To Thine Own Self Be True (21 page)

I held out a hand toward Mickey, but Shisler stepped forward. “Mr.…?”

“Spurgeon,” Jewel said.

“Mr. Spurgeon. Mr. Moore’s family is sitting here, waiting until they’re allowed to see him. They are just as anxious, but are trying to be patient.”

Mickey whipped around to see Eve and Billy staring at him, almost fearfully.

Mickey’s stubborn expression faltered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just so…” He collapsed onto the cushion beside Billy and dropped his face in his hands. Jewel placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

Shisler looked at me, her eyebrows raised, and breathed out a soft whistle. I certainly understood how Mickey was feeling, but after seeing his outburst I was especially glad we’d suffered no problems from the misunderstanding with Jewel the day before.

I stepped toward Shisler and said quietly, “So where’s Gentleman John?”

“At the police station. I wish I could get my hands on him, but the Montgomery County guys are already there, taking over.”

I breathed through my nose. “I just can’t understand how he got Wolf and Mandy both outside and was able to kill Mandy. Like he told me, she alone was more than a match for him. Unless his nephew helped. What was his name?”

“Darren Wilcox.” Shisler shook her head. “He couldn’t have been there. His mother has been keeping him under lock and key since he snuck out to get that tattoo from Thunderbolt. Whatever Greene did, he did on his own.” She shrugged. “I have to think he had a weapon. Something to keep the Moores from kickin him out.” Her phone rang, and she answered it, fading away toward a more or less unoccupied corner of the room. I tried to hear her conversation, but with all the people around, along with the television in the corner, her words were lost.

I turned back to the couch, where Eve still hugged Billy and Jewel was trying to comfort Mick. I considered going over to them, but realized I would be redundant. They all had someone already. The memory of Wolf’s wail outside Gentleman John’s Tattoos entered my mind, and I tried to force it away. The depth of his pain at Mandy’s loss was bottomless, almost too much to comprehend. Did I have anyone who would mourn like that if I were to die?

Shisler snapped her phone shut and looked at me with haunted eyes across the room. I walked to her.

“He didn’t have a weapon,” she said.

“Then how—”

“He told a lie.”

I stared at her. “A lie?”

“When Mandy went to the back room he was already inside. Probably got in while Tank was making his ruckus out front. Mandy saw Greene and immediately told him to get lost. He says he smiled at her and told her if she wanted her son back she’d let him stay. He figured they were even—she and Wolf took his nephew, he took their son. That’s when she dropped the tray. He told her to call Wolf into the back without bringing his customer—you—with him, and when Wolf got there, Greene explained that he had Billy, and if they wanted him alive, they’d come with him without making a fuss.” Shisler stopped and looked at me.

I had been sitting right there, in the parlor, and they couldn’t ask me for help.

Shisler continued. “When they went outside, he told Wolf to get in the back seat of his car. As soon as Wolf was in, Greene slammed the door on him, and Mandy attacked him. Pulled his hair, went for his eyes. He got in a lucky shove that sent her sliding on the ice. She fell backward and hit her head on the corner of the Dumpster. Wolf couldn’t get out of the car, because Greene had activated the child locks on the back doors. Greene dragged Mandy behind the Dumpster, whacked her head on the ice for good measure, then ran back to the car, where Wolf was climbing over the front seat. John told Wolf that if he didn’t behave, he’d do the same thing to him. Or to Billy. I guess Wolf decided to go after his boy.”

“He probably thought I’d come looking for Mandy.” I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting dizziness, and put a hand on the wall for support.

Shisler made a noise in her throat. “We don’t know that. Anyway, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.”

“Yeah. Gentleman John’s nuts.”

“Right. Once he got Wolf to his place he jabbed him with a sedative, tied him up in the back room, and went to work on him.”

My mind swam. If only I had been suspicious enough to look in John’s bathroom.

“Greene says he realized too late that Mandy would be a witness and the cops would come after him,” Shisler said, “but by the time he thought about it, she was already dead, and it had hit the news. He got lucky.”

Lucky.

“I’m not sure he meant to actually kill anybody,” Shisler said. “They’re still talking to him, but it sounds like he was just hell-bent on revenge. He hadn’t planned out how he was going to end it all. Just how he was going to start it.”

I leaned my back against the wall and looked toward the couch, where Wolf’s family waited for him. Billy’s eyes were vacant, while Eve’s face shined with tears. Gentleman John had gotten lucky when Mandy died. Her family got only heartache.

