Last Light (48 page)

Bobby laughed. “Rita would have done the same thing.”

“Hey, you never know when the lights are gonna come back on.” Rita winked. “A girl’s got to have her equipment, don’t she, Deni?”

Deni laughed for the first time in days. She thought of that man who’d given her the jug of water yesterday, when she’d been at her rope’s end, desperately thirsty. God sent him at the perfect time, even though her heart was so far from Him.

And today, He’d given her Rita and Bobby.

He did provide, even when she didn’t deserve it.

“You’re welcome to stay and hide out here,” Bobby said. “Stay as long as you want. That guy ain’t likely to find you here.”

“I’d love to stay. You have no idea. But I have to get back and warn my family. If Vic beats me home, everybody’s in danger.”

Bobby couldn’t argue with that. “Then let’s just make it our business to get you ready to go. But you have to stay tonight. You got to get some rest, get hydrated, get some strength back.”

Deni was thankful to take him up on his offer.

After a dinner of boiled potatoes and beans, which Bobby and Rita got from her parents’ garden, Deni slept for fourteen hours. She woke in the comfort of their guest bed, surprised to find the sun already high in the sky.

She had to get up and get going if she had any hope of getting home before nightfall.

When she pulled her covers back and got up, she saw her clothes folded neatly at the foot of her bed. Rita had washed them yesterday in the creek near their house, and loaned her some of her own clothes until they were dry. Deni pulled them on, wishing she could just stay here for a few more days.

She felt like a homeless waif.

But she
had
a home. A beautiful home with her own room and a soft mattress and a lake nearby. A home with people who loved her, who took care of each other and worked together to get things done.

She looked out the window. Rita and Bobby sat on the porch swing, the warm breeze floating through the trees around them. They were a sweet couple, she thought, not the kind of people that she and Craig would have chosen to spend time with. Bobby was an auto mechanic, whose job was now obsolete. Rita worked in a retail store for an hourly wage, but the store shelves were empty, so it hadn’t been able to open since the outage.

Neither of them had gone to college.

A month ago, Deni would have turned her nose up at a couple like them and considered them losers. Today, she saw them as angels. Instruments of God Himself. So much for her Georgetown education, when she couldn’t even tell west from south. So much for her abundant blessings back home, when she’d thrown them in her parents’ faces, priding herself in her better judgment . . . judgment that sent her into the hands of a killer.

These people with their simple lives would survive the outage just fine, and so would their marriage. They didn’t need technology or high-class jobs to make them feel fulfilled or satisfied. Their love for the Lord and each other did that.

She sat down on the bed; pulled her socks on over her blistered, scabbed feet; and carefully slipped her feet into her shoes. Rita had given her some aloe for her blistered sunburn, so she rubbed the ointment onto the wounds, hoping it would ease the pain and the burn.

Her eyes strayed out that window again as she heard Rita laughing. She thought back to better times when she and Craig had hung out together in quiet, passing private jokes back and forth, staring out on the Potomac, laughing. It hadn’t happened that often. Maybe a few times at first, when he’d been trying to win her over. But that hadn’t taken long, and after that, he had the upper hand. His courtship had turned to simple maintenance.

When was the last time they’d sat holding hands, watching the leaves rustle in the trees, laughing like kids?

What would it be like to spend these dark days with Craig? He was already living in the house he’d bought for them—a three-bedroom townhouse in Georgetown. It had a steam room and a Jacuzzi and a state-of-the-art kitchen that she doubted she would ever use since she didn’t know how to cook. There wasn’t a yard to speak of, only a place to park out front and a little ten-by-ten enclosure in the back. Where would they grow food if the outage continued?

There were few windows in the place. The house would be dark, and miserably hot this time of year.

She wondered if the inactivity, the inability to get from one place to another, the lack of communication, had changed Craig in any way. She could hardly imagine what he might be like now, not getting up at the crack of dawn and rushing off to the senate building, not getting ten zillion cell phone calls a day, not slowing down until ten o’clock at night.

Was he enjoying the solitude, the peace and quiet, the slow pace? Or was he angry, bitter, frantic to get things restored?

Like she’d been.

She watched Bobby get up and stir the flames on the fire in the makeshift barbecue pit. Rita started to cook some eggs on the frying pan she laid on the grate.

They didn’t know she was up yet, so she watched them as they scooped up the scrambled eggs, divided them into three bowls. They saved one for her, then sat down to eat their own. Before they did, Bobby put his arm around Rita, and they both bowed to pray. It wasn’t just a “Thanks for our food” kind of prayer. This was a heartfelt, deep, falling at the Father’s feet kind of prayer, full of praise and gratitude for all He had provided.

She couldn’t imagine Craig ever praying like that.

But then, neither would
she
.

A deep sense of loss filled her as she realized how far she was from the person God wanted her to be. Since she’d left home and gone to college, church had been one of the lowest things on her priority list. She’d joined a church so she could tell her parents she was connected to one, but the only time she’d attended in the last four years was when her parents came to visit.

It wasn’t surprising, then, that she wound up engaged to an agnostic who agreed with Karl Marx that religion was “the opiate of the masses.” Since her own faith was so shallow, that hadn’t bothered her at all.

Rita and Bobby would turn out like her own parents, loving and kind to each other and their families, imparting their values and insisting on their children being the best they could be for God.

