Last Light (28 page)
As the candle flickered, sending shadows dancing on the walls around her room, she looked around at the Laura Ashley wall-paper, the satin comforter, and all the silk and satin pillows decorating her bed. They all seemed so useless, so ridiculous now.
She was stuck here, in a place she hated, uncertain if she was loved or forgotten by the man who’d promised to marry her for better or for worse. Had he rethought the worse? Had he decided she was okay as a trophy wife when things were going great, but not when times were tough?
She threw herself on her bed, and wept into the pillow, cursing her plight, and wishing she knew who to blame.
It was dark by the time Doug made it home from the lake. A lamp burned on the coffee table in the great room, but the rest of the house was dark. Man, he was sick of the darkness. Until now, the prospect of this outage being long-term had been a challenge that he’d embraced. But now that they had word from the government about how massive and catastrophic it really was, reality settled like arthritis into his bones.
Some of the neighbors were hysterical after Hank’s announcement, and he’d spent the last two hours helping Hank try to calm them down. The ones who’d blown this off as a temporary outage had taken it the hardest. It was a huge jump from denial to stark-raving truth.
The swap meet they’d hoped for never quite happened the way he imagined. Though there were hundreds of needs, very few were willing to share what they had. He’d heard Kay making deals as he put out the fires of panic. She’d offered one of their bikes to the Keegans. In return, they’d given her several jars of vegetables from their garden. The new family had traded some assorted items for another bike. A few people had been out of batteries, so Doug shared what he’d gotten from Wal-Mart. Several young mothers were out of diapers, so a few of the older ladies had stepped in to help them make cloth ones.
Those with medical needs had flocked to Derek Morton like children to the Pied Piper. The young doctor had commented that he probably had enough business here to set up a clinic in his home. Doug figured he was looking for a reason not to make that long commute into the city each shift. Judith Caldwell, Brad’s wife, and some of the other nurses had offered their help.
But that was the extent of the generosity tonight.
He found Kay in the bathroom, supervising Logan’s sponge bath by the light of several of the candles. Their son stood in a pair of shorts that hadn’t been that baggy two weeks ago, and dribbled water all over the ceramic tiles as he scrubbed off the sweat and dirt.
Doug leaned in the doorway. “Hey. Where is everybody?”
Kay almost couldn’t look at him. “In their rooms. Grieving.”
“It’s not like somebody died.”
The shadows cast by the candlelight made Kay look exhausted. “Yes, it is. To the kids it’s a lot like that. It’s the death of the world as we know it.” She left Logan to finish bathing and went with Doug into the family room. Sinking onto the couch, she looked up at him. “So it’s official.”
He sat down next to her and kicked off his shoes. “But it wasn’t a surprise. We’d already figured out this was long-term.”
Kay’s sigh spoke volumes. “We didn’t know it was worldwide. That no one can explain it. That no one knows what to do to end it.”
He laid his head back on the cushions, staring at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. “I know. That letter Hank read kind of declared the end of life as we know it.”
“It did.” Kay pulled her feet up on the couch and set her chin on her knees. “And when the kids and I got home, I went into the bedroom and had a good cry. I started thinking about what a catastrophe this is. Feeling real sorry for myself. Then an image popped into my mind, of a huge mushroom cloud chasing people covered by ashes and blood through the streets of Manhattan . . . buildings falling, people jumping . . . dying.”
“September eleventh?”
“That’s right.
That
was a catastrophe. This is an inconvenience.”
Relief flooded through him. He’d fully expected to have to calm her down, too. “I’m proud of you for taking it like that.”
She sighed. “I’m not saying I’m looking forward to any of it. I hate not having electricity. I hate feeling dirty all the time. I hate the desperation of trying to feed the family. But I think we were onto something this morning. God
has
given this to us for a reason. And our question shouldn’t be ‘why?’ but ‘what now?’ ”
Doug had never loved her more. He leaned over to kiss her.
A banging on the front door startled them apart, and Doug grabbed his Remington. The banging didn’t let up.
He ran to open it. Judith Caldwell stumbled in. “Doug, you’ve got to help us! They’re gonna kill him!”
She pulled him outside. In the moonlight, he saw the fight that had broken out in the Caldwells’ front yard. Surrounded by men armed with guns and baseball bats, Brad seemed to be fighting for his life.
Doug winced as one of the bats swung. He heard a
thwack
,
and Brad hit the ground.
Judith screamed.
Some of the men descended on Brad, and Doug heard his grunts as the beating grew worse. Bolting toward them, Doug chambered a round in his rifle and fired into the sky. That got their attention, and the men backed away. “Get back or I’ll shoot! All of you!”
Panting like dogs, the men backed away. Doug wasn’t at all surprised to see Sam Ellington and the others who had tried to enlist him the other day.
“You gonna defend a murderer?” Sam spat out.
Brad scrambled to his feet, blood running into his eye. “Tell them, Doug,” he said through his teeth. “I’m not a killer.”
“I did tell them. They wouldn’t listen.” He chambered another round.
“We won’t listen because he’s the one everybody saw out on both nights the killer struck,” Lou Grantham said. “We’re gonna protect this neighborhood if we have to kill him to do it.”
Breathing hard, Brad spat the blood out of his mouth. “Who’s gonna protect the neighborhood from
you
?”
