Shadow in Serenity (21 page)

C
arny awoke early the next morning and spent an hour praying about Logan’s confession before the church. When Jason came in from his night of camping, she got him ready for Sunday school.

“Honey, I want to talk to you,” she said as he ate his cereal. “This morning, Logan is going to talk to the church. What he says will surprise you and a lot of others, and it might hurt.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’d rather let him tell it. But after church, we’ll talk about it, okay?”

Worry twisted Jason’s face. “He’s not gonna build the park?”

“It’s not that,” she said.

“Oh, good. You scared me for a minute.”

He finished and ran off to brush his teeth. As she rinsed out his bowl and put it in the dishwasher, Carny wondered if he’d even understand what Logan was going to tell the congregation. It would be an opportunity for explaining God’s goodness and his power of redemption. But the confession could be a blow and a disappointment to all those who believed in Logan.

As she walked into the church building a little while later,
her heart raced with anticipation. She saw Brother Tommy coming toward her in the hallway, smiling and speaking to everyone he passed. “ ‘Morning, Carny,” he said.

“ ‘Morning,” she said, surprised that he hadn’t mentioned anything about Logan. “Brother Tommy? Logan Brisco was coming to talk to you today. Has he been here yet?”

“Nope, haven’t seen him,” he said.

Disappointed, she took Jason to his class. Logan was probably just running late. He would probably show up any minute. But an hour later, when Sunday School was over, there was still no sign of him.

As she waited for Jason outside his Sunday School class, Doc Carraway ambled by. “Hey Carny. I figured you’d be flying Logan.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? Flying him where?”

“Said he was going to Dallas when he checked out this morning.”

Her heart plummeted, and for a moment she couldn’t find her voice. “Checked out? What do you mean he checked out?”

“He said he was going to be gone several days and that when he comes back he’s getting an apartment, so there was no point in keeping the room.”

She reached for the wall to steady herself. “Why was he going to Dallas?”

“To meet with his investors.”

On Sunday? Without a word?

She put her hands to her face and tried to catch her breath, but the air seemed too thin and her lungs too tight. “Which ones?” she asked. “Which investors? The banks are closed on Sunday.”

“I’m just telling you what he said, Carny. He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it.”

The door opened and the eight-year-olds burst out. She stared into space, letting the reality sink in, and tried to face what she knew to be true.

He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it
. Wouldn’t he? Wasn’t saying things without meaning them a way of life for him? What had made her think he’d meant any of what he’d said last night?
I have to say that I’ve fallen in love with you, Carny Sullivan.
And what had she said in response?
I’m falling for you too
,
Brisco.
He’d made her believe. That had been his final con in Serenity — getting into her heart. The challenge was over. He’d won.

And then, to top it all off, he’d made that big, intimate confession, feigned a real coming-to-Jesus experience. It was a final kick in the teeth, just to make sure that all the soft, sweet memories were turned into a mockery.

He probably laughed all the way out of town, his pockets filled with the money he’d extorted from the trusting people of Serenity.

She didn’t know which she felt in greater portion — despair or rage. She wanted to scream, to cry, to tear something. She wanted to hurt him, to hate him, to
stop
him.

“Mom?”

She looked down at Jason, who stood in front of her, holding a glittery drawing still wet with glue. Vacantly, she took it.

“Mom, are you all right?”

She looked at the church members smiling and milling around in the hallway. For a moment, she thought of telling them all that if they hurried, they might still catch him. She’d told them over and over. But no one would be any more likely to believe her now than they had before.

No one except Joey.

She took Jason into the church and set him down with
his grandparents. Then she went out to her car, locked herself in. Trembling, she punched in Joey’s cell number. On the fourth ring, he answered.

“Hello?”

“Joey, I was right,” she blurted. “He’s gone, and he took all the money!”

“Carny?”

“Joey, listen to me. He left this morning in his car. You might be able to stop him.”

“Carny, who are you talking about?”

“Logan Brisco!” she shouted.

She heard the noise of the police station behind Joey’s voice. “Where did he go?”

