Yesterday's Stardust (37 page)

“I don’t remember reading that. So our good girl got caught with another man.” Nicky took his eyes off the road long enough to wink. “The infamous triangle. A common theme throughout history.”

She opened her mouth to read the next sentence when his meaning hit. Her lips still tingled. Didn’t his? One kiss—
keep them wanting more
—and she couldn’t have come up with the color of Todd’s eyes or even his last name if her life depended on it. “And people throughout history have been seeing triangles where none exist.”

“None?”

“None.”

The dimple made an appearance. “Then you can keep reading.”

“Thank you.” She ran her finger under the next line. “‘He took my black fox—’”

“She owned a fox?”

“Fox fur. That was back before PC and PETA.”

“Right.”

“‘He took my black fox and left with a threat—“You’ve got a lot to lose, doll.” He’s right. I have everything to lose, but I can’t lose my mind while I’m trying to save my family. There are ways to get around everything, and I will find a way around T to get to A.’”

They passed the Seven Mile Road exit. “The Alphabet Game.”

“She plays it well.” She scanned up, going back a year, then turned the page. “Someday I want to read this all over again.” Nicky had skimmed much faster than she’d realized. They’d missed whole chunks. “Listen to this. ‘When I was in the cage, T told the man I was useful and convinced him to let me live. I thought, at that moment, that I was in love with T. He saved my life. It took me a long time to admit my life wouldn’t have been in danger if it weren’t for him and his kind.’”

Dani rubbed one arm to fend off a shiver. Francie’s story was eerily familiar. Stockholm Syndrome. Jarod held Rena captive but made her feel safe. Apparently even loved at one time.

Nicky shook his head. “Sounds like every gang kid I’ve ever known.”

“That’s just what I was thinking. Nothing new under the sun.” She continued reading. “‘T drove me to Suzette’s apartment. He reminded me of what would happen if I tried to get away from him, and I cried. Just when I thought he was going to hit me, he kissed me. A grown-up kiss that made me not care that I would belong to him forever.’”

“What a”—Nicky gave a short, throaty groan—“sociopath, psychopath. Take your pick.”

“And she’s so naive, gullible, needy. Take your pick.”

“I think we’re in need of a subject change, but the one I want to talk about isn’t much lighter.” His shoulders rose with a deep inhale. “Did you know my sister’s in a gang?”

Dani smoothed the seam on the sleeve of her blouse. “Yes.” Her pulse rate kicked up a notch. Now that she was face-to-face, telling him what she’d done didn’t seem like such a great idea. “She wants out.”

“So she says. Do you believe her?”

“To be honest, I think she’s torn. I’m not sure she’s ready to do what it takes, to turn her back on Jarod and the girls she thinks are her friends.”

“She needs to get out of here.” Nicky’s right hand formed a fist. “I wish we could afford to send her away to school.”

“There have to be answers. If every church in the city had an outreach to kids in their own neighborhoods, think of what that could do. You get parents to volunteer, open up a church basement after school, pair kids with people who care, and in the process they’re learning about Jesus. It would be radical.”

The muscles in Nicky’s jaw bulged. His fingers whitened.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.” His voice negated his answer. “Let’s get back to Francie.”

“Okay. I’ll go back to where we left off before.”

“‘Franky loves to play school. I’m going to invite the Bullis children next door to play with us. I worry about them. Mr. Bullis is not a nice man, and Mrs. Bullis is too harsh with her children. She reminds me of Mama. That makes me scared her children will rebel like Suzette. My sister didn’t love the man she ran away with. He was just her ticket out.’”

The next day was a continuation. “‘I read books and played games with the children today. Maybe I can play a small part in keeping them from turning bad. They just need to be children, and they need someone to love them. I can do that.’”

