Grounds to Believe (23 page)

“The police? Why? There hasn’t been any crime committed here. I want to see my wife. Maybe she can make more sense than you are, Michael.”

Dr. Archer gathered his resources. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Owen. You see, she’s been arrested on a charge of attempted murder.”

Everyone shouted at once. Julia got up and went to the window, wishing herself anywhere but here. Dimly, in the pandemonium, she was aware that Derrick hovered in the background, uncertain of his welcome should he attempt to speak to her. She leaned her forehead against the glass, longing for Ross, longing to be told she’d done the right thing.

After long moments, the noise died down and she realized Melchizedek had taken control of the situation. “Michael, this is untenable. What are we going to tell the church? That our Elder’s wife has been arrested on grounds so unbelievable I can hardly bring myself to name them? Impossible!”

“I will not let you vilify my wife!” Owen cried. “This is a horrible mistake, brought on by a misdiagnosis on your part!”

“Owen, please calm down,” Melchizedek said in the voice he used to condemn the flesh and the Devil. “We need to put the church ahead of our own emotion and horror.”

Owen looked like a stranger to Julia. His shirt was wrinkled, his face bathed in sweat, and his eyes…She swallowed. His eyes were alight with condemnation of Michael Archer and fiery defense of his wife.

“All right.” Owen controlled himself after a moment. “I’m listening.”

“Michael, please tell us exactly what has happened,” Melchizedek ordered.

“We believe Madeleine has been suffering from a disorder known as Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy,” Michael began, eyeing Owen and Elizabeth as if he feared they’d leap for his throat. “People who suffer from this disorder harm their children in order to—to—well, to increase others’ opinion of them. A woman might do it to appear as a selfless and caring mother during her child’s repeated visits to the hospital.”

“My Madeleine
is
a selfless and caring mother!” Elizabeth hissed. Her eyes were narrowed to slits.

“We all know that,” Owen said. “Go on, please, Michael.”

“She has certainly been successful,” Michael said. “But Ryan has paid the price. If not for the discovery of her disorder, Madeleine would surely have killed him. Last night she tried to tamper with the cardiac drip, after weak
ening his system over a period of years with isopropyl alcohol.” His voice trailed away with unutterable disillusionment and weariness.

Melchizedek spoke over the babble of angry voices. “Folks, please! We must not let this discourage us. Remember, these are only accusations. Nothing has been proven.”

Julia blinked. Nothing proven? Hadn’t he heard what Michael had just said?

“The truth will set us free,” Melchizedek declared. “We must be strong in the Spirit, and encourage our sister Madeleine to do the same. And in the meantime, we will hold fast to her shining example. She is our Elder’s wife. We must protect her reputation as best we can, and in doing so protect the Elect from the arrows and slings of the wicked. We won’t speak of this to anyone. We’ll tell our brothers and sisters that she had a breakdown from stress and has gone somewhere quiet to recuperate. The joy of knowing Ryan has at last been diagnosed
correctly
was too much for her.” He gave Dr. Archer a cutting glance. “And if we hear anything else, we will know its source, and know that the Devil is behind it.”

Julia’s stomach revolted, and she dashed out the door.

B
y the time Julia reached the sanctuary of the stairs, she felt less like throwing up than punching a fist through the plate glass. With a shuddering sigh, she sank down on one of the steps and dropped her head on her crossed arms.

How could they? She had sacrificed everything she held dear—friends, family, future—to do what was right. She had helped to save Ryan’s life. And now they were sacrificing the truth for Madeleine. And for the church.

The only way Julia could continue to live in her world was if the people she loved believed the truth. Then she could live with her own actions, even if no one ever found out how Ross had used her. But no one was going to reveal the truth, or even believe it. They were going to cover up, to deny, to keep Madeleine’s example shiny and angelic, for the sake of how it would look.

“Julia?” She didn’t lift her head at the uncertain sound of Derrick’s footsteps. “Are you all right?”

“No.”

“Please. Let me help you.”

“I need to be alone right now.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, lowering himself onto the step beside her as if he hadn’t heard. He probably hadn’t. “Madeleine will be all right. Melchizedek is talking to Owen. They’re going to go over to the police station to get this straightened out. You’ll see. It’ll all work out in the end.”

“Derrick, please go away.”

Four floors above, a door slammed and someone descended a flight. The third floor door shut behind them, the sound booming eerily in the stairwell. Derrick didn’t move.

