Cape Refuge (26 page)

 

C
ade needed a break. He wasn't sleeping well, and the workload that greeted him each morning kept him keyed up and worn out. Today, he got up with the sun, put his kayak into the river, and paddled out through the Wassaw Sound. He reached the Atlantic as the sun rose and warmed his bare shoulders.

The act of stroking, front to back, front to back, riding up over the waves, worked some of the tension out of his muscles. He drifted farther out, where the only sounds were rushing waves and birds swooping down for their morning meal. He paddled until the waves calmed, until he was floating alone on the current.

Questions swirled through his mind as he drifted. Did he really need to keep Jonathan locked up? What did Gus know about the money the Owens had given Rick? Why had Thelma and Wayne withheld the truth from Blair?

Why had Blair been so offended when he had touched her scars and told her she was the prettiest girl on the island?

You really know how to kick a girl when she's down.

He wished he could set her free from the prison of her life—the slavery to her philosophies, her beliefs about herself, her lack of belief about the God he believed in. Blair was the toughest woman he knew, but he wasn't fooled by that toughness. It was a cover. Like those scars were a cover for the beauty behind them, her toughness hid the soft heart inside. The heart that hurt. The heart that feared.

He knew these thoughts weren't helping him, so he turned the kayak around and paddled back the way he had come. He moved more easily this time, as the current took him in. When he got back to the river, it was only seven, so he put the boat up, showered, and got to the station by eight.

He got Gus out of his cell and took him into the interview room. “I want to ask you something, Gus,” he said. “You knew about the money that Thelma and Wayne gave Rick. How did you know?”

“I overheard. The walls are thin at Hanover House. My room be next to his.”

“Did they give him the money voluntarily, or was there some manipulation involved?”

“It was their idea,” he said.

“Why would they do that?”

The big black man looked down at his feet and rubbed his eyes roughly. When he looked up at him again, Cade saw that his eyes were red with tears. “They told him that Christ paid for his sins, and the least
they
could do was pay for his debts.” He swallowed back the emotion in his throat. “That be when I really came to Christ.”

“I thought you were a Christian before they brought you here.”

“Me too, mon. But I knew it up here.” He tapped his temple. “That day they gave Rick the money, I got it down here.” He put his hand over his heart.

Cade didn't say anything. He didn't want to believe Gus had been transformed by the same Holy Spirit that had changed his own life.

“So you heard all this firsthand?”

“Yeah, mon,” he said. “They never knew. Too bad it didn't change Rick.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He set me up, mon. Took my do-rag while I showered, then left it for you to find. He be your mon, not me.”

When Cade had locked him back in his cell, he saw Jonathan sitting beneath the one lightbulb in the room, studying his Bible as if seeing it for the first time. Cade stood at the cell door, watching for a moment. Jonathan never looked up to see him. Finally, Cade went back out to his desk. He dropped his face into his hands and rubbed hard, wishing he knew what to do.

There Jonathan was, studying his Bible while sitting in a jail cell for murder—and another possible suspect sitting in the next cell, talking about how Christ had changed his life. He went to church with both men, believed the same things they seemed to believe.

But he had a job to do. So shaking those personal feelings out of his head, he went back to his office.

 

S
adie started her job at the
Cape Refuge News
that day. Morgan loaned her a blazer to wear with her khakis, so she felt mature and professional. Judge Randy Simmons, her boss's husband, was at the paper when she arrived that morning. He was a good-looking man who had a long gray ponytail, and wore jeans and tennis shoes even though he was on his way to the office. Sadie tried to picture him making serious decisions about people's lives. The judge who had sentenced her mother was a stern-looking older man with a bald head and an angry scowl on his face. Nothing like this old hippie who reminded Nancy to order the new T-shirts for the soccer team he coached.

Nancy Simmons, Sadie's boss, was a driven, ambitious woman who took her job seriously. She and the two writer/photographers who worked for her ran from telephone to file cabinet, from the grand opening of the new souvenir shop to the police station—with stops at the office in between. Nancy kept Sadie hopping with a list of things to do, but Sadie met the challenges head-on. She loved the pace of the office, the deadlines they were trying to meet before going to press, the drama of fielding new stories, and deciding what to tell their readers.

The first copies of tomorrow's edition were coming off the press as Sadie prepared to leave. Nancy tossed her a copy. “A memento of your first day's work,” she said. “Congratulations.”