Goose bumps skittered along the backs of Dani’s arms. “Nothing new under the sun. She’s doing her version of what I was just talking about.” She looked at Nicky. His eyes narrowed as if they were driving into the sun. They weren’t. Something she’d said had changed his mood. “What—” She cut off the questions she’d already asked. With all of her training, she couldn’t make a man talk if he didn’t want to. Not this one, anyway. She closed the diary, keeping her finger in it to hold their place. She wasn’t good at silence, but sometimes it was necessary.

She leaned back and watched the Milwaukee skyline unfold. The Bradley clock tower, the twin smokestacks as they neared the National Avenue exit. Nicky turned onto 794. Suspended ribbons of freeway overlapped like strands of cooked spaghetti. She hid a smile under her hand. Her life was spaghetti. And the silent man beside her was the sauce.

Nicky didn’t talk until they pulled into the parking lot at Veteran’s Park. “I’ll bring the pizza if you get the iced tea.”

The class she’d taken on tone of voice and body language didn’t prepare her for Nicky Fiorini. This guy had some kind of stealth mechanism that let him fly under her radar. Analyzing the set of his jaw, the tightened muscle bands in his upper back as he opened the car door, she had to dismiss the analogy. She tracked him just fine. She just couldn’t decode him.

They found a tree where he could sit in the small circle of shade, and she could have her back in the sun. He’d even remembered a blanket. He spread it out. She sat down, legs crossed beneath her. He tossed the pizza box onto the blanket and sat down across from her—mirroring her pose, knees touching hers. A reflexive swallow closed her throat.

His hands rested on his legs, fingertips less than an inch from her knees. His eyes closed.

She waited. And prayed.

“My cousin died.” He opened his eyes, sought hers. “That’s what happened four years ago. Tony was twenty-one. We grew up together. He was full of life. And Jesus.” He blinked and gazed beyond her, toward the lake.

Dani touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Tony was crazy about Jesus. Those were his words. Crazy about Jesus. It was contagious.” He reached up and fingered a lock of her hair. “You remind me so much of him with your passion to fix things and start something.” He swiped his hand across his face. “One summer Tony and a friend of his started a Bible school at Bracciano. They invited the neighborhood kids. They put on plays and taught them songs. Because of what they were doing, Todd and I started getting some of the older kids together for basketball.”

“He told me about that.”

“I’d never felt so alive, so free of anger. The kids loved it, and we got to talk to them about what was important.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “My aunt and uncle thought Tony was taking his religion too far. It caused a lot of tension, so he moved in with us. There were people who didn’t like what he and his friend were doing. Tried roughing them up a couple of times.”

“The Sevens?”

He shook his head. “The Vamps. Tony’s answer was to tell them about Jesus.”

“And that just made them more angry.”

Nicky nodded. “One night Tony and a girl went to a concert at some mega church near Chicago. She drove, and they said they’d be home late.” The brown in his eyes seemed to darken. His fingers arched like claws on his thighs.

“I was in the back room taking a break around one in the morning. I had the door propped open, and I saw their headlights drive into the parking lot. It crossed my mind to yell at them not to stay out there, but I didn’t. I just went back to work, and about five minutes later I heard a shot. I called 911. I heard another shot and a scream while I was talking to them. The dispatcher told me to stay inside, like she knew what I was going to do. I ran out. I could smell the gunshot, but I didn’t know where to look. And then I heard him…crying my name….” He swiped at his eyes. “They were in the girl’s car behind the restaurant. The windshield was shattered. The girl was unconscious. Tony’s eyes were open, but”—he took a ragged breath—“he’d been shot in the head.” He raised a finger and pointed to a spot above his right brow. “I opened the door, and he fell into my arms. I didn’t want to move him. I crouched there holding him. ‘Pray,’ he said, ‘Pray with me.’ So I did. I begged God to save him. I thanked Him for what he was doing through Tony. I bargained. I praised Him. I said the Lord’s Prayer and the twenty-third Psalm. I…” His voice caught on a sob.

Dani wrapped her arms around him, and as he pressed his face into her shoulder, she prayed.