She looked ahead twenty years, and imagined herself as a senator’s wife, attending luncheons and dinner parties, waiting at night for her husband to come home. Maybe she would be a television anchor, with her own world to move and shake. Or maybe by then he would have decided that he needed her by his side during long, grueling campaigns.

Would she be fulfilled or lonely? And how secure would her children be with a father as busy as Craig? Sadness washed over her.

She finished dressing and went outside to join her hosts at the picnic table.

“Mornin’!” Rita’s countenance made her feel as if she truly enjoyed seeing her. “I made you some eggs. They’re probably still warm.”

“Thanks.” Deni got the bowl. “I’m sorry I slept so long. I meant to get up earlier.”

Bobby waved off her apology. “You needed to sleep, after all you’ve been through.” He finished his plate and leaned on the table. “Deni, we prayed together for you this morning. I believe God’s gonna get you home safe.”

Tears came to her eyes at the poignancy of that. Her parents always said there was power in two or more praying together. She had never prayed with Craig.

“I really appreciate that,” she said. “And everything else you’ve done for me. I was at my rope’s end yesterday. I didn’t know what I was going to do. And then . . . God put you in my path.” The words scratched her throat, and she started to cry.

Rita squeezed her hand.

“I’m sorry to start blubbering. I’m just feeling so . . . so humbled that God would still watch over me like this, when I don’t deserve it at all.”

“Somebody must be praying for you.”

“Yes, I’m sure they are. My parents, and my brothers and sister. God should have turned away from me. Left me to my own devices. But thankfully, He didn’t.” She took a few bites, relishing the taste, and looked back up at them again. “I look at you, Rita, and I see a useful person. You’ll make it through this just fine. You can cook, and wash clothes, and Bobby can bring home food . . .”

“You can do those things, too.”

“No, I can’t. I’m a terrible cook and never wanted to learn. Even since the outage, I’ve hardly helped my mother cook at all. I’ve whined and complained about everything she’s asked me to do. If the outage had happened after my marriage instead of before, Craig and I would be at each other’s throats. I’d be useless . . . and so would he.” Her soft laugh held no mirth. “We thought we were so important, setting ourselves up to have such significant, important jobs. But the fast lane has come to a screeching halt, and we don’t have any skills to get us through this. What a nightmare it would have been. And he’s not a Christian. Where would we have turned?”

“Maybe the outage will change him,” Bobby said. “Maybe he’ll see that he has to lean on somebody. Who else is there, if not Christ?”

Who, indeed? She felt that peace wash over her again.

“God got your attention,” Rita said. “Maybe He’ll get Craig’s, too.”

Deni hoped Rita was right.

They loaded her up with provisions she could carry in a backpack—two-liter bottles of sterilized water, paper sacks full of dry cereal, a few cans of kidney beans for much-needed calcium and protein, antibiotic ointment for her sores, and Solarcaine for her sunburn. Rita also gave her a big, yellow floppy hat to keep the sun off her neck and face, and sunglasses to protect her eyes. Then Bobby oiled the chain on her bike, making sure it was in good shape.

By the time she hugged them both good-bye and thanked them for the hospitality, she was in tears again. “I’m going to come back and repay you for your kindness,” she said. “As soon as the outage is over, you’ll see me again.”

“Good,” Rita said. “Then you can tell us how everything turned out with you and Craig.”

The wind was at Deni’s back as she rode away, helping her to make better time. She knew that was another provision from God. She thanked Him for it and, while she was at it, asked Him to protect her family from Vic and his sons.

She’d ridden about an hour, when dark clouds began to move across the sky. Thunder cracked some distance away. Rain began to sprinkle down.

She pedaled faster, hoping to get ahead of the storm, but the farther she rode, the harder it rained. When she finally reached I-20, just east of Atlanta, she was soaking wet.

She came to a closed convenience store just off the interstate and decided to wait the storm out under the shelter there. She pulled into that parking lot . . .

. . . and heard glass crunching beneath her tires.

She jumped off her bike. A big shard of glass had punctured her front tire.

“No, Lord, please don’t let it be so!” she cried. But it was. The tire was flat.

She had no choice but to walk to the next town, rolling the bike beside her and hoping she could find someone who could fix it.

The day had looked so promising, and now she was soaking wet and stranded.

As much as God had smoothed her path yesterday, orchestrating things to her advantage, it seemed He was turning His back on her again. But she knew better than that now. With God, things were never as they seemed.

Instead of cursing her misfortune, she thanked God that she had this big hat, the comfortable shoes, and the provisions Rita and Bobby had given her. And she spent the next hour talking to Him as she waited the storm out.

sixty-five

The rain beat down as Doug rode I-20 west back to Atlanta, running the horses as fast as they could go on the pavement. The sooner he turned Vic over to the Atlanta police, the sooner he could find Deni.

Vic had been quiet and still as they rode. Doug hoped he was sleeping, but kept his rifle close at hand, just in case. He also carried Vic’s pistol in the ammo case attached to his belt.

Oh, God, please . . . I need divine intervention. Please take care of Deni.

As the rain started to pour, he saw something up ahead, a woman in a big floppy hat limping beside a bicycle that she rolled beside her. She was small, like Deni, and had a brown ponytail that reached halfway down her back. She walked like Deni . . .

He slapped the reins on the horses. They sprang into a faster trot.