“I know this is a terrible time to ask, but have you given any more thought to my proposal? What is it now, six times?”

His attempt at humor echoed in the silence. Julia sighed. Would this nightmare never end? Other than running away to the top of Mount Ayres, when was she going to get the time to think things through? She would just have to go by her gut instincts. They, at least, were screaming loud and clear.

“Yes.” Her voice was flat.

“And?”

“No.”

“No? You’re not going to marry me?”

“No, I’m not. I’m sorry.” From somewhere she marshaled the strength to lift her head and look him in the eye as she said it.

His face sagged, and his gaze dropped to the painted concrete step between his feet. “I’m willing, you know. Even after…everything. The Shepherd tells us that any two
people filled with the spirit of God can live together in harmony. I’m willing to step out on that promise.”

“You may be willing to settle for living together in harmony, my friend,” she said gently, “but I’m not. I want the real thing.”

“But I love you,” he protested. “I always have. Otherwise how could I keep asking you, even after everything that’s happened?”

Julia winced. “I believe you care, and I’m grateful for that. But I don’t think it will be enough. Because I don’t love
you,
you see.”

He was silent for a moment. “It’s him, isn’t it?” he asked, his tone low and rough.

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.” She paused, surprised at the bubble of anger that came welling up out of nowhere. “It isn’t a matter of you or him or anybody else. It’s me, and how I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”

“You’ll be Silenced,” he predicted gloomily.

“Not if I go Out.” She gave the thought words for the first time. The reality of speaking the forbidden aloud frightened her. But what choice did she have? “Not if I make my own life, without people laying down the law and telling me how to do it. And whom to marry.”

“Wha-a-a-t?” he said on an indrawn breath. “Go Out? Oh, Julia, you can’t do that. Even being Silenced is better than that. Promise me you won’t think about it anymore. You’d be committing suicide, spiritually. Losing your salvation. And for what? There’s nothing for you Outside. The Devil is just using this hard experience to
get to you. Please, dear, accept God’s will and in time people will forget.”

“Accept God’s will, or Melchizedek’s?” she asked bitterly.

“They’re the same, Julia, you know that.”

“God doesn’t ask people to lie and cover up.”

“Julia!”

“Don’t
Julia
me. You don’t know all the facts.”

“Are you saying you believe your sister did this?”

“I saw her, Derrick. On the video. That’s pretty hard to argue with.”

He got to his feet. “And we all know video is a tool of the Devil, just like television and the Internet. I’m sorry you’re deceived, dear. I’ll pray for you.”

She closed her eyes. “You do that.” When she opened them again, she was alone in the echoing space. Alone with the betrayal of those she loved. Alone with an empty future that included neither friends nor family.

The light pouring through the windows splintered in the tears welling in her eyes, and she squeezed them shut against the brilliance and the pain.

Ross heard a woman crying softly as he mounted the stairs. It had taken a couple of hours to process Madeleine, whose immediate future was still up in the air. He felt drained and tired, so much so that all he could think of was finding his two girls and collapsing with them somewhere dark and quiet, and not coming out for a week.

He wondered when he’d begun thinking of Julia as his. He couldn’t remember. They’d grown together gradually,
and then his own stupidity had torn them apart. Sometimes it hurt more to heal something with the truth than it did to perpetuate a lie.

But God had promised that the truth would set them free. And despite the emotional wrenches they’d both suffered lately, he believed that both he and Julia would receive the benefit of that promise.

He just had to be patient.

Which was why his immediate future included finding Julia and then going home to Kailey. He wasn’t going to think any further than that.

At the third floor, he turned the corner of the staircase and saw her, sitting on the top step.

“Hey,” he called softly, and took the remaining stairs two at a time. He sat beside her and gazed into her face, where the evidence of her crisis was plain in her stricken eyes and white, tear-streaked cheeks.

“Are you all right? How did it go up here? Did Michael break it to them?”

Julia sighed and folded into his arms. “Yes. They’re going to cover it all up and say Madeleine is away resting after breaking down from stress.”

“It’s what any group would do. Band together to protect one of their own.” He dipped his head to breathe in the scent of her unruly hair, drawing strength from her as he offered what comfort he could.

“But what about me?” she murmured into his T-shirt. “I’m one of their own, and they’re going to Silence me.”

“I don’t think you are, honey. Not anymore.”

