Indivisible (19 page)

Forever. Stella Manning had exerted the ultimate control—deep, crushing guilt. But even guilt could not contend with the hollow-chested ache of losing Jonah. She had borne this sentence because he’d borne it with her, even while she pushed him away. Now he’d broken free.

As the customer left, Piper burst in. “You’re here!”

She didn’t realize the accusation it was.

“I thought you were staying in bed.”

“I couldn’t.” Tia folded her arms. “Look at you. You’re completely aglow.”

“Am I?” She did a little dance. “Well …”

Words burst out of her. Sarge. Specials. A whole dollar raise.

“So what should I start with? I want it to sell like crazy and show Sarge this was absolutely the right decision.”

“I still think the gruyère and sun-dried tomato croissant was your best.”

“You don’t think the tomatoes were fishy?”

The reminder of Jonah’s comment stabbed her. Did even the joyous moments have to hurt? “Not at all. It was wonderful.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do. But Sarge said a
daily
special. Something new every day!”

“Well, that’s what you wanted.” And God knew it was dangerous to want. “But it wouldn’t have to be different every day.”

“You’re right. Of course.” She grabbed her in a hug, then jumped back. “Sorry.”

She hadn’t meant to wince.

“Tia, what are you even doing here?”

Oh, the answers she could give.

Maybe it was a streak of the devil in him, but when Jonah got back, he put aside the administrative paperwork and brought out the file on the animals. Not much new from his initial digging, but—

He looked up as Sue came to a stop before him, arms crossed hard over her chest. The two days since they’d taken Eli into the system had harrowed her. She’d been allowed visits, and she’d made a pretty good case for herself, but no decision had been made. “What’s up?”

“Sam took Eli from the foster home.”

Jonah laid down his pen. “When?”

“Just now. He walked in and took him.”

“That’s kidnapping.”

Her face contorted. “If he takes him and runs … Jonah.” She gulped. He stood.

“How erratic has he been?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked. I’ve been staying at my mother’s.”

A lot of trigger points. Sam might have snapped.

“How did you find out?”

“Connie called me. She thought I might be in on it, that we could be fleeing.”

Connie Wong did her job conscientiously, the only social worker for the region. But if she believed that, she’d read Sue wrong. Fire filled his officer’s eyes.

“If I go after him, Jonah, I might use my gun.”

“You’re an officer trained in restraint.”

Her jaw jutted. “And a pregnant woman whose child is in jeopardy. If he hurts Eli, I’ll shoot him. And if he thinks he can take him away from me—”

“I hear you.”

She drew herself up with a shudder. “Find him, Jonah. Find my little boy.”

“And Sam?”

“I guess I’d rather you didn’t kill him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jonah drove first to their home, guessing Sam might be collecting clothes and things if he planned to take off. The truck was outside the garage. Jonah blocked it in, parking his Bronco sideways between the cedar hedges. He approached the house cautiously, not drawing his gun, but of course a round was chambered.

He rapped on the door. “Sam?”

No answer.

“I’m coming in.”

He turned the knob and pushed the door but shielded himself against the wall in case a shot was fired. The door swung to the wall unimpeded. He could see around the door frame into the kitchen. Sam sat at the kitchen table, Eli in his lap. As Jonah approached, Sam looked up, but Eli kept coloring the picture in the book open before him.

“What are you doing, Sam?”

He didn’t answer. Eli stopped scribbling with the green crayon and held it up. Sam took it and handed Eli a yellow, a routine they both seemed to know. Sam’s eyes were red-rimmed and sagging. “You going to arrest me?”

“You violated the court order.”

“I called. I wanted to talk to him, but they said he was too upset already. I heard him crying. You don’t know what it’s like to hear your kid crying and not be allowed to help him. Not
allowed.”

“Because you’re considered a danger.”

“I fell asleep, and he took a fall. I don’t pretend that was nothing. But I never hurt my kid. I don’t know how those fractures got there. Maybe Sue, maybe her mom. Maybe one of the play dates he’s had. A while back he was really fussy, and yeah, I dosed him with cough syrup to help him sleep. I didn’t know he was injured.”

Jonah just stared.

“He’s like me. When I was three I broke my leg in a sandbox, broke the other jumping off a couch. Maybe I gave him that. But I never broke his arm.”

“People do things when they’re using, Sam.”

Sam blinked.

A denial now would determine the course.

His chin quivered. “I can beat it. I beat it before.”

“Then you were sober. But you know as well as I, you never really beat it.”

Sam looked like he wanted to argue. Nothing he said would matter.

“But our concern is Eli.”

Sam’s mouth worked. “He’s my son. You think some foster parents can love him more than I do?” Something stark showed through his eyes, but he was talking to the wrong man. Jonah would have welcomed a foster family.

