Equal Access (24 page)

Shad regarded his father-in-law with a little
renewed wariness. “You know ... one theory is I might’ve sent
somebody out here to ... do the shooting.”

Karl tilted his head and pressed his lips
together. “Shad ... I know for a fact you’d never hurt Dulsie. I
got no idea what it is that’s going on between the two of you right
now, especially outta the blue like this, and I’m not even gonna
ask. A man deserves his privacy.” He drew a breath before
continuing. “Jill wanted me to run you off when she found out you
were dating Dulsie. But you know why I refused?”

Shad shook his head.

“I knew you’d be good to her. That was the
most important thing to me, and you filled the bill. I know how Pax
is with Maddie, and I saw he taught you to do the same. And I saw
you in that room this morning.” Karl smirked slightly. “And I know
you’re a terrible actor.”

Both appreciation and guilt swirled inside
him. Shad lowered his head again.

Karl continued. “I also do realize that you
have all the makings of a serial killer, except as far as I know
you weren’t into torturing animals and wetting the bed during your
childhood.” He tilted his head. “Although Pax did tell me that you
took to fire building like a skunk takes to stink.”

Shad looked up to regard Karl a bit warily
again. Not only was the man known to be insightful, Karl had his
own penchant for feeling out certain aspects of a person. Just as
Shad could empathize with other abuse victims, Karl was quick to
determine how much of a threat someone else posed and the best way
to deal with it. That probably influenced why his sons became a
park ranger and a conservation agent. Shad had heard the stories.
Another nervous flutter beat through his stomach as Shad realized
that if anybody could figure out his secret, it could be Karl.

“But who am I to hold that against you?” Karl
smirked. “Fact is, if you weren’t a little dangerous you’d just be
a doormat, and Dulsie doesn’t need that either. You just know how
to point that aggressive streak elsewhere, and it would never be at
her.”

At least Karl seemed to be veering in another
direction now, but Shad wanted to back him even farther away from
the truth. So he decided to counter with another truth.

“I still managed to hurt Dulsie.”

“Whatever you did, I know it wasn’t
intentional. It’s only if you set out to hurt her on purpose that
I’d have to haul you out on a back road one night when the mother
ship’s due to come in.”

Shad resumed staring at the ground. He didn’t
feel worthy of the kindness Karl was extending to him. And that
reminded Shad of something else he’d witnessed this morning.

“I’ve also hurt the rest of the family. Mam
and Jill are fighting because of me.”

Karl let out an exhale before he responded.
“Do you remember what the most dangerous animal in the woods
is?”

“A mother defending her young.”

“And once a mom, always a mom. It doesn’t
matter that you and Dulsie are all grown up now. Dulsie is the
daughter Jill finally got.” Karl’s voice seemed to become even
gentler. “And you’re the son Maddie finally got.”

And Mam and Pap were the parents Shad finally
got. Had it not been for them, the trouble he was in right now
would seem miniscule to the trouble he could have created entirely
on his own. Yet this mess was the only reward he had to give them
for their efforts.

Karl continued when Shad didn’t respond.
“Jill and Maddie are evenly matched. They just have different
styles. Their maternal instincts have got the best of them lately,
but believe me, the bond that ties them isn’t any weaker. In fact,
this could make it even stronger.”

Shad was familiar with the concept Karl was
sharing with him, but this morning it sounded more like empty words
of consolation than encouragement that all would work out for the
better.

“It’s still all my fault.”

“Speaking of which....” Karl cupped his elbow
in one hand and the other hand curled around his chin as he studied
Shad. “You got any ideas why someone would be after you? I mean,
besides the fact you’re a lawyer and somebody’s just starting on
you before they get to the rest. Do you have any idea why somebody
would want to kill you?”

Shad looked up with a start. “What?”

“It wasn’t just a potential burglar out here
last night. He began shooting as soon as a person came out of the
house. He was here to
kill
. Dulsie doesn’t have an enemy in
the world, but – you are a lawyer. You have the potential to get
people upset with you.”

