Indivisible (21 page)

“Okay. I’ll have to run it by DA Cutler, but if there’s a meth lab out there, I’m guessing he’ll deal.”

“He’ll deal.”

Jonah wouldn’t tell Sam until the deal was stamped, but he’d bought him a reprieve, given Sue the chance she wanted to put the mess back together. And it felt good. In spite of statistics, he was a personal believer in resurrection. He had to be.

Twenty

Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

—PHILIPPIANS 2:2, NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE

T
ia looked up when Miles walked in for the second time since his meltdown almost four weeks ago. Not even a month, yet it seemed like years since Jonah had taken her home, dazed and injured, before he had trashed her psyche as thoroughly as Miles her store.

Her throat locked in whatever greeting she might have managed as Miles made his hulking way between the less crowded displays. Dressed in a pressed corduroy jacket and knife-edge khakis over shined leather loafers, he avoided even the brush of an elbow to a shelf. Others should be so careful.

Certain that Miles was the least of anyone’s concerns, even—no especially—Jonah’s, she looked back at the supply list she’d been compiling. It was all she could do to fake an interest in oils and tinctures, paraffin, glycerin, and beeswax. The question she asked the woman who’d called the Hopeline had played in her own head ever since. How do you want to spend the time left you?

She wanted to help people the way she’d helped that woman, to listen and understand, to break down hurt and guilt and fear, and restore hope. Yet she’d been so bound up, she had only used that gift stingily on her dial-a-prayer line. If she were called to account today, she’d say, “Lord, I buried my talent in the sand because I didn’t believe it was good enough.”

She bit her lower lip and watched Miles, trapped inside his fears, staring at the only candles he considered safe, dipped tapers bearing no human fingerprints, believing if he wasn’t touched, he would not be hurt. Maybe he was right.

He unhooked a pair by the wick that joined them, ironically the very part she had held to hang them. He brought them to the counter. “I would like these, please.”

“Sure, Miles.”

He pulled his payment from the wallet, laid the money on the counter, and drew his hand back. She wanted to promise he was safe from her, but how could anyone really keep from touching another life?

She gave him change. “I don’t suppose you want them wrapped.”

“Yes. Lots of purple ribbon. And the moon sticker.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Okay.”

“And you can have this back.” With a finger, he slid her Hopeline card across the counter.

Her heart sank. So much for gifts and talents …

“I memorized the number.”

She stared at the card, then looked up. For one moment he met her eyes. A smile flickered over her mouth. “It’s good 24/7.”

He picked up the candles. “Your leg is better?”

“Good as new.”

He walked to the door and paused, started to say something, then he went out. She looked down at the card, picked it up, and held it to her chest, feeling her heart beat faintly beneath.
Lord
.

“Jonah.” Ana’s voice came through his Bluetooth.

“Hey, Ana.” They hadn’t talked since striking Sam’s deal nearly three weeks ago, and he hoped that wasn’t going south this close to the trial.

“Are you driving?”

“I am.”

“Do you want to pull over?”

Everything suddenly slowed down. His Bronco in slow motion, the scenery crawling by. His pulse and breaths felt minutes apart, his limbs suspended in water. “What’s up?”

“Sam won’t be going to trial, Jonah. I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

His chin dropped to his chest. Sam. Dead. His throat worked over the words before he finally said, “I’m on my way.”

They had moved the body to the morgue. Sam’s bone structure was indeed small, and he’d lost weight since the day in the ER. With Ana and the coroner, Hao Sung, Jonah stood beside the stainless table trying to internalize the shift to this from the man he’d spoken to just days ago.

“What happened?”

Hao held up a baggy with a syringe inside. “We found this in his cell.”

Jonah didn’t ask how he’d gotten it. Jails were sieves. The question was who. And why. Had someone heard Sam was cooperating? Or had they hedged their bets, giving him a little something to keep him wanting more, to make cooperating undesirable. Or had Sam just found an opportunity and taken it?

“Anyone hear or see anything?”

Ana said, “The guys on either side say he freaked out and threw himself around like he was hallucinating. He seizured and collapsed.”

He turned to Hao. “Would meth alone do that?”

Hao shrugged. “Could. Injecting is a big jump from smoking the stuff. We’ll test the syringe. And I haven’t opened him up.”

“It might have been laced?”

Again Hao shrugged. “When I know, you’ll know.”

Jonah nodded. It didn’t matter. Locked in his cell, Sam had to have injected it. There’d be no resurrection. “I’ll tell Officer Donnelly.”

This time the drive went too fast. He took Sue into his office and made her sit in his chair. He pulled the only other around and sat.

She said, “It’s Sam.”

He nodded. “OD or poisoning.”

“Poison?”

“He injected something. We don’t know what. I’m sorry, Sue. He’s gone.”

Her face worked through the pain. “You made the ID?”

He nodded. “But of course you can see him. Hao—”

“No.” She swiped the tears. “I saw him alive and willing and hopeful. I don’t want to see the other man.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “Can we still use the statement?”

He held her eyes. “We have it signed and witnessed and videoed. He won’t be there to confirm it in court, but …” He spread his hands. “It’s something.”