Doug aimed the gun, ready to use it. He heard Judith crying in Kay’s arms on his front porch, and saw Kay coaxing her into the house. This was his fault. He had planned to report their vigilante plans to the sheriff. But he hadn’t wanted Scarbrough to start blaming Brad, too. Despite the supposed advances in overcoming prejudice, the lone black man in the neighborhood was an all-too-convenient scapegoat.
“Pop?”
He turned and saw Jeremy and Drew standing barefoot in their pajamas, gaping at their wounded father. Brad forced himself to stand straighter. “Hey, guys.” He was still out of breath, but kept his voice calm. “Everything’s all right.”
Jeremy started to cry. “No, it’s not. You’re bleeding.”
Brad leaned over to comfort him. “Pop’s okay. I just bumped my head, and these folks are trying to help me.”
“Tell him the truth, Caldwell.” It was Paul Burlin who spoke.
Doug had never wanted to shoot a person before, but his finger itched on the trigger. “If you value your lives, you’ll get off this man’s property before I lose my temper.”
Slowly, the group gave up. As they left the Caldwells’ yard, Doug heard them muttering about coming back later and finishing the job.
When they’d gone, Judith came running over. She threw her arms around Brad. “Did they hurt you, baby?”
Still aware of his children, he pretended to be fine. “You know I don’t break easy. Why don’t you go put the boys back to bed?”
Judith followed his lead. “See there?” she told her crying children. “Pop’s fine. Come on, now.”
Doug followed him in, and as Judith herded them upstairs, Brad seemed to wilt. “Man, are you all right?”
There was a lamp burning in the kitchen, and as Brad limped into the light, he saw the damage they’d done. His lip was busted and swollen, and his teeth were bloody. A big gash bled on his head, and one eye was almost swollen shut. He clutched his ribs as if they, too, were injured. Leaning over the sink, he spat out blood.
A pitcher of water sat next to the sink. Doug poured him a glass and watched him wash out his mouth. “You want me to get Derek? He can stitch up that wound.”
Brad shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“But you need stitches, man. I can have him over here in a few minutes.”
“I said no.” He turned to Doug, his face hard. “You knew they suspected me, and you didn’t tell me?”
Doug leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t think it would go this far. They tried to enlist me in their little vigilante gang, but I told them no thank you. I defended you—”
“Why did I need defending? All I’ve done is try to watch out for this neighborhood.” He got a towel and pressed it against his gash. “Yeah, I’ve been out at night. But that’s because I was trying to start a neighborhood watch, and nobody signed up. I felt like I had the responsibility.
Somebody
had to do it.”
“I know that.”
“And this is the thanks I get?” He kicked a chair, almost knocking it over. “It’s because I’m black, isn’t it? Because I had the unmitigated gall to move into this neighborhood.”
Doug couldn’t look him in the eye. “They don’t represent the whole neighborhood, Brad.”
“But while they’re scheming about how to take me out, the real killer’s getting away with it.”
That was true—and that, added with his concern for Brad, made up Doug’s mind. “We’ll go to the sheriff first thing tomorrow. He needs to know Sam and his goons are as much of a threat to the neighborhood as the killer himself. But right now, I’m worried about you. You need a doctor. Derek would come—”
“I don’t want Derek Morton in my house!”
His outburst made no sense. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t trust him. There’s something not right about him. I’ve seen him out at night, sneaking through the streets like some kind of prowler.”
“What?”
Doug gaped at him. “Are we talking about the same person? Why haven’t you told me this before?”
“Because I wasn’t sure. I’m still not. But I don’t have a good feeling about him. Don’t worry about it. Judith can nurse my wounds.”
So now they couldn’t even trust the one doctor in Oak Hollow? Doug stared at Brad. Was he just jumping to conclusions, the same way that group of rednecks had done?
Suddenly, he was out of reassurances. The bright side had lost its shine. Everything looked tarnished, hopeless.
He was tired, so very tired. He hadn’t slept at all last night, and today had been jam-packed. His head throbbed with information overload, and he hadn’t had time to process any of what had been thrown at him tonight. Yet he knew he couldn’t let his guard down.
If anything, life had just gotten a little more dangerous.
Kay went over to check on the Caldwells the next morning. Judith had all the windows closed and locked. She told Kay she feared opening the doors to let any air circulate. Their home had become a ninety-degree fortress. The children sat coloring at the kitchen table, forbidden to go outside for fear that the neighborhood men might lynch them to prove a point. Judith kept Brad’s rifle within reach at all times, certain she would need to use it.
“Brad’s sleeping, finally.” Judith stood at the kitchen window, eyes sweeping what she could see of the street. “I think he has a couple of broken ribs. I stitched up his head with dental floss. He has some loose teeth, but at least none were knocked out.”
Kay could only imagine what Judith was going through. “I hope you plan to press charges. Doug’s going to find the sheriff today and bring him here.”
“It won’t do any good. It’ll only make him suspicious of Brad, too.” She led Kay into the living room and busied herself cleaning up the evidence of the nursing she’d done last night. A bottle of alcohol, a hand towel with blood on it, a pack of needles . . .
After she’d gathered them up, she sank onto the couch. “Kay, there’s a reason Brad was so dead-set on guarding the neighborhood. There’s something you should know about him.”
Kay sat down next to her. “What?”
Judith glanced toward the kitchen, making sure her sons weren’t in earshot. “When Brad was growing up, his little eight-year-old brother was murdered.”
Kay sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know that.”