Tears assaulted her with brutal force, cracking her voice. “He took off, Joey. Just like I predicted.”

“Are you all right?”

“No!” she screamed. “I’m not. I’ve been had, just like everybody in this town! Joey, please do something!”

“I’ll be right over,” he said.

“No,” she cried. “I’m at church. You’re not listening. Don’t come here. Go after him!”

After she cut off the phone, sobs took hold of her. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have allowed herself to get caught in his con? How had she managed to fall in love with someone she had known all along was a liar?

The phone rang, and she caught her breath as a fragile hope sprang inside her. Maybe it was Logan, and maybe he had an explanation …

Without even looking at the caller ID, she clicked it on. “Hello?”

“Carny, it’s Joey.”

Her heart sank like a lead weight, and she hated herself for hoping — even for a moment — that Logan would call.

“Carny, I just texted Doc, and he felt pretty sure that Logan’s coming back.”

“Then why did he steal out of town early on a Sunday morning, without telling a soul? He told me he’d be at church, that he was going to come clean to the congregation.”

“Come clean? He admitted to you that he’s a con artist?”

“Yes. He claimed to have had this God experience … Oh, it doesn’t matter now. Just stop him, Joey!”

“Did you get his picture?”

“I got it. I’ll email it to you. Joey, he told me he had been to prison. That he really was a fraud, but that he’s changed. That he really intends to build the park.”

“Did he say what name he served time under? What state?”

“No.” Why hadn’t she asked? “Joey, please go after him. You might still catch him.”

“Carny, you can’t arrest a man for checking out of a motel.”

“Fine, Joey,” she said through her teeth. “Do nothing. But don’t forget I tried to warn you. I tried to warn everybody.”

She tossed the phone onto her passenger seat and got out of the car. She paced the row of vehicles, struggling to decide what to do now.

The irony of it happening to her — when she had known better than anyone else — overwhelmed her. How could she live with herself after being so stupid?

She was no smarter than any of the others, and she supposed that was what Logan’s bitter lesson had taught her. He had defeated her in the most personal way — by pretending to share her faith in God. And he’d pulled off the ultimate con. He’d made her admit to falling in love.

She sat out in her car until church was over, then flagged
Jason down when he came out. Back home, as he ate lunch, she pulled her suitcase out of her closet and began to pack as fast as she could.

She had to get out of here. She had to go where people wouldn’t be constantly telling her that she was overreacting, that Logan would never do anything like that, that their money and hearts and souls were safe with him.

After throwing several days’ worth of clothes into a bag, she ran back into the kitchen. “Honey, come on,” she said. “We’ve got to pack.”

Jason blinked up at her over his sandwich. “For what?”

She led him to his room, yanked open his drawers, and began pulling out clothes. “We’re going on a surprise trip.”

“A trip where?”

“New Mexico,” she said. “We’re going to the carnival to see Grandma and Grandpa.”

His eyes lit up. “All right!” he shouted. “I haven’t seen them in a long time! Can I ride the roller coaster, Mom? I’m big enough this time!”

“We’ll talk about it on the plane,” she said. “Just hurry.”

She wouldn’t be able to breathe freely until she was out of this town, where no one could see the disappointment and failure on her face. She wrote a quick note to her in-laws, telling them where she was going, and ran it by their house on the way to the airport, knowing they were at the Kountry Kitchen eating lunch as they did every Sunday.

She would be out of town before they got home.

A
sad melancholy fell over Carny, adding to the rage she was already nursing, when the rental car crested the hill and the carnival came into view, the Ferris wheels and roller coasters looming into the afternoon sky. Scratch, the sword-swallower, whom her parents had sent to pick her up at the airfield, spoke to the gatekeeper, who let them onto the fairgrounds.

“Look, Mom! The double Ferris wheel! Nathan went on one at the state fair and said it got stuck, and he had to sit up there for an hour until his dad climbed the wheel and got him down.”

Carny breathed a laugh. “I’ve told you not to believe everything Nathan tells you.”

