Evidence of Mercy (25 page)

All he had to do was catch up with Lynda. She would have to report to work sooner or later, and when she did, he would be waiting. What he would do then he wasn't sure, but he knew something would come to him.

For a while, he drove around town—as he did every day before he reported to work—looking through parking lots of hotels and apartments, driving through neighborhoods and parks, looking for Paige's or Lynda's car, searching for his daughter's tawny head among the children at playgrounds.

He had even called Lynda's secretary, pretending he was an insurance investigator looking for her, but the woman wouldn't tell him a thing. When he'd asked her when she expected Lynda to return to work, she'd said maybe another week or two, possibly sooner.

He thought as he drove: What
would
he do when he finally caught up with her? She had escaped the crash and the fire, so this time his attack needed to be swift and vicious. And certain.

A bomb.

A slow smile came to his face as he flipped through the possibilities. It was easier to buy dynamite than a gun, and he knew enough about engines to rig it to her car. All he needed was a few ingredients and a window of time to plant it in the right place. Then it would be all over.

Turning the car around, he headed for the interstate. He'd have to buy the dynamite out of town, so the cops couldn't trace it to him after the fact. While he was at it, he should probably get a gun, too. Then if he discovered where they were all staying before Lynda returned to work, he could try one more time to get her out of the way.

One more time was all he would need.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

T
he big church that had once been like a home to Lynda was still warm and welcoming, but in many ways she felt like the Prodigal Son, covered with mud and pig slop, starving and remorseful as she returned to her Father's house.

At her side was Paige, holding Brianna on her hip, looking a little awkward and nervous as they stepped through the side door of the church and entered the hallway where the Sunday school classes were.

Paige's step slowed, and Lynda saw the trepidation on her face. “I hate to leave her. I know this sounds crazy, but what if somehow Keith found out we were coming? Or sees our car here? He's smart, Lynda. What if he comes to her class and takes her?”

Lynda knew she couldn't promise that nothing would happen, not when Paige had encountered so many surprises already. “I really wanted you to come to the adult class with me, Paige,” said Lynda, “but I understand your fear and wanting to stay with Brianna.”

“I think it's more important right now for
her
to be in Sunday school,” Paige said. “Do you think they'd let me stay with her? I could help with the other kids.”

She had half-expected Paige to flee back home. This idea was at least better than that. “I'm sure it'll be all right,” she said. “They always need help in the preschool area.” She followed the signs to the class for three-year-olds and looked inside. A few children were already there, playing with blocks, coloring, and banging on the piano in the corner of the room. Lynda didn't know the teacher, and sadly she realized that a whole new group of people had become family members in the church in her absence. Maybe it wasn't even her family any more.

The teacher welcomed Brianna with delight and immediately interested her in some Play-Doh, and Lynda waited as Paige explained that she didn't want to leave her.

The teacher embraced Paige as an answered prayer. “My assistant just had a baby, and I didn't know how I was going to handle the class today. Come on over here, and you can help me get the glue out for the projects.”

Satisfied that Paige was welcome, Lynda left the room and drifted back up the hallway, wondering if her class was still meeting in the same place. Despair and humility fell over her as she went up the hall, against the crowd beginning to get thicker and realized that the few people she did recognize didn't notice her.

And then she saw Brother Tommy, the pastor who'd once had such faith in her, the man who'd come to visit her in the hospital, who'd started a prayer vigil for her the moment he'd heard of the crash.

Like the Prodigal Son, she was transformed by the joy in his eyes, and he cut through the crowd, arms outstretched to meet her.

“It's so good to see you, Lynda.” He hugged her carefully, as if he feared breaking her. “I've been waiting for you to come back.”

Sadly, she looked around her. “I don't even know anyone any more.”

“Sure you do,” he said. “Come on. I'll go with you to your class. They'll be glad to see how their prayers have been answered.”

The class met in the same place it had for years, and by the time the hour was over, Lynda felt accepted back into the family. When she met Paige and Brianna outside the sanctuary before the worship service, she felt so full of God's Spirit that she had no doubt some of it would spill over onto Paige.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

A
cross St. Clair, Keith Varner worked at his kitchen table with the background noise of a broadcast church service filling the dead air in his apartment. He had all the ingredients laid out on the table in front of him: fuse wires, needle-nose pliers, ten pounds of Power Prime Dynamite, a blasting cap—everything he would need to blow Lynda to kingdom come.

All he would need was a few minutes under her car, and he could tape the bomb to her gas tank, wire it to the starter, and then get back and wait.

He could see it now. The explosion, the fire, the ambulances that would get there too late, and the media reports. And then he'd get a call from his lawyer saying that the court date had been postponed until Paige was able to find another lawyer. Only she wouldn't be able to get another lawyer because she had no money, and then she'd have to make a choice: either go into court to represent herself or give Brianna to him without a fight. And if she chose to represent herself, it would be a joke. Paige was not an articulate person, and she froze whenever she had to speak in front of a crowd. She would stutter and stammer and hem and haw, but she wouldn't make her case as clearly as he and his attorney would. It wouldn't take anything for the judge to rule that Keith was the better parent to have custody of his daughter. It was practically a done deal.

All he had to do was make sure that—once he caught up with Lynda Barrett—she would be taken out of the picture once and for all. And if he could get her when she was parked in her office parking lot, maybe she would have Paige's file and all of the evidence against him in her briefcase. That, too, would go up in flames.

He heard the choir on television singing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” and with a round of laughter, he joined in.

He had an awful lot to be thankful for.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

J
ake was sitting upright in bed when Lynda got there on Monday morning, and she stopped and smiled at him before coming all the way into the room. “You look like sitting up comes more naturally now, Jake,” she said. “Are the nausea and dizziness gone?”

