Afterthoughts (7 page)

Sarah finally became hysterical. Paige
tried to comfort her but at the same time was relieved to have some
sort of emotion from her.

It helped Paige realize that Sarah was
coming out of her shell and opening up to what was happening. That
would help her cope. Paige held her in her arms and rocked her back
and forth through the service.

She stroked her hair and held her hand
while trying not to listen to the service and trying to be strong
for Sarah.

Paige was thankful that the service
was not a long one and the grave side service was to be even
shorter. She hoped that having all of Sarah’s friends around her at
Aileen’s during the evening that would follow would help as well.
Maybe that would force Sarah to break down some of the walls she
had built around herself the last couple of days.

After the grave side service was over,
Aileen, Paige and Sarah walked back to the car. Paige walked over
to stand by Sarah on the sidewalk and Aileen leaned into the car to
get her jacket from the back seat. A sudden prick of fear consumed
Paige as she heard the squeal of tires and horrible thud. Her heart
pounded as she wheeled around to find a TARC bus, Louisville’s
public transportation, stopped with Sarah lying on the pavement in
front of it. “Oh, God!” Paige screamed as she and Aileen rushed to
her. She was bleeding badly from her mouth and nose. Aileen tried
to lift her but Paige stopped her.

“
Don’t move her! I’ll call
for help!” She knelt beside Sarah and found a faint pulse. Paige
grabbed her cell phone and called the police station. “An ambulance
is on the way.”

“
She’s alive.” Tears
streaked down Paige’s cheeks as she held Sarah’s hand. “She’ll be
okay. She has to be!” She laid her head on Sarah’s
shoulder.

“
Okay Sarah, hang in
there. Help is on the way. Please, Sarah. We need you. I need
you!”

Aileen looked up at the bus driver.
“What happened?” Aileen pleaded.

The bus driver stood over them, pacing
back and forth, rubbing his balding head and tears streaming down
his cheeks.

“
I don’t know.…” Paige
answered for him. “I stood beside her and looked your way.… Before
I knew it I heard the crash. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t
even know she moved!” She looked at the driver again. “Did she step
out in front of you?”

“
I’m not sure. It happened
so fast. She just appeared in front of me!”

He continued to pace back and forth.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see her until it was too late. Oh, what
have I done? Why didn’t I see her?” A crowd of people from the bus
formed a circle around them.

“
It’s not your fault,”
Paige tried to comfort him. “It happened so fast.”

Paige held Sarah’s hand until the
ambulance arrived. Jay came as soon as he heard Paige’s call and
pulled Paige away from the scene.

“
Let them do their work.
She’ll be okay.” He rocked her back and forth and brushed her hair.
“She’ll be okay,” he repeated over and over again as Paige cried on
his shoulder.

“
I couldn’t stop it. I
should have held on to her!”

“
Paige, it’s not your
fault. Don’t blame yourself. You don’t know what happened.” He held
her tightly and continued to try to comfort her. He held out his
hand to Aileen, who seemed to be in shock. He pulled her into his
arms as well and the three of them stood in silence as they watched
them load Sarah into the ambulance.

“
I’m going with her,”
Paige insisted and tried desperately to push away from
Jay.

Jay grabbed her by the arm. “Come on,”
he said, “I’ll take you both to the hospital.” He led them to
Aileen’s car with Paige resisting all along the way. He took
Aileen’s arm as well. Aileen then asked Jay to call Jones on his
cell phone. They followed the ambulance to the hospital and hurried
to the desk as the EMT’s rushed Sarah in.

After Aileen gave the nurse
information about Sarah’s history and insurance, she began to pace
back and forth across the waiting room.

There was a long silence between the
three of them as they listened to all of the hospital’s intercom
pages.

Aileen’s husband, Jones, ran in
through the door. “I came as fast as I could.” Jones had already
left the funeral and was halfway home when the accident happened.
He quickly took Aileen into his arms. “For Christ’s sake, is she
all right?”

“
I don’t know. We haven’t
heard anything yet,” Aileen cried as she broke down into sobs that
covered Jones’s shoulder. Paige’s tears started to fall rapidly as
Jay put his arm tightly around her. He pulled out his handkerchief,
but Paige declined taking it. Silence again took over the
room.

Paige glanced around the hospital,
feeling like she would explode any minute. She watched as one by
one, patients were called back to be seen by the doctors. One with
what looked like a broken arm, another was bundled up so much that
Paige knew it must have been a fever, and yet another with his hand
wrapped with a blood stained towel. As she looked toward the glass
doors, she saw someone watching her from the sidewalk. She jumped
up and ran for the door with Jay running behind her.

As she ran through them, she
frantically looked all around. There was no one in sight other than
an elderly man pushing in his wife in a wheel chair.

“
What is it, Paige?” Jay
asked her. “Are you okay?”

“
Yeah, but there was
someone out here, watching me. I saw him the other day at my house
in my yard. At least it looks like the same person to
me.”

Jay looked around and asked the old
man if he had seen anyone.

The old man just shook his head and
continued to push his wife into the emergency room.

“
Looks like he’s gone
now,” he added as he took Paige by the arm and led her toward the
door. “Let’s go back inside with Aileen.”

After thirty minutes passed, the tall,
thin doctor walked in solemnly and asked everyone to join him in
the chapel just off of the waiting room. “I’m so sorry,” he said as
he took Paige’s hand. “We did all we could, but Sarah lost a lot of
blood internally,” he said as he placed his other hand on Aileen’s
arm. “She was just too weak to fight.”

“
No!” Paige screamed
before she realized anything had sprung from her vocal cords. Jay
held her closely to keep her from jumping up from the chair. Aileen
broke down hysterically with Jones’ arms wrapped tightly around
her, trying to comfort her.