“I’m not scared, though. Can I ride it?”

“We’ll see.” Already, the scents of cotton candy, chicken on a stick, fresh taffy, and cinnamon rolls wafted over the area, conjuring up memories of a childhood where almost every meal was eaten with her fingers while walking down the midway, unless it had been a sandwich thrown together in a moving trailer. Still, it smelled of home.

When the guard opened the gate for them, Scratch drove straight back, through the infield thick with trailers, to where her parents’ trailer was parked. The jalousies were
broken on it, and it needed a good bath, and the awning that came out from the side to create a makeshift porch was torn. On the side were the words D
ouglas
C
arnivals
L
imited
.

“Your folks had a meeting with the sheriff,” Scratch told them, getting out. “But they said to wait here. Either that, or you can walk around the park.”

“A meeting with the sheriff? Problems?”

Scratch grinned and hiked one eyebrow. “Nothing a little cash won’t fix.” Lighting a cigar, he gave a phlegmy laugh.

“What about Ruth?”

“She’s tutoring some young’uns right now. But Sas and Peg are over in the Tojo Trailer. Everybody else is working.”

“Okay. Is there a bathroom somewhere?”

“Closest donnicker’s by the House of Apes,” Scratch said.

“What’s a donnicker?” Jason asked.

“It’s the bathroom, Jase,” Carny said. “Only we can go in Grandma and Grandpa’s trailer. The donnickers aren’t usually very clean.”

“After that can we walk around the park? Please, Mom? I’m hungry, and everything smells so good!”

“Sure,” Carny said, taking the key that Scratch offered and unlocking her parents’ door. “We’ll just freshen up, and then I’ll see how many carbohydrates and buckets of grease I can pour down you.”

“All right!”

She opened the door and Jason dashed in. Over her shoulder, she called, “Thanks, Scratch.”

“No problem, Carny,” he said. “Good to have you back.”

Jason had already found the bathroom, and as Carny stepped into the trailer where she had grown up, she was assaulted by a wave of nostalgia. This was home, such as it was. This was where she’d slept, traveled, studied. This
was where she’d dreamed — of finding a way out, of settling down, of having a normal family where her children’s days weren’t filled with longing and disappointment.

“Wow, Mom. This is great! Is this where you used to live?”

“Sure is,” she said quietly.

“But where was your room?”

“I slept here, on the couch bed,” she said. “Grandma and Grandpa slept in that little area at the back.”

Jason’s enthusiasm faltered a degree. “Where were your toys? Where did you play?”

“I didn’t keep many toys,” she said, “but I read a lot. And there was always the carnival. I could ride anything I wanted. And I got to play in the animal truck.”

“The what?”

Smiling, Carny hooked a finger for Jason to follow her back outside. “This way,” she said, glad she’d finally thought of one charming thing to show Jason about the carnival.

They walked between trailers to the eighteen-wheeler parked at the fringe and stepped up on the rim of the bed. There, she raised the door, revealing the treasures inside.

“Wow!” Jason cried.

In the truck, thousands of stuffed animals lay in soft mountains. Stuffed dolls and dogs and teddy bears all lay waiting to be taken to the midway as prizes to the marks who paid twenty times what they were worth to win them.

Jason grabbed an armful and, giggling, fell back onto a downy mountain of stuffed animals. “Whose are these?”

“The carnival’s,” she said. “These are all the prizes. I used to play here all the time.”

“Really, Mom? They let you?”

“Sure did. These things only cost a few cents apiece, but the marks will pay a dollar a shot to win them. By the time
they walk away with one, the agents have usually scored forty to fifty dollars.”

“What are marks?”

She caught her breath. “I meant … customers.”

“Why’d you call them marks?”

“Because,” she said, deciding not to deceive him or hide the truth. “You see, Jason, not everybody in the carnival is honest. A lot of the people who work here are just trying to find ways to take people’s money. And they don’t think of them as people … or even as customers. They think of them as targets … or marks.”