She went still under his soothing touch. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And think about the kids. At least for now, if Ryan and Hannah don’t have to know their mom is disturbed, then I’m all for it. Think how that’s going to damage Ryan even more than he is now.”

Too many damaged kids.
Dear Lord, help me to help Kailey deal with her recovery, too…

“Will she get away with it?” Her question was soft, hesitant.

“I’m going to do my best to make sure she doesn’t. Between Michael and me and Harry Everett, we’ll lobby hard for a long treatment program rather than incarceration. Ninety days, to start. And regular monitoring when she gets out.”

The road to recovery was going to be hard for all of them.

She closed her eyes. “It’s not black and white, is it?” she asked softly. “It’s not a matter of crime and punishment. Even though I want it to be.”

He continued to stroke her back. “That’s one of the hardest things I had to learn in this job. When you’re dealing with people, you deal in compromises and half truths and injustice.”

“Even with people who do wrong?”

“Even with them. Look at your situation. The Elect think you’re the bad guy, when both of us know you were acting for the best.”

She’d been brought up to look at everything in terms of good and evil. But Ross knew from experience that seeing
life in black and white, without the lens of the love of God, led to harsh judgments and even harsher punishment.

“I was acting for the best,” she agreed softly. “For a child I love.”

God knew he loved his daughter. Everything he’d done in his life since she was born had been motivated by love for her. But could he remember that Annie had done what she’d done thinking it was best for Kailey? Could he learn to forgive? He would need all the strength God could give him to look past the barrier of anger in his heart and answer that question. He might doubt his own ability to do it. But he had no doubts whatsoever that enough help waited for him. All he had to do was ask.

That was the solution Julia was discovering, too, he had no doubt.

“So I have one more question.”

“What’s that?” Her voice was muffled in the front of his T-shirt.

“What kind of answer are you going to give old Derrick when all this is over?”

“I already gave it to him.”

“Yeah? And that was?” His arms tightened around her.

“No.”

“No, you won’t tell me?”

“No, I said no.”

The breath he had been holding fanned the hair over her ear. “So you’d rather take the punishment?”

“They can’t punish me if I’m not Elect, can they?”

He looked down into her eyes. “You’re sure you want to do that?”

She nodded, her eyes filling with the tears that hadn’t been far from the surface. “I’ve spent my whole life looking for approval from the Elect because I couldn’t get it from my parents. But looking for approval isn’t going to work anymore. Not now.”

“What will you do?”

She lifted her shoulders briefly in a shrug. “I don’t know yet. Take stock of my life. Decide if I’m going to stay here or not. I’m still Ryan and Hannah’s aunt. I don’t want to fall out of their lives right when they’re going to need me, whether I’m Elect or not.”

“These are big decisions, honey. They take time and a lot of thought. I think you’re doing the right thing.” He hugged her, a slow squeeze that brought comfort to them both. “But meantime, know what I need?”

“What?”

“I need to get out of this hospital. I need to be with Kailey. And you. Alone. Just the three of us. I think that’s a good start, don’t you?”

When she looked up, she was smiling through her tears.

“Sounds like heaven to me.”

Three months later

T
he pager beeped as Ross took the freeway exit to Hamilton Falls. He guided the pickup truck with one hand and pulled the unit off his belt to glance at the number.

“What does it say?” Kailey took it and studied the readout. “555-7212,” she read slowly.

“Good job. Whose number is it?”

“Daddy, it’s Julia.”

“Should we call her back, or surprise her and just go to her house?”

“Go to her house.” Kailey nodded firmly and gave it back to him.

It was crazy that an investigator who had been hardened by pretty much the worst human nature had to offer should feel such a lift of anticipation at the prospect of seeing one woman. Ridiculous it might be, but Ross was learning to
savor the simple pleasures of life, such as looking forward to a weekend with Julia, or the feeling of accomplishment he’d shared with Kailey when she’d learned all the numbers up to one hundred and made it halfway through the first-grade reading list.

In a few minutes Ross wheeled the truck into the driveway at 1204 Gates Place and noted that Rebecca’s car was gone. Not surprising. If he remembered correctly, she would be at the Elect prayer meeting. As they climbed the stairs to the top-floor apartment, they heard shrieks of laughter through the open windows. Was Julia baby-sitting? He turned the knob and he and Kailey went in without knocking.

Julia and two little kids, one of whom he recognized as Hannah Blanchard, were sprawled on the floor around a board game, laughing about something that probably had less to do with the game than the story Hannah was trying to tell. The little girl broke off in midsentence when she saw they weren’t alone.

