Some Day Somebody (23 page)

***

Ten minutes later, Carrie crawled into bed with the phone. She cringed when Sam answered on the first ring, his voice tight with worry.

“I thought you’d never call,” he said. “I’ve been making up all kinds of scenarios in my head.”

“Sorry, but I had a visitor...two actually. Dave broke in to leave the roses, and then Rob came over to discuss it. Long story short, he doesn’t think Dave had anything to do with the calls, and no, he has no idea who it could be.  I still think Dave’s behind them, somehow.”

“Damn it all, Carrie!  I’m tempted to go pick your ass up and lock you in my bedroom where I can keep an eye on you.”

Her nails clicked in an impatient rhythm on the handset.
“You and what army?”
  She heard Sam’s frustrated groan and took pity on him. “For what it’s worth, I believe more than ever that Dave’s behind this.”

“And if it is, you really don’t think he’s dangerous?”

“Nope.
Just a giant pain in my ass.”
  She frowned when Sam let loose with a string of expletives. “And here I thought you were a gentleman.”

“Sorry, babe, but I cuss when I’m feeling helpless, and right now I feel like a castrated bull in a pasture full of heifers.”She heard a loud beep from the handset. “Aw hell, somebody’s calling. It’s probably Mom checking up to see how our date went.”

“I’ll let you go then. I just wanted to make sure you made it home safely.
G’night
, Carrie.”

“Night Sam.”
  She pressed the star to speak to the other caller.  “Hello?”  She heard breathing and for a moment, forgot that she wasn’t supposed to be afraid. Then she thought of Dave, sitting at home gloating about how he could still control her.

“You can stop now. I know Dave put you up to this, numb nuts. The only thing you’ll get for your trouble is time in prison.”

“I’ll get time all right, but not in prison. Time alone with you, Carrie,” he whispered. “Time to do one of two things...Make you mine, or make you dead.”

“But not until we have some fun first.”

“Fun?” she said, making her way to the front door. She flashed the porch light on and off several times.
“Fun for you or for me?”

“Both of us, if you’re as smart as I think you are.”

Carrie opened the door wide and held her finger up to her lips to alert the officer, then pointed at the phone. “I’m smart enough to recognize that Dave put you up to this. Just admit it.”

“Dave’s a fool!” he said, in a sudden burst of anger.  “And so are you if you think that guy can help you if I decide to get at you tonight.”

Carrie froze as the officer stepped over the threshold. “What guy?” she said.

“That cop you just let inside your house.”

Her breath released in a rush. “He’s out there,” she whispered, clamping her hand over the mouthpiece.  “He’s watching us now.”

“Why’d you have to go and do that? It was just getting interesting,” the caller said.

“Do what?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from quavering.

“We’ll save the rest for a later date. Sweet dreams Carrie.”

***

Carrie fell, exhausted, into the bed an hour later.  The last officer had just cleared out, leaving one parked out front, and another circling the block with a searchlight. She clutched the phone tightly to her chest, fighting the urge to call Sam. A strong, independent woman should be able to take a night alone, without calling a man to talk her through it.  She’d spoken to no one but cops for the last hour, not even a family member. Did she still believe the caller was someone Dave had enlisted?  As certain as she’d been earlier, she had to admit the chance of that being true receded every second.

Only once did she buckle and dial Sam’s number, but hung up before it rang. The last thing he needed was her waking his butt up at nearly two in the morning.

That’s great, Carrie...that’s just what you need is to imagine reasons why your psycho and hers are one and the same.

CHAPTER 12

Carrie took
another sip of coffee and held the phone away from her ear as Sam let loose with another OSHA Orange streak of cussing.  When he seemed to ease off she brought the phone closer. “Got it out of your system yet?” Silence greeted her for several seconds as she pictured him pacing the floor.

“I just wish you’d called me,” he said.  “The thought of you, lying there alone in that house, scared, and not wanting to
bother
me...It tears me up, Carrie.”

