Healing Sands (50 page)

Sully set the bottle on the ground. “Man, I'm sorry. I forget you're still so close to it. It took me over a decade to be able to say Lynn deliberately drove off a bridge with our baby because Belinda Cox told her she needed to renounce her demons.”

“Right. So is the air cleared?”

Sully nodded. “Did you ever get that fan belt fixed?”

Kyle spat out a laugh. “I'm sorry—that's so random. No, I didn't.”

Which was why the night of the murder, Angelina had gone to her window and looked out to see who was making all the noise. It wasn't much, but it did differentiate his Mini Cooper from Sully's.

Kyle sat back on the lounge and picked up the Frappuccino, but he still didn't drink it. “What else you got?”

Sully closed his eyes. The Light was still on, but he could only see one step ahead. He had to take it now, before the tape ran out and Kyle left him with nothing.

“I just keep thinking about Belinda Cox,” he said. “I still hold her responsible for Lynn not getting the help she really needed, but holy crow, she was a human being. Nobody should die like that.” He shuddered. “You should have seen what the killer did to her. He must have been a monster. Either that, or he was just so crazed with . . . I don't know . . . what would it take to cut a woman's throat with a steak knife?”

Kyle's hands squeezed the bottle.

“You know what's ironic?” Sully said.

“What?”

“When I was walking up to her house to talk to her that night, I was thinking that what she really needed was help. I mean, that's what we do, right? We try to lead people to healing. How was she any different from anybody else who's a total mess?”

“So what were you going to do, go in there and counsel her?” Kyle's voice took on an edge. “She screwed people up—drove women to kill themselves, for God's sake!”

“I only know of one woman,” Sully said.

Kyle flung out a hand. “There were probably others—she had thirteen years after Lynn. She got worse through the years.”

“How do you know that?”

“You told me,” Kyle said, but not without tripping over it first. Sully wasn't sure if he had or not. He had to move on.

“Here's the thing,” he said. “Belinda made mistakes, but ultimately Lynn and Hayley made their own choices to end their lives. Who's to say anybody could have done anything to stop them?”

“I'll say it!” Kyle lurched up and kicked his feet to the patio. The bottle slammed to the table. “She could have stopped them. It was her fault, not theirs. You don't tell a woman who has given birth to a stillborn baby that the sins of the fathers are being visited upon the generations and that she has to sacrifice her life to God if she wants to stop the vengeance of Satan!”

“Is that what she told Hayley?”

“Yes!”

“And that's why you killed her.”

Kyle's face froze.

“Like I said when we sat down here, Kyle: I know.”

Everything slid away—the concerned pinch, the encouraging nods, the empathetic softness in Kyle's gaze. Something more real took its place.

“You do know,” he said. He searched Sully with frantic eyes. “And you know the only way to stop her was to get rid of her. All this about helping her—it's bogus. She was a killer.”

“And you're not?”

“Yeah, I am. And you know what's really lousy about it, Dr. Crisp?”

Sully watched his eyes swim and shook his head.

“Now that I've done it, I don't feel any better. You and I, we're never going to get over what happened to our wives. There
is
no healing from it, no matter what choice we make.”

Sully pulled away from that. There was more he had to get on the tape before Kyle fully realized what he'd just done.

“How did you know I was looking for her before you came here?” Sully said.

“You said it yourself. You came to the church in Little Rock trying to find her. I got wind of that, put together from your podcasts that something major had happened to you. When I decided to come here and saw that you were here too—it just worked. What did you call it? ‘All God'?”

Sully was chilled. “I take it you don't believe in ‘all God.'”

Kyle stood up and sent the chaise lounge sliding across the tile. Sully rose and moved toward the door to the house and stood with his back to it. Kyle stared into the fire.

“I grew up being told that God has some vast eternal plan for our lives. When he didn't protect Hayley from Cox, when he let her kill herself and let me find her in the bathtub swimming in her own blood, I figured I better come up with my own plan.”