“Did you think of them as marks?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I’m afraid I did, back before I knew that God saw everything I did. Before I cared what he thought. I grew up calling them that.”

“Was it a bad thing?”

“Yes, it’s bad when you just want to trick them and take something from them … something that you haven’t earned. It’s stealing.” She sat down on a pile of teddy bears and leaned back against the wall.

Jason’s eyes rounded, and he looked back out the open door of the truck toward the carnival that had seemed so magical to him before. He seemed to be looking at it with new eyes, as if her words had cast a pall over it that made everything look different. Why hadn’t she just let him enjoy it?

Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she hadn’t expected. Her gaze drifted out of the truck to the midway just beyond the trailers. Coming here was like moving backward, she thought, and yet she’d had to. These were her roots. They were what made her who she was. Everybody needed to backtrack sometimes, if only to remember how far they had come.

Where did Logan go when he’d finished a con? Did he
backtrack? Or was he in Tahiti, counting his money and laughing at how he’d finally gotten her trust? Did he award himself extra points because she’d been such a challenge?

Carny glanced back at her son, who seemed lost in thought. She reached for his hand and pulled him closer. “The carnival can be a fun place. Really fun, if you just know what to avoid. I hope I can teach you not to be a mark, Jason. I hope you’ll grow up knowing better than to fall for a gaff.”

“What’s a gaff?”

She’d done it again. “Don’t worry about it. There’s just something about being home that makes you slip back into your old vocabulary, no matter how hard you worked to lose it.” She supposed no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t ever completely escape who she was. It was a startling realization. She was more like Logan than she wanted to admit.

She thought of the apostle Paul, cautioning Christians to press forward and not look back. She remembered his words in 1 Corinthians 6:9, and the list of people who would not inherit the kingdom of God. The first time she saw that verse, the words
thieves
and
swindlers
condemned her. But the next verse made a life-changing difference.
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

She’d been cleansed of her sins. And the fact that Logan had chosen to fake his own cleansing had no bearing on her own relationship with God.

Logan had stolen her heart, but he couldn’t steal that.

“Hey, do you think Grandpa would let me have one of these?” Jason asked, holding up a stuffed alligator.

Jason’s question shook Carny out of her reverie, and she took a minute to reorient herself. “I’m sure he would.”

“But I’d rather win one. That’s more fun.”

She tried to think of a nice way to tell him that the games were rigged, but decided to let it rest. It was like telling your child there was no Santa Claus. Part of you knew he couldn’t go on believing forever, but another part hated to destroy his wonderment. Maybe she still knew some of the agents at the game. Maybe she could get them to let him win something.

“Carny, my baby!” Carny turned at her mother’s shriek and saw the little lady with platinum-bleached hair bounding across the infield toward her.

“Mama!” Jumping down from the truck, she intersected with her mother and allowed her to crush her in a hug.

“You look like one of those cultured ladies,” her mother said, stepping back and looking her over. “Like you’ve been spending all your time in a beauty shop getting your nails done. Are you a lady of leisure now, Carny?”

“Of course not, Mama,” she said. “You know I’m a pilot. And I haven’t painted my nails in years.”

“Then you must be eating healthy. Where’s my grandbaby?”

“In the truck. Under a pile of animals. You’ll recognize him right away, since he’s the only one who’s not purple.”

“The same place I always found you,” her mother said. “Jason? Jason, come here and give your grandma a big hug!”

Jason sprang up and threw out his arms. “Grandma!”

“You’re a little man!” her mother cried. “When did you get so big?”

Jason tried to step over the stuffed animals. “Um … I don’t know.”

“How old are you now?” she asked, reaching up to grab him. “Five, six?”

“I’m eight,” he said, lifting his chin with indignation. “My birthday was yesterday.”

“Eight? My heavens, Carny, has it been that long?”

“Yeah, Mama. It has.”

“Well, we have to make up for lost time, then, don’t we? Not to mention birthday presents. Come with me, Jason. I’ll show you around the park. Maybe even put you to work, if you’re interested.”

