked Lexi into meeting him.” She clunked a glass down in front of Nathan Warner. Water sloshed over its sides.

Bobby gave her one of his looks, then turned to a red-faced Warner. “Let me recap. You said Reid Fletcher is your half-brother. You have the same mom. And that’s why you agreed to try to learn what Lexi knew about Fletcher’s run-in with Erik.”

“Right. Blood is thicker than water, no matter how flaky a relative is. He’s younger. It was always my job to sort of look after him. It’s carried over into adulthood.”

Rosie sat. “Did he ever talk your mom into disowning you?”

“What?”

“You said it earlier, that he’s such a magpie he could do that.”

His complexion went from red to mottled crimson. “Officer, I don’t think that’s relevant to this conversation.”

She leaned back in her chair. Maybe the guy had a bit of backbone after all, telling her to mind her own business. At least he was polite about it.

Bobby scratched his nose, almost hiding a smile from her but not quite. He cleared his throat. “Mr. Warner, I know we’ve already been through this, but one more time, please. You made up a story about wanting to interview Lexi in order to meet her. Then what?”

“We were interrupted that day at the coffee shop when she got a phone call. Reid hassled me to try again. He gets going on something and doesn’t let go.”

A bulldog and a magpie. More repulsive by the minute.
Rosie kept her thoughts to herself.

“I told him yesterday that I was seeing her tonight, that I’d call him tomorrow. I met Lexi here. You two showed up. End of story.”

Rosie said, “Didn’t his behavior strike you as a little bizarre?”

“Not any more than usual. He’s always been on the anxious side. Sometimes he gets overdone and misses work. I try to help him if I can.”

“By bringing an innocent woman into this cockamamy bunk?”

Warner glanced down at the table and then met her eyes again. “The truth is—oh, never mind. I’ll sound crazier than Reid and I know he’s an A-1 goofball. Can I leave? Actually I think I will leave. If you’re not arresting me.” He pushed back his chair.

“Finish your sentence.” Rosie softened her voice. “Please? Believe me, we hear nuttier things than you can imagine.”

He worked his mouth around, as if weighing the consequences. “The truth is Lexi intrigued me from the get-go. When I saw her, I didn’t see a mousy chick. I saw this paragon. This anachronism. Women her age in this city do not look like her. There was a vulnerability about her, but a mystique too. If I hadn’t left that night, I would have talked to her. After we met at the coffee shop, man, I couldn’t wait to see her again.”

Rosie smiled. “Love at first sight isn’t all that crazy, Mr. Warner.”

He shrugged and stood. “Excuse me.”

“Wait.” Bobby rose and blocked his path. “How crazy is your brother? Crazy enough to hurt Erik? Crazy enough to harm Lexi?”

“N-no. No way. He’s never been violent. What is going on? What is it you think Reid did? I told you. He lives up in Orange County. He’s got a decent job. Yeah, he holds a grudge and he got a kick out of tormenting Erik, but now he feels bad about that and hopes Lexi doesn’t spread negative talk about him.”

“Does he know where Lexi lives?”

“What is going on?”

Bobby was in his face. “Does he know where Lexi lives?”

Nathan Warner clamped his jaw shut.

Shaken by Bobby’s fierce tone, Rosie got up. “Nathan, she’s my friend.”

He gazed at her, pain evident in his eyes. “Yes, Reid knows where she lives. Where she works. Where she buys her paints. He wanted me to be sure I could find her.”

Racing behind Bobby, Rosie opened her cell phone, pulled up Lexi’s number, and hit Send. It rang and rang and rang as they hurried through the kitchen and out the back door, then climbed into the squad car.

It rang and rang and rang as Bobby rammed the car through the wet, narrow streets of Old Town, up the freeway ramp, and smack-dab into five lanes of stopped traffic.

  
Sixty

L
exi swirled the paintbrush through a can of black enamel paint, thickly coating the hog-hair bristles.

Black: total absence of light. In all her years of painting she had never used unadulterated black. It was a personal quirk. To her there was no such thing as black in a painting that was meant to reflect the world. Not even during her phase of subjects on the verge of extinction had she used black.

She didn’t even own a tube of it in an oil. She had to buy enamel in a can from the paint department at the discount store where she’d stopped for other essentials like cookies, cheese curls, ice cream, and two mindless comedy DVDs.

Now she turned toward the easel, the brush in hand full of paint on the verge of dripping. As was her habit, she stepped back to study the sixteen-by-twenty-inch canvas.

Gigi the giraffe gazed at her.

Lexi squinted and saw the graceful curves of the long slender neck, the play of light on her patterned coat.

The eyes drew her in, the sweep of lashes caught in half-blink.

Lexi did not often attempt such realistic delineations, but Gigi was different. Her eyes became the focal point, refusing to be merely hinted at in a blur of tones, light, and shade.

They stared back at Lexi now, reminders of the day she had photographed Gigi from the back of the truck. That day when she had begun to feel it was time for a fresh start.

A fresh start that had crashed all around her a short while ago when Nathan revealed his true colors.

Lexi stepped to the canvas and pressed the blackened brush into the lower left-hand corner, the best place to begin an arcing sixteen-by- twenty inch X.

Gigi’s eyes luminesced. Light caught light and they shone.

And then Lexi Beaumont fell apart.

Sheer emotion had carried her from the restaurant to the store to her apartment. It unloaded the food in the kitchen and pried off the paint can lid. It now pushed her to her knees, the paintbrush forgotten against her khakis.

Was it rage? Grief? Fear? She didn’t want to name it.

A great sob engulfed her.

“Oh, God! This creature is too beautiful. I don’t want to destroy her. I am so tired of destroying. I am so tired of running. So tired of being filled with rage and grief and fear. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I am so sorry! Help me! Oh, please help me!”

