Flee From Evil (17 page)

John pulled a few from his pocket, and placed them on the table top. “I don’t know. I got five on number thirteen. People always hit into the woods to avoid the water there.”

Vince sighed at the image of the two men in the trees looking for
other people’s
balls rather than their own.

Smokey barked as if he wanted one of those balls himself. Billy dug his hand into the potted plant by the steps, found the ratty rope toy, and tossed it in the lawn. Smokey shot off after it.

“So who won?” Ayo slid into the chair next to Vince.

One of John’s pilfered balls hit another, causing a domino rolling effect. He corralled them so they didn’t all fall off the table. “I think Billy beat me this time.” He looked over at the other man’s collection. “That extra Callaway from eighteen put you one over.”

“Yeah, but you got a Pro-V and two of mine are Top Flights.” He jabbed a thumb toward Vince. “He’d say yours are more valuable.”

Shaking his head, Ayo blew a breath. “I was talking about the score.” He turned to Vince, his dreadlocks brushing the shoulder of his striped polo. “Well?”

“You did, my friend.”

Ayo’s wide smile shone from his dark features. “Two weeks in a row.” His eyes probed. “What’s with you, man?”

Vince leaned back in his chair. “Got my mind on other things.”

“Hmmm.” Ayo stood and grabbed a soda can from a cooler.

Vince fished the card into his back pocket.

“That Amit guy seems to be working out, huh?” Billy tugged the rope toy from Smokey’s mouth and tossed it again.

“Yeah, the bathrooms have never been cleaner, and I can find things in the supply closet.” John sipped from a Dr. Pepper can.”

Ayo said, “I think the dude’s prophetic.”

“How’s that?” A breeze brushed over Vince’s skin.

“You know how we’ve all been praying for Neil McLean ever since he told us he planned to propose to Teresa Greenfield?” Ayo glanced around at the concerned nods. “And how we’d all like to tell him she’s a shrew, but we’re afraid he might get offended?”

“I never said she was a shrew.” John, ever the peace-maker.

Ayo’s eyes pinned him. “Yeah, but you were thinkin’ it.”

John’s mouth twisted. “Still, we should pray for her.”

“Anyway, Neil came up to me last week and said Amit stopped him in the men’s room one day and started quoting from Proverbs.”

All the men’s heads bounced, having been held up by Amit’s verses themselves.

“Neil said he quoted Proverbs 27:15-16,
A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day, restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand
.”

Billy’s mouth dropped open. Vince’s muscles tensed, and John stared at Ayo.

Ayo gave them all a knowing look. “Yeah. At first Neil thought it was just the verse he was on that day, but the words kept echoing in his head, until—as he put it—he realized they were true.” He tapped his fingers on the glass table. “Neil broke up with Teresa three days ago.”

Each man in the group furrowed a muscle on his face. Billy scrunched his mustache. John got mirrored commas on his forehead, as Ayo kept nodding like he knew he hit his mark.

Verses Amit had quoted Vince came back to mind. Like the one that spoke to so many parts of his past, “
Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of God
.” Then there was the one he quoted the other day, “
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
How could Amit know these verses would resonate? Was he telling them something they needed to hear that day? Vince shook his head. “You’ve been reading too many End Times novels, Ayo.”

“Bah.” John grimaced.

Billy whapped Ayo on the head. “You had me scared for a minute there.”

Now Vince wondered what verses they’d all been quoted.

Needing a break from this conversation, he stood and entered Kat and Billy’s house through the sliding-glass door. Kat was washing lettuce in the sink.

“Can I help you with lunch?”

She only shook her head. Something was up. This woman never missed an opportunity to talk.

“I see Lilly-White’s here.” Lew opened the fridge and took out a beer. “Chasin’ little balls into holes?”

“Well some of us were. Others chased them into the rough.” Vince smiled at Kat. “Billy still thinks the one with the most balls found wins.”

She ripped lettuce as if decapitating it.

Lew’s lids lowered to half-mast. “Makes more sense to me. At least the winner has the highest score rather than the lowest.” He popped the beer bottle opened with the handle of a drawer. “Don’t they teach you boys math in college?” He slid out the back door to the deck before Vince could answer.

“What’s Lew doing here?”

Kat arranged the lettuce like she was dressing a reluctant child. “He’s moved in.” She finally looked up. “Got your old room.”

“What? He didn’t like Shelby’s pink, lacy curtains?”

“She still uses it when she comes to visit.” Kat opened the fridge and extracted bags of peppers, onions, and carrots. “He lost his job again.”

Vince pushed his hands into his pockets. He knew how helpless Billy and Kat felt when it came to Lew.

“Random testing.” She shrugged. “Delivery companies tend to like their drivers sober.”

“Is that what’s got you in such a foul mood?”

Kat faced him, eyes singeing his.

“Did I do something to make you angry?”

She ripped open the bag of onions, almost sending them up in the air.

“Come on, Kat. You’re mad. What’s up?”

“What did you
really
do to that girl?”

Where did that come from? “Who? What?”

“Cassandra.”

Vince’s jaw dropped. His mind couldn’t catch up with a way around the truth.

“You said she was furious when she found out about the bet.”

Oh boy, she knew too much. “I
never
said it was Cassandra.”

Kat eyed him.

“Okay, fine. Yes, it was Cassandra. But you understand why I don’t want the rest of the congregation to know about her. It’s not my place to tell.”

She pulled a large chopping knife out of the drawer and pointed it at him. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I want to know what you did to her.”

