Flee From Evil (21 page)

Resisting the urge to snatch a chocolate bar, she dug into the pencil tray instead, only to find the shape of something so familiar she knew it the moment her skin made contact—the cross her father had made for her. The one she’d given to Vince the night he’d—

“I see you’ve found Pastor Vince’s talisman.” Yolanda’s voice startled her.

Cassandra sank into the leather chair and caressed the divots and jagged spots her father had left to resemble the rough-hewn character of the true cross. “Talisman?”

“Yeah, every now and then I catch him touchin’ that thing.” Yolanda’s expression was curious. “Kinda like you’re doin’ now.”

Cassandra dropped it on the desk.

“Usually, after a tough day or when he’s worried about someone.” She chuckled. “It must be pretty powerful if people keep feeling the need to rub it all the time.”

After wrapping the leather cord around her first two fingers, Cassandra fisted the trinket.

“Seems to give him peace too.” Yolanda’s voice began to fade as the past took the forefront of Cassandra’s mind. “I’m guessing it has some memories attached to it. Maybe something he got in prison.”

Cassandra bolted up, crossed the room and rammed past the secretary in the doorway.

“Hey!”

Trudging down the corridor, Cassandra barely processed the woman’s words.

“You can’t take that. It’s not yours.”

Out the door, down the cement front steps, Cassandra moved as if on autopilot toward her car. She cranked the engine, cross still clutched in her fist. She knew where she needed to take it.

~*~

“Pastor Vince.”

He strode to his office, the smell of a flame-broiled burger wafting from the bag in his hand. After the long morning, crunching numbers to find the funds for the special needs classroom, he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into the doughy bread encasing the salty beef. He dropped into his chair and dug into the bag. A list sat on the blotter next to it.

“She took the cross.” Yolanda stood at the door.

He stopped the bag excavation. “She, who? And what cross?” He knew the answers but hoped he was wrong.

Yolanda’s eyes bugged. “That Whitaker woman and YOUR cross.”

The drawer squealed opened, his fingers feeling the crevices even before he took note of his actions. He dug through every inch. Took out every pen, pencil, rubber band, stamp, Heath bar. She couldn’t have it. Yolanda was mistaken. “How did she find it?”

Yolanda’s dark brows bunched. “Were you hiding it?”

“Where’d she go?”

Her eyes moved restlessly in their sockets. “High-tailed it right out that door and haven’t seen her since.”

“How long ago?”

“Just before you got here.”

Vince pushed back the chair. Burger forgotten.

“Look Pastor, I didn’t know she’d leave with it. Can’t you get another one? It couldn’t be that expensive. Although, it’s kind of creepy she’d up and take something that wasn’t hers.”

The words trailed him as he headed toward his car. He had to try to find her, and he had a suspicion he knew where she’d go.

~*~

The wheels crunched as Cassandra pulled her SUV next to the vacant lot. Time to face this place.

Oh God, help me.

She finally opened the palm that gripped the small cross her father had formed out of driftwood when she was a little girl. A gift she’d cherished, but had given away—she’d thought—for a good cause.

Why had Vince kept it all these years? Yolanda said it brought him peace.

No. Cassandra could not believe in this man again. She needed to remember what he’d done to her. The lies he told for his own gain. Drew, Vince’s old best friend, said he owed Vince one hundred dollars because she’d been taken in by his upturned lips and searching, blue eyes. Drew didn’t mind throwing that in her face when …

She couldn’t breathe. The wind whipped through the tall grass and reeds that surrounded the shoreline Vince used to motor to in his little boat. All that air moving around her, making her dizzy, but none seemed to want to enter her lungs.

Dropping to the edge of the property where the water lapped the land, face to the ground, she prayed for guidance. Her throat clogged and nose burned, but her breathing slowed.

“I hate him, God,” she whispered into the grass. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do. He opened the door and stole from me …” The crack of her voice tore through her throat, “and he never secured the lock.” Tears dripped into the mud as thunder rolled in the background. “Why did I let him? I knew better. Why?”

The rumbles of thunder felt more like murmurs of comfort than rebuke.

“I can’t forgive him. I won’t lie to you, Lord. It’s too hard.”

My yoke is easy …

She swallowed hard at the thought, but steeled herself from surrender. The thunder rolled across the sky as though a warrior angel prepared to battle for her.

She lifted the cross from the grass, and pulled back to chuck it in the water.

A hand stopped her wrist.

~*~

Vince couldn’t let her do it. He didn’t know why. Was it because her father had made the cross, and she’d regret the loss of it at her own hand? Or was it that Vince needed it more than she did?

“Don’t.” He said when her eyes met his as she stood and turned, his hand still gripping her wrist.

Cassandra’s expression went from surprise to entreaty as she gestured with her head for him to let go.

He did.

She lowered her hand.

“Please don’t throw that away.” He broke eye contact for fear she’d read more than he thought appropriate to say right now.

“Why did you keep it?” Her gaze remained on him.

He only shrugged.

Cassandra’s fingers unfolded to reveal the trinket—or talisman as Yolanda called it. “Tell me.” Her voice a whisper, evidencing emotion he’d remembered from long ago.

“It was yours.” Seeing she still held it out to him, he took it from her opened hand. “You gave it to me, I know, with the hope I’d one day turn to God.”

Her expression hardened as if she’d figured out the real reason he’d asked her to remove it.

“I couldn’t look at it on your neck every time I attempted to seduce you, knowing—or believing—my actions were a lie.”