She shuddered. It felt like an earthquake rumbled inside of her. It ripped open caverns, long sealed shut and filled with years and years’ worth of unshed tears and unspoken cries.

She pitched forward until her face rested against the floor, those tears and cries at last released.

“I quit! I quit! I quit!” She screamed the words, gasping for breath. “I want to do it Your way. I really do. I want what Nana always taught me. What Mom says. What Rosie says. Dear God, I want to know You like they do! Show me the black spots that
Papa talks about, the black spots on my own heart.”

A sudden blackness filled her vision. Black on black, darker than anything she could imagine. Shapes formed. Like in a painting, she saw shadows and she knew what they were. They weren’t grief, rage, or fear. No, they went beyond, to a deeper level of darkness where no light could ever penetrate.

The shadows were hatred. Hatred of her father. Hatred of herself.

As she watched, long tendrils sprouted from them and grew. They coiled around something else, a fistlike shape that moved in a beating rhythm. The tendrils squeezed tightly and the beating slowed.

Lexi’s chest ached.

“Jesus, I’m sorry. Forgive me. Help me to forgive Max. My dad. Please. I don’t want to hate him.”

The fistlike shape took on color. It faded to a raw umber, lightened to burnt sienna. Alizarin crimson took over. The black tendrils snapped and shriveled.

And then they disappeared altogether.

The heart beat in a large up-and-down movement.
Ka-boom. Ka-boom.
Ka-boom.
With each beat it brightened until it became a splash of pink against a backdrop of yellow.

Lexi didn’t stir from her bowed position. Eyes shut, she gazed at the image, lost in a sense of wonder and peace.

Tears flowed. It was as if all the junk she had bottled up inside herself liquefied and drained out through her tear ducts. After a time she felt emptied . . . except for a faint impression of something she guessed might be . . . maybe . . . could it be?

Yes, it could. Yes, it was.

Joy
. Pure, sweet joy whispered in her heart.

“Pink?” She sat up, smiling. “Cobalt rose to be exact. And cadmium yellow lemon.”

A feeling of euphoria whooshed aside the soft whisper. It gushed through her. In its wake came a thought, never before formed in her life, bursting like a new star being born in her mind.

God sees me like I see Gigi. He made me. He adores me. He thinks I’m
gorgeous. When I hate myself, I obliterate His work. How can I receive
good things from Him if I’m obliterated? No way.

Lexi sat up and chuckled. “Lord, this is Sunday school stuff. I should know it already. Obviously I don’t, so I’m okay with it if You’re okay with it.”

Deep inside, from the center of that cobalt-rose beating heart, she believed He was totally okay with it.

L
exi surveyed the mess.

Sobbing with a paint-filled brush clutched in her hand was not a pretty thing. Black enamel smeared her khakis and ecru sweater and hands. It was probably on her face and in her hair. It was on the floor. At least it had hit the cheap rugs she used to protect the landlord’s carpet.

All of it could wait. First came Gigi. That plop of black in the bottom left-hand corner would never do. Her giraffe was going to be all about light and life and digital photo-sharp eyes.

Lexi went to work, a wide-mouthed jar of turpentine in one hand and a rag in the other, the windows open to air out the fumes. Again and again she dipped the rag into the jar and rubbed it across the glob, wishing she had used an oil-based paint. Unlike the enamel, it would have easily wiped clean.

The enamel did not forgive like oils.

Hm.

“All right, God. I get it.” She smiled, tickled at the conversation that had begun. Even if it was mostly a monologue, she knew He listened.

“As I was about to say, I’m like this enamel, right?” She scrubbed the rag against the canvas. “Not very forgiving. I keep things bottled up. Sticky and staining. Like ill feelings. I have a lot of ill feelings toward a lot of people.”

The doorbell rang.

She chuckled. “Like Eileen.”

Her neighbor was half-deaf and lived in the apartment next door. She was an amazing baker and excelled in the role of pest. Lexi usually ignored her bell ringing and Eileen would leave a plate of goodies on a tea tray in the hall for her.

It was probably time to mend that fence.

“Coming!” she called out, striding through the living room to the front door at the other end.

Rag still in her grimy hand, she twisted the dead bolt, moved to unlock the doorknob, and out of habit, paused. “Eileen?” She peered through the eyehole.

And saw part of a man’s shoulder.

“It’s Erik,” came the voice the other side of the door.

Erik! Slurred muffled voice, leaning against her door for support, charming his way into the building!

“Oh, Erik!” She unlocked the knob and yanked the door open. “You—”

Her voice died.

In a swift glance she took in the man, his height, his dark hair, his svelte figure that would have looked better in an Armani suit than the Windbreaker and blue jeans. His Dumbo ears that disrupted a perfect flow of tall, dark, and handsome.

He wasn’t Erik.

  
Sixty-One

B
obby swore through clenched teeth, flipped on the lights and siren, and slammed the gearshift into Reverse.

Normally Rosie took his testosterone-laden adrenaline rushes in stride. They had been through enough emergency situations together to build her confidence. She trusted his driving skills and his ability to make snap decisions.

But tonight was a different story.

Of course what made it different was the gnawing fact that the Beaumonts were her friends.

Not good. Not good at all.

She shouted above the siren’s scream, “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he yelled, his arm on the back of the seat, his face toward the rear of the squad car.

“You’re going backwards down the ramp against two lanes of oncoming traffic!”

“Sharp as ever—move it, bozo!” He bellowed as if the driver behind them could hear. “Move it!” He cursed again, not under his breath this time.

Conversation was wasted effort. She knew the freeway’s shoulder ahead was blocked due to construction. The glimpse she caught of brake lights signified there must be an accident in the distance. It would tie things up for a long while. They’d have to take side streets all the way to Lexi’s.