Shadow in Serenity (20 page)

L
ogan was the life of Jason’s party, and as Carny videotaped his shenanigans with the children, she realized she wouldn’t have expected otherwise.

“Do it again, Logan!”

“Throw me!”

“It’s my turn, Logan!”

The children’s happy voices rang out over the music playing at the picnic table as they jumped on the trampoline Carny had given Jason for his birthday. Without inhibition, Logan bounced on the trampoline, dribbling the kids like basketballs.

Not once had he seemed nervous about the fact that she was taping him — and he wasn’t embarrassed about looking foolish — but later when they assembled the children around the picnic table to cut the cake, when she got her camera and began flashing pictures, she noted a touch of apprehension. Logan managed to escape most of the pictures she took, and when she cornered him, he shoved on a pair of big nose glasses she had given as party favors, and evaded the camera once again.

Annoyed, she finally got him alone. “Tell me something, Logan. Why don’t you want me to take your picture?”

“Because I’m not very photogenic,” he said. “The pupils
of my eyes always come out with this demonic red glow. And I have that old superstition about photography stealing your soul.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“What’s the big deal? You got a picture of me in Houston.”

“It didn’t come out,” she said. “I accidentally deleted it.”

“Likely story.”

“Let me get a picture of you and Jason together now. It would mean a lot to him. All I want to do is put it up in his room.”

“Now who’s being dishonest?” His amusement faded, and he gave her a sober look that spoke volumes. “You want it so you can check me out. Do you want a fingerprint while you’re at it? How about my dental records?”

She set her hand on her hip. “Do you have them?”

“No, Carny. Do you have yours?”

“Well … no.”

“All right, then.” She felt a wall going up between them, and she didn’t like it. Finally, he said, “Go ahead. Take the picture. I don’t have anything to hide. You’ve got me all over that videotape.”

Backing away, she brought the camera to her eye. “Smile, Logan. Act like you’re having fun.”

Logan forced a smile, and she flashed a few pictures in a row. Finally, she lowered the camera. “Thank you.”

His smile disappeared, and a melancholy seemed to fall over him. For a while, he sat on a lawn chair away from the kids. She didn’t like the change, and she kicked herself for bringing it on. Finally, when he got up to help her clean the picnic table of plates and cups, he stopped her and made her look at him. “Tell me something, Carny. You do believe me about the park now, don’t you? You don’t think I’m going to skip town with all this money anymore.”

“You still could,” she said. When he sighed, she wanted to take her words back. “But no, I’m not expecting it anymore.”

“Then why do you want my picture?”

“I’d just like a keepsake. I take pictures of all my friends. If you don’t have anything to hide, then I don’t get why you’re hiding from the camera.”

“I’m just disappointed that you’re still trying to see if I’m on the Top Ten Most Wanted list.”

She tossed the last of the plates into a garbage bag and put it into her garbage can. “Other people don’t worry about pictures, Brisco. You sound worried.”

“Carny, what if people held your past against you? Reminded you of it every time you turned around? Never trusted you because they knew what you were before? What if they spent a lot of time digging up your dirt and made lists of all the scams you helped pull off?”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, you are, even though you know people can change.”

“So you are avoiding having your picture taken?”

He rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “You know what? Be my guest. Take a picture and send it all over the country. Make billboards of it. Put it on YouTube, if you have nothing better to do with your time.”

A football rolled to his feet, and he reached down and scooped it up. “They’re calling me,” he said, and headed back to the boys.

That night when Logan was alone, his mask fell, and the nonchalance he’d feigned about being photographed began to weigh heavily on his mind. He should have known he couldn’t stop her attempts to photograph him forever. That
was probably the only reason she’d invited him to Jason’s party.

And he’d believed it was because she wanted him there.

Jack hopped up onto the bed next to him, and Logan stroked his rich coat. “Don’t worry, Jack. Logan Brisco doesn’t have a record. But if they match my picture to Lawrence Cartland …”

Here he was, on the verge of doing something legitimate, something that he was pulling off with hard work, ingenuity, and the talent that he’d used to the wrong end so many times before. Carny was beginning to trust him, and that was one of the biggest victories in his life. But it was a hollow victory.

If she sent that picture in to the police, and they shared it with the FBI, someone might make the connection. If the FBI heard he was at it again, they’d come after him and blow his cover, ruining the one shot he had at legitimacy. He had already served time for his previous crimes, but if they thought he was committing fraud again, they’d consider it a parole violation.

In the interest of starting an honest life, he considered breaking into Carny’s house and deleting the video and pictures again. But that was absurd.

He threw his arm over his eyes and tried to imagine how she would feel if the FBI came to her and told her that she had been right to suspect him. That he’d even served time for his sins?

