Close to the Broken Hearted (28 page)

T
hank the Lord Jesus Sylvie Carson not only had a telephone in her bedroom, but she answered it. As soon as she did, Leah heard more panic in the girl's voice than she ever had before. Sylvie was scared practically to the brink of her last breath of life.

“Sylvie, it's Leah. Listen to me, now. I think you and the baby are in danger.” Leah was driving as fast as she could. Her siren wailed and her red and blue lights danced in the darkness. Still, it was a treacherous night to be driving fast and she had to be careful. The last thing she needed was to get into a crash. That would only guarantee she didn't make it to Sylvie's on time. Plus she had her kids in the car with her.

“Leah!” Sylvie said, nearly screaming into the phone. Her voice was quivering. The baby wailed in the background. “I—I've been trying to call the station, but I—I left the phone number in the kitchen . . . I—I'm locked in my bedroom. It's . . . it's Preacher Eli! He's at the door! He's—” Her words cut off. She was too panicked to talk.

Goddamn it, Leah was too late.

“What's goin' on, Sylvie?” Leah asked. “Talk to me. Slow down.”

“He's tryin' to get in! He's comin' at it with an ax or somethin'!” Sylvie yelled. “The door. My goddamn front door!”

Shit
. Leah had seen that door enough times.
That door ain't gonna stand up to an ax very long.

“Listen to me, Sylvie. I might not get there in time. It's not Eli. It's Orwin. He's come for your baby.” Rain pounded the windshield of Leah's car, making it hard to see and forcing her to drive more slowly than she wanted to. Everything outside was awash in rain and went by in streaks.

“Orwin? He's come back?” Suddenly, Sylvie's entire demeanor changed. This wasn't good. Leah needed her to stay scared.

“Yes,” Leah said. “But he's come back to hurt you and take your baby. Sylvie! Listen to me. You say you're in your bedroom?”

“Y—yes.” Good. At least the panic was back.

“With the door locked?”

“Of . . . of course.”

“You have the baby?”

“Yes.”

“And . . . Sylvie?” Leah asked. “Do you have your shotgun?”

A hesitation. Then, “Yes. Do you think Orwin has a gun?”

“I don't know,” Leah said. She was about to say that if Orwin had a gun he'd probably have already used it to shoot the lock out of the door, but she decided not to. Thank God Sylvie had had her locks changed.

Leah passed a road marker, her dashboard flasher lighting it up blue and red on this horrible night. She remembered the kids in the car and cursed under her breath. She still had near on two miles to go. She wasn't going to make it in time at this rate. But it was going to be close.

Leah decided she had to tell Sylvie something important, just in case. Something she actually couldn't believe she was about to say. “Listen to me carefully, Sylvie,” Leah said. “I may not make it there in time. Do you understand?”

“Oh God . . . ,” Sylvie said.

“Sylvie, listen. If I don't get there, it's up to you. You've
got
to protect that baby, understand? You have to save your child, and her mother.
At whatever cost it takes.
”

“I don't know if I can.” Sylvie's voice cracked in a loud whisper. “My hands are shaking something fierce. I can hear him pounding on the outside door. It ain't gonna stand up much longer.”

Damn it.

“You
have
to,” Leah said. In the darkness, trees whipped past both sides of the car. The heavy dark clouds made everything nearly impossible to see on this dark rain-soaked night; all Leah made out was just what reflected back in red and blue. Occasionally, a streetlamp roared by, its light blurred because of the rainwater on the car's windows. There wasn't a lot of other traffic on the roads. For that, Leah was thankful.

“I don't know
how,
” Sylvie said. “I keep thinkin' about what happened to Caleb.”

“What happened to your brother is
why
you have to do this.”

Silence. And then, “I'm scared.”

“I know you are,” Leah said. “So am I. I'm coming as fast as I can.”

Leah knew she had to take a break from this call and contact the station for backup, but she didn't know how to do it without causing Sylvie to completely break down. “Listen, Sylvie? I need to radio the station. I'm not gonna hang up, but I need you to just sit tight one minute. Can you do that?”

“No! Don't go!”

“Okay, okay.” Leah thought hard. Then she said to her daughter, “Caroline, pick up the radio and get Chris on the line. Tell him I need backup at Sylvie's house. Him
and
Ethan. Tell him it's a ten thirty-five.”