A tremor seized Sam’s chin. “I swear to you, I would never hurt this child.”

He sounded sincere. But in the grip of the drugs, could he say the same?

“Right now, Sam, we need to take him back.”

Sam shook his head, but there was no real fight in it.

“And I have to take you in.” He hadn’t expected it to be this easy. He’d envisioned an Amber Alert and highway closures. But Sam didn’t have the resources for that. Or the heart.

Jonah watched the words hit him, saw him realize the futility. Tears rimmed the man’s eyes as he squeezed his son close to his chest and kissed the top of Eli’s head. “I didn’t mean for it to come to this.”

“We never do.” Jonah swallowed.

Nineteen

What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

S
he had to be sure. And so she opened the door to the candle shop, tinkling the bell as she stepped in.

Tia looked up, braced herself almost imperceptibly, then forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Dr. Rainer, right?”

“Oh, call me Liz, Tia.”

“Liz,” she said flatly. “Can I help you?”

“I promised Lucy I’d bring her fresh melts. And I want something for someone else. I think you know Jonah Westfall?”

Tia formed a neutral expression and nodded.

“I want to thank him for the puppies he gave me.”

“Puppies?”

“Coyote pups.” Liz slipped a strand of hair behind her ear. “I patched up the mother when she made his closet her den.”

Tia braced her hips with her hands. “Jonah has a coyote in his closet.”

“And the remaining pup. Do you have a suggestion?” At Tia’s puzzled look, Liz clarified. “Something Jonah would like?”

“No. I don’t know what he’d like.” An edge slipped in. She seemed to realize and regret it.

“I’ll just browse then.”

Tia frowned. “I can’t think why he’d want one of these candles.”

Liz half turned. “To go with his collection.” She watched it hit the mark. The woman hadn’t known. “Believe me, Tia, he loves your work.” She chose an aspen leaf pillar. It didn’t really matter what she bought. “This will go nicely in his cabin with the others.” She set it on the counter.

Tia held her eyes with only a hint of distress. “Did you want melts?”

“Oh. I forgot.” She grabbed them off the shelf. Lucy would be glad for them, and it would explain her absence.

“Do you want them wrapped?”

“Yes, separately. It’s almost the best part.”

Tia’s face looked wan, and there could be no doubt. The anguish she’d seen through the window yesterday was real.

Tia locked the shop at the stroke of six and began the slow, limping climb toward her house. She could have driven, but she wouldn’t give a sprained ankle and a bruised calf the power to limit her. Besides the pain felt good. Every jolt up her leg offered the chance to beat it back, to take another step.

I’m—still—walking
.

She didn’t know who she was telling. It didn’t matter.

Liz had laid her bare, and she was dying, had, in fact, been dying for over nine years. Or if she were truly morbid, since birth. Piece by piece.

Everyone was, she guessed, but most people managed to live in between. She had tried so many times to spread her wings, but criticism and judgment had formed bars she’d flung herself against. Now if all she could do was beat back the pain, she’d beat it back with every step. She might have no wings. But she had legs. She had will. She clenched her teeth against the pain. She—was—still—alive.

Walking up the street, Liz watched as Tia came into view, then vanished, then appeared and disappeared between and behind the buildings. Their progress and cadence was ironically similar, a strong step and a weak—mirror images. Though pain furrowed Tia’s face, her injury would heal. Liz had healed long ago, yet her injury remained.

She hadn’t planned to follow her, wasn’t following her now. Their paths had merely found a parallel course. She rubbed her side, her hip. The grade was steep, and Tia’s path had veered away from the businesses. Liz took the alley between two shops and paused as Tia moved farther up toward a street with turn-of-the-century houses nestled into the mountainside.

Liz frowned. She would have to climb the path behind her or simply wait to see where she went. It only mattered because understanding Tia would help to understand Jonah. She could not abide suffering, and his pain in seeing Tia had been raw.

The revelation had stung her, but only briefly. He’d given her the puppies, and in that they shared a wondrous task. What could he possibly share with anyone else that would matter so much?

Piper all but pulled Tia in the door. “I can’t believe you’re walking on that leg.”

Tia sighed. “I can’t let it beat me.” She sank onto the settee in obvious pain.

“Really?” Frustration welled up. “Or maybe you can’t let it heal.” Tia looked up, surprised.

“That’s how you are with everything, isn’t it? How you are with Jonah. You want it to hurt.”

The pain in Tia’s face spoke for itself.

Piper folded herself onto the settee beside her. “Why?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Why can’t you and Jonah fix what’s wrong?”

Tia swallowed. “Because it hurt other people.”

“You said he broke your sister’s heart—”

“
I
broke my sister’s heart.” Tia’s eyes looked like wounds. “Jonah was the love of her life. They wanted to marry, have kids. He’d finished his criminology courses and become a cop. Reba was studying interior design.” Tia’s face looked almost fierce. “They had it all planned out.”