“Auntie Julia, it’s the angel from hell.” She giggled and poked the other child in the ribs.

“Hannah Nicole, how many times have I told you not to call him that? His name is Ross.”

“Investigator Malcolm to you, shrimp.” Ross pulled his best stern policeman face and sent Hannah off into another paroxysm.

Kailey couldn’t take her eyes off the brightly colored board game. “Daddy, what’s that?” she whispered.

“It’s called Candy Land,” he whispered back. “Want me to teach you?”

“I’ll show her. We just learned.” The blond boy rolled to a sitting position and waved her over.

“And who might you be?” Ross crossed the room to sit next to Julia, who had pulled herself onto the couch and sat with one leg draped over its arm. She leaned against his shoulder and smiled up at him.

“I’m Ryan,” the boy said indignantly.

Ross sat up straight, dislodging Julia from her comfortably boneless position. “You are not.”

“Am too.”

He blinked. “So you are.”

Ryan’s cheeks had filled out, the skin no longer stretching over bone. While the flush of laughter had faded from them, leaving them pale, at least he looked like a kid instead of a skull. His hair was no longer lifeless and flat, matted to his head with sweat. It was blond and freshly cut, springing up from his scalp, practically bristling with life. His eyes were clear and very blue.

“Now, that’s what I call a recovery,” he murmured to Julia, when the kids were absorbed in the game.

“More like a miracle. Once he came home from the hospital it was like watching a video on fast-forward.”

“Since when do you know anything about videos?”

“I went in the video shop,” she said proudly. “And watched a whole movie on the display screen. I didn’t rent anything because I don’t have a VCR to play it on, but I went in there.”

“It’s a start,” Ross allowed.

“It felt weird at first, but I got used to it. Next step is a movie. In an actual theater.”

“Something appropriate for children, perhaps.”

“That would be pushing it. The only reason I have the kids at all is because I insisted. Everyone has gone to Spokane for the hearing.”

“So they’ll still talk to you?”

“Oh, yes. Once I’m Out no punishments apply, you see. They treat me like any common acquaintance on the street. I just happen to be related. And even my mother could see that having the kids along today would be a bad thing.”

“I notice you didn’t take them to prayer meeting.”

Julia gazed at the children. “I thought about going for the kids’ sake, but I think moments of togetherness like this are more important than listening to Melchizedek thunder about the children of Israel hewing and slaying.”

He squeezed her shoulders, then ran a soothing hand up and down her arm. “Do you miss it?”

After a moment in which he watched her struggle to find an answer, she said, “Yes. I do.”

“What do you miss most? Not about your family. About the Elect.”

“There’s the whole social aspect. The phone doesn’t ring as much as it used to.”

“It works both ways.”

“I know. But I don’t have anything to say to Claire and Derrick anymore. They think I’m deceived, and any time I try to tell them about how flawed the Elect system is, they fade out and leave. Eventually I gave up.”

“A person’s relationship with God is something they have to discover on their own. The way you did.”

“I know, but their relationship is more with the system of worship than with God.”

“That’s also something they have to see on their own. So what about yours?”

“My what?”

“Way of worship.”

“I’m not ready yet, Ross.”

“I know. But all worldly churches aren’t deceived. You know that, right?”

“Hearing you say it is different from experiencing it myself. But God loves me whether I worship in a church building or not.”

“Of course He does. But it’s hard to love someone you don’t know. And it’s hard to learn about Him if you don’t have teachers and fellowship with other believers.”

“I have the Bible, and prayer. Isn’t that enough?”

“Having the relationship is what matters.”

She was silent, and he grieved that the woman he loved should have been so damaged by her family’s devotion to a system of worship instead of the One who deserved their praise that she was avoiding religion altogether.

“You’d like my church,” he said thoughtfully, settling her more closely under his arm.

“Ross. I need time. I need more than a few months to grow away from the Elect. It’s like withdrawal. Or breaking up with someone. I need a period of mourning.”

“But you can’t spend the rest of your life mourning the death of the old without giving the new a chance to be born.”

With a sardonic glance, she murmured, “Okay, let’s call it a gestation period.”

“I don’t think there’s a gestation period to be born again. Just an open heart.”

At this she straightened, and her elbow dug against his hip. He felt a spurt of alarm. Maybe he’d gone too far. Maybe in his love for her soul as well as her self, he’d pushed her away.

