Heaven Preserve Us (33 page)

"Sophie Mae? Sophie Mae! Where are you?"

"In here. I'm in the game room," I shouted. That voice was familiar, but at the same time, not. Who was out there? "Hello?"

Conversation again. I edged to the door and put my ear against
it. They'd moved closer, but I strained to make out what they were
saying.

"What are you doing to her?" The strange voice demanded.

He wasn't yelling now. Recognition dawned. It was my good
friend, my buddy.

My stalker.

"Allen?"

Scuffling sounds then, and a shout, then another, and a grunt,
then an even louder yell, suddenly cut short. And then only the
sound of my panting breath against the silence.

I snatched the jar off the table, hauled the chair out from under
the doorknob and swung the door open, brandishing the pickles. I
heard a gurgle from my right, and in the dim light from the front
windows I saw Jude, face red and jaw clenched, kneeling over Seth
Chase, hands around his throat. Seth still struggled, but weakly.

Fifteen feet away, Jude was killing the poor kid who had come
to rescue me.

I ran up behind him, lifting the jar above my head. He heard me
coming, and whipped around at the last minute. His gaze locked on
mine. I brought the heavy jar down, and he crumpled to the floor.

The flash of resignation in Jude's eyes right before I bashed him
over the head would stay with me for very, very long time.

EYES CLOSED, SETH ROLLED onto his side in a fetal position, hands
moving protectively to his neck as he coughed and gagged air back
into his lungs.

I knelt beside him. "Are you okay?"

His eyelids fluttered, and then he was looking at me. He nodded weakly, and his lips moved.

"Don't try to talk. I'm going to call the police. Stay here." Like
he was in any shape to go gallivanting off.

His fingers curled onto my arm. "I'm sorry," he croaked, wincing at the effort.

I brushed back a piece of dark hair that had flopped into his
eyes. "Don't worry."

"Are you going to tell them?"

"Stop talking. I mean it. Just trust me, okay?"

After a few seconds, he nodded and closed his eyes again.

I left him and went to the telephone on Maryjake's desk. I dialed the police station and asked for Detective Lane. She was out.

"Well, track her down. Tell her Sophie Mae Reynolds is at
Heaven House and that someone just tried to kill me. He's still
here but could regain consciousness at any time. And while you're
at it, send a patrol car and an ambulance over here"

Guess what? It turned out I should've called 911 instead of the
Cadyville Police station. There was quite the hullabaloo as the
cadet on the front desk tried to figure out what to do, and then I
was talking to Sergeant Zahn, and then finally to Detective Lane
on her cell phone. By then the sirens had arrived. Lane showed up
soon after.

I thought she'd be spitting nails, but she took one look at the
situation and-get this-she apologized to me.

Like I said, it was kind of hard not to like her.

Jude was still out, which scared me. I hadn't wanted to kill him;
I'd only wanted to stop him. An ambulance whisked him off, and
another set of paramedics stayed to work on Seth.

He was feeling better by then, and in a whispery voice told Lane
how he'd come by Heaven House to pick up some tools he and his
brother had left there the day before. He had a key, which Jude had
given the brothers for easy access since he planned for them to
complete several handyman projects over the coming weeks. When
Seth came in, he'd found Jude trying to get into the game room
and me calling for help from the other side of the door. He'd confronted Jude, who had attacked him and tried to strangle him.

His eyes locked on mine. "Sophie Mae saved my life."

"That makes us even, then," I said. "Because you saved mine,
too."

Okay, granted, Seth's rescue wasn't as, um, hands on, but I had
no way of knowing whether I could have escaped out that window or not. If it hadn't been for him, Jude might have very well killed
me by now. The thought made me shiver, and Detective Lane's
forehead wrinkled with concern.

I smiled, big and bright, and she seemed to relax. When she
went to talk to one of the patrolman, I crouched next to Seth's
chair.

"Was that you on the telephone? Did you hang up when Jude
answered?"

He nodded. "I saw your truck in the alley." He looked down,
embarrassed. "It wasn't that I was following you, but I had my eye
out. I wanted to talk to you."

I harrumphed.

He rolled his eyes. "Only to apologize. Only because I know
I've been bugging you, and I never really meant to do that. The
first call? It was stupid. I was just bored. But then you seemed so
nice. I knew who you were. I guess I got a little obsessed. I'm real
sorry. It's just, well, since we moved here it's been..." His whisper
trailed off, and he blinked away the welling tears.

"Here. Drink this." I handed him the bottle of water the paramedic had given him to sip.

"Thanks"

"Seth, you might have been bored when you called Heaven
House that first time, but you were also depressed. And lonely.
And you know what? That's okay. That's what the Helpline is all
about. I wasn't very good at getting you what you needed, but I'll
make you a deal."

