Presumption of Guilt (25 page)

“So don't tell me about God loving me,” Tracy went on. “If God loved me, he would have let me die before Nick found me.Then it would all be over, and I wouldn't have to deal with all this.”

Beth tried to harden herself, so she wouldn't fall apart. “I'll see that Jimmy isn't brought back up here. Then you won't have to deal with him.”

“No, that's not what I mean!” Tracy cried. “I
want
to see him. It just hurts . . . The past . . .”

The past did hurt. Beth knew that more than anyone. And it was hard having compassion for a woman who had left her children to be cared for by an indifferent and impersonal bureaucracy, to be turned over to a thief and child abuser.

“Tracy, you can change if you want. But you have to want to.Nobody can force you.”

“I
do
want to. I just don't know if I'm strong enough.”

Beth sat there for a long moment, wishing she had some strength to give her. But she didn't think she could spare any. Her throat tightened until she felt as if she were choking. She had to get out of here. She had to go somewhere where the memories didn't rush up to smother her. She had to get away from Tracy Westin. “I've got to go.”

Tracy accepted that without a response.

When Beth reached the door, she turned back. “Maybe I'll come back by tomorrow. See how you're doing.” But she had no intention of doing that, and she suspected that Tracy knew it.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

L
ynda was home when Jimmy and Jake pulled up. She came outside to meet them, looking a little apprehensive, and Jimmy realized that Nick must have filled her in about the fiasco at the hospital. He hoped they all felt real bad about it.

He got out of the car. “Has Bill been arrested yet? Can they get Lisa out?”

Lynda shot a look to Jake. “Uh—no, Jimmy. Not yet.”

Jake stiffened. “Why not?”

She sighed. “Judge Wyatt is still giving them a hard time. He's taken the matter under advisement.”

“You're kidding me!” Jake said.

“What does that mean?” Jimmy asked.

Lynda didn't want to say it, but she bent down to get even with his face and tried to find the words. “It means that it may be tomorrow before they're able to arrest Bill.”

“Oh, man!” Jimmy cried, backing away as his face darkened. “No way!
No way!
They can't wait.”

“Larry and Tony are tailing him tonight, Jimmy. They'll make sure he doesn't do anything. They'll know where he is at all times.”

“
But they can't see into the home!”
he shouted. “
If he beats Lisa, they won't know!”
He was crying now, and he hated himself for it.

Lynda reached out to hug him, but he shook her off. “I told you! I told all of you!” He ran into the house and back to his room.

He threw himself on the bed and cried into the pillow, cursing Bill Brandon, cursing the police, cursing his mother, cursing Lynda and Jake. His little sister's safety depended on them, and they were stupid, all of them.

He had to talk to her. He had to call Lisa and make sure she was all right. Wiping his face, he sat up on the bed and tried to calm himself so that he could talk clearly. He reached for the phone and started to dial the number, then thought better of it. He'd tried that before.

The computer. He hadn't checked to see if he had any messages from her or Brad.

He heard Jake and Lynda in the kitchen, and he went into the bathroom and blew his nose, splashed water on his face, and dried it off. He went into the living room, and they both saw him through the door into the kitchen.

“Jimmy? You want to talk now?”

“No,” Jimmy said. “Can I play on your computer?”

The question seemed to surprise them, but he knew it was partial relief he saw in their faces. They thought he'd be playing games or something and were glad for the distraction. “Sure, Jimmy. That's fine.”

He went to the computer and turned it on, navigated his way to the network, registered himself as a guest user, and signed on.

In moments, the computer told him he had mail.

Lisa had gotten his message!

He clicked “read incoming mail,” and found Brad's screen name posted at the top.

He opened the letter, and read as the color drained slowly from his face.

Lisa's hurt real bad from the beating Bill gave her. Jimmy, you need to come get her before he kills her. I'll leave Stella's window unlocked so you can get in. Please hurry!

Jimmy stared at the words, his heartbeat slamming against his chest. Then he sat back and closed his eyes in horror, trying to think. He'd known this would happen. He'd tried to tell them all, and they hadn't listened, because they didn't know Bill Brandon.

He couldn't depend on them. He had to do something. He had to do something
now
.

His heart pounded so hard that he almost couldn't think. He had to get Lisa out of there. But he needed a weapon.

Beth's gun. He knew just where she kept it.

He navigated his way on the network to a game that had sound effects, and started it running. The sound would make them think he was still in there.

Then, leaving the computer on, he went to the back of the house. He knew that one of the bedrooms had an outside door. Quietly, he unlocked it and slipped out.

The backyard was fenced, but he climbed it and leaped down. Night had fallen, and no one was around to see him. Lynda's closest neighbors lived on the other side of the cluster of trees up the street. He ran through the woods until he came out on the street that ran parallel to Lynda's.

He was home free. All he had to do was figure out how to get to Beth's house to get the gun, and then get to the children's home from there without being caught. Then he had to figure out how to get Lisa out. He didn't know how he would do it, but whatever he did, it would be better than what all these grown-ups were doing.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

W
hen Nick got to Beth's hospital room, she was standing at her window, peering out. For a moment, he didn't knock, just stood at the door without letting her know he was there. She must be doing well, he thought with a rush of relief, to be standing and walking without help. This morning, after the explosion, he had wondered if she'd even live to see another day.

He knocked lightly on the wall, and she turned around.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She had more color in her face than she'd had earlier, but the light was still gone from her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. They said they would probably let me go home as soon as the doctor came by one last time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The thing is, I don't
have
a home.”

“That's just temporary. You can rebuild.”

She turned halfway back to the window and gazed out again.“What do you think of me now, Nick?”

He came further into the room and joined her at the window.“What do you mean?”

“Now that you know I'm a criminal.” She couldn't look at him as she uttered the words.