The times they had shared would seem like another con to her. The conversations they’d shared, the camaraderie, the laughter … it would all seem cruel. She deserved so much better.

For the first time in his life, he wished he could erase his past. The time with Montague, when he’d learned
how to be a criminal. The people he’d hurt, despite Montague’s rules. Those rules — what a joke. The people they’d scammed were people just like these in Serenity. Though Montague assured himself that no one was really getting hurt, they’d always known better. They just wouldn’t let themselves think about it.

The fortune the Feds had taken from him when he went to prison had paid restitution to most of those people, but the pain of what the scams had done to their lives was only hitting him now. Seeing those crimes through Carny’s eyes made them all seem so much more real. If she learned about his past, she would realize that she’d been right about him all along. She would feel as if she had been fleeced — and why? Because she’d let down her guard. She would hate herself for getting close to him.

She deserved a decent man who could make her proud. Not some ex-con who had deceived her from the start.

Jack slid off the bed and ambled to the door. “Need to go out, boy? All right. I need some air anyway.”

Logan opened the door and walked Jack out. The dog needed no leash. He went where he wanted to go, avoiding the streets and staying close to Logan. But having no leash also gave Jack freedom, if he chose to take it. If he wanted to run away, he could.

That was how Logan had been with Montague.

For the first time, he realized that Montague had taken a huge risk in taking in a young runaway. It had broken his own rules, making it more likely that he could be identified. Yes, Montague had reaped the benefits of having Logan helping him. But taking responsibility for a kid was a huge commitment for him.

Truth was, Logan had been scamming people before he’d met Montague, so he couldn’t blame his mentor for turning
him into a criminal. He’d known right from wrong. He’d voluntarily gone along with Montague’s crimes because he liked making money. Like Jack, he could have left at any time. But even before Montague died, it had been a lonely life. Ironic that he’d found a place where he wasn’t lonely and wanted to plant roots, but his own sins were going to keep him from it. Carny would find out the truth, and he would lose everything. There would be no redemption in her eyes.

He walked up the street, Jack sniffing and scampering along beside him. He passed the hardware store and the barbershop and Lahoma’s hair salon and felt a longing in his soul to do the right thing for those people. He was trying to turn their investments into something that would make life better for them. But it was about to blow to pieces.

He was tired of running. Tired of lying. Tired of faking it.

He reached the church, its steeple illuminated on the dark street. He sat down on a bench near it, watching Jack explore the bushes.

When Carny had come here with Abe Sullivan, had she told people straight out who she’d been? Did they all know of her colorful lifestyle right up front? Or had she felt like he felt tonight? Worried that people would find out and run her out of town?

She talked about being washed clean and forgiven. But was there such a thing available for him? No, of course not.

Jack came and lay down at his feet, but Logan didn’t want to go back to the inn just yet. His eyes strayed to the cemetery where Slade Hampton lay. Had Jack forgotten that they’d planted his master in the ground there? Or was he simply aware that Slade wasn’t really there, in the ground, that his body was just an empty shell?

He’d seldom considered it before, but as he sat outside
the church that taught of redemption, he wondered if it could be true. They had talked about Slade’s soul going to heaven. The people in this town seemed to believe it, and as innocent and naive as they were, they weren’t stupid.

He looked up at the steeple, then beyond it to the stars sprinkled so beautifully across the sky. The universe was an artist’s canvas, so carefully crafted.

“I wish you were real,” he said to the sky. “That you really could wash me clean. That a person like me could really start over and live in this town, and have a woman like Carny, and be a father to a boy like Jason. But there isn’t enough water in all the world to wash me clean of the stains on my soul, is there?”

As if in answer to his prayer, he saw a star shoot across the sky. He caught his breath. Was that a sign, sent by a benevolent God who heard his prayer? No, it couldn’t be. As much as he wanted it, he knew better. It was just a meteor.

Tears filled his eyes, and he dropped his gaze and leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked at the sign for Deep Waters Christian Church, illuminated with two spotlights. There was a verse beneath the name, something he hadn’t noticed before. He sat up and squinted, reading. “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Water. He looked back at the sky, struck by the words. Was
that
the water that would wash him clean?

Somehow, deep in his spirit, he knew the answer. He’d been right that there wasn’t enough water on all the earth to wash him clean. The water that would wash him clean wasn’t earthly water. It was divine.

He memorized the reference — John 4:13. Maybe there was a Bible in his room.

“Come on, Jack,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

His pace was faster, more purposeful, as he headed back to his room.

When Jack was back on his bed, Logan pulled out the bed-table drawer. As he’d expected, he found a Gideon Bible there. He consulted the table of contents, found John, and read in the fourth chapter of a woman who met Jesus beside a well as she was drawing water.

