Critical Impact (15 page)

“What?”

“A red jacket. And a person beside him. And they were holding something. He was trying to keep whatever it was away from her and they were arguing.”

“What, Anna?”

“I saw him when I was walking into City Hall with my coffee. I remembered. I just remembered.”

His arm was still around her waist, but his face wore a puzzled expression. They sat down at the table in the dining room and talked.

Anna wrote the name
Hilary
on a piece of paper. And next to it she wrote one word—
fear.
What she had seen on the young woman's face in her classroom was not anger or confusion, but fear. And then there was Hilary's sister saying that her sister was so afraid that she'd gotten a restraining order against her ex-husband. Hilary's mother had been so afraid that she didn't even mention Hilary's ex-husband when the police first questioned her.

Underneath the name
Hilary,
she wrote the name
Marg
. By her own admission, Marg was self-taught at the computer.

Then there was the red jacket, the text messages, the letter, the windowpane, the halyard wire and myriad other threats, including the light switch that had been tampered with.

It was all making sense now. It was all fitting together. At the end, they had it all figured out. Or thought they did.

 

Anna chose her time carefully. Catherine called Lois to help clean up the house after the police were finally finished with it and that left Marg alone in the mansion.

Anna knew this when she climbed up the front steps and rang the doorbell. “Can I come in, Marg?” she asked when the door was opened.

“Yes,” Marg said.

Anna followed. When Marg stopped in the foyer, Anna walked past her and into the kitchen; Marg had no choice but to follow. Anna sat down on one of Marg's kitchen chairs. Marg sat across from her. The woman seemed unnaturally calm, yet the pinky finger on her right hand quivered slightly, betraying her nervousness.

Anna said, “I got your text message and I'm here to talk terms.”

“You didn't respond to my letter.”

“I didn't respond because I ended up in the hospital after almost being electrocuted, as you will no doubt remember.”

Marg smiled, clasped her hands tightly to hide her shakiness. It was Anna's guess that Marg had never engaged in any sort of blackmail before. If this was new to Marg, it was also very new to Anna. Anna knew she needed to hold her own, stand her ground. It was important for her to get certain questions
answered, for her own benefit. She had almost died in that bombing and Marg owed her some answers.

Anna proceeded. “Can you answer just a few questions before we get to the negotiations?”

“Maybe. Depends on what the questions are. If they are questions about my marriage, I will be happy to tell you that my husband was an adulterer who deserved to die. Any other questions?”

“How did you happen to meet Jack Habrowser, my student Hilary's ex-husband?”

A slow smile began to form on Marg's face. “That was easy. Hilary came on to my husband, as so many young women do. And my very weak and adulterous husband couldn't resist her charms. So I confronted her about it…” There was a ferocious gleam in her eyes as she looked over at Anna. “Did you know that for a while I even thought that
you
were having an affair with my husband?”

Anna shook her head and looked down at the table.

“Anyway, I told her to leave him alone. She said that if I ever came to her house again she would get a restraining order against me. Just as she had against her ex.”

She paused for effect.

“I made contact with Jack. I'm very good with the Internet, you know. Entirely self-taught.” She grinned. “Do you know you can learn all about how to make
a bomb by going to the right place on the Web? That came in very handy.”

The woman was truly insane.

Marg put her hands flat on the table. “I told Jack that Hilary was throwing herself unmercifully at my husband and asked him what he was going to do about it.”

“Why should he do anything about it?” Anna asked.

Marg stared right into Anna's eyes. “Because a long time ago he was her husband. It's an unworthy husband who can't maintain control over his own wife.”

Anna gave Marg a quizzical look, but kept her mouth shut.

“Jack e-mailed me. We met in Bangor. First thing he said was, ‘What are we going to do about this?' And I said, ‘I'd like to kill them both.' You know,” she mused, “I wasn't really thinking of killing them until that precise moment. But that gave me the idea.”

“So you and Jack planned all this,” Anna said, keeping her voice even.

“I did it. I planned it all. Jack just went along with what I planned. He wanted to. I made him. Johnny deserved to die. He was immoral. My church even says so.”

“Your church says it's okay to kill people?”

“God judges immoral people. He has through history and He does now and He will in the future.”

Anna wanted more than anything to argue that point with Marg, but now was not the time.

Marg went on, “It was my plan, but I needed a person with muscle to help me carry it out. I worked it out perfectly. The mock disaster would be the perfect front.” She paused and looked suddenly sad. “Except there were a few things I didn't count on.”

“Like what?” Anna was interested.

“I didn't stop to think that the place would be crawling with EMTs and police. Also, the bomb went off ahead of time. That was Jack's fault. He detonated it too soon and that Claire girl wasn't supposed to die! I made Jack give me the phone. But I know you saw me when you went in. I saw you look over….”

Anna nodded. “So that's why you tried to kill me and when that didn't work you framed me.”

