Last Light (35 page)

He’d built a wagon out of wood, but instead of a wooden bench seat, he’d put in two captain’s chairs like those one would find in a van. Instead of wooden wheels, like they’d had in the old days, he’d fitted the wagon with four Goodyear tires.

“I got four horses to pull us,” he said. “It’ll be a smooth ride, all the way.”

Deni couldn’t help grinning. “It’s creative, I’ll say that. I never would have thought of using a car’s tires.”

She glanced at his van, parked in the adjoining bay. It still had all four tires, and the seats were still intact. Had he stolen those on the wagon from stalled vehicles?

Well, it was none of her business.

“So you can see we’ll be comfortable, and we’ll make good time.”

Hope spiraled up in her heart. She could be in D.C. in a matter of days. She imagined the look on Craig’s face when he saw her. She couldn’t wait. “When do you think you’ll be ready to go?”

“I had already planned to leave this weekend. That okay with you?”

Deni sighed. “You can’t leave earlier?”

“No, I still have some work to do on the rig. I want to put some kind of roof over it, to keep the sun from baking our brains, and protect us and our stuff from rain. Plus I won’t be able to get the horses until Saturday. I’ll be ready to leave Sunday.”

Deni thought of that church service her family was planning. If she wasn’t going to leave until Sunday, she at least needed to sit through her dad’s sermon. Otherwise, he’d be so distracted by her absence that he might not be able to concentrate. “Do you think you can wait until after lunch Sunday? My dad’s doing a church thing that morning, and I really don’t want to freak him out beforehand. He’s going to be nervous enough.”

“Sure, honey. I can take my time loading up the wagon.”

“What are you taking with us?”

He shrugged. “Just some inventory for my stores.”

“What kind of stores did you say you owned?”

“Bookstores.”

Deni frowned. That was odd. He didn’t strike her as a book lover, but then, she didn’t know him that well. There were no bookshelves in his tropical living room, and in all the times she’d come to swim, he’d never been reading to pass the time.

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to spend much time at each place. Just long enough to meet with my managers and make sure they get the stores opened back up for business.”

Deni didn’t tell him that no one was going to use their precious cash for books, when they were scraping for food. No point in talking him out of the trip. “Thanks. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone I’m going with you. I don’t want my family to stop me.”

“Sure you don’t want to tell them? I don’t want anybody accusing me of kidnapping after we’re gone. I have to come back and live here.”

“If I tell them, they won’t let me go. But I’m an adult, and I have every right to do what I want. I’ll leave them a note so they’ll know I went on my own free will, but the less they know, the better.”

“What about Mark and Chris?” Vic asked. “They heard us talking about it.”

“I’ll talk to both of them and convince them not to tell.” She stooped down to pet the dog, and he nuzzled into her hand. “What are you going to do with Scrappy? Take him with us?”

“No, he’s too delicate. Not the kind to rough it. I’m gonna leave him with one of my sons.”

Deni wondered if
she
was up to roughing it. But for Craig, she could do anything.

As she rode her bike home, a sense of trepidation fell over her, but she forced it away. She would not let guilt or fear keep her from her plans. She was going to be with Craig, and nothing was going to stop her.

forty-five

Early Sunday morning, a gunshot jerked Doug from a dead sleep. He lunged out of bed and grabbed his rifle. Kay sprang up beside him.

“Doug!”

He held a hand out to keep her from following him. “Stay here!”

“But Jeff’s in there!”

He led with his gun, stepping toward the lamplight flickering in the kitchen. Rain pounded on the windows, and thunder cracked overhead.

What if Jeff had been shot? The killer could be in the house right now, heading up the stairs to his children.

“Dad?”

It was Jeff’s voice, and Doug was able to breathe again. “Jeff, are you all right?”

“Yeah, Dad. It was a mistake.”

He saw his son then, standing at the french doors leading out onto the patio. A pane of glass had been shattered by the gunshot. “What do you mean, a mistake?”

“I heard something. I’d kind of dozed off, and the sound scared me. Then I thought I saw something outside, so I fired.”

Jeff’s hands were shaking as he held his shotgun.

Doug pointed the barrel of his rifle through the glass. “What did you see?”

Jeff didn’t answer right away. “After I fired, I saw a raccoon running off.”

Doug lowered his gun. “A raccoon? Are you kidding?”

“No, Dad. I wish I were. I just got spooked and overreacted.”

Doug turned to look at his son. “Jeff, you’re never supposed to fire that gun unless it’s an emergency. A raccoon is not an emergency!”

“I know. I feel like an idiot, okay?”

A knock sounded on the front door, startling them. They both swung around. It had to be three in the morning. Who would be knocking on the door?

Thunder cracked again, and the rain pounded harder against the windows. Doug went cautiously toward the front door. “Who is it?” he called through.

“Brad. I heard a gunshot. Is everything all right?”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Doug opened the door. Brad was soaking wet.

“It was a false alarm,” Doug said. “A raccoon.”

Jeff shrugged. “I thought it was somebody breaking in, but it wasn’t.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“You got that right,” Doug said. “Come on in.”

Brad looked down at his muddy Reeboks. “No, I don’t want to track anything in. Besides, I don’t want to leave Judith and the kids alone. I just wanted to see if you needed help.”