“What?”

“Just do it!”

“Okay.” Caroline picked up the radio. As Leah continued to fumble through her pep talk with Sylvie she heard her daughter convince Chris she was who she said she was and that she wasn't kidding around. Part of Leah became very proud of her in that moment.

“I hear him,” Sylvie said. “Now he's bootin' the door.”

“Sylvie?” Leah asked. She could tell the girl was on the verge of breaking down.

There was no response.

“Sylvie!”

“Yeah,” she finally answered. She was out of breath. The night around Leah's car seemed to close in and grow even darker as she approached the edge of town.

“You can do this.”

“I can do this.”

Leah was coming up fast on the end of Main Street where the railroad tracks were, right before the turnoff to Old Mill Road, which was only a few minutes from Sylvie's house. But a train was coming. In fact, it was almost at the road.

Leah's brain scrambled to make a decision. The rain streaming down made it look like Leah had more clearance than she actually did, and she slammed her foot heavy on the gas pedal.

For a moment, all she saw was Caroline silhouetted in the train engine's white light. “Mom!” Caroline screamed.

Leah's heart felt like a wet bag trying to beat its way free from her rib cage. With barely a foot to spare, the car bolted over the tracks as the train rumbled past behind them. She'd made it, but the train would definitely slow down Chris and Ethan. They would be at least five to ten minutes behind her.

Cranking the wheel sharply to the left, Leah fishtailed onto Old Mill Road and flew up the curvy, wet street. Leah's pulse slowed a touch as she tried to catch her breath.

“Oh my God!” Caroline said, breathing hard. “That was crazily close.”

Abe just sat in the backseat. If he'd noticed the train at all, he didn't let on.

“Sylvie?” Leah said, the phone still to her ear. “You can save your baby. Your brother would want you to.”

Leah heard a loud
crack!
Sylvie cried, “He's broken down the front door!”

Now all that was left between Sylvie and her baby and Sylvie's psychopathic ex was a locked bedroom door not nearly as thick as the one he'd just made it through.

And still the rain continued to hammer Leah's car. Her headlights barely lit up the road ten feet in front of her. The rest was showered away into darkness by the deluge of rain.

“Oh my God!” Sylvie shrieked. “He's coming!” Her fear flooded through the line as Leah heard Sylvie's phone drop to the floor. Leah listened hard. She heard Sylvie say Orwin's name, but after that, all she heard was the sound of Orwin yelling. It crackled in her car phone's speaker and didn't stop until . . .

One gunshot.

Then...

Then there was nothing else.

Just silence.

The phone went dead.

L
eah's car bounced into Sylvie's driveway, her red-and-blue light giving the house and surrounding trees a surrealistic glow. She'd passed Sylvie's old Skylark that Orwin had taken off in parked about a half mile down the road, positioned discreetly off to the side—barely visible in this torrent of rain. She already had her seat belt undone and her door partially open as she threw her vehicle into PARK and raced to the front door of the house, pulling out her gun along the way. “You kids stay down on the floor of the car!” she shouted back. “You hear me? I'm talking specifically to
you,
Abe. And in the name of
Jesus,
do not get out of that car!”

The rain had turned the dirt drive to muck. From somewhere inside the house came the wailing of the baby, nearly screaming at the top of its lungs. Leah so rarely heard that baby cry that she immediately took it as a bad sign.

This was not a time to wait for backup. She was going in alone.

The front door of the house was swung partially open. In its center was a huge hole full of wooden splinters where Orwin obviously came through with the ax. On the side of the porch, there was just enough room for Leah to stand with her back against the siding along the edge of the door without being in the doorway. She stood there, feet at shoulder width apart, with her gun pointed down at a forty-five-degree angle, ready to be raised and fired.

“Alvin Police!” she called out as loudly and commandingly as she possibly could. “Whoever's inside, identify yourself!” Then, for good measure, she added, “The house is surrounded.”

She didn't expect an answer. What she expected was a gunfight, but she knew Orwin was young and probably working alone. She was experienced and a pretty good shot. She liked the odds.

There was no answer, just like she figured. Just the continued screaming of the baby. At least
she
was okay and sounded as though she was still in the back bedroom. Leah decided to give Orwin one more chance before she turned and started shooting into the house. “Alvin Police!” she hollered again. “This is your last chance!”

