Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (31 page)

“Why don’t you take Flannery inside, Des?” I said. “Make her some tea.”

I didn’t protest when Desmond scooped her into his arms and carried her past the cop randomly shining a flashlight into the bushes. I turned to Nick, who by then had been joined by a breathless Kade.

“Lost him,” Kade said. He bent over at the waist, hands on his knees.

“Backup will catch up to him.” Nick tapped Kade on the back. “Sheesh, dude, how far did you go?”

“Till I got to a freakin’ hedge of palmettos. Who uses those for landscaping?” Kade straightened. “Did you get the picture I texted you?”

“Of the girl’s mother? Yeah.” Nick looked down at me. “She has to press charges for that before the county cops can do anything about it.”

“I know. We had Flannery all ready to report
her
abuse to you and then this happened and freaked her out. She thinks the guy in the bushes was her pimp, which it wasn’t. The guy ramming around in my shrubs was African American.”

Another cruiser pulled in front of the house, and the driver leaned out the window. “He got away from me,” he said. With a shrug.

“That’s it? ‘He got away’?”

We turned as one to look at Owen, who was walking unsteadily from the side porch where Nick had taken his statement.

“Why aren’t you out there trying to find him? Somebody hides in the bushes at Ms. Chamberlain’s house and you act like it’s no big thing.” Owen waved vaguely in my direction. “After all she’s been through you’re gonna shrug it off like a sweater? Swat it away like it’s an annoying mosquito. Chalk it up to—”

“Sir, there’s nothing more I can do,” the cop said. He was either blind, deaf, heartless, or all three.

Owen stomped across the lane and leaned into the passenger window of the police car. Nick stirred and started toward him. Officer Whoever probably had his hand on his service weapon. The one who’d been aimlessly pointing his flashlight into the bushes definitely did.

“I want Palm Row protected!” Owen shouted. “You work for me, the taxpayer, and I want this resolved. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Mr. Schatz,” Nick said, hand on Owen’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry. I’ll see to it.”

Owen paused a moment longer in the cruiser window. I could see only the back of his head, but I knew he was delivering a long, searing look at Officer Shrug. When he finally stood straight, the other cop got in and the car turned up gravel as they drove to the end of Palm Row to turn around.

Nick reassured Owen again, and after promising me that we would talk tomorrow, he left. Kade went inside to check on the kids, while I put an arm around Owen and coaxed him into sitting with me for a minute on the side porch.

“You need something to drink?” I said.

He shook his head and rubbed at his knees with age-spotted hands. He seemed so much older than he had just a few days ago.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone off on that policeman that way,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know. He probably deserved it. I thought he was a pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing too.”

“It’s not just that. I’m mad at myself because I can’t take care of everything the way I used to.”

“Yikes, Owen, if I got mad at myself every time I couldn’t take care of everything, I’d be ticked off all the time.”

He looked at me, his eyes red-rimmed. “I’m worried about Ms. Willa.”

“I know.”

“She kicked me out this evening. Said I was no good to her if I didn’t get some sleep.”

“She’s right.”

“And tomorrow I’ve got to go work with Rochelle at the house.”

“I’ll look in on Ms. Willa, Owen,” I said. “It’s not all on you. We’re in this together, the whole bunch of us.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

He nodded, so sadly.

When he’d gone home I stayed on the porch, feet stretched out on the swing, looking toward Miz Vernell’s backyard. I hadn’t been lying to Flannery. There was absolutely no way the figure I’d seen hurtling himself into the dark was Elgin. He wasn’t the right size. He wasn’t the right race.

And he didn’t have the kind of controlling power I’d seen in Elgin. Flannery’s pimp would never lower himself to lurking in the bushes; he’d have somebody else do it. And even if he had done his own dirty work, I could say with certainty that he wouldn’t have just knocked an already unsteady Owen to the ground and run off. He would have taken us all on, at least until he heard Nick Kent’s siren. He and Flannery both seemed committed to avoiding law enforcement officers, though now I knew it was for different reasons.