“
What else? What else
could happen?” Paige was becoming hysterical herself. “Not Sarah …
Not Sarah too! Why couldn’t I stop it?
Why
?”

“
Paige … look at me
…
look at me
!”
Jay grabbed Paige’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “Paige,
there was nothing you could have done! It’s not your
fault!”

“
I should have stopped her
… I should have …” Paige’s sobs were becoming inaudible as she fell
into Jay’s arms. He held her tightly as Aileen walked over and put
her arms around Paige as well.

“
It’s not your fault
Paige. There’s nothing you could have done.”

Aileen tried to comfort
her.

“
I’m so sorry I failed
her, Aileen. I’ve really failed her.”

“
No … Paige.” Aileen tried
to comfort her as difficult as it was. The four of them stood
sobbing in the chapel. Both Jones and Jay realized that the best
they could do was to just hold them and let them fall
apart.

Chapter 10

Sarah’s funeral seemed to drain most
of what energy the two of them had left. Paige had a hard time
letting go. Aileen seemed to have a harder time. The ceremony had
been a long one. It seemed as if everyone wanted to say something
about Sarah. There seemed to be an unusually large crowd this time
and Paige wondered if some people came just out of curiosity. The
graveside service was beautiful. “All three Steckler’s are at rest
with each other,” the minister said softly and with great hope.
“All of their suffering is done. They are all together in
peace.”

“
This is
unbearable,”
Paige thought to herself. She
knelt down by the casket, a long stem red rose in her hand and wept
silently as her heart seemed to disappear from within her chest.
She felt empty. She felt as if all of her being was being lowered
into the third grave along with Sarah and she wasn’t sure how to
handle that. She had failed. Her best friend and sister was now
gone because she had failed. The pain of that reality was
unbearable. Paige wanted to crawl down into the grave site and be
buried with Sarah. That was what she deserved.

A soft rain began to fall.
Paige didn’t notice at first. When she did, she lifted her head to
the sky and let it wash her face.
“Wipe
away my tears,”
she thought.
“I need help.”
She stood
back up and placed the rose on Sarah’s casket, gathering new
strength with that simple gesture.

“
I won’t give up, Sarah. I
will find out who destroyed your family. I give you my promise.”
She kissed the mahogany, laid her hand on the side, and turned to
walk away. Jay and David stood side by side watching her. David
walked to her and placed his arm around her shoulders to walk her
to the car. Jay only watched from a distance, wishing he could be
the one to comfort her right now.

Paige spent the next two weeks helping
Aileen deal with all of the arrangements and the settlement of the
Steckler’s Estate. The entire estate, with the exception of the
house in Gellendale Estates, was to be auctioned off with the
proceeds going to The Tree House, an orphanage where Sarah had been
volunteering over the last six years.

The house was to go to Richie or to
the next remaining family member.

That, of course, was Paige.

On more than one occasion, while
cleaning out the belongings from the house, Paige became ill. At
one point, Aileen thought of taking her to the hospital but Paige
resisted. David had been a tremendous help to Paige and Aileen,
taking care of business whenever they became too emotional to
handle it. He offered support whenever Paige felt vulnerable and
gave her space when she demanded it, which was quite
often.

Ian Messing, the director of the
orphanage had stopped by on several occasions to see what he could
do to ‘help’. He was a mousy man, with thinning gray hair and deep,
stormy, gray eyes. He always seemed to wear clothing to match them.
Paige was always a little nervous around him because his
personality didn’t match his appearance. He was strict and
demanding with the orphans at The Tree House and this personality
was spilling over to the handling of the Estate. Paige’s lawyer,
Timothy Roman had to step in and put him in his place on a regular
basis. Ian was a very distrustful person and it seemed that even
though all of the proceeds were going to be given to the
orphanage,

Ian would not believe it unless he saw
it with his own two eyes. Paige considered requesting a restraining
order against him so he would leave them alone. She figured he
probably would not abide by it and it would give Paige great
pleasure to arrest him.

Jay stopped by to find Ian rummaging
through the garage. “Just what are you doing in here?” Jay inquired
as he walked up behind Mr. Messing.

Being caught off guard, Ian quickly
responded, “Just checking to see if there is anything here I want
to personally bid on in next week’s auction.” Ian rubbed his hands
together as if to hide the fact that they were shaking.

“
I think you should wait
and go through that when either Paige or Aileen are here with you.
Or, hell man, wait for the auction! Come inside with me,” Jay
demanded as he prodded Ian along in the house like ‘shooing’ a cat
away from the dinner plate. As they entered the kitchen they found
Paige and Aileen going through the silver and chatting about what
to do with the house after the auction.

“
Paige, can I see you for
a moment?” Jay asked her, leading her away from the kitchen and
leaving Ian with Aileen.

“
Sure thing, partner!” she
beamed at him. By the distressed look on Ian’s face, she could tell
that Jay had just ruined Ian’s day.

They walked out onto the deck at the
back of the house. “How’s Aileen holding up?” Jay asked
her.

“
She’s okay. Staying busy
helps, although it’s unbearable going through Sarah’s things. There
are just too many memories.” Paige let out a huge sigh and fought
back the tears that were beginning to swell.

“
I can’t imagine.” Jay put
his arm around her. “How are you feeling?

Aileen told me you’ve been pretty
ill.”

“
I’m fine. I’m able to
keep food down now. I’m a tough cookie. You don’t need to worry
about me. I’ll be as fit as a fiddle and back to work after this
auction is over; just wait and see. Then I can get to the bottom of
what happened. I have to do that for Sarah. I made her a
promise.”

Paige said matter-of-factly and walked
to the end of the patio to look over the rail. Rage was beginning
to overtake the sorrow.