A stubborn expression settled on his face.

"Just listen. If you'll contact one of the free counseling services
I can put you in touch with, I won't tell Lane you were the one
calling me."

Alarm replaced the stubbornness.

"Yes, she knows someone has been stalking me. I know you
don't like it when I call it that, but you have to admit that it wasn't
exactly normal behavior."

Sheepishness across his features now. "Yeah. I know. I really am
sorry.

"I believe you. So that's the deal: you talk to a professional
about the stuff you wanted to talk to me about-life, death, and
maybe, if you want to, about your mom dying-and I'll keep
mum. You stop calling me all the time like you were, and we can be
friends."

"Friends?"

"Friends. And friends talk to each other. So you'll be able to
talk to me, too. But no more being weird about it."

He considered, then shook his head. "I can't. My dad, Luke-"

"You don't have to tell them, at least not at first. It's your business if you talk to a therapist. They'll deal with what's happened to
your family in their own way, but they don't get to tell you how to
do it."

Hesitation, a glance at Lane scribbling in her notebook across
the room, then a single bob of his head. "Okay."

I had to fill out paperwork and give my statement at the police station. It seemed to take forever. Lane came over to the desk where I was rechecking my written statement one last time and put her
hand on my shoulder. I looked up, wondering what she wanted
from me now.

"Just got a call from the hospital. Jude Carmichael is awake
and lucid. And, from what I hear, has a heck of a headache. He's
complaining left and right, but he's confessed to everything."

Sighing in relief, I said, "I didn't kill him, then."

"Nope" Her grin was wide. "You wielded those pickles with
exactly the right amount of force."

I gave her a look, and she left to talk to George Oxford, who
was waiting pensively on the other side of the room. She was still
grinning as she walked away.

Taking a deep breath, I used one of the desk phones to call
home. Meghan answered.

"Is Barr around?" I asked. What a coward. I wanted him to tell
her what had happened.

"He's asleep upstairs."

"Still?" I tried to keep the worry out of my voice.

"No, Again. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just tell him I'm done with the stuff at Heaven
House, and I'll be home when I can. I'll probably be late."

"But, Erin-"

"I know. I'll get there as fast as I can"

"Sophie Mae, what on earth..."

"Fill you in later."

"But everything's okay?"

"It is now."

I hung around until someone returned from George's house
with the rest of the Hannah's preserves. George had confirmed that Jude had taken several of the jars to Heaven House, but he
didn't know exactly what he'd removed. At one point, he said, there
had been beets out in the garage with the rest of his wife's homecanned goods.

No telling whether they'd be able to prove the beets Jude had
pilfered to give to Philip were from the same batch. For all I knew,
the jar the Health Department had taken from Philip's apartment
had been summarily destroyed and wouldn't be available for comparison. But between Jude's confession and my statement, the
prosecutor wouldn't need the beets to make his case. I didn't know
if it would do any good, but I'd told Lane about the jar of Ruth's
beets I'd hidden away.

By the time the police were done with me, it was pitch dark
outside. I hurried home, took a quick shower and changed my
clothes. The day was not yet done.

Two kids remained on stage when I got there, and tension in the
room was high. I excuse-me'd my way down the row of seats to the
empty one next to Barr, causing grumbling from the spectators as
I went. Kelly sat on the other side of my housemate, his hand on
her knee. Meghan craned around Barr to spare me a questioning
look, then redirected her attention to where Erin sat alone on a
stool under the bright spotlights. A carrot-topped kid stood in
front of the microphone stand, looking terribly serious. The spray
of freckles across his nose was visible from a third of the way back
in the auditorium.

"Where have you been? I was getting worried," Barr whispered
in my ear.

I smiled and turned my head slightly, glad that in the dim light
Barr couldn't see the bruise blossoming across my cheekbone. I'd
pay for not telling him and Meghan right away about my near
deadly encounter with Jude, but I'd had enough on my plate at the
police station. Dealing with Detective Lane, Sergeant Zahn and
Chief Maher had taken all my energy. The last thing I'd needed
was to worry about my boyfriend rushing from his sickbed and
yelling at me for being stupid.

Ditto for Meghan, minus the sickbed. And probably double
the yelling.

"I'll tell you later," I said.

"Is it good news?"

Meghan nudged Barr's arm. "Ssh"

"The best," I whispered. "You look fabulous, dahling." I was
changing the subject, but also telling the truth. Dressed in jeans
and a button-down shirt and cowboy boots, he looked almost like
my old, reliable Barr. A big blue hunk of turquoise decorated the
string tie around his neck this evening.

He pointed up front.

"Fluorescent," droned an adult voice through the sound system. I spied the speaker holding a microphone off to the side and
below the elevated part of the stage.