October 16, 1927

Going to Moody Church with Albert and his mother was her goodbye gift to them. She hadn’t told them she was moving, and she wouldn’t. A little longer, and maybe she would have confided in Mr. and Mrs. Hollenddale. She’d come close several times, while pinning a dress for Albert’s mother. She’d convinced herself so many times, standing in a foyer that rivaled the Palmer House, that she could be happy as Albert’s wife. But there were too many things that could go wrong.

She’d done the same with Mr. Walbrecht—come so close to asking him to take her to Paris. He would have done it, but would he have taken Franky and Suzette? That was the catch in every plan she’d come up with in almost four years. She’d never have, or want, the luxury of thinking only of herself.

Folding gloved hands on a borrowed Bible, she turned her attention to the stout man with a white goatee waving a Bible over his head.

“I remember R. A. Torrey, standing on this very spot, speaking of a painting he’d seen in an art gallery in Munich, Germany. Close your eyes and picture it—trees bending in a fierce wind, roiling black clouds overhead. Horses, cattle, and a small group of men, women, and children running from the storm, terror etched on their faces as they searched for a hiding place.”

The man pointed at the crowd. “Are we so very different from these people?” Fierce brown eyes seemed directed at her. “Every one of us needs a hiding place.”

Francie turned away. She focused on a hat in the front row. Black velvet, gathered at the side in a wide gold buckle.
I could make that.

“…from fear. If you do not yet know the grace and the mercy of an all-forgiving God, you know that haunting sense of fear that never leaves. Dr. Torrey put it so well—we need a hiding place from the torment of an accusing conscience.”

Francie slipped her fingers beneath the jeweled clasp of her coat. She longed to slip out of the constricting wool. It was warm in here. Too warm.

“Not long ago a man about my age, thin, bald, unhealthy in appearance, came to me and confessed a grievous sin.” The man stroked his goatee. “His employer had caught him in the act of dipping his hand into the till. In a panic, to cover his sin, he committed a far more grievous one. He killed the man.”

Gasps echoed off the domed ceiling.

“The guilt, the burden of his conscience, was eating him alive.” The preacher stepped to the edge of the platform. “This is the part I want you to hear, dear ones. The man is my age, in his sixties. He had committed the crime that robbed him of sleep and health…when he was
nineteen.”

A sharp, silent inhale brought Francie’s hand to her mouth. Perspiration dampened her upper lip.
He knows. He knows what I’ve done. And what I’m about to do.

Heat rose to her cheeks. She thought of the diagrams on Mr. Walbrecht’s desk. The ones she’d so carefully described to Tag. The details she’d coaxed from him. The facts his mother had too willingly shared as Francie measured her for another gown. A sob shook her shoulders. Mrs. Hollanddale slipped a handkerchief into her hand.

“I pray you have not experienced anything like this man, but this I know, if you have not given the burdens of your past to Jesus Christ, there is something. Something that you carry. Something that is chasing you like a gale force wind.”

Francie closed her eyes. She wanted to cover her ears. Her head felt light. Her fingers tingled.

“But there is hope. There is freedom. There is a hiding place. I handed this book to that man with the conscience so heavy he could carry it no more. I walked him through the truths about Jesus and asked if he believed what was in it. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘I believe it all.’ And do you, I asked, believe that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God and that He gave His life as a payment for your sins? ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I believe.’”

The preacher paused, walked from one end of the platform to the other. “I told him then to read these words from the book of Isaiah—‘And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ And then I said, ‘Friend, where is your sin?’” He stopped pacing and pointed. Again, Francie felt the finger aimed directly at her.

“‘It is on Jesus Christ!’ he cried. ‘My sin is on Jesus, and I am free.’ Dear ones, Jesus Christ is the only answer to a heavy conscience. He is your refuge in the storm. Who will come to this hiding place tonight?” His gaze swept the crowd. “Will you?”