“That’d be great! Can I, Mom?”

Carny touched Lila’s arm, stopping her. “Mama, no. I’ll just keep him with me.”

“For heaven’s sake, Carny, I’m his grandma. What are you afraid of?”

Carny’s face warmed, and she wished she didn’t have to fight this battle so soon. “You sometimes … get distracted. You might forget him.”

“I won’t forget you, will I, Jason?”

“And I don’t want him being put to work.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, what did you think I meant? I only thought that maybe he could stand on the bally of the House of Wonders and make like an announcer. How would you like that, Jason? We’ll give you a microphone and you can pantomime the recording.”

Carny thought of the freak shows inside the House of Wonders. That was where Ruth used to sit for most of her day while people paid to ogle her, and Scratch did his sword-swallowing trick, and Bounce, the contortionist, bent his body into virtual knots. That was where Allesandro, the half-man, half-woman did his act, and where Georgie Jingles practiced his illusion of being half-man, half-horse. It was where Snake disrobed to show the scales he’d had tattooed all over his body, and where Burt set himself on fire.

The exploitation and exhibitionism of the House of Wonders was one of the worst parts of the carnival, yet it was the stuff that fascinated little boys.

“Please, Mom,” Jason said, bouncing. “Let me go!”

“Mama, I promised him I’d take him on the double Ferris wheel. Don’t you want to do that, Jase?”

“Sure!” Jason shouted. “Then can I go with Grandma?”

“We’ll see,” she said, taking his hand.

Her mother set her hands on her hips and looked disgusted. “Your mother’s afraid you’ll like it too much and want to be a carny when you grow up,” Lila said. “And there wouldn’t be a thing in the world wrong with that.”

“Jason’s going to be president, aren’t you, Jase?”

“No,” he argued. “I’m going to be an astronaut. Either that or a baseball player.”

Carny smiled. “He’s given this a lot of thought.”

“Or maybe a sultan like Logan!” Jason blurted as an afterthought.

“A what?” Lila asked. “He knows a sultan?”

“No.” Carny frowned down at her son. “Do you mean a consultant, Jason?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want to be. Somebody who plans big fun stuff like Logan, and gets everybody to invest.”

Carny’s smile fell, and her dismal gaze met her mother’s. “Well, I guess that’s not so far from being a carny, after all.”

“Who’s this Logan fellow? The amusement park guy? Did you talk to him about us, Carny?”

Before Carny had the chance to answer she heard a familiar voice behind her. Swinging around, she saw her oldest friend, her dearest confidante, her teacher and mentor, and her personal philosopher, riding toward her on a golf cart. “Ruth!”

Letting go of Jason, Carny ran and threw herself into the massive woman’s arms. When she’d last seen her, Ruth weighed five hundred pounds, but Carny suspected she was even bigger now. She had long black hair streaked with gray,
and the muumuu Ruth wore was the size of a small tent. Her hug was tight and warm, and her body shook as she laughed out loud. “You look beautiful, baby! Look at you.”

Carny pulled back and saw that Ruth’s eyes were moist. “And the baby … is that little Jason?”

Jason stretched to his full height, and extending a hand, he said, “I’m Jason Sullivan.”

“You can call me Ruth,” Ruth said, pulling him into a hug and sobbing as if she’d found her own long-lost child. “Oh, you feel so good! And Carny, you look gorgeous. Like a fairy princess or something. Oh, lands, it’s so good to see you.”

Carny couldn’t keep the tears from falling. Of all the people she’d grown up with in the carnival, her parents included, Ruth was the one she had missed the most. “Jason, Ruth is the lady I told you about. The one who taught me practically everything I know.”

“The computer lady?”

“Yes,” Carny said. “She’s the one with the computers all over her trailer.”

Ruth wiped at her eyes. “Well, that’s a switch. I’m usually called the fat lady. That’s what I used to be, Jason, in the House of Wonders.”

Jason looked embarrassed, as if he didn’t know how to respond to that without hurting Ruth’s feelings. “Mom talks about you all the time.”