“And Rusty just walked into it?” I asked Shisler.

“Apparently. He called Greene saying he wanted to talk, and Greene invited him over. I don’t think Greene had a plan for him, either. He probably was sedating him, waiting until he was ‘done’ with Wolf before starting on Rusty. So Rusty should be glad—he came out relatively intact.”

The double doors swung open and Rusty’s “girls” walked through, a lightness surrounding them that I hadn’t seen earlier.

I stepped toward them. “He’s good?”

Becky smiled. “He’s great. Not quite himself, but enough I know it’s him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s hard to mistake him.”

She laughed, and several people turned toward the unusual ER sound.

“We’re waiting now for him to get moved. The doctor says we can sit with him for a while yet this evening.”

“That’s great. I’m really glad.” I glanced at the girls. Rose was occupied with tying her shoe, so I asked Becky, “Did he say anything?”

Her smile wavered. “About what happened?”

“Right.”

“He said he’d suddenly realized you’d both completely forgotten about Thunderbolt.”

“But he had an alibi for the night…for Monday.”

“I know. But Rusty thought maybe he’d know something. He thought the two of you should go talk to him. And then Thunderbolt started telling him about Gentleman John’s wife leaving him, and Rusty wanted to talk to John about it. So he called him, and John invited him over.” Her voice wavered.

I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them to find Becky staring at me, studying my face.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get his voice mail, Becky,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with him.”

Becky looked around the waiting room, biting her lips. Finally, she put a hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Stella. He’s going to be all right.”

I looked away. “I’m glad.”

Rose plucked at her mother’s arm. “Can we go now, Mom?”

Becky patted her hand. “Sure.” She turned to me. “I have to fill out all that nasty paperwork while Rusty’s getting moved. You know how it is.”

“Sure.”

But Becky’s voice sounded tense now. She was angry. Angry that I’d gotten Rusty into this mess and couldn’t keep him from getting hurt. I knew it was irrational. She was the one at home, the one Rusty should’ve confided in and told where he was going. But I also knew Becky had been more terrified in the last several hours than anyone ever should be. I hoped she’d forgive me, eventually.

I hoped I’d forgive myself.

She and the girls left me, and I stood alone in the middle of a room full of people. Shisler was on the phone. Folsom punched keys on his Pocket PC, his back to me. Eve, Billy, and the Spurgeons nestled together on the couch.

I studied the ceiling tiles for a few moments.

Then I turned and walked outside, into the cold.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I sat in my truck in the tractor barn. I’d turned off the engine, but hadn’t yet moved. The cold seeped around my feet and niggled its way under my gloves to stiffen my fingers.

Wolf and Rusty were alive. They were with their families. Or what was left of them. They didn’t need me. After all, what help had I been, when it came down to it? Sure, I put things together to find them, but if I’d been more observant to begin with, neither of them would’ve ended up where they’d been.

My door creaked as it opened, and my toes shot needles through my feet when I stepped onto the ground. I guess I’d been sitting in the cold longer than I’d thought. The lights in the living room shone through the frosty window panes as I slid my feet up the walk, and Lenny’s truck sat by the side yard.

When I opened the door, Lucy rushed from the kitchen, her face a mask of concern. “Did you find him? Is he okay?”

I dropped my gloves to the floor and blew on my fingers. “Found them both. Rusty’s just fine. Wolf should be okay, eventually.”

“What happened? Where were they? Who had them?”

“Let her get her coat off, hon.” Lenny lay his hands on Lucy’s shoulders and rubbed her upper arms.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry, I just… You need some supper?”

I sniffed the air. “Pizza?”

“Homemade. With ham and pineapple.”

“My favorite!” Tess appeared in the kitchen doorway, tomato sauce on her chin.

“That’s right,” I said. “It is your favorite.”

I hung my coat in the closet, took off my boots, and looked at the three of them. “Why don’t you guys go ahead and finish. I’m really not hungry.”

“You’re sure?” Lucy’s eyebrows came together in a frown.

“I’m sure.”

“Well, all right. You come when you’re ready. There’s plenty.”

“Unless Lenny eats it all!” Tess said.

“Me?” Lenny said, going after her with wiggling fingers. “What about you?”

Tess shrieked and disappeared back into the kitchen, Lenny thumping along behind.

“You okay?” Lucy asked.

I lifted a shoulder. “Go on and eat.”