“Yes, thanks to those two sadistic slave drivers who wouldn't let me rest until I was upright.” He grinned slightly then and added, “Actually, I'm pretty thankful for them.”

“So am I.”

She came further into the room and set down the bag of magazines and books she'd brought him. “So have you heard from the doctor yet?”

His grin faded. “I'm told he's in the building, but he hasn't made it by yet.” He breathed a sardonic laugh. “Amazing. Getting this bandage off seems like a matter of life and death to me, and to him it's just routine.”

“It's going to be all right, Jake. I know it is. Have they prepared you at all? I mean, you've seen yourself when they changed the bandages, haven't you?”

“They wouldn't let me. The hospital shrink convinced the doctor that I couldn't handle it. When they took my eye out after the crash, they put in an implant and attached it to the muscles. They told me it doesn't look like an eye at all. In fact, they said it looks like the inside of my mouth. Talk about bloodshot.”

Lynda stepped closer to the bed, realizing that this might be more grim than she'd expected. “I guess I figured they had already put an artificial eye in.”

“No, they can't do that for another three weeks or so. Most of the swelling has to go down. Plus, they have to make the eye.

The guy who makes them and installs them is coming by this morning, too, to fill me in on the gory details.”

“The guy who makes them puts them in?” she asked, cringing. “Is he a doctor?”

“Nope. An optician.”

“An optician in the operating room?”

“Apparently there's no surgery involved,” he said. He glanced up at her and noted the dour expression on her face. “Hey, if you don't want to stay, I understand. In fact, I'm not too thrilled about anybody seeing this but me.”

“I'm staying,” she said firmly. “You're going to need somebody here. It's just—I didn't realize they did it that way.”

Groping for something to get both their minds off the dread, she glanced at the untouched breakfast tray beside his bed. “Aren't you going to eat?”

He shook his head. “Can't. I don't have much appetite today.”

“But Jake, you're losing so much weight.”

“And you think that'll detract from my good looks?” he asked sarcastically.

“Well, it won't help your therapy. You need your strength.”

“I can't eat,” he bit out. “Period. So give it a rest.”

“Fine.”

He reached over to his bed table and pulled out the mirror he shaved with. As he gazed into it, Lynda realized that the bandage allowed him to imagine his eye still intact and his scars perfectly healed. After it came off, however, there would be no imagining.

“Did you know I was in a calendar once?” he asked quietly.

“A calendar? What kind?”

“It was a calendar that the Chamber of Commerce in Houston put together—Houston's eligible bachelors. I was August. For a couple of years, people recognized me wherever I went. I had women lined up. I even got fan mail.”

She wasn't impressed. “And are you better for the experience?”

He thought for a moment. “All I know is I didn't have a scar down my face, and my baby blues were intact. Small things, I know, but they meant a lot to me.”

The catch in his voice reminded her how hypercritical it was for her to pass judgment on his vanity, when she had lost so little in comparison. “They're not small things, Jake,” she whispered. “It's got to be a trauma. But you know, don't you, that no matter what your face looks like under that bandage, they can do plastic surgery? They're doing great things now. And artificial eyes look real.”

“Yeah,” he whispered without conviction. “I keep telling myself that.”

She was about to name all the celebrities she knew who'd had false eyes when the door opened, cutting off her thoughts.

“Good morning, Jake,” the doctor said, coming into the room followed by an entourage of others. “Are you ready to get that bandage off?”

“Ready as I'll ever be.”

“Great.” The doctor was too cheerful, and Lynda wished he would make this a little easier, acknowledge Jake's suffering, offer him reassurances. As the doctor approached, she started to step away from the bed, but Jake caught her hand.

“No. Stay here.”

“Okay,” she said.

The doctor sat on the edge of the bed and got the scissors out of his pocket. “Jake, I'd like you to meet Dan Cirillo. He's the one who's going to be making your eye.”

Jake shook his hand.

“Have they explained to you that you shouldn't be shocked when you see your eye, Jake?” Dan asked.

“Yeah, they warned me.”

“It's not going to be pretty, but we'll put a patch over it until we can put a prosthesis in. After that, you'll be almost as good as new.”

“Unless TSA has changed its policy about pilots having vision in both eyes, I won't be good as new.” Turning back to the doctor, he said, “Let's get this over with.”

Lynda held her breath as the doctor began to work the tape off Jake's face. She felt his hand tightening, and she squeezed back, wishing there were more she could do.

The doctor got the tape off and slowly began to peel the gauze away from Jake's face.

She saw the gash down his eyebrow, the black, blood-caked stitches that had been cleaned and sterilized with yellow iodine whenever the bandage had been changed. Now it was clear just how deep the gash on his face had been, deep enough to require several layers of stitches, and deep enough to destroy his eye.

“Yes, that's healing nicely,” the doctor said in a pleasant voice as he worked the bandage further down. “When I saw that gash originally, I didn't know how well we'd be able to repair it. But this looks very nice.”

But Lynda knew Jake's heart was going to be broken. The doctor uncovered his damaged eye, and she saw the small scar down the center of his eyelid, where it had been severed.

“Can you open that eye now, Jake?”

Jake opened it slowly, and it came only halfway up. In the socket was a pinkish-clear implant that looked nothing like an eye.

Perspiration beaded on her temples, and she tried to fight the tears threatening her. She couldn't cry. Whatever she did, she had to be positive. She had to smile.

The rest of the bandage peeled down easily, and finally, the doctor rolled it up and handed it to a nurse. Then, leaning in, he examined the gash. “Let me take these stitches out before I let you have a look,” he said, reaching for another pair of scissors the nurse handed him. As he snipped, he kept talking. “The healing looks good, Jake. If you opt for plastic surgery later on, after it all heals, you can do a lot to get rid of this scar. For now, though, it looks like you lost a bad fight.”