The Homecoming: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 5 (20 page)

    Hannah took her blood pressure while Becky counted her pulse.

     Linda took the letter Sara handed her and read it to herself. Then she looked at Sara with a questioning look on her face. Sara nodded her head yes, and Linda read the letter aloud to the group.

     The proverbial pin dropping would have made a clanging noise loud enough to shake the walls.

     No one knew what to say, so no one tried.

     It was Sara herself who finally broke the silence.

     She said merely, in a squeaky voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve got to find her.”

     Linda and Hannah, both mothers themselves and perhaps more prone to understanding, continued to be silent.

     Rachel, a teenage girl now and aware of the terrible abuse Sara had suffered, seemed to take it more personally.

     “Why? So the horrible bitch can abuse you again?”

     Hannah placed a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, but said nothing.

     Rachel turned and tried to justify her harsh words.

     “I’m sorry, mom. But that woman abused Sara terribly for years.”

     Sara herself intervened.

     “No. She didn’t abuse me. She let it happen, but it was my step-father who assaulted me. While I was in San Antonio Becky shared some information with me. It appears she may have been unable to stop him. It appears that she was abused herself, maybe worse than me.”

     Rachel fell silent, and went to her friend.

     What followed was an all-night cryathon.  Each of the women took turns holding Sara, and commiserating with her about the unfairness of life and how the most frail must suffer the most at the hands of the most powerful.

     Sara finally fell asleep in Jordan’s arms about five in the morning.

     Jordan, on the other hand, stared at the ceiling for another hour and a half before finally dozing off. His shoulder numb from the weight of Sara’s head, he was afraid to move it. She needed her sleep, he reasoned, and if his shoulder atrophied and fell off, he always had another.

     The truth was, he wouldn’t have slept even if his shoulder wasn’t aching. His mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions. He wasn’t sure at this point what he should feel or do, going back and forth between anger at Glen and sympathy for Stacey. Most of all he felt heartache for his wife because he knew this placed her in a horrible position.

     For now he knew that Sara worried about her mom in the same way everyone had worried about Zachary the night before. From now on, or until she discovered her mom’s whereabouts and condition, Sara would be sick with worry.

     Worry about whether her mother was cold, or hungry, or had a safe place to sleep.

     Worry about whether she’d stepped from the frying pan into the fire, and found another man who would beat her even worse than Glen had.

     Worry about whether she’d been made a slave by powerful men, as many other single women and girls had been.

     The lucky ones only had to cook and clean and do laundry for their captors.

     Others had to perform more intimate favors, not only for their captors, but for the captor’s friends and gang members as well.

     About ten a.m., Sara awoke and gently crawled out of bed. Jordan was finally asleep, and she didn’t want to awaken him.

     She crawled out of bed to find Tom working the security console.

     She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

     “Tom, I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you’d be at work by now.”

     The old rancher and new sheriff explained in his Texas drawl, “Well now… I fully expected to be, but everyone seems to be sleeping in today. Everyone except little Misty, and she’s in the kitchen cooking up some breakfast. But it’s okay. Hannah stumbled in here around four o’clock and told me what was going on. It sounds like all of you had a rough night. And I needed a day off today anyway, so it was no big deal.”

     Sara kissed his cheek, wrapped her arms around his neck and proclaimed, “Tom, I love you so much.”

     “Of course you do, little lady. I’m a loveable guy. But you understand that once you’re my deputy and I’m your boss, you can’t be doing stuff like that anymore.”

     “Oh, I know. It just wouldn’t look very professional, would it?”

     “Oh, I don’t care about that, Sugar. It’s just that, well, if Deputy Paul or Deputy Dave saw you kissing and hugging all over me, they might get the idea that they could too. And the first time they tried, I’d have to shoot them. And good deputies are mighty hard to find these days.”

     She laughed, and it felt good.

     This time she kissed his other cheek, and said, “Thank you, boss. You always seem to know exactly what I need, and precisely when I need it.”

     “No problem, little lady. I smell bacon, and I suspect Misty is just about finished. Why don’t you have some breakfast and go get some more sleep? Misty and I can hold down the fort a little bit longer. And speaking of little bits, don’t forget to compliment the cook.”

     “Oh, don’t worry about that. If that bacon tastes half as good as it smells, I’ve got lots of hugs and kisses for her too.”

     Twenty minutes later Sara was on her way back to her bedroom, but paused long enough to thank Tom again.

     “Later today, after we’ve both had some sleep and have clearer heads, can I talk to you about something, Tom?”

     “Yes, and yes.”

     “Two yesses? But I only asked you one question.”

     “Yes, we can talk later. And yes, I’ll go help you find your mother.”

     This time there were no hugs or kisses. Only two words, “thank you,” which Sara barely managed to squeak out.

     Then she turned tail and fairly ran to her bedroom.

     She didn’t want the sheriff to see his newest deputy cry.

              -41-

     That same morning, Robbie awoke from a sound sleep and had an epiphany.

     Oh, he hadn’t seen the light. He hadn’t realized the insanity of his plan to murder one of his best friends, simply for being married to the object of Robbie’s obsession.

     No, that would have required that he pull himself back from his internal demons. And Robbie had long before lost any sense of reason or right.

     Robbie’s awakening actually involved the timing of his plot. And he suddenly realized that had he carried out the assassination the night before, as originally planned, he might well have lost Hannah forever.