Shad gaped at Karl in disbelief. The deputies
had also asked him if Shad had any enemies, but the way Karl was
phrasing it, especially when Shad finally had some information
about the night’s events, the possibility seemed more concrete,
except –

“I mostly handle family law. Wills, real
estate, that sort of thing. The family’s more likely to get upset
with each other than with me.”

“You handle a few divorces, too. And from
what I hear, you pick out the dicey ones.”

Shad frowned. He didn’t handle many divorces,
but it was true he gravitated to those that were highly charged,
like Charissa’s case, for example. Yet it was precisely for
children like her that he devoted himself to the insane goal of
becoming a lawyer. Why else would someone as conflict shy as he was
get entangled in such hostile affairs? It could only be that
aggressive streak Karl mentioned earlier.

“Nothing immediately comes to mind,” Shad
murmured, although the complexities of Charissa’s case naturally
lingered in his thoughts. The next realization that surfaced was
the possibility that Shad’s “choice” of career had contributed to
Dulsie winding up in the hospital. A fresh wave of guilt surged
through him and Shad wondered how Karl was managing to remain so
benevolent toward him. He was really more deserving of the man’s
vehemence, although Shad figured he’d rather face the mother ship
than the honey locust.

“It might not be a current client.” Karl
seemed to scrutinize him. “It might be a case you thought was all
settled and done and over with.”

Shad shook his head. “Nothing seems
obvious.”

“If they’ve got any intelligence at all, they
want to not be obvious. Think about it. And I mean really think
about it. You want the goon who did this to Dulsie to get what he
deserves, don’t you?”

Something new flickered inside Shad.
Actually, it wasn’t so much new as rather disused for a while.
Somebody besides him had been instrumental in hurting Dulsie, and
Shad had been so busy berating himself that Karl’s question was
almost like a revelation to him. There was somebody else that
justice needed to pursue. There was somebody else that needed to
pay for his actions. And if Shad possibly held the key to
identifying who that person was, then he owed it to Dulsie to
utilize every means available to discover that person.

Before Shad got to express any of these
thoughts to Karl, they heard the drone of an engine approaching
them. Shad looked toward the road and immediately recognized Pap’s
pickup coming toward the house.

Shad looked at Karl, who shrugged and
smirked.

“Sorry, son. I finked you out.”

A person is obligated to bless God for the evil that
befalls him just as he blesses Him for the good.

--Berakhot 9:5

Pap was all business when he stepped out from
the truck. It was an attitude Shad had seen a few times, but not
since he’d graduated high school.

“Thanks, Karl.” Pap nodded to his
brother-in-law, then turned his attention to Shad. “Come on. Hop in
your truck and we’ll get back to the house.”

Shad felt as though he’d just been snagged
into an intervention. “I need – I’ve got stuff back at the
motel.”

“We’ll leave your truck at the house and both
go to the motel to get your stuff.”

Shad wasn’t inclined to argue. Pap had used
this technique in the past whenever he needed to impress something
upon Shad and wasn’t about to let the boy get by with avoiding
something he needed to do. Having never dealt with this action
before as an adult, Shad could only respond to it as he did when a
kid. Besides, with his life currently at the mercy of the currents
of chance or destiny, Shad figured he might as well let this newest
wave carry him wherever it willed.

So he drove to his childhood home, parked the
pickup, and got into the truck with Pap.

“Where’s Mam?” Shad asked as Pap drove back
out to the road.

“Still at the hospital with Jill.”

Shad had another twinge of guilt. “Is that a
good idea?”

“They seem to think so.” Pap glanced toward
him. “It pleased Jill satisfactorily when you left with the
deputies, so she won’t need to vent so much. And Maddie can take
her grumblings better when you aren’t there to hear it. Maddie
reckons you heard enough put-downs when you were younger, so it
gets her ire up that you should have to hear any more.”

“So you and Karl left to get the chores
done?”

“That, and we hoped between the two of us
we’d be able to catch you up once the sheriff was done with
you.”

On the way to the motel Pap quizzed Shad
about the interrogation, then inquired about Shad’s conversation
with Karl. When he told Pap about Karl’s assertion the gunman was
really there to kill Shad, Pap pursed his lips together.