“I knew you had seen me and then when you came up to me in church and told me you knew everything, I figured you were asking for money.”

“How was Lois involved in your plan?”

Marg laughed, a guttural sound. “She thinks she's such a good Christian lady, trying to help everybody. Befriended me just so she could show me some Christian charity.” She spat out the words
Christian
and
charity
.

“Where is Jack now?”

Marg ignored Anna and pushed herself away from the table and stood up. “Now,” she said. “How much money do you want to keep quiet?” Her back was to
Anna when she said this and she was walking toward her kitchen sink. Anna stood, waited, watched her.

Anna said, “How much are you prepared to part with?”

“Look at this house. I'll get everything when Johnny dies. Poor dear. And I don't think he's going to make it. I'm quite sure he's not.”

When Marg turned back to face her, she was holding a small revolver and pointing it directly at Anna.

“Marg, put the gun down. Don't shoot me. That will solve nothing.” Even though Anna spoke as clearly and as loudly as she could, she was trembling with fear.

At that instant, Anna heard a loud noise as the front door banged open and boots thudded down the hardwood floor.

“Police! This is the police!” Stu yelled as he ran toward the kitchen.

Marg didn't drop her gun. Instead, she swung it wildly toward the noise and started firing. In the kitchen the sound of gunfire was deafening.

Anna dropped to the floor. She was under the table before the second shot was fired. She heard five loud shots and a lot of clicking. Had Marg shot Stu? Was Stu okay? Where was everybody?

From under the table, Anna heard Stu yell, “Police! Drop the gun, Marg!”

Marg was yelling and screaming at Stu. She was
yelling and cursing at her gun as she continued to click away with the empty revolver. Anna could see Stu's legs and boots to the left.

She looked to the right and saw Marg's legs and feet, but her feet were not on the ground. Anna heard the gun hit the ceramic tile floor and saw it skid toward the refrigerator. Behind Marg's suspended feet Anna saw another set of legs and shoes. And then there were two people down at her level across the room.

“Marg Seeley, you are under arrest for the murder of Claire Sweeney and Hilary Jonas.” It was Liz's loud voice. Marg was forced down on the floor. Liz had one knee on Marg's back, handcuffing her and attempting to read her her rights while the woman squirmed and yelled about how they would all rot in hell for what they were doing. God would surely judge them. They would all pay. Adulterers and immoral people would have their comeuppance.

While Liz was putting the cuffs on Marg, Stu gently helped Anna out from under the table. He sat her on a chair, gave her a quick hug and said, “Don't go anywhere.”

Anna watched Stu pick up the little revolver with a pencil and put it in a plastic bag. It took Liz and Alec to carry Marg, kicking and screaming, to the waiting squad car.

Two officers from DeLorme had also appeared in the kitchen during the melee, and a woman officer
was now gently removing the small transmitter and microphone that had been taped to Anna's chest. She no longer needed to wear these items. They had done their job. They had recorded it all. The officer said it gave them quite a start when they heard Anna say the word
gun
. The woman said she had done a super job and told Anna that anytime she wanted to come to DeLorme and work undercover, she was welcome to.

“That's not my cup of tea, I'm afraid,” Anna said. She was still shaky from her ordeal. Even though she was the one who had proposed the idea of seeing Marg by herself.

“I can get her to talk to me,” Anna had told them earlier. “She already thinks I know everything about her, that's why she freaked out so much when I spoke with her at her church. That's one of the things that made me know I was on the right track. When I told her that I knew everything, she thought I really did.”

“Well, we got her,” said one of the officers.

“And it will just be a matter of time before we find and pick up Jack Habrowser, her reluctant partner in crime.”

Anna nodded. She was conscious of the way Stu leaned against the wall, looking at her. It seemed his gaze was fixed only on her. It made her nervous in a weird sort of way, and she couldn't help but remember the previous evening when he had kissed her.

Was she ready to trust someone again? What if after a week or a month, he took her face in his hands and told her that he wasn't really a Christian? That he never had been? Maybe he'd also say that he'd never loved her. That he'd just wanted to get to know her better, so he'd pretended. And that he found her goody-goody act quite charming. What if she ended up being afraid? She didn't think her heart could withstand another blow.

And yet, the way he was looking at her, the things he had told her. Peter had never been like that. Even when he'd accompanied her to church, he'd looked bored. She had been so starstruck that she had ignored these things. She had to believe that her experience in California had taught her something. And objectively Stu seemed real and genuine.

Stu approached her now, smiling in that shy way of his. He took her left hand in his and said, “We have to head down to the police station. And after that, I'll take you home.” He played with her fingers as he said these words. “We need to tell your mother and your aunt how things went.”

“I'm sure they've been praying the whole time,” Anna said. “My mother didn't want me to do this.”

Stu grinned. “She told me as much. How are you feeling about it all?”