“Then”—she cleared her throat—“let’s go. Let’s get them.”

“Sue.”

“I want them, Jonah.”

“Listen to me.” When he got her attention, he said, “I talked to Connie. She wants you to meet her at the foster house and get Eli.”

Her mouth fell open. A single word slipped out on her breath. “Now?”

He nodded again.

She pressed her hands to her face, shaking. “Oh, God. Oh my God.”

“Yeah,” he said, her prayer as pure as any he’d heard.

Liz saw him sitting on a boulder at the bank of the creek near the bridge. Wind tossed the pines and willows on either side, but he seemed somehow removed from the physical world. His fingers drove into the sides and front of his head as he held it from falling to his chest. A monument of dejection.

Quietly she approached, sat on a boulder beside his. He rocked his head to see her.

She smiled thinly. “It must be bad.”

“Yeah.” Did she imagine him stiffening, pulling up the walls? He frowned. “I’m sorry. Did you need something?”

She sniffed a laugh. “Do you ever let someone help you?”

He pressed his tongue between his side teeth. “It’s not me. One of my officers lost her husband.”

And yet the wound seemed to be within him. “You knew him well?”

“Hardly at all. She kept her work and family separate.”

Then it was the wife he hurt for.

“It must be hard to have so many depend on you.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“It’s not hard, or people don’t need you?”

He pressed his hands to his face and rubbed. “I just wish it hadn’t come down this way.”

“Are there kids?”

“Two-year-old. One on the way.”

Liz shook her head. “I wish I knew what to say.”

“Yeah.” He looked at his watch. “Sorry, Liz. I have to meet with the mayor.”

“Like seeing a man about a horse?”

He glanced down. “Uh, as I understand that phrase, you’re not far off—between you and me.” He formed a dry smile. “At least I can tell him there have been no more mutilations.”

“Like the raccoons, you mean.”

“Yeah. He’s afraid word will get out that aliens are operating on our pets.”

She stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“He doesn’t want animal rights groups interfering with the growth and health of our community. It’s just politics. One part of my job I hate—although today it’s a tossup.” He stood, lanky and lupine with an inner agitation behind his weary eyes.

“Take care now.”

She said, “I will.” But who would take care of him? She stood and watched until he was gone, then pressed a hand to her heart. Lucy was waiting.

Piper slipped out from the counter and into the kitchen to check the sourdough sponge she had proofing in the big glass bowl. Never guessing Sarge would lift the ban, she had created the starter at home, assuming she’d have to learn anything new on her own time in Tia’s kitchen. She fed the starter like a pet for three days until it developed a bubbly froth, then brought it to work. She had mixed up the sponge six hours ago. Now it was white and frothy with a sour beery smell.

The bell on the front counter would alert her if someone needed service, but she hoped the lull lasted long enough to make the dough. After measuring out enough sponge for the recipe, she put the remainder back into the cleaned jar, added fresh flour and warm water, and put it in the walk-in to grow the natural yeast for the next batch. To the sponge, she added sugar, salt, and oil, and, using the enormous dough mixer, kneaded in the flour.

It was brainlessly easy, and yet she got such a kick out of it. She wasn’t sure her mother had ever made a meal that wasn’t microwaveable. Almost always they’d eaten out, almost always finding something wrong so some or all the ticket got comped. Piper shook her head. This simple thing of making bread from flour and water, sugar, salt, and oil was as big a statement of independence as anything she’d done.

No one rang the bell, but as she tipped the mixer bowl to the rising board, she thought she heard the door. She gently patted the soft-as-baby-skin dough and covered it with a crib-sized cloth, giggling at how often she compared her loaves and buns to babies. Maybe all creativity stemmed from a generative urge.

She washed her hands and went out front. No one. She started to turn back to the kitchen when she saw the package on the counter. Puzzled, she lifted it, recognizing Tia’s wrapping at once, but not finding anything to explain its appearance.

Piper frowned, noticing a slip of paper that must have fallen to the floor. The hand printing looked typeset and said only, “For Piper.” She went to the front and searched the street through the windows. People milled along the sidewalks, though no one she knew. She pulled open the paper. Two pale golden tapers of natural, honey-scented beeswax. She locked the register and hurried next-door. “Tia?”

Tia straightened up from behind one of the displays. “Hey.”

“Did you wrap these for someone?”

Tia looked at what she held. “He brought them to you?”

“Someone left them on the counter.”

“It was Miles.”

“Miles?”

She nodded. “He seemed very pleased with himself.”

“Miles bought these for me?”

“I think you have a friend.”

“That is so sweet.”

“And no fingerprints. He gave you the germ-free candles.”

Warmth filled up inside her. “I wonder why he didn’t stay and have me open them.”

“Guess it was a surprise.”

The warmth became a glow. “I didn’t know he could think in surprises.”

“Underneath his phobia, he seems very intelligent.”

“Oh, you should have heard all the scientific explanations he gave me for why the dough rises and how heat and pressure and oxygen and whatnot affect food and cooking and how the body processes energy. He went on and on like a talking teddy bear that swallowed an encyclopedia.”