The Kindness of Strangers (35 page)

Jordan sat down again and clamped his hands over his mouth when he couldn’t control his sobs.

Danny put the box of tissues in Jordan’s lap. He sat beside Jordan for several minutes. Finally Danny said, “Maybe . . . maybe I should go get my mom.”

Jordan shook his head. “No,” he rasped out. He took a tissue and blew his nose. He had to show Danny he was all right. He got up and crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. “I’m okay.”

Danny didn’t look convinced. He stood at the door for a minute before he said, “Okay. See ya.” He left the room and closed the door without a sound.

Jordan pushed his face into his pillow and cried himself empty and exhausted.

An hour later he positioned the chair under the doorknob and finally fell asleep.

Chapter Eighteen
Sarah

S
arah saw the light turn yellow at the intersection before her and sped up at first, then changed her mind. Her tires squealed, and the bag of groceries fell off the passenger seat.

Damn it. Courtney was out of jail.

Out of jail. She might even be out walking, crossing Sarah’s path at any moment.

Sarah couldn’t believe it. And she couldn’t believe the emotional effect the news had had on her.

She’d been at the seafood market when Kramble had called her. She’d flushed when she heard his voice. She had just been thinking about a dream she’d had about him.

She and Roy used to joke about their sex dreams, teasing each other that they rarely had such dreams about each other. “People don’t need to dream about what’s real,” Roy had said. He used to wake her sometimes at 2:00
A.M
. when he came home from the hospital, freshly showered, smelling like soap. They’d lie sideways on the bed, sometimes moving to the floor to keep their headboard from bumping against Nate’s bedroom wall.

But since Roy had died, he did appear in her dreams. All of her sex dreams were about him. Until last night.

When she first surfaced from that dream, she’d been flushed and purring. But as she truly woke up, a sick misery had settled on her, like she’d been unfaithful to a living Roy. She’d been flustered and distracted all morning.

And she knew that even though Kramble had only invited her to dinner, they would end up in bed if she wanted them to.

Would he be a little rough-and-tumble? She pictured them tearing clothes and panting and knocking over furniture. Or did that image only come to her because he carried a gun?

But there was that scar . . . that history. Maybe he wouldn’t be rough at all, but fragile and cautious. Whatever history he’d survived, he’d risen above it, gotten married, even. She pictured Kramble at his wedding—pictured it happening under a chuppah even though she knew he wasn’t Jewish. Pictured him smashing the wineglass under his heel, as if it were his past, breaking that other life into shards that could be swept away.

And then there was Reece. Sarah scrunched up her face and groaned as she remembered her dream. She’d dreamed about Reece,
too.
She’d hardly been able to look at him without blushing this morning when he’d picked up Jordan for a session with Bryn and for Jordan’s tutoring session at Children’s Services. Reece was every bit as sexy as Kramble but in an entirely different way. She imagined him slow and luxurious. She saw candles and massage oils and maybe even blindfolds. No, not blindfolds. She’d want to see her white hands on his dark skin. Her pale legs wrapped around his coffee-colored torso.

A car honked behind Sarah. The light had changed.
Get a grip
. She drove on.

Courtney was out of jail.

Sarah had been thinking of that lovely, sexy dream as she selected shrimp for the eight pounds of spicy shrimp-and-fennel pasta salad she was making for a University of Dayton graduation party tomorrow. When her cell phone rang, she felt a hassled irritation in her chest, but when she heard Kramble’s voice, she had an urge to cover the mouthpiece with her hand, as if her recent thoughts about him hovered in the air and might whisper their way through to nibble his ear. “Yes, hi.” Her voice was too perky and fake.

“I have some important news,” Kramble said. “Courtney Kendrick is being processed out of jail right now.”

Sarah nearly dropped her bag of shrimp. Several slipped out of the plastic bag onto the market floor.
“What?”

“I told you I’d call you if that happened. I just found out. Her brother is here. He posted her bail.”