“It was a pretty thorough one,” Sully said. “Did you have it all mapped out before you came?”

“I was just going to let you lead me to her. But then when I saw how much alike we are . . . same build, same coloring . . .”

“Same car.”

“I bought that when I saw yours.”

“How did you get my fingerprints on the murder weapon?”

Kyle looked at Sully over his shoulder. His eyes were dark voids. “I took you out for a steak dinner. Look, I knew you could afford a good lawyer. I even recommended one. He'll get you off.”

“He doesn't have to get me off,” Sully said. “You just confessed.” Kyle turned to face him. “You don't have any proof of that.”

Sully didn't answer. Kyle's eyes came down to pinpoints on Sully's sweatshirt pocket.

In an explosion of profanity, he hurled himself at Sully and threw his arms around his waist. Sully pulled his hands from the pouch, but he was already too off balance to stop the backward smash into the wall. He heard his own breath groan from him. Gasping for air, he clutched at Kyle's sleeves as Kyle flung him to the patio floor. Sully's neck snapped back, and his head smacked on the concrete. Even as the pain blinded him, Kyle drove his forearm into Sully's throat and groped in the pouch. Sully felt the tape recorder being pulled away. Kyle's sweat dripped into Sully's face.

“I had to pin it on somebody. I'm sorry it had to be you.” With one hand still at Sully's neck, he pitched the tape backward into the fire, and with it Sully's hope. “Now it's just your word against mine.”

“And mine.”

Sully closed his eyes. From the open gate, the voice of Levi Baranovic settled over him like a prayer.

In a surge of energy that lasted no longer than ten seconds, Kyle was pulled off Sully and planted against the wall, face smashed to the stucco. Two uniformed officers searched him roughly and pinned his hands into cuffs.

“I want a lawyer,” Kyle said.

Sully barely recognized his voice.

“Fine,” Baranovic said. “I've already got your confession right here.” He tapped his forehead and waved his other hand toward the gate. “These gentlemen are going to take you in. You can call your lawyer from there.”

As the uniforms took a silent Kyle out through the gate, Baranovic put his hand down to Sully.

“You okay?”

“I've been better,” Sully said.

Baranovic shook his head. “When I told you on the phone I couldn't use a tape in court, I didn't mean for you to let him throw it in the fire.”

Sully sank onto the chaise lounge. “How long were you out there?”

“We tailed him here.” He shrugged. “You give us a tip, we're going to follow up. Besides, I knew you weren't going to be able to pull off a recording.”

“How'd you know that?”

“Because, Dr. Crisp”—Baranovic smiled—“you're not a criminal.”

CHAPTER FORTY

C
ade misses Alex,” J.P. said.

I looked at her through the steam rising from my coffee. “
You
miss Alex, because he's the most adorable ten-year-old boy who ever lived. And no, you can't have him back.”

Poco squeezed my hand, hers still warm from cupping them around her mug of mocha-Valium-double-latte, or whatever it was she was having.

“But
you
have him back,” she said. “That has to feel good.”

“We're doing joint custody for right now.”

“A-
ha
!” J.P. said, jolting Victoria from her current reverie. “For right now. That means there's a later. You and Dan?” She poked me with her teaspoon. “Come on, you know we're going to get it out of you.”

“You don't have to get it out of me,” I said. “Why wouldn't I tell you? You're my best friends.”

“Face it, we're your only friends. Spill it.”

Even Victoria was now wide-eyed and pulling her mass of hair out of her face.

“Dan and I are talking,” I said.

“About . . .”

“J.P.,” Poco said. “Maybe it's private.”

“I'm not asking for bedroom details.”

“There
are
no bedroom details!” I said. “We're just talking through what went wrong and how we're different than we used to be and whether that means anything for us.”

“How was White Sands Sunday?” Victoria asked.

“Good. We rented those sled things and we all slid down the dunes. Alex loved it. I don't think Jake is loving doing anything yet. He has a ways to go.”

“Of course he does,” Poco said.