Sadie clutched the newspaper against her chest as she walked back to Hanover House. As she passed the establishments that had refused to give her jobs, she held her head higher. She was gainfully employed now. She could support herself. And her fear that Jack would hunt her down and drag her back was diminishing. Things were working in her favor now, and she felt she could do anything.

Maybe someday she could even go back and get Caleb.

Hope burgeoned inside her, and she pictured herself playing on the beach with him as he started to walk, teaching him to float in the water, signing him up for a “Water Babies” class at the Y. Now that her feet were on surer ground, she dared to dream of security for the baby too.

She reached Hanover House and trotted up the stairs to the porch, slipped in through the screen door, and found Blair, Morgan, and Mrs. Hern in the kitchen.

“Hi,” she said brightly.

Morgan looked up at her and smiled, like she was genuinely glad to see her. “Sadie, how was your first day at work?”

“Fantastic,” Sadie said. “I did everything. I proofed articles, filed, and even took information for articles over the phone. It was fun. And look at this.” She tossed the newspaper down on the kitchen table. “My first issue.”

“Tomorrow's paper?” Blair asked.

Morgan smiled as she looked down at the headline, but her smile quickly crashed. The glass she was holding slipped out of her hand and shattered on the floor. “Blair, look!”

Blair grabbed the paper. “Convicted Killer Living at Hanover House.”

“It's Rick,” Morgan said, starting to cry. “Look at that picture.”

“A mug shot,” Blair said. She brought her eyes up to her sister. “I thought there were no arrests. I looked under both names. There was nothing.”

Sadie's hands were shaking as she pulled out a chair and sat down. She shouldn't have brought the paper home, she thought. She couldn't believe she had been so stupid, so insensitive. But she hadn't even noticed the headline. She had just been so excited about the feel of the paper in her hands and the knowledge that she'd had a small part in it.

“Read the article,” Morgan said. “What does it say?”

“ ‘Rick Morrison is not who he says he is,' “ Blair read. “ ‘In fact, sources tell us that is not even his real name. The supposedly grieving man living at Hanover House, the place where ex-cons and criminals like to live, is really Rick Dugan.' “

“Ex-cons and criminals?” Morgan asked. “Give me a break!”

“ ‘But according to police, Rick Dugan is not a suspect in the murders of Thelma and Wayne Owens. Two other residents of that home are, and they are currently in police custody. But should Rick Dugan be free to roam around Cape Refuge at will?

“ ‘
Cape Refuge News
has recently uncovered information that Rick Dugan is already a convicted killer, who has been serving time at Angola for the murder of Rick Morrison. He escaped while on a work detail last year, and has never been apprehended.' “

“This can't be right,” Blair said. “Cade would have told me.”

“Mama and Pop would have known,” Morgan said. “They would have checked out his story. They knew about the name change.”

“Where did Nancy get this information?” Blair turned to Sadie. “Sadie, do you know who her sources were?”

“No, ma'am,” Sadie said. “I didn't even know she was working on this story. We were working on things about the Tybee Beach Bums Parade and a groundbreaking for a new hotel and a grand opening for a new souvenir shop near the pier.”

Blair slapped the paper down and stood up. “Well, there's only one thing to do. I'm going to ask him how much of this is true. And I'm going to ask him about the money Mama and Pop gave him. Something's not adding up here, Morgan.”

She headed up the stairs, and Morgan followed.

“I shouldn't have brought that home,” Sadie told Mrs. Hern. “It was stupid. I should have looked at it first.”

“It's all right, dear,” Mrs. Hern said, peering up the stairs. “Let's just stay down here and let them handle it.”

Sadie was glad to do that, for she didn't want to be in the middle of a confrontation with a killer.

Blair got to the top of the stairs and felt for the gun in her pocket. She stormed across the floor to Rick's room and banged on it.

“Rick? Rick, it's Blair. I need to talk to you.” Her voice left no room for debate.

But there was no answer.

“Rick, open the door!” she said. When there was still no answer, she turned the knob and saw that it was unlocked. She pulled the gun out of her pocket and slowly pushed the door open.

The room was spotless, and the bed was made up. His family picture still sat on the bed table, next to his clock and a notepad.

He had scrawled a note there.

“What does it say?” Morgan asked.

“It says, ‘Dear Morgan, I know I'm not supposed to leave town with the investigation going on, but I just found out my mother's in the hospital, and I have to go see her. I'll be back when I can. Rick.' “

The scar on her face burned as she turned back to Morgan. “He's gone,” she said.

Morgan tried to think. “Maybe he knew the article was coming out. It shouldn't be that hard to verify that his mother is in the hospital.”