“No sense keeping you awake, as well,” she said. “Besides, I had some thinking to do. The only way I can think of keeping my kids safe from all this, is to separate myself from them, just until this is all over with. Maybe I should take that place in Kenton.”

“Are you serious, Carrie?”

“I feel like I’m being backed into a corner by doing it, but yeah, I thought about this for a long time when I couldn’t sleep last night. It might be the best way to keep my family safe, but what about you and Nick?”

“What about us?”

“What if my moving there puts you and Nick in danger?”

“Don’t worry about that, Carrie. That guy will never follow you to Kenton.”

Carrie rubbed her burning eyes with one hand. “God, Sam. You don’t know how much I’m hoping you’re right about this.”

“I am, you’ll see. So, does this mean I can give Len a call about the house? When would you want to come see the place and talk to him?”

She inhaled and held the breath, hoping to slow down the frantic beating of her heart. “You think tonight is too soon?”

“I could call him for you.”

“I’d rather speak to him myself if you don’t mind. I need to stand on my own two feet, not lean on you. Just give me his number and I’ll call you back.”

Ten minutes later, an anxious sounding Sam answered the phone on the first ring.

“I’ll be there around six tonight,” she said.

“Good. It’ll be fine over here, Carrie, you’ll see.”

“I don’t know, Sam. I shouldn’t be laying all my troubles on your doorstep.”

“I’m asking you to, damn it. If there’s anything at all I can do to make this easier on you, I want to,” Sam said to her.

She closed her eyes and remembered how good it felt to be wrapped in his arms. “You’ve already made it easy.” Her lips pursed as she added in a soft whisper.
“Maybe too easy.”

“What was that?”

“I said it won’t be too easy—to tell the kids, I mean,” she covered. “I need to get to Mom’s, Sam. My family should start rolling in soon.”

Once their call ended, Carrie dialed her mother in law’s number.
The unmistakable cigarette-cough on the other end of the line that gave Dave’s mom away.
“Hey Ruby, it’s me.”

“Hey,
darlin
’.
Am I going to get to see you for Christmas?”

“I don’t know, Rube. I guess that depends on your son.”

Once she explained the circumstances, her mother-in-law’s fury was obvious. “Wait until I get my hands on that boy of mine.”

“I didn’t tell you to get him in trouble. I just didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you.”

“Now, you know me better than that. You know you’ll always be my daughter-in-law, whether you’re divorced from my foolish son, or not.”

Carrie squeezed her eyes shut against the tears caused by Ruby’s heartfelt confession. “You know how much I love you, right?”

Ruby was quiet for a moment. “No more than I love you,
darlin
’. I know you gave it everything you had.”

Carrie sniffed and cleared her throat. “Are my kids still there?”

“They left about five minutes ago. They should be getting to your mom’s soon.”

“Good. Did, uh, did Darlene and Jerry make it in, yet?”

“Yep, they got here about thirty minutes ago and she wants to talk to you.”

Carrie drummed her nails on the handset while she heard the phone shuffling from one set of hands to another.

The voice of her old friend—sharp with East Texas twang, and demanding—made her jump.

“Where the hell are you?”

“I’m at Christie’s, but I’ll be leaving to go to my mom’s soon. Is Jerry hunting, yet?” She heard Darlene snort over the phone.

“After all these years, you know better than to ask that. I had to drive this morning so he could make sure he didn’t need to stop for more damn shells on the way over here. I told him we could fill up the freezer with chicken, pork, and beef with the money he throws away hunting ducks and geese every year.”

Carrie cut in with a reply honed from years of practice. “Yeah, yeah...thrill of the hunt, sound of the birds flying over—”

“The excitement he gets when the birds respond to
his
calls and fly right over the duck blind—”

“—showering them with duck doo,” Carrie added her perfectly harmonized voice to her soul sister’s finale. They’d all had to suffer through years of the
Jeansonne
men’s infamous excuses for spending too much money for a handful of birds every year.