She too was someone stained with sin, yet Jesus had given her hope. He’d given her living water. He hadn’t turned away.

Maybe there was hope for Logan too.

Fresh tears assaulted him as he sat beside his bed and spoke directly to the redeemer of his soul. “I’m sorry I’m a cheat and a liar,” he whispered. “But since you’re my only hope, I’m going to trust that you’re real. If you could just wash me clean …”

To his amazement, he
did
feel something happening. A lifting of guilt. A cleansing. A lightness in his soul. Tears rolled down his face. It
was
real. His mother had known it when she’d taken him to Sunday School all those years ago. Maybe from her place in heaven, she was bending God’s ear, begging him to direct her son. Maybe that was why he’d wound up in Serenity after all.

But believing he was clean wasn’t enough. There were things he had to do to make it right. It was time to tell the truth.

T
he house was lonely without Jason, and Carny lay awake in bed, listening for sounds of the boys in the woods behind their house, camping out with Nathan’s father for a combination birthday and “school’s out” celebration. But it wasn’t the quiet that kept her awake. It was Logan.

He had been wonderful with the children today, and without him, Jason’s party wouldn’t have been the success it was. The paradox of Logan Brisco puzzled her … yet part of her understood him.

The doorbell rang and she jumped out of bed and grabbed her robe. It was probably Jason. He had probably heard a noise, or gotten cold, or suffered one too many mosquito bites.

She hurried into the living room and peered through the window. It wasn’t Jason who stood there, but Logan. Her heart jolted. She opened the door. “Logan?”

He looked as serious as she had ever seen him, but he made no attempt to come in. He merely leaned against the door casing with his hands in his pockets. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

Slowly, she stepped back, allowing him in. She closed the door behind him. “Just a minute. Let me go get dressed.” She ran back to her bedroom and threw on the clothes she’d had on earlier.
This is it
, she thought. This was the moment
when she’d have to deal with the emotional havoc of getting involved with a man like Logan Brisco. “What about?”

His face was somber, and his eyes held no trace of their usual amusement. “I haven’t been entirely honest,” he said. “I want to change that now.”

“I’m listening.”

He took her hand, led her to the couch, and sat down beside her. She pulled her knees up, hugged them, protecting herself from whatever was about to come.

“Today, when you took my picture … I lied when I said it was okay for you to take it. The truth is, I
was
avoiding it.”

Her heart deflated slowly. “Why?”

“I’ve already told you that I had a checkered past, Carny. Just like you.”

“But if you’re not a criminal, what does it matter?”

He sighed and looked down at his hands. They were shaking. “I have been a criminal. I spent years in prison for my crimes.”

Every muscle in her body grew rigid. For a moment, horror overcame her, the horror of knowing she had been right, but that she had fallen for him anyway. She got up and went across the room, as far away from him as she could get without walking out entirely. “I … I was right about you? About … being a con artist? You really were out to fleece my town?”

“Not anymore, Carny,” he said quickly. “The banks and Eric Hart and all the numbers are real. I’ve worked myself half to death trying to work it all out, once I decided to make it right. But I can’t lie to you anymore.”

She leaned against the wall, her face still twisted, and shook her head. “Why not, Brisco? Why can’t you lie to me?”

It was almost a plea that he take back his confession, allow her to slip back into the naiveté of his lies. To let her feel good just a little while longer.

She hated herself for it.

“Carny, where were you the day you realized you couldn’t live the kind of life your parents did anymore? Do you remember?”

She didn’t want to stroll down memory lane. She wanted to lash out, scream at him, curl up in her bed and cry.

“Please, Carny. I need for you to think about that. Where were you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know … I was … in some little town in Louisiana. We were driving all night, because they’d almost been caught at something. I don’t even remember what.”

“And you knew, didn’t you, that at some point, you had to jump off the mad merry-go-round you’d been born onto?”

She hugged herself as her eyes glazed over with the memory. “I’d never felt so lonely in my life. Or so scared. Not of getting caught with my parents and going to jail … but of trying to stop the cycle. Of escaping it, somehow, when it was all I’d ever known. And then our carnival wound up in Serenity, and I went into a little church, and everything changed …”

“I’ve been scared, too, Carny,” he said, his luminous blue eyes glistening in the lamplight. “And the closer I’ve gotten to you, the more terrified I’ve been. But I
will
do what I’ve promised. Tonight, God spoke to me. Not with words, but with this
knowing
in my soul.”

Slowly, his words penetrated, and she let the fragile edges of hope work their way back into her heart. She turned back to him, struck by the sincerity in his eyes.

“I was sitting in front of the church with Jack. There was this shooting star, and then the verse on the sign at the church. About living water. And it was from a passage about this woman who’d been married like four times before, and Jesus told her he could give her living water.”