“I don't think she is,” Blair said. “I think he dreaded being exposed and skipped town.”

“You don't think he's the killer, do you?” Morgan asked. “All this time, living in this house? Acting all grief-stricken about his wife and child?”

“It sure does look suspicious,” Blair said. “He got ten thousand dollars out of Mama and Pop. Maybe they found out about his background, so he killed them.”

“Why would he leave us a note if he was running from the law?”

“To throw us off. To give him a head start.”

Morgan brought a trembling hand to her forehead, and her eyes darted back and forth across the room as she tried to sort through the evidence. “That does it,” she said. “I'm going to the police station. I'm going to tell them that Rick left and make them let my husband go.”

 

M
organ and Blair flew to the police station, and Morgan shivered with determination and anxiety as she marched into Cade's office and dropped the newspaper down in front of him.

“I thought you were looking into this,” she said. “I thought you said you hadn't found an arrest record on Rick.”

Cade picked up the newspaper and frowned as he skimmed the article. “I hadn't,” he said. “They didn't get this information from me.”

“Well, it's too late to do anything about it because Rick—whatever his name is—has already left town.”

Cade stood up. “How do you know that?”

“Because he left us a note that he was going to visit his mother in the hospital. He's gone.”

Cade pushed past them into the squad room. “Livvie,” he said to the dispatcher. “Put out an all points bulletin for Rick Dugan, alias Rick Morrison. Six feet tall, blond hair, 175 pounds. Driving a white Honda Civic, ‘95 or ‘96 model.”

“You have to let Jonathan out,” Morgan said. “It's madness to keep him in here when you know he's not the killer. Rick has money that my parents gave him for no explicable reason. He had access to the speargun. Mama and Pop may have discovered he was a fugitive and threatened to turn him in. You have all the evidence you need. Now this is coming out, and he's disappeared. Instead of sitting here twiddling your thumbs—”

“I'm not twiddling my thumbs,” Cade said over her ranting.

“—you should be out looking for him, tracking him down, and bringing him in, putting him in the cell where my husband is right now.” She slammed her hand down on the table. “Let Jonathan out, Cade!”

“No, Morgan,” he yelled back. “The district attorney is working on it now and the judge doesn't want to release him.”

She wanted to scream, break a chair over Cade's head, make him listen to her. She had never felt such rabid rage before. “Well, I want to see him. Now!” she cried. “Let me see my husband!”

Blair touched her arm to calm her, but she jerked away.

Cade nodded to J.J. Clyde, sitting behind a desk. J.J. got up and escorted her to the back. She knew she was in no shape to feign strength for Jonathan today. He would have to take her as she was—shaken, frightened, and as angry as she had ever been in her life.

 

 

C
ade was visibly shaken as he turned back to Blair.

“I know how it looks, like I've got some grudge against Jonathan and I'm trying to get even. But it's nothing like that. If I had it my way, I'd let him out. But I don't.”

“Get real, Cade,” Blair said. “If you told Randy Simmons that his own wife's article pointed to the killer, you know he would let Jonathan out.”

“Maybe he will,” Cade said. “But unless he does, I have to keep him here.”

His face softened as he looked down at her. “Sit down, Blair,” he said. “You look pale.”

Slowly, she did. Her mind raced with the new facts whirling around looking for a place to fit. She remembered the night she had sat outside with Rick, and he had explained his past to her. She had foolishly believed every word. She had even defended him to Morgan and Cade.

“They'll catch him,” he said. “They'll bring him back.”

She swallowed and set her chin on her palm. “I got to tell you. He was good. He sure had me going,” she said. “I thought he was a decent man. I liked him. I should have known it was an act.”

Cade stared at her for a long moment, the concern in his eyes making her want to run away.

Finally, he slid his hands into his pockets and jingled his keys. “We're going to catch Rick Dugan and bring him in. You have to know, though, that I didn't discover the same information about him that was in the paper. I'll have to find out what their sources were and why it didn't come up on my search. Mine didn't show any past convictions, nothing out of the ordinary, except for his changed name. He explained that. I did find evidence of his wife and daughter being killed. Everything I found went right along with his story. He even told me about the money.”

“Yeah, well, he explained a lot of things to me too,” Blair said. “Apparently none of them were true.”

She couldn't sit there and do nothing, she thought. She had to get home and do her own computer search, see what had failed in her attempts to learn about him. She wanted to see his police record for herself. She got up. “Tell Morgan that I've decided to walk home.”

Not waiting for Cade's response, she took off across the parking lot and across the busy street to the beach.