“Oh, shit. . . .” A tremendous wave of adrenaline crashed through Sarah’s body. Her legs went rubbery, and she crouched on the floor.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
She clutched the cell phone in the crook between her ear and shoulder and picked up the slippery shrimp to put back in their plastic bag. “But I thought they didn’t talk to each other! How did this happen?”

“He apparently contacted her after I interviewed him. She’s called him collect many times from the jail.”

Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Sarah wanted to scream. “What do I do? What should I do?” She had collected all her wayward shrimp but remained crouched.

“Sarah, it’s okay. Don’t do anything differently. She’s aware of the very strict regulations regarding her visitation with Jordan until the trial. She knows that any violations of those regulations will land her right back in jail, so even if she does discover where he lives, I think she’s too intelligent to come—”

“Oh, my God. Jordan will want to see her. What if he—”

“Sarah, calm down.” His tone was not at all insulting but soothing. “We’re with you, okay? I told Reece already, because I knew he was with Jordan this morning.”

It half comforted her, half unnerved her to know he was so aware of their schedule.

“He’s going to tell Jordan. Courtney has already asked for a visitation. We’re going to do everything we can to hold off until tomorrow. Reece feels it’s important to give Jordan time to process this and get ready for it. And we’re, of course, hoping for a change of heart from him. Maybe he’ll reveal something new once he’s actually faced with seeing her again.”

Sarah nodded, although he couldn’t see her. She was finding it difficult to breathe.

“Sarah?”

“Yes.”

“You okay?”

“I . . . I guess. Listen, thanks for calling, for warning me—”

“Of course. You have my cell number. Use it. For anything. Okay? This is going to be all right.”

“Thank you, Bobby.” As she snapped her phone shut, she winced as she realized she’d called him Bobby. Oh, dear God.

When she’d stood up, she left her bag of shrimp on the floor. And she’d walked right out of the market without it, had driven all the way home before she realized. Then had to drive all the way back. She couldn’t find the bag—some irritated employee had probably found it and emptied it back into the bin. She’d started all over.

All she could think of was that Courtney was out of jail. She was out, free on the streets. What would she do? Would she contact Sarah? Did Sarah
want
her to? What if Courtney didn’t—what if Sarah never saw her or spoke to her again. . . . Sarah imagined that Courtney might be “done” with her. Sarah hated that betrayed, raw feeling. She ought to be used to it by now, but she felt it afresh as she pictured Courtney thinking that there was nothing more Sarah could do for her. But the most unnerving thing was that she couldn’t really imagine Courtney at all, had not an inkling what the woman was thinking—or what the woman had
ever
thought, really. She could hardly picture her at the moment. Someday Sarah would
have
to see her again. She’d have no closure if she didn’t. And she certainly wasn’t handing Jordan back to Courtney without seeing her and being convinced . . . convinced of what? She didn’t feel she’d ever be convinced that Jordan should live with Courtney again.

Damn. She almost missed her own street. The tires squealed as she whipped the van around the corner.

Back home, inside her kitchen, Sarah poured the shrimp into a colander and began the process of peeling and deveining them. What was she going to say if she ran into Courtney somewhere? Courtney didn’t know where Jordan was staying. That, combined with the fact that Sarah had never gone to see Courtney in jail, filled her with heavy dread. Her cheeks still burned when she remembered a conversation with a new client who’d come to look at wedding cakes. The woman had been gossipy and eager to discuss the Kendrick case. Sarah had felt uncomfortable, but she’d faked her evasive way through the appointment. She needed the job. Two more clients had canceled their events, and Sarah suspected that it had to do with people’s knowledge of her friendship with Courtney.

This new client, however, seemed to have looked Sarah up
because
of her connection to the Kendricks. “You were friends with Dr. Kendrick, right?” the woman had asked. “Mark’s wife?”

Sarah heard herself saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t say friends. But I worked for them, you know.” Why had she lied?

