Evidence of Mercy (29 page)

He was just about to risk stepping out of the woods when the back door opened. Keith froze.

He saw his little girl bounce out, and his heart melted.

It had been so long since he'd seen Brianna happy. The last few times she'd been screaming her lungs out, after all those ideas Paige had put into her head about him. But once he got her, he would manage to erase those ideas and turn them back on Paige. Then Brianna would be just as happy with him as she was now without him.

He trembled with anticipation as she walked out into the yard, talking to her doll as she went, and he poised himself to act the moment she came close enough. He could reach over the fence, grab her, and have her out of here before Paige even knew she was gone.

He wished he'd brought some candy or something to keep her quiet until they got away.

But then Paige came out with a broom and started sweeping the back porch. That was her, always cleaning, as if she couldn't stand to sit still.

Well—too bad. He would grab Brianna anyway, whether Paige saw or not. Maybe he could get out of there before she could get to the phone—

No. That was ludicrous. He'd be arrested before he got his car started. And he'd probably wind up in jail. This time, McRae would probably wash his hands of him, and he wouldn't have an advocate in court, and that lady lawyer would convince the judge that he was dangerous.

Quietly, he sat down on the ground behind a bush and watched, waiting for Paige to go back in and for Brianna to come near the fence. His only hope was to take her when Paige wasn't watching, so he'd have a head start in getting away.

But that wasn't going to happen today.

Paige said something to the child, and Brianna turned and frolicked in behind her mother. The door closed.

He didn't move. Maybe they would come back out. Maybe Brianna would stray out here alone. . . .

He heard another door close, one he couldn't see from this position and then a car door. In seconds, he heard the car in the driveway starting.

They were leaving!

Jumping up, he ran through the trees back toward his car parked at the little church, hoping to catch up with them and follow them. But by the time he was behind the wheel, they were nowhere in sight.

Cursing his luck, he slammed his hand against the wheel. Didn't it always happen this way? Fate just kept working against him.

But it wouldn't forever. Sooner or later, something had to give. He thought of the possibilities, now that he knew where they were living. He couldn't set this house on fire because Brianna might be hurt. And if he installed the car bomb here, Brianna might be in the car or nearby when it blew up. No, he couldn't do anything that might put her in danger again. But he could watch the house; he could follow Lynda and, when she got to where she was going, fix a little surprise in her car. Or, if he kept watching, sooner or later Paige would take her eyes off Brianna and he could grab her. Either way, when the chance came, he would be there.

Time was running out, and he was getting anxious. But he was several steps ahead of the game already.

And he intended to win.

CHAPTER FIFTY

T
he morning Jake was to be released Lynda gave the garage apartment one final inspection. It was clean now, and she'd moved things around to accommodate his wheelchair. While the room wasn't as luxurious as he was probably used to, it was certainly better than a hospital room. She sat down in her father's recliner, which she'd asked Larry to move out here for Jake, and looked around at the small rooms her father had so lovingly built for her.

She had never forgotten the ribbon-cutting ceremony her parents had had for her the day she'd moved into the room. Her father had made a little speech in which he told her that while this room signified her independence from her parents, its proximity to the house symbolized that no matter how independent she grew or how far away she moved, she would always belong to them. Always.

As she sat here now, breathing the familiar scents and absorbing the warm colors and textures, she missed her parents. As much as she'd wanted to believe she was independent when she'd moved into this room, she had been far from it. Her parents had helped her to take her first leap out of the nest gracefully. They had made it easy for her, until she'd learned to fly on her own.

In many ways, Jake was like she had been then. She would have to teach him that he could be independent and that he could make it on his own. But she also wanted to teach him who he belonged to. And she surprised herself—she who had been so long without darkening the doorway of a church—with the fervency of her desire that Jake understand this.

She bowed her head and whispered a heartfelt prayer that this room would be blessed and that God would change Jake here. Then she got out the Bible she had bought especially for him and slipped it into the drawer of the end table beside the recliner. She wouldn't mention it; he would have to discover it for himself. She only hoped she would be able to help him understand the truth of its message.

She couldn't preach to him or force him. All she could do was pray for him.

Jake's life—both physical and spiritual—was in God's hands.

A
llie walked beside Jake's wheelchair as he left the hospital, letting him push the wheels to move it along. He couldn't believe they were sending him home like this, still unable to walk. Oh, Allie had taught him how to function well enough in day-to-day activities, and now that he could sit all the way up and had this smaller, more maneuverable chair, he was much more capable. But he still didn't like it. Hospitals are supposed to heal people, not teach them how to cope with their brokenness.

But the alternative—
staying
in the hospital—was worse. He'd rather be going away somewhere, even if it wasn't home.

Lynda had brought the car to the front entrance. She had dressed up for the occasion, he saw, and had pulled her hair up in a loose chignon. He wondered why she'd bothered.

“Do you need help getting in, Jake?” she asked.

He wasn't sure whether he did or not but decided not to accept it anyway. “I can do it,” he said, sidling his chair up to the open car door.

“You can do it, Jake,” Allie said, not offering a hand to help. “Just use your arms and your stomach.”

He could feel them all holding their breath as he got his arms into position then slid his body onto the car seat.

As if he'd just completed some Olympic feat, they all congratulated him. He felt like a toddler who'd just gone to the potty by himself, and the idea of such pathetic enthusiasm worsened his mood.

Lynda closed his door and got into the driver's side, but Allie came to his window. Jake lowered it.

“Just because you're going home doesn't mean you can neglect your therapy, Jake. I want you back here at nine tomorrow, and Lynda can just plan to leave you for six hours or so. We'll see if we can get some more of your toes to burn.”

He smiled in spite of himself; he liked the sound of that. “I'll be here.”