“I wondered about that, myself,” Pap
murmured.

A new realization sent a flash of panic
through Shad. “If somebody’s trying to kill me, I can’t stay with
you
!”

“Yes, you can.” Pap’s eyes narrowed.

A fresh wave of guilt washed over him. “You
and Mam would be put in danger. I’m not gonna do that.”

Pap stayed focused on the road and his voice
was gruff. “I’d rather face down a passel of assassins than have to
worry and fret again about where you are and if you’re safe.”

Shad lowered his head and rested it in his
hands. Why did he have to devastate the lives of the people he
cared about? He was like a vector of ill fortune, unable to refrain
from harming others no matter what he did or tried to do.

Pap’s voice became steady again. “Besides, I
doubt there’s that much to worry about. Whoever shot Dulsie wasn’t
any pro. He’s probably scared off for good and he’s not likely to
find you when you aren’t home.”

“I wish I’d been home last night.”

Pap released an exhale before he responded.
“Why weren’t you?”

Shad cursed his disorder and himself as well.
“I’m a waste of flesh.”

“We’re gonna start laying some ground rules.
First one is you aren’t allowed to drag yourself through the
mud.”

This was all feeling familiar. Not only had
he regressed in his perversion, Shad realized again his behavior
was reverting to his youth with Mam and Pap. He was dragging Pap
back into the role of paternal counselor, and that only added to
the shame Shad already carried.

Pap continued. “Second one is you don’t have
to answer any questions you don’t want to.”

He really didn’t want to answer that
question, so Shad silently continued to berate himself.

After several minutes of this, Pap spoke
again. “You and Dulsie always did plan on having a family
someday.”

Shad turned his head slightly to glance
between his fingers at Pap. “What?”

“I know Dulsie wouldn’t sit on news like that
very long. Naturally she’d tell you first. So was it Monday or
yesterday she told you she was pregnant?”

Shad was so baffled by Pap’s new topic of
discussion that it distracted him from his misery. “Monday. After
work.”

“Does the pregnancy have anything to do with
why you two have a problem all the sudden?”

A hint of panic started to swell inside him.
Had Dulsie said something? And if she hadn’t yet, would she say it
later? It had never occurred to Shad before that Dulsie would ever
betray anything he’d told her in confidence, but Shad remembered
the distant look she gave him in the hospital. He had been the
first to break the trust between them. It would only serve him
right if Dulsie told all his secrets to the rest of the family.

“I wasn’t ready for it,” Shad mumbled.

Pap frowned slightly. “From the day you were
married you took the chance of having a baby. I know you knew that.
I find it hard to believe that just because Dulsie got pregnant
when you weren’t planning on it, you’d – do whatever it is you’re
doing.”

Pap was just as crafty as ever. Shad
remembered the ways his father would try to turn up information
about the existence Shad led when he lived with that woman. And
now, as then, Pap was getting too close to the answers he sought,
so Shad remained silent.

Pap waited a few more minutes before trying
the next angle of approach, which Shad knew he would do.

“I have a confession to make.” Pap glanced
toward him. “I didn’t want you.”

“Who would?” Shad mumbled.

“Hear me out. You came to us, in my
consideration, at the worst possible time. I was looking forward to
being an empty-nester. The last thing I wanted to do was take on
the care of some kid who, well, quite frankly, scared me.”

Shad raised his gaze to the glove box. How
could Pap have possibly ever been scared of him, especially when
Shad wasted his first year with them being scared of Pap?

“I kept expecting you to lash out,” Pap
continued. “Start fights, act out, lie, cheat and steal. You had so
much bottled up I just knew you were gonna detonate one of these
days.” Pap glanced toward him. “But you never did any of that.”

Shad’s initial thought was he never acted out
because the boyfriends had taught swift and terrible retribution
followed such behavior. And then, when Shad finally did learn to
trust his parents, he didn’t act out simply because he didn’t want
to. Actually, there was one aspect of
acting
out
he
didn’t succumb to only because Shad had never been given the
opportunity during those years.