“Dan and I took turns just sort of being there with him while the other one went screaming down the slopes with Alex.”

“So I take it”—J.P. formed invisible breasts the size of cantaloupes in front of her chest with her hands—“is out of the picture.”

“She's in the hospital, actually. The minute they started to question her, she had a complete breakdown.”

“At least she's safe from Ryan in there.” J.P. shook her head before anyone could protest. “Just kidding. But admit it—didn't you just want to strangle that kid when you found out what he did?”

I took a hot sip and considered that. Although for the most part I had concentrated on Jake, I'd definitely had my moments in the last four days when I wanted to do nothing more than take Ian's neck in my hands and squeeze it. Ginger's too. That was part of the reason I was bent on keeping my appointment with Sullivan Crisp. I glanced at my watch. He said he was leaving town this afternoon, but he wouldn't go before we had a session.

Still, it was hard to leave Milagro with the three of them around me, nudging out my personal information and holding it in their pretty smiles and their girly chatter and their womanly wisdom. How had this happened? How did I end up part of something only a group of females could be?

“Ryan, are you crying?” Poco said.

“No,” I said.

“Liar,” J.P. said.

Victoria gave me a misty look. “Crying is God's way of cleansing your soul.”

“Then my soul ought to be pretty well scoured out. I've gotta go.”

“See you at practice this afternoon,” J.P. said. “We're getting down to the end of the season.”

“We are?” I said.

“Well, yeah. It doesn't go on forever.” J.P. shook her head at Poco. “Five weeks of soccer, and she still doesn't know a thing about it.”

I gave her an eyebrow and started toward the door. When I turned back around, they were all watching me.

“You know what?” I said. “I think this is the body of Christ.”

Poco was right about one thing. Some of the details of my time with Dan since Friday were private, for the most part because I was afraid that saying them would put them out there where someone else could tell me they didn't mean what I thought they did.

I pulled into the parking lot at the clinic and let the dependable New Mexico sun warm me through the windshield—and went over the scene for the twentieth time, at least.

The boys were exploring the gift shop at the White Sands monument Sunday, Alex with more enthusiasm than Jake. Dan and I opted for a bench out front where we could watch them through the window and count our sledding bruises. Dan had fallen into a ponderous silence, and I couldn't tell whether he was pulling away from me or gearing up to get closer. There was so much I didn't know about him. So much that perhaps I'd never known.

“This whole thing with Jake isn't the only reason I can't be with Ginger,” he said suddenly.

“Did you figure that out before or after you got engaged to her?” I put my hand up. “I'm sorry. Old habits die hard.”

He blinked at me. “Engaged? Who said we were engaged?”

“She did. The afternoon I came by your house after the bomb.”

“You came by the house?”

I felt myself squinting. “She didn't want me anywhere near you, so she shut you down for the weekend. It's a done deal. Why do we need to hash that all out now?”

“Because I want you to know I found out I couldn't marry her.”

I hid my relief behind a shrug. “Okay. Good. You know a crazy lady when you see one.”

Dan ran his hand through the hair on the side of his head. “Ryan, would you just shut up and let me say it?”

I put my hands to my mouth and nodded.

“I thought I could—I mean, she made me feel—”

Sexy and desirable?
I smashed my fingers harder into my lips.

“But when you came here, and we went through all this and I saw you—” He swallowed down the thickness in his voice. “I knew I couldn't marry Ginger or any other woman.” He looked at me and into me. “Because none of them are you.”

Alex had burst from the gift shop then with an oversized rubber white lizard, and Dan and I hadn't returned to the moment yet. I wasn't sure what to do when we did. I knew what I wanted to do. I just didn't know if I could.

That was the other thing I wanted to discuss with Dr. Crisp.

The clinic was quiet when I went in. There was something at once peaceful and sad in the air, and I had a fuzzy image of Sullivan emerging from a cell, arms outstretched to embrace a cloud.

“Dr. Crisp will be right with you,” someone said timidly.