I shivered and shoved that thought into the pile of Things That Make Me Ill. Things I was going to have to look at if I was ever going to help Flannery dig out of the pit that went even deeper than I’d thought.

Right now, I had to wrestle with this thing, this new intrusion. It wasn’t Elgin, so who was it?

Black. Hulking. Not personally attached to whatever it was he was doing.

Or had been sent there to do.

The thing smacked so hard of Sultan’s lackey I could feel it stinging my face. My hands were uncannily steady as I pulled out my cell and scrolled for Detective Kylie’s number. When his voice mail finished its drone, I spoke distinctly into the phone.

“This is Allison Chamberlain. Please call me. We’ve had a sighting.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I had only been asleep for an hour, after tossing for two, when I was awakened by someone crawling into bed with me. I rolled over to find a mass of hair in my face.

“Flannery?” I said. I wasn’t always coherent in the middle of the night.

“Yeah.”

Her voice was so small and quiet I peered closer to make sure it was actually her. For good measure, I snapped on the light over the bed. She was curled into a tiny ball with her back to me, like a kitten disconnected from the litter. Complete with trembling.

“You cold?” I said.

“No,” she said.

“Scared?”

“Uh-huh. I keep thinking he’s out there.”

I started to tell her again that he had never been out there in the first place, but I had a flash of Sylvia, coming to me in the wee hours when I cried out that the alligators were under my bed again. She never once said, “Oh, for the love of Pete, Allison, there are no alligators under your bed.” Every time, she said, “I better look, then.” And while I waited with the covers pulled up to my nose, ready to scream when she was eaten alive, she squatted down, pulled up the bed ruffle, and stuck her head right under the box spring to inspect. I never ceased to be awed by her courage. “No gators,” she would say. “We’re safe for now.” Then she snuggled in beside me and stroked my hair until the specter of reptiles stopped taunting me and I fell asleep against her saggy chest.

“I better look, then,” I said to Flannery.

She sat up and waved her hands at her hair until her eyes could peek out.

“What if he sees you?”

“I’ll be stealthy,” I said and squeezed her knee. “I’ve always wanted to use that word.”

She didn’t seem to find that funny, and quite frankly neither did I. Every thought while I’d lain awake earlier had been some version of,
What if that
was
Marcus Rydell?
If I expected to see anybody outside, it was him, not Elgin the Pimp. And that thought was beyond horrifying.

But I tried to keep a cool exterior as I made a slight adjustment to the plantation shutter and peeked out. Only the light from my front porch shafted through the velvet blackness, just enough for me to see the vehicle parked in front of my garage.

I must have changed my breathing or flicked an eyelash or something because Flannery whispered, “What? Did you see somebody?”

“Yes,” I said. “Come look.”

I held out my arm to her and she crept from the bed to the window seat, dragging what I now saw was Desmond’s Harley blanket with her.

I opened the shutter a little further and pulled her closer to it. “See?”

“Is that a police car? Really?”

“Not just any police car. That’s Officer Kent.”

She relaxed against me, but only momentarily. “I can’t talk to him now,” she said.

“Well, no. We aren’t dressed for it.”

“No, I mean ever. Elgin will know.”

“What is he, clairvoyant?”

Her nose wrinkled. “What does that mean?”

“It means you can see things other people can’t.”

“Oh. Desmond says that’s what
you
do.”

My breathing definitely changed then, because she took it away.

Flannery pulled the blanket around her and hugged her knees. “Are you really a prophet?”

It wasn’t a challenge, or even a prelude to
You have got to be kidding me, lady.
There was actually something hopeful in her voice. Something I had to be careful with.

I leaned against the short wall that formed the window seat so I could face her. “I seem to have a prophetic gift,” I said.

“So … does that mean you could tell someone what was going to happen next?”

Ah.

“I can look at a situation and tell someone what’s
probably
going to happen because I see some things as they are, rather than just the way I want to see them.”