Toeing one of Smokey’s rawhides on the floor, Vince reluctantly said the words again. “I told you. I bet my buddy Drew I could ‘de-pure’ her, as he called it.” Bitterness burned in his chest at the word he now realized stole something precious. “And she found out right after I’d done it.”

A heaviness weighed on him. Visions of her pulling herself from his bed after his father had come in, wrapped in his sheets as she sobbed and screamed at him, cut through him, making it hard to speak. She’d tried to dress, while remaining covered, but the movements were awkward and she faltered. Vince wanted to go to her, comfort her, tell her he really did love her, but he could never use that word on her. He’d used it so loosely with all the others, it seemed an empty shell to him. Maybe he could prove what he felt later. Not that night. She wouldn’t listen in her state of mind.

He never had the chance.

Kat’s hard chopping brought Vince back to the present. “There’s more. I know it.”

“What do you mean?”

She waved the knife at him again. “That woman is not just mad at you. She’s deathly afraid of something.”

Could it have to do with Sophie, the teen who happened to be the right age, and didn’t seem to have the same coloring as her mother or brother? The thought that the girl could be his, made his stomach churn. “Afraid?”

“I told her about your father and the fire that took your house.”

“Why’d you do that, Kat?” He wearied at the thought of her burdened by his life.

“I thought she needed to know.” She resumed chopping onions. “While I recounted the story, she seemed to drift away.” Kat shook her head, brows crunching together. “And when she came back, she had a panic attack.”

Vince straightened. “What?”

“That’s what she called it. I thought she was having a seizure or something, but when she could finally breathe right, she said it was a panic attack, and that she hadn’t had one in a long time.” She put the knife down as if to focus the words. “I think talking about you prompted it.”

Chapter Sixteen

Why was Cassandra driving up this meandering road toward the estates that lined the water in the richer neighborhood surrounding Annapolis? She had to see it for herself. The house where Vince used to live, and the water’s edge where they spent so much time alone together. That little patch of grass surrounded by the marshy reeds. Private. Intimate.

Dangerous.

Vince would ride his little motor boat to their spot, and pull her out with his strong hands. His chest and back, always tanned, gave his skin a richness that made her want to run her fingers along his muscles, the scent of summer sun surrounding him. They’d sit and talk, the lapping of the waves on the shore framing their words. She felt protected, secure, even loved, as they spoke of their futures.

What a lie.

He told her he’d go to law school and try his hand at politics—make the world a better place. She told him how she wanted to design a mentor program in poor neighborhoods to give hope to kids who hadn’t seen much success. Vince had smiled as if he’d approved of her convictions. She’d convinced herself they were speaking of the same goals.

His kisses were always gentle, careful, searching her tentatively. He’d never said the word
love
, she realized, but thought he’d communicated it in so many other ways, like the way he touched her as if she were made of delicate china. Cherished. Valued.

She knew he didn’t think much about God, but wondered if that could change. Oh, how she had wished it would. So when he’d asked her to take off the cross she’d always worn around her neck—the one her father had carved from wood, and hung on a leather cord—she told him he could keep it. His lips had trailed her collar bone before the request. She hadn’t realized it then, but now knew he couldn’t bear to look at it, the intent of his actions weighing on his mind. Cassandra had offered to tie the cross around his neck, but he pushed it into his shorts pocket instead, never to be seen again. When her father died of a brain aneurysm that fall, she felt most at a loss of the prized possession she’d given to the man who couldn’t really love. It had been the first of prized possessions she’d given him that night.

Magnolia Estates
was carved on the grand sign, lined by flowering trees and lush gardens. Cassandra turned into the subdivision, a red car accelerated past as she left the main road. For some reason the volume of its revving engine made her shiver. Was that the same car she kept seeing around Waters Edge? Why did it seem to be everywhere she was? Like it was stalking her. Probably the bright color and racing stripes just made it stand out.

Cassandra shook her head and continued through the familiar streets, gargantuan houses sprawled up the incline, dangling from cliffs as if clambering to get a better view of the water below. She inched along the road, Vince’s old property just ahead, and found a large, but understated building—very unlike the one he had lived in—possessing the property. Her eyes stung as she imagined the young man she used to know, choking on smoke, trying to find his way out to safety, standing before his home watching all that he ever owned crumble to the ground in smoke and ash.

Cassandra jerked at the knock on the window. She rolled it down.

“Can I help you with something?” The woman spoke as if Cassandra’s stationary vehicle had blocked her power walk.

“I was just wondering about the family who lived in the house that used to be here.” Cassandra didn’t know how else to explain her presence.

“You mean the one destroyed by the fire?” The woman’s skin hardly moved when she spoke, like it had been injected with too much botox.

“Yes. Did you know them?”

“Of course. They were our neighbors.” Was she offended?

Curiosity peaked at the relationship with Vince’s family. “Do you know what happened to them?”

Her face registered some form of concern. Whether it was from feigning the expression or the overuse of plastic surgery, it didn’t go very far. “After the house burned down with the father inside, the young man discovered his father had lost everything in some bad investments. He stayed with us for a few weeks, but we prompted him to leave. Good thing, because it turns out he later began to deal drugs as a form of employment.” She huffed. “Imagine what would have happened had he brought that kind of trouble to my children.” She sighed as if her family had escaped a close one. No thought to the young man who’d lost everything and had nowhere to go.

“Thank you.” Cassandra shifted and punched the gas before her lungs constricted any more. She couldn’t feel sorry for Vince. It was his fault she suffered. His fault all her goals had been destroyed. His fault she once again had nightmares that left her gasping for breaths and searching for safety within her own mind. She wouldn’t feel sorry for him. She needed to hate him instead.