“The woman at the well,” she whispered.

“Yes. She was as messed up as I am. Well, maybe not quite as bad, but she had a history, and lots of baggage. And Jesus wasn’t repulsed by her. He gave her something no one else could give her.”

She took a step toward him. “You read that?”

“Yes.” His mouth was shaking. “Back at the hotel. And I talked to God and told him how sorry I was. And I asked him to wash me like he washed you. And he did.”

Was this just another con? Had he found the buttons that meant something to her? The ones that could make her believe? Could it be real?

“As soon as I knew I was clean, I also knew I had to tell the truth.” He reached out for her, and she crossed the room and took his hand. “Sit down,” he said. “I need to tell you everything.”

She nodded and let him pull her down next to him. “Go ahead.”

“You were right. It started out to be just another scam.”

She closed her eyes and brought her hands to her face. “I knew it.”

“But now … since I’ve gotten to know the people in the town, I’ve been trying to make the park happen for real. If I do that, nobody gets hurt. And if I my make my lies into truth, then I haven’t committed a crime since prison.” He turned around, closing his hand into a fist. “I can see it happening, Carny, just like I said. But …”

Her lips tightened. “But what?”

“But it’s so much more terrifying, trying to pull off reality. Illusion is a lot easier.” He looked her in the eye. “I’m trying to turn my lies into truth, Carny, if that makes any sense. I’m trying as hard as I can.”

For the first time since she’d met him, she didn’t find
a trace of doubt in her mind. “The King Enterprises story. That you resigned. Was that true, or was that made up?”

“I
am
King Enterprises. I have a business license, a telephone number. And as you’ve seen, a voicemail system. I made up the story about their pulling out, because I was trying to ease you into the truth.”

Ease her into it? She didn’t have to question that. She understood it perfectly.

“This may be why God led me to Serenity — so I could see what it would be like to have my slate washed clean, and to find someplace where I could actually belong. To be the person I’ve only pretended to be. Maybe it’s just another selfish motive … to want what I can get out of this town. But this time it’s not money.”

She took a deep breath and let his words sink in. “Selfish or not, wanting a second chance and cleansing … well, that’s honorable, Logan.” An unexpected peace fell over her, and despite what he’d told her, despite what she knew about him, despite what some part of her had always known, she felt closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone in her life.

When she reached out to hold him, he sank down until his forehead was on her shoulder. For the first time since she’d known him, she didn’t doubt him. In her soul, she knew his story was true.

“If I go to the church tomorrow, and tell them who I really am … if I offer to give all their money back if they want me to … do you think there’s any chance that they could forgive me? That I could live here in Serenity, and actually
belong?
Or would the truth make that impossible?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. They’re not going to like knowing that you pulled the wool over their eyes.”

“But they accepted you, didn’t they?”

“Yes, but I didn’t hide who I was. They knew from the
beginning that I was a carny. My name made that clear. I guess in some ways they saw me as a project, somebody they could mentor and help grow. I never lied to them.”

The air seemed to go out of him, and his eyes settled on some invisible spot in the air. “Then what would happen if I didn’t tell them? If I just went ahead with my plans, and they never knew that it had almost been a scam?”

She shook her head. “No, Logan. You have to come clean. It’s the right thing to do. The Bible says that we should have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but that we should expose them.”

“But if I lose the chance to settle here, then I lose everything. And I lose you.”

“You can’t do this for me. You have to do it for your relationship with God. You have to trust that even if I’m out of the picture, even if you have to leave Serenity, following God’s will is still the right path for you. Is it worth it to you?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I hope so, Logan. If that’s real, then I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here for you.”

He wiped his moist eyes. “I know it’s too soon, that you’re still trying to feel your way through this relationship, but in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I’ve fallen in love with you, Carny Sullivan.”

She touched his lips, quieting him. “You say that to all the girls, don’t you?”

“Honestly, I’ve never said it before. And that makes me want to change even more. You deserve an honorable man.”

He kissed her and she melted into him, her walls fading away and her fear vaporizing. When the kiss broke, she gazed into his eyes. “I’m falling for you too, Brisco.”

He grinned like he’d won the lottery. “I never thought
I’d hear those words from you.” He brought his eyes back to her. “I’ll tell the people tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll go to church early and ask Brother Tommy if I can talk to them during the service. But I have to admit, I’m scared.”

She reached up and framed his face with her hands. “Don’t be, Logan. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.”

“Is that in the Bible too?” he asked.

“Yes. Philippians 1:6.”

“There’s a lot of cool stuff in there, isn’t there?”

She laughed softly. “Yep. You should read it all.”

“I intend to,” he said.