“Some things. Not everything.”

“The things God shows me.”

“Does God, like, show up and talk to you?”

“I’ve never seen God, if that’s what you mean—at least not in person. I see God in people’s faces, in the things they do that couldn’t be anything else but God working in them.”

Flannery studied her knees, frowning.

“That wasn’t the answer you wanted to hear,” I said.

“When Desmond told me you got pokes from God—no, that’s not right …”

“Nudges.”

“Yeah, that was it. When he told me that, I thought maybe God had nudged you about me.”

“How about until I’m black and blue?”

Her face came up. “Are you serious?”

“You wouldn’t still be here if that wasn’t the case.” I put up a palm. “Not that I’m not delighted to have you.”

“Uh-huh. So are you getting what I’m supposed to do? Because all I want to do is run.” Her face was on the verge of crumpling, and I could see her fighting it. “That’s the only thing I know how to do. Everything else I tried didn’t work.”

“What else did you try?”

She looked at me sideways. “Off the record?”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s what Kade always says when I won’t talk. ‘This will be strictly off the record.’”

She sounded so like him I snorted.

“Okay,” I said, “off the record. What else did you try besides running away?”

It took her a minute to get started. I waited.

“This one night Elgin took me down to the lobby of the hotel to meet a client. He told me to wait while he went into the bar to look for him, and this cop came in. He didn’t have a uniform on, but I’d seen him before when he did so I knew. I went up to him and I told him that I needed help and to please take me to the police station.”

I didn’t want her to tell me the rest, but I nodded.

“He was the client,” she said.

Just when I thought I couldn’t be stupefied by anything worse than I’d already heard, something like this came out and clawed me in the face.

“And after that, there were other cops. They liked to take me out on motorcycles and scare the pee out of me and then they’d strip me down except for chaps and a leather jacket and pretend they were arresting me.” Flannery dug her fingers into the blanket. “That’s what you don’t get, Allison. They’re in on it.”

I didn’t know what else to do but put my arms around her and hold her, even though her tiny body was stiff and unbelieving.

“It’s hard for me to even think about God,” she said, “when God’s the one who created this whole messed-up world and isn’t doing anything to change it. But I thought if you knew something, since you see … I don’t know.”

She pushed me away and I let her, so I could look into the face she could no longer control. Anguish was taking it over, just as I’d watched it do to her mother. And I couldn’t let that happen.

PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod.

“Here’s what I
know,” I said. “I know God loves you.” I let a corner of my mouth go up. “If
I
can love you, I
know
God does.”

“Then why—”

“I’m getting to that. I also know that God didn’t create the messed-up parts of this world, but God does help
us
change them. That’s what Sacrament House is about. One woman at a time. Before Zelda started healing, I watched her flip her stuff all the way out in front of three policemen down on West King Street. I pulled Desmond’s mother out of a garbage can in a back alley. Ophelia used to turn tricks where you’re selling artwear to customers.” I scooted closer to her, shaped the words with my hands. “The first thing they did was accept that we loved them—me and Hank and India and Chief, all of us. Then they started to wonder if God cared about them, too, so they bought into that because we did.” I smiled at her. “And then things started to change. They didn’t just get clean and sober and stop hooking. They turned into the beautiful people they were meant to be, before
their
Elgins or the drugs or whatever else got hold of them. Then … they started taking it outward. Who made it safe for you to tell us about Elgin the other night at the house?”

“Mercedes.”

“Who told you that you had a way with the customers up at Second Chances?”

“Ophelia.”

“Who saved you from that john who was slapping you around behind C.A.R.S.?”

“Sherry and Jasmine.”

“They didn’t trust anybody either until they started trusting God. And then people started trusting
them.
”

“Did they have people after them?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “But they didn’t let those people win.”

She lost the battle with her face and choked out a sob.

“I hate Elgin so much,” she said.

“I hear that.”

“I bet you never hated anybody enough to want them dead.”