She wasn’t convinced she should let me off so easy, I knew, but she went back into the kitchen. After standing in the foyer for a few minutes, not knowing what else to do, I joined them. Lenny and Lucy both glanced up at me as I entered, but neither commented. I went and stood by the window while they ate.

They behaved like I wasn’t there, although I knew Lenny and Lucy were dying from curiosity. But we weren’t going to speak about Wolf and Rusty’s escape from death with Tess in the room.

After a few minutes Tess said, “Dessert?” with a hopeful uplift of her voice.

“In a few minutes,” Lucy said. “Why don’t you go make sure Smoky has food in her bowl.”

“She does.”

“And water?”

“Yup.”

“How about you just go play with her?”

Tess eyed her mother suspiciously. “Are we having dessert or not?”

“In a little bit.”

Tess reluctantly left the room, and Lenny and Lucy turned toward me.

I told them of the day’s events.

“So this Gentleman John guy was mutilating Wolf to get back at him?” Lucy asked.

“Basically, yes.”

“Sicko.”

Lenny fingered one of his tattoos, a skull with a clerical collar, and pursed his lips. “Nasty stuff.”

“Very,” I agreed.

“And that poor man,” Lucy said. “Wolf. Losing his wife like that. And poor little Billy.”

There was nothing left to say to that.

“You okay?” Lucy asked me again.

I studied her, her eyes bright with caring, her back leaning against the arm Lenny had placed on her chair. They looked so right together.

“I will be. Now you’d better give your daughter dessert before she rebels.”

She gave a soft laugh and called Tess back to the kitchen.

I went upstairs.

The little box from Nick was still under my pillow, where I had left it. I sat on my bed, opened the case, and smoothed the note on my thigh.

Sometimes having only half of something is better than keeping the whole thing.

I looked at the golden heart that could be split in two. I did have the whole thing, the complete necklace. Just like I still had my own heart. Maybe it wasn’t exactly intact, but I hadn’t given half of it to anyone, either. I looked at the note again and read Nick’s final scribbles.

And lots better than having nothing.

Which is what I had. Nothing of Nick’s but this shiny golden heart. At least nothing I was claiming.

Rusty had Becky and the girls.

Wolf still had Billy.

Lucy had Lenny and Tess.

Gentleman John had no one, and look where it had gotten him.

I rubbed my thumb over the heart, then took it between my fingers and snapped it apart. The chains slid free of each other easily, and I looped one around my neck, my fingers shaking as I hooked the end ring into the clasp. I tucked it under my T-shirt, against my skin. The other half of the heart I slipped back into the case.

I found my duffel bag in my closet, dusty and smelling slightly of mildew. I pulled some jeans, shirts, and underwear from my drawers and shoved them into the bag, along with my toothbrush.

The little jewelry box I tucked into my pocket.

Lucy watched me silently when I entered the kitchen.

Lenny and Tess seemed to be having a contest for who could eat the biggest piece of cake.

“Think you can keep things running for a couple days?” I asked Lucy.

She blinked. “Well, sure.”

“I need…” I let out a big breath of air. “I’ll try not to be gone long.”

She licked her lips. “If you’re going where I hope you are, you take your time.”

“Where are you going?” Tess asked.

I looked out the window above my sink, where I could see the barn lit by the dusk-to-dawn light. Again, I saw the beauty of my home. The snow. The fields. The buildings. But for the first time, I knew—
really knew
—that they weren’t enough.

I gave Tess what I was sure was a crooked smile. “Somewhere I should’ve gone before.”

Lucy’s expression softened, and Lenny’s fork paused mid-air.

“But—” Tess said.

“Shush,” Lucy said. “I’ll explain it in a minute.”

“I’ll see you,” I said. “Thanks.” And I walked out of the kitchen, and out of my house.

I stopped off in the barn to let Queenie know where I’d be. I think she understood.

My breath hovered in front of my face as I sat in my truck, waiting for it to warm up. I pulled the jewelry case from my pocket and set it on the dashboard, where I would see it during the trip. To remind me where I was going, and keep me awake when the hour got late.

***

The two-story house on the hill was dark when I pulled into the drive. I turned off the truck and sat for a moment, double-checking the address to make sure I’d found the right place. I was sure I had.

I pushed the doorbell and tucked my arms around myself while I waited, biting my lip. Footsteps soon sounded inside, and the porch light flicked on. The door opened, and then he was standing there, his face a mixture of sleep and confusion.

“Hi, Nick,” I said.

His confusion turned to pleasure, and when he opened his arms, I walked into them without hesitation.

It felt right.