Then she heard it. And it wasn't what she expected at all. It was the gentle sobbing of a girl. Leah could barely make it out over the noise of the baby shrieking. From the sobs, she heard Sylvie's voice nervously call out, “I—it's me, Miss Leah. Sylvie. I—I'm in the bedroom.”

“Where's Orwin?” Leah yelled back.

“Lyin' beside me. I—I shot him. I think he's dead.”

“Where's his gun?”

“I—I don't know. I never saw no gun. J—just the ax.”

“Where's the ax?”

“Lyin' beside him.”

“Throw the ax down the hall toward the living room,” Leah called back.

There was a pause and some stumbling then a loud clump. It didn't sound like Sylvie had managed to toss the ax very far.

“Was there anyone with Orwin?”

“I—I don't think so.”

“Okay. Sylvie? I'm comin' in.” In the distance, over the cries of the baby, Leah heard Chris's and Ethan's sirens getting closer.

Leah turned into the open doorway and braced to take a shot. With her left arm, she gently pushed the door open so she could see more of the living room. She took a step into the house, making a circle with her gun ready. The living room was clear.

She got to the kitchen and did the same. The kitchen was clear.

She saw the ax laying a third of the way down the hall from Sylvie's bedroom. Slowly making her way toward it, Leah got to the ax and lifted it up. She tossed it the rest of the way to the living room. It landed with a very loud
thunk!

Unlike the front door, Sylvie's bedroom door looked like it only took one or two swings of the ax to get through. It had popped open at the latch. Leah gently pushed it all the way open, keeping her gun ready in case she was looking at a hostage situation, and Sylvie had just been answering what Orwin had been wanting her to answer.

But that wasn't the case.

Leah found Sylvie crouching in the corner, the crying baby held tightly in her arms. Lying on the floor about six feet from her, at the foot of the bed, was Orwin's body, faceup, his arms outstretched between the bed and the wall, a hole in his chest where the shot from the shotgun entered his body.

Squatting beside him, Leah felt for a pulse, even though from the looks of the body there was no need. She could see the carpet of Sylvie's bedroom floor through the hole the shell left behind. Nobody could look like that and be alive.

“Is he dead?” Sylvie asked softly, still cowering in the corner.

Leah nodded. “Very.” She went over and knelt beside Sylvie and the baby. “How are you? Are you okay?”

Sylvie nodded.

“And the baby?” The baby was still crying.

“She's okay.” Sylvie was cradling her, rocking her gently. The baby's crying slowed down and she grew quieter.

Sylvie stared at Orwin's body, wide-eyed and terrified.

Leah wrapped her arms around Sylvie and the baby, rocking them both together. “It's okay, honey. It's over. He can't hurt you now.”

“I know.”

Leah pulled away and looked in Sylvie's speckled blue eyes. “You
sure
you're okay?”

She just nodded quickly, biting her lower lip.

“Absolutely sure?”

“I
will
be.”

Leah's lips formed a thin smile. “You
will
be.” It was the most positive thing she'd ever heard the girl say.

“So it wasn't Preacher Eli after all? All this time?” Sylvie asked.

Leah shook her head. They were pressed up against the white heating radiator that stood along the bedroom wall. “No, hon. That man wants only one thing,” she said. “Forgiveness.”

Sylvie's voice quivered. “I—I can't give him that. I don't think I'll ever be able to.”

Leah began rocking her again. “That's okay, honey,” she said. “It's not
you
he wants it from.”

Sylvia stayed quiet a moment then said, “Guess what?”

“What?” For a moment, Leah thought the girl's face was bleeding, but when she touched the spot where the blood was, she found it wasn't Sylvie's blood. It was Orwin's, just smeared on Sylvie's body. Probably from when Sylvie crawled across the floor to get the ax.

Sylvie smiled sadly. “I picked out a name for the baby.”

Leah brightened. Outside, she heard two police cruisers pull into Sylvie's yard. “You did? Well, it's about time. This baby deserves a name.” They spoke almost in a whisper. The baby had stopped crying completely. “What're you gonna call her?”

Sylvie gazed down at the tiny girl cradled in her arms. “Hope,” she said, and gave Leah a great big smile. “I think it fits. How 'bout you?”

Leah returned the smile. “I reckon it's near on perfect.”