“You're not a criminal. You're a hero.”

She breathed a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“You are. If it weren't for you, no one would have ever figured out what Bill Brandon was doing with those kids.”

“You would have. You already had a feeling.”

“Feelings don't change things. They don't give you evidence. You came up with that.”

“I
am
the evidence.”

“That's not your fault.”

She sat down on the edge of her bed, and Nick grabbed a chair and pulled it up to her bedside. Straddling it, he got close to her. “Beth, you can't blame yourself. You're a good person, no matter what Bill Brandon spent years trying to make you believe.”

She didn't want to face him, didn't want to meet his eyes, but she forced herself to. “I'm not really a good person,” she said. “I went up there to visit Tracy today, and I've got to tell you, Nick. I have a hard time with her.”

Nick waited, then prompted her. “Tell me.”

Beth sighed. She got up and went to the window, putting her back to him. “She brings back a lot of memories, Nick. A lot of really bad ones.”

“Your mother?” he asked.

She closed her eyes.

“You know, I'd really like to hear about her,” he said softly. “I want to know everything about you.”

“My mother was like Tracy,” she said, “only she wasn't a junkie. She was an alcoholic. My father got disgusted and left her—and me, too. I guess the Invisible Daughter wasn't important enough to take along. Eventually, the state took me away from her and put me in Bill Brandon's home.”

He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Have you heard from your mother since then?”

She gazed out the window for a moment, one side of her face cast in shadow, the other side in light. “She died a couple of years ago. Those distant relatives who were nowhere to be found when the state took me into custody managed to get in touch with me to tell me about the funeral arrangements. I didn't go.”

Nick looked down at his hands. As many kids as he'd taken out of homes himself, as many as he'd seen neglected or abused by their parents, he would never have guessed that Beth had been one of them.

“All my life I kept thinking that something would happen, that she'd sober up and remember she had a child and come back and get me. She'd be this wonderful, perfect mom. But she never did. And then one day she was dead.”

Nick got up from the chair and came to stand behind her. He touched her shoulder and leaned his forehead on the crown of her head. “Beth, I'm so sorry.”

She swallowed back the emotion in her throat. “It wasn't that hard. It wasn't hard at all. I hardly knew the woman, and what I did know of her, I hated.” When she turned around to face him, her eyes were blazing with tears. “I know we're not supposed to hate, Nick. I know that with all my heart, and I've asked God to help me with it. But I can't help it, I still hate. And the worst part is that the person I hate is dead, and there's nothing I could ever do to change it.”

“You can forgive a dead woman, Beth.”

She shook her head. “I don't think I can. Maybe after I've read through the whole Bible and learned all the things that I'm supposed to learn, maybe then I'll have the strength to forgive my mother. But right now, it doesn't seem possible. She doesn't deserve forgiveness.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But you do. You deserve to be able to let it go. Sometimes forgiveness does more for us than it does for the ones we forgive. Besides, God told us to forgive.”

She shook free of him and walked across the room again, picked up a water glass from the bed table, turned it over in her hand, then set it back down hard. “You don't know anything about it, Nick. You've never been thrown away like a piece of trash.You've never been dumped into an orphanage under someone who's going to turn you into a thief for his own selfish gain.”

“No, you're right. I never have.”

“That's the thing with Tracy. Her life—her attitude—it reminds me so much of my mother's.”

“She had some bad breaks, Beth. Maybe it's not too late for her.”

“Bad breaks?” she asked with an angry laugh. “She
chose
to abandon her children. She got herself hooked on drugs. She was a junkie, and probably a prostitute, and you're telling me that she just had some bad breaks?”

“You don't know what her life was like, Beth.”

“I know what
my
life has been like, Nick. I know that if everybody turned to drugs because of a horrible past, then I'd be the worst junkie in town.”

“You're right. You have more strength. More character. You've risen above your past. There's something about you, Beth, that some people just don't have. It's what's so attractive about you.”

She looked as if she didn't know how to respond to such a compliment. Nick sighed and rubbed his eyes. “But God's grace covers people like Tracy, too. When I found her, she was lying there helpless, almost dead. I don't know why God put it in my head to go look for her that day, of all days, but I did, and if I hadn't, she'd be dead now. That means that God loves her, for some reason that you and I may not be able to fathom. And she has the same opportunity for heaven that we have.”

“That's absurd,” she said. “God doesn't send junkies and child abusers to heaven. Tracy Westin has never done anything for God or anyone else. Even if she were to repent now and turn into Mother Theresa for the rest of her life, all the junk in her life up until now would still outweigh any good she could do. Even God's grace couldn't balance all that out.”

“But that's the great thing about grace. It doesn't have anything to do with a balance sheet,” he said with a smile. “How do you think that thief on the cross came out when God looked at his balance sheet?” Beth tried to think. “I don't know. I still say he hadn't done that much wrong.”

“He was
crucified
, Beth. Whatever he did wrong was bad enough to get him executed. The Bible calls him a thief.”

She was getting confused. “But God wouldn't take someone like Tracy—or even me, for that matter—and give us the same reward he gives someone like you or Lynda! You've done good things all your life, Nick. You've probably never really done anything displeasing to God.”

“Don't bet on it,” Nick said. “In God's eyes, there's no real difference between your life and mine. The only thing either of us has ever done that would win us admission to heaven is to believe in and trust in Christ.”

Her face paled again, and she sank down into the chair.“That's not enough. Not for someone like me. It wouldn't be fair to people like you.”

He knelt in front of her, his eyes riveting into hers. “Yes, it is.” He grabbed the Gideon's Bible off her bed table and flipped through the pages. “Here,” he said. “Matthew 20:1.” He read to her the parable of the landowner who paid the same wages to those hired at the end of the day as he paid those who had worked all day.Those who had worked all day complained.