The woman frowned. “But Mark said you were friends. I used to work for him, at Kendrick, Kirker & Co.? He really recommended you, when I first told him about the wedding, way back before . . . before we knew about any of this. He said such nice things about you. And he made it sound like you and his wife were really close.”

“We were friendly,” Sarah said. “But I wouldn’t say
friends.
” She still felt like such a shit for saying that. But why should she?

She kept on peeling shrimp. Her cell phone trilled on the kitchen island behind her. Damn. Of course her hands were all nasty with shrimp goo. She hurriedly rinsed and wiped them and snatched up her phone right before it switched to voice mail.

“Hello?” Just as she said it, she had a flash of panic that it would be Courtney.

“Hey, Sarah, it’s Reece.” His deep, calm voice grounded her.

“Is Jordan okay?” she asked. “Kramble already told me the news.”

“Yeah. Jordan’s mad as hell that I won’t let him stay with her.”

“Oh.” Sarah tried not to feel hurt that he’d so quickly want to be rid of them. Naturally he wanted to be with his own mother. And would he want to do that if Courtney had hurt him? Wasn’t that a sign in her favor? But Sarah couldn’t muster the “it couldn’t be true” anymore. It had evolved into a monotonous internal refrain of,
You know it’s true, you know it’s true.

“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine. He’s more terrified than ever about his father, though. We’re going to spend a little more time with Bryn. Looks like we might have a visitation tomorrow. Earliest would be afternoon, say two. We’re cranking out details and trying to prepare him for it. I’ll have him back around dinnertime. Is that okay?”

Sarah was surprised at the tug in her chest. “Sure.” She’d expected to feel a weight released; it would be a blessing to have an afternoon free, without Jordan’s brooding, wounded presence underfoot. But she wasn’t as overjoyed as she suspected.

She finished the call with Reece and returned to her shrimp, grateful to have work to do. It kept her from pacing the house or having a breakdown. She bagged up the shrimp shells for the trash, then blended red pepper, olive oil, lemon rind, and garlic in her blender. It took nearly two minutes to get a smooth consistency, and as she shut off the blender, she heard the back door click open.

She wheeled around, heart pounding, as Gwinn Whitacre came into the kitchen. “Hey, Sarah!”

“Oh, my God, you scared me.”

“Well, I knocked, but you couldn’t hear me with that blender going. I have amazing news! I came running over here to tell you in person.”

“I already know,” Sarah said. “But thanks.”

Gwinn’s shoulders slumped, and she pouted her lips. Sarah looked at her friend and smiled; it was as if the room had suddenly brightened. Sarah knew she should feel frumpy in Gwinn’s presence—Gwinn always had great hair and impeccable makeup—yet it was hard to feel anything but loved around Gwinn. Sarah usually laughed so much when they were together that she forgot to worry over such details. Gwinn’s almost freakish height and a rather large nose kept her from seeming too Barbie-ish. And Sarah liked Gwinn for always wearing heels, for not doing anything to disguise her height.

“How can you know already?”

“Kramble called me.”

“Well, shit. I wanted to be the one who told you the good news.”

Sarah snorted. “I’d hardly call it good news. Pull up a stool. There’s coffee.”

But Gwinn stood, French-manicured hands on her hips. “I don’t think you know what I’m talking about, because it is very, very good news.
They caught Mark.
”

Sarah set her spatula down so quickly that the red pepper mixture freckled across the kitchen island. “What?”

“Yes! I
am
the first!” Gwinn came around the island and hugged Sarah. “They caught him, the prick. He was in Vegas, can you believe it?”

“That’s wonderful.”

“That’s what I was telling you.” Gwinn opened a cupboard and took out a coffee mug. She helped herself to cream and poured coffee. “Rodney was home for lunch, and it came over his radio while we were eating. I’m surprised you didn’t hear us cheering from a block away. This is one bit of news I’m sharing with you with Rodney’s full blessing. Mark Kendrick will soon be on his way back to Dayton.” Gwinn opened a drawer and got herself a spoon.