     It had been just after four in the morning, and Robbie was enjoying a sound sleep, dreaming as he almost always did about Hannah.

     He had no reason to awaken. This was his second day off on a seven on/ two off schedule. And there was nothing better than sleeping in on a much-needed day off.

     But there was something about Hannah’s words…

     In his dream, Hannah writhed beneath him, her naked body responding to his in a way only his mind could ever imagine.

     But her words… were not expressions of ecstasy, as they’d always been in similar dreams Robbie had had before.

     No, these were words of… well, words spoken each and every day. Words with no emotion, no passion. The words of a normal conversation.

     Then, even more chilling, he heard the words of John Castro.

     He finally awoke and shook the voices from his head, trying to make sense of them.

     And he realized that he was merely dreaming. Hannah wasn’t his. Not yet, anyway. And John was still alive.

     Moreover, John was in the next room, carrying on a conversation with Hannah on the ham radio.

     Robbie eased out of bed and cracked his bedroom door open a few inches.

     Then he returned to bed.

     From the darkness of his bedroom, he could peer through the four inch space into the lighted den, unnoticed by John. John had his back to Robbie anyway, and Robbie was able to easily eavesdrop on the conversation.

     He noticed that John was dressed in an SAPD undershirt and wore his uniform trousers. His prosthetic leg wasn’t attached, though. That was one of the last things John put on when he got ready for work, preferring to hobble around the house or use his cane instead.

     Robbie heard sweet Hannah’s voice coming from the radio’s speaker.

     “No, smart aleck, I haven’t gotten so used to the comforts of country living that I want to stay here. I happen to miss my handsome husband, and the girls miss their father. And no, I won’t miss this place all that much. I’ll miss the people here, of course. Except for Tom. I won’t miss him at all, but only because he’s sitting here next to me at the control center making silly faces and trying to make me laugh.

     “The fact is, I’ll miss everybody here, including this jerk Tom. But it’ll be nice to be coming home again.”

     “So you won’t mind giving up all-you-can-eat dinners in lieu of meals we actually have to scratch and work for?”

     “John Castro! I’ll have you know I do my fair share of work around her, including hours of work in the gardens and corn fields and with the livestock.”

     “Ooh, did I touch a raw nerve?”

     “No, not at all. I want to come home. This place is nice, but not because of the food. It’s nice because I love everyone here, and I’ve made lifelong friends. But I can stay in touch with them from San Antonio, just by dragging your sorry butt up here to visit them several times a year. The only way I would consider ever coming back up here would be if something happened to you. And we both know that’s not going to happen. So there.”

     “Oh, really? And just how can you be so sure that nothing’s ever going to happen to me?”

     “Because, my dear love, you are Superman. You are, therefore, invincible.”

     And there, in Hannah’s own words, lay Robbie’s folly.

     As John and Hannah signed off, and John finished getting ready for work, Robbie fought with his inner demons.

     This was a roadblock he’d never imagined, nor planned for. He’d assumed that when John died Hannah would bring the girls and come running back to San Antonio for John’s funeral. And that once she returned, Robbie could begin to work his magic on her. He’d become her confidant. He’d be there to hold her when she cried, and to wipe her tears from her eyes and tell her it would be okay. That she and the girls no longer had John, but they still had Robbie.

     In time, he just knew, she’d fall for Robbie and he’d become her
new
Superman.

     But this was a twist he’d never even considered. If she’d planned to return to the compound if anything ever happened to John, and if he died before she ever returned to San Antonio, then what would happen?

     In all likelihood, she’d just stay at the compound with the girls. After all, without John there would be no more reason to return to the Alamo City.

     In all likelihood, she’d just stay at the compound and insist that John’s body be brought to the compound for burial.

     Where he could be close to his family.

     Chief Martinez and the city council would protest, of course, but only slightly.

     They would say that John was a modern day hero. A Medal of Honor winner during the war, who lost a leg and kept on fighting. Who became a fine police officer and saved countless more lives. Who was instrumental, perhaps key, to saving San Antonio so that one day it could return to being a dynamic and bustling city.

     They would say his lasting memorial should be in the city he saved. Perhaps a place of honor in the new “Resting Place of our Heroes,” a tiny but distinguished cemetery recently established just west of the Alamo Plaza.

     But in the end, they’d cave. They’d honor the time-honored tradition of allowing the widow and family of the deceased to decide on the final resting place.

     They wouldn’t like it, though.

     And as for sweet Hannah, she’d more than likely never leave the compound again.

     Robbie struggled mightily with the indecision his epiphany had brought him.

     How, then, would he get sweet Hannah?

     He’d willingly take on the whole compound if that’s what it took. Kill them one at a time until it was just Hannah and the girls left. Then move in with them to protect them from the evil men who’d murdered their friends.

     And to be sure, that was his ultimate goal.

     But he had to do it methodically, while he still lived in San Antonio. He had to go to the compound only occasionally, and pick off one or two of its residents from a distance, and then disappear again. That way he wouldn’t be suspect.

     If Hannah lived with Robbie in San Antonio after John’s death, he could convince her that he was at work on the days the compound came under attack. If she lived at the compound, she’d eventually suspect Robbie. And then there was the problem of old Tom, who Hannah now regarded as a close personal friend.