She closed her eyes at what must be confirmation of what she already knew.

“After you left my bedroom in such a rage, it felt as if all the oxygen had gone with you.”

She bit her lip and stared at the grass. Vince wanted to touch her but sensed any connection would cause her pain.

“I knew, though I’d pursued you as part of a bet, the more time I spent with you, the more I fell in love with you.”

Her green eyes flashed to his with a sense of anger and hurt.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I vowed to win you back somehow. Prove I cared.”

“How?” The word pierced like a knife in his gut.

“I hadn’t gotten that far.” He closed his fingers around the cross, and reveled in the peace it always gave him. “I tied it around my neck before I slept. The next morning, as I watched all my possessions die in flames, I felt it there and realized it was the only thing I cared to keep.”

Cassandra’s hardened glare chilled him as a mist fell from the air. “I don’t believe you?”

Vince shook his head. “I didn’t think you would.” He turned from her. “Through the years I realized it wasn’t meant to be a reminder of you, but of God. I’d forgotten that until I’d found it in the boxes I brought to Billy’s house. Suddenly, the whole story—God’s story for me—came together.” He rubbed the wood between thumb and forefinger. “I kept it as a reminder of how long God has been pursuing me, and how He has a purpose in that pursuit.”

Her lips parted at that. Did she think this a lie too? For some reason he figured not. She looked more surprised than wary.

He stretched it out to her.

She rubbed furiously at her upper arms. “You keep it.”

“Your father made it for you.”

She shook her head.

“I almost sent it to you when he died that fall.”

“How did you know about that?”

“The same way I knew you’d already married.”

The green of her eyes speared him.

“Your old manager from the country club kept me up to date those first few months, before I fell out of favor with that crowd.”

The light rain pattered in the water beside them.

“Why’d you get married so soon?” Were his suspicions correct?

Her quick intake of air whistled through her teeth. “I’d known Tim for two years at college. He was always a good friend.”

“You weren’t in love with him.”

Her features hardened. “He was the best man I’ve ever known.” Surely in contrast to the one in front of her.

“You weren’t in love with him.” He repeated the words, daring her to deny it.

“What do you know about love?”

Vince stood his ground. “Though you believe I was only toying with your emotions, I am certain you would never have toyed with mine. There is no way you would have shared a bed with me, then one month later discovered you really loved someone else”

A war waged in Cass’s expression. “You know nothing.”

He needed to find out. “You never answered my question about Sophie.”

Her rage wilted to the point he almost felt the need to catch her. Her breathing picked up speed.

“Please tell me. I promise I won’t say anything to her. I just want to hear the words, the confirmation of what I already know.”

Cassandra’s voice cracked as she placed a hand to her chest. Was she okay? “I can’t tell you what you want to hear, Vince Steegle, because I don’t know the answer myself.”

Lightning flashed through the sky. Did he hear right? How could she not know? Had she jumped in bed with Tim on return to her college dorm? That, he couldn’t believe. Anyone could see Sophie didn’t resemble the man at all. He’d made note of that from the picture Sophie had shown him that Sunday after church.

Vince stared, pleading for answers with his eyes.

She pulled air into her lungs, a sob escaped. “That night … when I left …” each word was a struggle, “I realized I’d left my Bible here.” She closed her eyes as her shoulders seemed to heft air in and out. “I walked the path to get it.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “I heard a noise behind me.” She grimaced as if in pain. “A part of me wished it was you.”

Suddenly, so did Vince.

“But it wasn’t you. You never came after me to apologize or explain.” She labored for more air through her sobs. “Instead, I got Drew, your best friend.” She sneered. “Your
brother
, you used to call him, because he looked so much like you.”

Vince’s heart stalled. He didn’t want to hear anymore, but knew he must.

“He went by your house, and your father told him you won the bet and he owed you a hundred dollars.”

Vince remembered telling his father he wasn’t up to visitors when Drew showed up that night.

“Drew said …” She seemed to struggle with more than speaking the words. “… he said …” Should he try to calm her? She might get more upset if he did. “… he said it was
his
turn, and that I owed him.”

Every muscle rigid, Vince could barely control his rage enough to let her continue.

More tears chased the first she’d spent. “He said he wouldn’t have to worry about pregnancy because you’d take care of that … or at least your father would.” She dropped to the grass and panted, leaning against a large tree. What had looked like sobs, turned into something else. Cassandra seized as she wheezed for breath, and Vince was once again the cause.

He sat beside her and reached for her hand. She jerked away still gasping air. Helpless. Having no idea what to do, he prayed. Words floated to his mind, Bible verses. Psalm 18. Cass’s favorite.

He whispered, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.” He muttered low as each word came to him, one by one. “He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” These were the first he’d memorized when he’d begun to study the Bible. “I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise and I am saved from my enemies.” Words that steadied him when things got tough. He looked to Cass and saw they steadied her too, so he continued to whisper them till the Psalm was done.

~*~

Her breathing slowed and deepened at the resonance of his voice, speaking words of God Cassandra knew were true. It didn’t matter they came from a liar. She peered sideways at him. Yes, it mattered they came from Vince. It was clear he’d remembered her favorite Psalm after all these years. He’d memorized it knowing she was long married and not expected to come back.

Why?

“I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked with emotion. “No wonder you hate me so much.”

Cassandra focused each breath in and out, each beat of her heart to steady and calm.