“Okay, I guess. I'm feeling sad that Marg was so desperate that she felt she had to do this. I'm just glad it's all over.”

“Not quite,” Stu said. “We still have to find Hilary's ex-husband.”

They were walking to Stu's car, quite close together. The day was crisp, clear, and a few stray autumn leaves blew around their ankles. They lingered beside Stu's car. She knew they were expected at the police station, yet she wanted to stay within this moment for a while, the two of them standing so close together. Stu opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again. Instead, he brought her to him and kissed her.

It had been a long time since Stu had allowed himself to feel this way about a woman. When Alesha died in that roadside bombing in Iraq, it was as if everything that made him feel anything had died, as well. And yet, as he held this woman's face in his hands as they stood beside his car, he began to realize something. Love is always about loss. But, if you don't allow yourself to be open to the possibility of loss, you don't open yourself to the possibility of love. And as he looked down into her eyes he realized that he was willing to try again. No matter what the future brought.

He kissed her again.

S
tu and Anna were married three days after Christmas. They chose December 28 because with all the Christmas concerts and parties it was the only night that the little white church in Whisper Lake Crossing was free. Plus, they had the added bonus that the church was already decorated.

Anna's cast was removed just before Christmas, and the doctor seemed pleased with how her arm and hand had healed, especially since she could very easily have lost it. By her wedding day, she still only had limited use of her thumb and forefinger. But with hard work, exercise and physiotherapy twice a week, things were steadily improving. At least she could put her contact lenses in, apply makeup and blow-dry her hair without requiring help. That pleased her, but what she wanted to do most of all was to hold her wedding bouquet without dropping it. Sometimes her forefinger moved of its own accord.

On her wedding day she carried a white bouquet
intermixed with holly berries. She managed to get all the way up the aisle without dropping it. She made it into the waiting arms of her handsome groom. Stu smiled as he watched Anna walk toward him. Stu was decked out in his most formal police attire.

Catherine and Lois were there, along with Rodney and the rest of her students. The townspeople were there in abundance, which included Alec and Megan, Steve and Nori and their two daughters, Liz, Marlene and Roy, and Peach and Pete, the two elderly gentlemen who always hung out at the Schooner Café. It seemed as if the police from the other area departments were there, as well. After the wedding, everybody jammed into the Schooner Café for a wonderful reception.

Marg was charged with the murder of Hilary Jonas and Claire Sweeney. By Christmas she was still awaiting trial. It kept being put off, pending a definitive report on the status of her mental health. According to all reports gathered so far, she still ranted on and on about the judgment of God. A day after her arrest, Jack turned himself in.

Marg, the police learned, was entirely responsible for everything. She'd hunted down Jack Habrowser. She had found some small thing to blackmail him with, and orchestrated the whole show. Under her thumb, she forced him to dress in the green scrubs and terrify Anna in the hospital. He was also the one who pushed a cartload of pillows the day that Stu
saw him. Marg learned online how to wire a switch so that the person touching it would get immediately shocked and possibly die. She and Jack jimmied the box the day Anna was in the hospital for her checkup. Marg also left her the notes and the text message. She coerced Jack into stringing the wire on Stu's bike path. Marg also demanded that Jack follow Stu to see where he was going. Marg wanted to keep tabs on him.

Her plans, however, hadn't gone exactly as she hoped. The bomb wasn't supposed to be detonated until the following day. Marg planned the bomb to go off early in the morning when she knew her husband would be there and no one else. The bomb went off because Jack was trying to take the phone away from Marg. He wanted out of the whole scheme. The last thing he wanted to do was kill Hilary. He and Marg fought over that cell phone outside City Hall and the bomb she had made, following instructions she'd downloaded from the Internet, detonated.

Her court-appointed lawyer was arguing that Marg was severely emotionally and physically abused, and this caused her breakdown.

Lois, of course, felt terrible. All she was trying to do was help Marg, and she got caught up in the rhetoric of Marg's church. She had since done an about-face and now was active in the little white Whisper Lake Crossing Church.

Peter was discovered in Las Vegas, where he'd holed up with his latest supermodel. He'd had nothing
to do with the bomb, as the video in the casino proved. He'd laughed off the “threatening” e-mail to Anna. It was meant as a joke, he'd said.

As for Brother Phil, as soon as the news broke he moved his church on. No one knew where he was. No one really ever discovered who he was. Anna and Stu figured he'd gone on to infect another little town with his message of hatred and evil and judgment, not in the name of God, but in the name of religion.

Both Anna and Stu had come a long way since he'd dug her out of the rubble in front of City Hall. Through God's help he had learned to allow himself to feel again, eventually allowing himself to fall in love. Anna realized that despite the uncertainty of her injury, despite her horrific experience in California, God was molding her into the person that would be the best she could be. He had loved her, and had always loved her.