She watched me as she sobbed.
PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod don’t let me mess this up.

“I could hate somebody that much,” I said. “But that makes
me
hateful, so I fight it every day.”

“Are you winning?”

I hadn’t lied to her yet, and I couldn’t start now.

“I’m still working on it,” I said. “That’s why I know I can help you.”

She closed her eyes and she cried. I pulled her into my lap and rocked her and she cried some more until she went limp and breathed sleeping sobs.

I had told her the truth. Now I had to make sure it remained the truth.

I never did go back to sleep. After I tucked Flannery into my bed, I went downstairs and drank tea in the kitchen, between the door and Desmond’s bedroom. At dawn, I greeted God and Monday and smacked aside the weekly urge to quit. There would be none of that now.

That done, I called Chief. He never sounded groggy when I called him at weird hours. It made me wonder if he was always expecting the next crisis. I filled him in on this one, and he was there before I got the coffee made.

“I have a plan,” he said as he tossed the newspaper on the table. He took the coffee canister away from me and nodded me toward one of the high chairs.

“Bring it,” I said.

But before he could launch into it, my phone rang.

“It’s Kylie,” I said. “Hello?”

“Got your message.” Kylie’s voice was gruff. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or just hadn’t had his caffeine either. Kylie
after
morning coffee was bad enough.

“What’s this sighting you’re talking about?” he said. Oh, yeah. He was annoyed.

“I’d rather tell you in person,” I said. “How is nine for you?”

“Fine. Just tell me—”

“I’ll see you then.”

I hung up and looked at Chief.

“Y’know,” he said, eyes crinkling, “one of these days I’m going to have to teach you how to talk to law enforcement.”

“Maybe when he starts actually enforcing the law.” I twisted in the chair as Desmond stumbled out of the bedroom. “Mornin’, Des.”

He grunted at me and slapped hands with Chief.

“I’ll be taking you to school this morning, buddy,” Chief said. “Why don’t you go up and hose yourself down and I’ll wait for you.”

Desmond nodded and continued his stumble out of the kitchen.

“Is that part of the plan?” I was still watching the door swing. “I hope it includes a full-time bodyguard because I can hardly stand to let him leave the room.”

“You stayed up all night, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Here. Drink this first and then we’ll talk.”

I obeyed, happy to have somebody else making a decision. Chief sat opposite me and opened the paper. The longing stirred in me again. Him in the kitchen with me, first thing in the morning, making me coffee, getting our son off to school. It was so normal I wanted to freeze the moment.

Chief let out a long, slow whistle.

“What?” I said.

He tapped the front page. “Troy Irwin has been ousted as CEO of Chamberlain Enterprises.”

The moment did freeze, except for my heart, which slammed against my chest wall. Chief handed me the paper and I stared at it, seeing nothing. I couldn’t even think
pleaseGodpleaseGod
because God was probably looking at me the same way Chief was. I could feel it right through the newsprint.

“Don’t you do it, Classic,” he said.

“Do what?” I said.

“Act like you didn’t already know this.”

I lowered the paper slowly. “I found out Saturday.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

Because Kade said he’d have my back, and I had to have his, too. Just how I was supposed to do that with Chief’s eyes boring into me, I had no idea.

“He told you, didn’t he?”

“Who?”

“Irwin.”

“No!”

Chief hung his hand on the back of his neck. If I’d touched my own neck, I knew I would have found my hackles standing straight up like a razorback hog’s.

“You don’t believe me?” I said. “You really think I would lie to you about something like this?”

“’S goin’ on, Mr. Chief?”

Desmond was in the doorway. Of course. He was only half dry, but all the way concerned.

“Don’t worry about it, buddy,” Chief said.

“Y’all sittin’ here fightin and I’m not s’posed to worry about it?”

Chief shook his head. “We’re not fighting. We’re having a disagreement. People do that.”

“Well I hope you be fixin’ it,” Desmond said. “’Cause it’s stressin’ me out, now.”