And as they drove away from the hospital, Jake wasn't sure whether to consider it a beginning or an ending. To him, it seemed as though he left the old Jake back there in the morgue, and he didn't yet know who the new Jake was.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

A
butterfly lit on Keith's shoulder, and he waved it away and peered between two bushes to the yard where Brianna played. Paige had set up a little tea party for her, and she had all her dolls in attendance. He smiled as she talked aloud to her friends and herself like a little princess to her courtiers.

But as always, Paige was right there, hovering over her. Calculating the distance to his car, which he'd parked on the closest street behind Lynda's house through the woods, he tried to decide whether he should chance jumping the fence and grabbing Brianna. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he wiped it on his sleeve. He would have the advantage of surprise. Paige would probably be stunned long enough for him to get Brianna. It would probably take less than ten seconds to get back over the fence and maybe another thirty to get back to his car. By the time Paige stopped screaming and got to the phone, he would have blended into the cars on the main road a mile or so away.

The butterfly flitted across the fence and lit in some wildflowers growing in an old, untended garden. Keith watched Bri-anna laughing with one of her dolls and then pouring more invisible tea and offering it a cup.

He heard a car pull up in the front, and his heartbeat accelerated. “Lynda's home,” Paige said as she got up. “I'll be in front, okay, Brianna?”

Brianna nodded indifferently as Paige went around between the garage and the house, and a slow smile came to Keith's lips. Was Brianna really alone?

He straightened and stepped through the bushes, watching his child with hungry, anxious eyes. He watched the butterfly flit over to the table where she sat.

“Mommy, it's a butterfly!” she said, her voice soft so that she wouldn't frighten it away.

It fluttered off, and Brianna got up and followed it. It lit in a piece of grass, and she bent over, trying to coax it onto her finger, but it flew a little further. As if it were in cahoots with Keith, it led her closer, closer, closer to the fence until she was almost close enough to reach.

Keith stepped into her view and touched the fence, whispering, “Brianna.”

She looked up at him, stunned. The butterfly flew away.

His heart hammered, and his hands shook; there was so little time before Paige came back.

“Come closer, honey,” he whispered, leaning over the fence. “Come give Daddy a kiss.”

Her bottom lip began to tremble, and she backed away, farther out of his reach.

“Brianna, I said to come here,” he said more firmly. “Now.”

She started to cry and looked around for her mother, who was nowhere in sight.

He was getting angry now. This wasn't working out like he'd planned. Gritting his teeth, he whispered, “Brianna, I told you to come here right now! I'm your daddy!”

He started to lunge over the fence, but Brianna screamed and lit out across the yard.

Cursing, Keith realized he'd gone too far; he'd never catch her before she made it to the front yard. Afraid of being caught, he tore back through the woods to his car.

L
ynda had just gotten Jake into the apartment and introduced him to Paige when they heard the scream.

Paige dashed outside and found Brianna almost to the garage apartment already, shrieking.

“What is it, honey? What's wrong?”

“Daddy! Daddy! He's gonna take me!” she screamed.

Paige stepped back into the doorway, looking helplessly at Lynda. “No, honey. Daddy can't get you here.”

“It's him!” Brianna screamed.

“It's me, isn't it?” Jake asked. “She saw me coming in, and I scared her.”

Paige wasn't sure. “Honey, that's not Daddy. That's a nice man named Jake. Remember I told you he was going to live here? Remember we got the room fixed up for him?”

Hiccuping her sobs, Brianna refused to look up.

Paige looked apologetically at Jake. “She's—terrified of men. If you knew her father you'd know why. I'm so sorry.”

“It's all right,” he said. “I make a pretty scary first impression.”

“I'll take her in,” Paige said and quickly hurried back toward the house.

The silence in their wake was palpable, and Lynda turned back to Jake, trying to find the words that would make him feel less like an intruder. “Not exactly the welcome I had planned for you. I'm sorry, Jake.”

He tried to take it philosophically. “Hey, I told you I'd frighten little kids. It's no surprise. Look, if this is gonna be a problem, they were here first.”

“It'll be all right,” Lynda assured him. “She's just been through an awful lot lately. Her father tried to fight her out of Paige's arms at the courthouse just a few days ago. It was terrifying to her. It's not the way you look, Jake; it's the fact that you're a man.”

But Jake wasn't buying it. “It's okay, Lynda. Really, I can handle this.”

She sighed. “We're having dinner at seven. Paige has been doing the cooking. She made a special dinner just for you.”

“Maybe I'd better just eat here.”

“Out of the question. You have to have dinner with us tonight.”

“It might spoil your appetite,” he said sardonically. “That is, if it doesn't send the kid into hysterics again.”

“She'll be all right,” Lynda said. “Come on. We all need to get used to each other.”

“Bet you never dreamed you'd have a houseful of wounded souls, did you?”

“Recovering souls,” she amended with a smile. “And I couldn't be happier to have all of you here. It's about time I had someone besides my secretary in my life.” It seemed like so long ago that they'd had the argument in the plane about the emptiness in both their lives, but Jake remembered and smiled slightly.

She went to the portable intercom she had bought just for him. “I haven't had the phones hooked up yet. I'll get someone here eventually, I guess. I'm just a little jumpy about having strangers here. Anyway, if you need anything, just press this button, and I'll hear you in the house.”

“I won't need anything.”

“Well, the kitchen's stocked, the refrigerator's full, there are towels in the bathroom. . . . Oh, and I had some special rails put into the tub, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting in. I can't think of anything else.”

“It's real comfortable, Lynda,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

Her smile was genuine. “I'll see you at seven, Jake. And if you don't show up, I'm coming after you.”

B
rianna was still crying when Lynda went back into the house. Paige held her close and rocked her, but the child hadn't calmed down at all. “Is she all right?” Lynda asked.