“But they didn’t get married?”

Tia paused, then sighed. “His dad, the former chief of police—you’d have to have known him to really understand—was charming and charismatic and handsome as all get out.”

“Like father like son.”

Tia looked up, stricken. “It would kill Jonah to hear that. And it isn’t true. Stan Westfall was hard and twisted inside. Even I don’t know all the damage he did, but trust me, Jonah carries the scars.” She’d seen their shadows in his eyes.

“So what happened?”

“A young woman died when Stan Westfall arrested her.”

“Died of what?”

“Shot with his gun.”

“He shot her?”

“The investigation determined that she went for the gun and they struggled. They cleared him.” She moistened her lips. “But Jonah suspected something had not been addressed in the findings. He went to confront his dad, and Stan Westfall shot himself.”

Piper gasped. “That’s awful!”

“Yeah.”

“What did Jonah suspect?”

“He’s never told me.” Her voice sounded far away. “After that, Jonah lost himself for awhile. He started drinking. Reba tried, but she could not get through to him. She didn’t have the pieces he’d given me, all the things he’d told me through the years, things he didn’t want her to know.”

Tia’s face contorted. “I knew I couldn’t fix it, but I wanted to help. He came to the house, and Reba wasn’t home. No one was. He told me he was breaking the engagement.”

Tia pressed her fingertips into her eye sockets. “I was only going to hold him, but then we were kissing. He tasted like whiskey and went right to my head. It was the first time I’d ever …” She released a hard breath. “My whole family walked in on us. We hadn’t even gone upstairs.”

“Omigosh.” It came out on a breath.

“What I can’t change, what I can barely live with, is the look I saw on my sister’s face.” Jonah sat alone on his porch in the dark. Elbows on his thighs, hands locked behind his neck, he stretched the tension from his spine with night-chilled fingers. Dealing with Sam and Eli had taken his mind from the earlier discussion with the mayor, but it haunted him now.

How many times had Buckley and the former chief of police agreed to look away? Stan Westfall had a legendary reputation, the walk and manner of a man who would crush any lawbreaker unfortunate enough to cross his path. Had it been a sham? Was the whole job a sham?

Jonah knew too well the cruelty that accompanied punishment in his father’s world. What incentive could Buckley have offered to counter that desire to punish, if indeed they had
balanced
their interests for the good of the town? A reciprocal blindness?

To what? Domestic violence? Child abuse? Not a single investigation. Not one. How much more had Stan Westfall been excused before his son forced the truth? And took his place.

His stomach recoiled. If Buckley thought he could manipulate him, he was sorely mistaken. Scrutinizing the file had yielded no leads, but he would not ignore a dark and potentially lethal threat. Although he had a feel for the method, he hadn’t grasped the motivation for the mutilations. He would keep digging until he did, and if it unearthed a cult or extraterrestrials or, as he expected, a sick and twisted individual, justice would be served.

But still the conversation nagged. One young girl had died. Had there been others? He pressed his hands to his face. He knew the potential pitfall of reverence. He would rather have every move scrutinized than be given a free pass. Stan Westfall’s whole life had been a pass. Until the end.

Sweat broke out between his palms and forehead. His breath got shallow. He tasted the rusty smell of blood. Clenching his hands in his hair, he ground his teeth in fury. How could the mayor think he would ever follow that man’s footsteps?

From the depths of an exhausted sleep, the sound of a drill bored, paused, bored again until she realized it was her cell phone on vibrate. Tia slitted her eyes to find it, flip it, grope as it tumbled, and raise it to read the display. Short of a death in the family, and maybe not even then, only the Hopeline rang in the wee hours.

“Hello?” She tried to brush the sleep from her voice. “Hopeline.”

“And if there isn’t any?”

“Excuse me?”

“What happens when there is no hope?”

Tia pushed up to one elbow as the question sent a needle to her heart. “Then we rely on faith.”

The scratchy voice was either male or an older woman, or someone who had smoked too long. “And what is faith?”

“The deliberate confidence in the character of God whether we understand or not.” Her version of Oswald Chambers, and the only explanation she could manage.

In the silence she wondered if it had sounded glib. Or merely resigned. She’d meant neither. “Without hope, there are only two choices, faith or despair.”

The voice rasped. “What about joy?”

“In my experience, joy isn’t possible without hope. But with faith there is still the possibility of victory.”

“How can you have victory without joy?”

“You embrace what’s left to you, not turning your back to the challenge but facing it head on. It’s not easy, and it may not feel good, but it’s better than giving in.” For the first time in years she saw herself as the pirate child, lashed to the rigging as the storm cast itself upon her, tearing at her with vicious fingers and howling in her ears. She felt like howling back. How dare despair devour her?