“I do have an open heart,” she said. “I pray every day that God will show me His will. Meantime—”

Both of them heard the footsteps on the stairs. Julia glanced at her watch. “That can’t be any of the Elect. Prayer meeting isn’t over yet.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Julia got up to answer it.

“Mom,” she said, and stood aside to let Elizabeth McNeill in.

Elizabeth took in the children and Ross in one glance. “Hannah and Ryan would have been better off in prayer meeting,” she said.

“I didn’t want to share them tonight,” Julia replied. “We had a good time together.”

“Hello, Mrs. McNeill.” Ross held out a hand, and she took it after a second’s pause. With one shake, she dropped it again.

“Hannah, Ryan, it’s time to go home,” their grandmother said.

“Aw, Nanna. We just started another game. Kailey’s never played Candy Land before.”

“She can learn another time. Come on. Pack up.”

Julia stood beside her mother, and Ross moved closed behind her. “So how did it go?”

“I hardly think you’re in a position to ask. Besides, Mr. Malcolm probably knows much more than I.”

Did her mother think that Ross represented the entire legal establishment? That he was personally managing her elder daughter’s incarceration? “Mother. She’s my sister. I have a right to know, too.”

“You should have thought of that before you acted the way you did.”

Julia bit the inside of her lower lip and controlled the words she wanted to say. “Mother, please.”

“Nothing happened,” Elizabeth said shortly after a moment of drawing out the silence. “The doctor said she isn’t ready to be released from the treatment program. But,” she added, “her progress has been very good.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’m sure you are. Hannah, you don’t need to bring the game home with you. Leave it here.”

“Can we play it next time, Auntie Julia?” the little girl asked.

“Of course you can,” Julia replied, and bent to give her a hug. The little girl felt solid in her arms. Healthy. Real. Amid the wreckage of her life, that was something to be thankful for. “Bye, sweetie. Go with Nanna, and give Daddy a kiss for me.”

She hugged Ryan. No matter how many times she felt his thin little body, she couldn’t get over the feeling he’d
be snatched from them at any second. But as long as Madeleine was in treatment, she supposed, he had time to get his strength back. What would happen when her sister returned to her family, she just didn’t know. That was up to the doctors and the judge.

And God.

The reminder whispered in her mind as the two children trooped down the steps after their grandmother and climbed into her car.

She’d taken God for granted, she realized. She’d seen Him merely as the wallpaper backing her life, and not built the kind of relationship that would sustain her faith through a time like this. If she had, would her family’s withdrawal hurt so much?

Maybe. Maybe not.

She curled into a ball in the corner of the couch. “I hate that she treats me this way.”

Ross pulled one of her bare feet toward him and began to rub it, his strong fingers sure on all the nerve endings. “From what I saw, she treated you that way before.”

“What?” She frowned at him, and tried to take her foot back. He hung on to it. “That tickles.”

“Give me the other one.”

She gave in, and he continued his skillful ministrations.

“I mean her treatment of you hasn’t changed. From what I saw, anyway. It’s just that you’ve moved out of her shadow enough to be able to see it.”

Julia fell silent. At least she was moving somewhere. Not that she liked the view very much.

Kailey put the game board on the coffee table. “Daddy. Julia. Play Candy Land with me.”

Ross smiled at his daughter with such love that Julia felt her own heart swell. “I never saw such a kid for learning stuff.”

“I have to learn stuff,” Kailey said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “I have to catch up.”

“Catch up to whom, sweetie?” Julia asked. “You can go at your own pace. You don’t need to catch up to anybody.”

Kailey shook her head. “Hannah knows Candy Land and she’s just a little kid. I want to learn what other kids do.”

Could she learn from a seven-year-old? Julia wondered. Maybe the thing to do was to absorb as much as possible so she, too, could reach out and grab life the way Kailey was doing. Maybe she, too, needed to catch up so that she could walk through life with Ross without feeling as though her side of the path were a step lower than his.

Maybe she just had to stop talking about it and simply open her heart to the One who had the wisdom and love to lead her in the way she should go.

Ross and Kailey were already bent over the board. He glanced at her, and in his eyes she saw the kind of quiet love that wouldn’t demand, that would only point the way. The kind of love she could trust to do the right thing for her, if she’d only let him.

“Your move,” he said.

She reached for the game pieces. “Yes,” she said. “I believe it is.”