“Thanks for checking.” Doug closed the door as Brad stepped off the porch. He turned to see Kay standing in her gown.

“Jeff?”

“It’s okay, Mom. It was just—”

“I heard,” she cut in. “But do you see how you could have killed someone? You can’t just go firing at random like that! What if it had been one of us?”

“I wouldn’t have shot just anybody, Mom. I heard something. It was real. It happened to be a raccoon this time, but how could I be sure?”

“Mom? Dad?” It was Deni, halfway down the stairs. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s okay. Come on down.” Doug filled her in on what had happened, and sent her back to bed.

But Kay was still a wreck. Doug was too tired to argue this out tonight. “Look, we’ll talk this over tomorrow. It was a mistake. Nobody got hurt.”

“Not even the raccoon.” Humiliation flattened Jeff’s tone.

Doug took his son’s shotgun. “Help me tape up the window so the rain doesn’t blow in, and then go on to bed.”

“No, Dad. It’s my watch. You have to preach a sermon later. You need your sleep.”

Doug shook his head. “You’re too tired. That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t dozed off. You can’t keep guard if you fall asleep and wake up firing.”

Jeff looked as depressed as he’d been the day he was hit in the head at Wal-Mart. But Doug couldn’t worry about that now. He taped a piece of cardboard over the broken glass, then sent Jeff to bed.

Kay waited until Jeff was gone. “Doug, I had a bad feeling about Jeff getting so much responsibility. He doesn’t need to be put in a position where he can fall asleep with a loaded gun!”

“What do you want me to do, Kay? I can’t give up sleep entirely. I need his help.”

“Then let me take turns with you. Jeff is sixteen. He’s not mature enough to make the right judgments.”

“Yes, he is. He just made a mistake.”

“Doug, we can’t have him firing whenever he hears something!”

Doug sighed. “I know that. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. We’ll figure out something.”

Kay finally went back to bed, and Doug sat on the couch facing the french doors, his gun aimed at the exact spot where the cardboard was taped. The rain kept pounding down. He hoped it was keeping the killer at home tonight.

Quietly, he prayed that God would help them find the killer soon. He didn’t know how much longer his family could go on like this.

The rain stopped as daylight came, and Doug went outside to clean up the glass.

But before he started sweeping, something caught his eye.

Several muddy footprints led up to his door, then headed out toward the grass. He stooped down and studied the print. Were they his own? Jeff’s?

There was a zigzag pattern on the print. Doug checked the bottom of his sneakers. The pattern was different.

He stood up, wondering if there had been someone here last night, after all. He went back in, and saw Jeff’s sneakers lying on the floor by the couch. He picked one up, turned it over. No, his hadn’t made the prints, either.

Fear lodged in Doug’s throat as he thought back over last night’s events. Jeff had been sure he’d heard something. He’d fired into the dark.

Just because a raccoon had dashed by didn’t mean no one was there. Maybe the gunshot had frightened the intruder off.

He stepped out into the yard, looking for more evidence. The rain had erased any prints that might have been left in the yard. Still, he walked around the house, searching for anything the would-be intruder might have dropped. He saw nothing.

Finally, he got to the front of the house and stepped up onto the porch. Standing there, he scanned the yard. Had someone been there? Had Jeff saved their lives?

The front door opened, and Kay leaned out. “There you are. What are you doing?”

He wondered if he should tell her. Slowly, he stepped toward her, looking at the ground and trying to decide . . .

And then he saw them. More footprints, exactly like the ones in back. But he knew who had made these.

Brad Caldwell.

Doug suddenly felt sick.

“Doug, what is it?”

He looked toward his neighbor’s house. “Jeff didn’t shoot at a raccoon last night,” he said finally. “He really did hear someone. They left prints. The same ones as these.”

It took Kay a moment to follow what he was saying. “Are you saying . . . Brad?”

Doug felt the blood draining from his face. “I can’t say for sure. But maybe we need to talk to the sheriff.”

Not wanting to waste a moment, Doug rode his ten-speed to the sheriff’s office, but it was closed. Since he wasn’t sure where he lived, and it was getting close to time for his church service, he decided he’d have to tell him about the prints later. He hoped the people who came wouldn’t walk all over them. To make sure they didn’t, he turned a clay pot upside down over one of them. He hoped that would preserve it until the sheriff could see the evidence.

forty-six

Only a few people showed up for the service, and Deni wondered what the point was. Her parents had been whispering like crazy all morning, and instead of treating Jeff like a loser for shooting at a raccoon last night, they’d bent over backward to make him feel better. Her parents seemed preoccupied as they’d prepared the house for company.

It was just as well, since it kept them from coming upstairs. She didn’t want them to find her packed suitcase.

When the guests arrived, they sat around the dimly lit family room like Tupperware ladies, and her dad preached from a dining room chair he’d brought in. As he spoke, Deni’s eyes swept from one face to another—from Judith, who’d come without Brad, to Chris’s family, to the children lined up on the floor, to Mark and Vic Green.

She’d been startled to see her rescuer coming to the ser-vice, since he hadn’t told her he’d be there. She tried not to make eye contact with him as her father preached. His presence seemed like an act of defiance, a thumbing of his nose at the family who would be reeling and upset when they discovered her missing in just a few hours. He was going to take her away, and it might be months before she’d be able to see them again.