Sara (25 page)

             
“She’s driving to Wyoming, Mike. She left over an hour ago.”

forty-four

The drive out of the mountains seemed to take forever. Sara swung into a gas station and filled her tank, then made a quick trip through the Dairy Queen drive-up to fill her belly. It was very important to make this trip as identical as possible to her last attempt to drive herself to Wyoming. Her therapist thought it might bring some closure to the whole tragedy if she could repeat the journey, but with a successful ending this time.               Sara looked into the rearview mirror and locked onto her own eyes. “This trip is most definitely going to have a different ending,” she said to herself.

             
She paid the cashier and tossed the greasy bags onto the front seat of her car. “This will be my last meal as Sara the victim,” she said. “Tomorrow, I will be Sara the Paladin.”

             
Traffic was relatively light for a Saturday afternoon. Everyone seemed to be heading toward the mountains while she was heading away. The Honda handled exceptionally well. Her father had worked for weeks making sure every bolt was tightened, every fuse replaced, and every belt adjusted to factory standards. A small pang of guilt coursed through Sara’s heart. Her father was going to be so pissed off when he discovered that she left without him. He had maps, and time schedules, and all possible emergency numbers programmed into his and her phones. “Ridiculous!” she thought. “I’m not some helpless child and I refuse to be regarded as one.”

             
Sara exited onto I-25 northbound and settled in for the long drive toward her destiny.

Mike flew up I-25 at almost 100 miles per hour. He slowed as he passed through Colorado Springs, but only a little. Doing some quick calculations in his mind, he figured that he was at least two hours behind Sara
. “Son of a bitch!” he pounded the dash of his Taurus. “Don’t you do this, Sara,” he said out loud.

             
“What are you reading, Daddy?” Sara asked as she stepped up to kiss Mike on the cheek before going to bed.

             
Mike closed the cover and showed his book to her. “The Bible, sweetheart. Are you going to bed?” he asked.

             
Sara snuggled in close to Mike and sat on the arm of his chair. “I’m exhausted,” she yawned, then laughed. “The big bad Deputy Haller is reading a Bible?” she asked playfully. “When did this awakening happen?”

             
Mike sat forward a little and wrapped his arm around Sara. “While you were missing, honey. The Pastor in Ranch Springs helped me through some pretty tough times.” Mike opened the Bible to a marked page. “He gave this to me to give me strength while I searched for you.”

             
Sara pulled the bookmark from the Bible and read the inscription. She stood and began to cry quietly.

             
“What’s the matter, squeaky?” he asked softly. “Why the tears?”

             
“Through adversity, man finds God.” She said as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

             
Mike stood and took Sara in his arms. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Where did you hear that?” he asked.

             
Sara tensed and pulled away. “From the same guy who gave you that Bible,” she said as she walked from the room.

Mike remembered being dumbfounded by her statement. At the time, he couldn’t figure out for the life of him, how or when Sara had talked to Pastor Gary.

             
He picked up his cell phone and hit speed-dial. “Jean,” he said quickly. “Go to my den and get the white Bible from the bookshelf.”

             
“White Bible?” she asked. “Where did we get a white Bible?”

             
Mike shook his head furiously. “Don’t worry about it, Jean, just do it!” he fumed.

             
After a minute, Jean returned to the phone. “I didn’t know you were reading the Bible,” she said.

             
“Pull the bookmark out and read it to me.”

             
“This is really pretty. Where did you get this?”

             
“Jean, please, I promise to explain later. Just read the damn writing on the bookmark to me.”

             
“Okay, Mike,” she said sternly. “It says Chapel of the Pines on the first line, then Pastor Gary Popineau on the second, and then under that it says ‘Pop’ in quotations.” She clucked her tongue, then continued, “I guess the pastor goes by the nickname of Pop.”

             
“That dirty bastard,” Mike said. “Look in the closet and see if my .45 is in there.”

             
Jean was talking to herself about the Bible as she searched the closet. “Nope,” she finally said. “Did you take it with you?”

             
Mike didn’t even hear Jean’s last question. He pushed “end” on his cell phone several times, then tried calling Sara’s phone again. “I can’t believe I didn’t put all this together,” he said out loud. “I need to leave law enforcement and open a car wash.”

             
“Leave a message after the beep,” came Sara’s recorded voice. She had changed her voicemail greeting to something a little more “adult”, as she put it.

             
“Sara!” Mike almost yelled into the phone. “Sweetheart, this is your father.” He paused for a long time. “Sara, I know, okay? I know who Pop is and I know what you are going to do.” He couldn’t help but let out an audible sob. “Honey, please don’t do this. You can never go back to who you truly are if you do this. Please, Sara, let me take care of it.”

             
Mike had another thought, pushed “end” again, cussed at the slow response of his phone, then pushed the “end” button on his cell phone ten more times. “End! You son of a bitch!”

             
When the display cleared, he dialed another number from memory. A woman at the other end answered immediately.

             
“Red Feather County Sheriff’s Office,” she said.

             
“Deputy Ryan Watts, please,” Mike said hurriedly.

             
“Who may I ask is calling?”

             
“Deputy Mike Haller. Please hurry, this is urgent.”

             
After a moment of silence, the woman came back on the line. “Deputy Watts is off duty for the weekend and is out of town. May I leave a message?”

             
Mike pushed “end” and threw his phone to the floor.

forty-five

“Will you teach me to shoot a handgun?”

             
“Sure, Sara. I thought you hated guns.”

             
“Life events have changed my opinion.”

             
“We’ll go to the shooting range tomorrow morning. I bet you’ll be an excellent shot.”

Mike reached the northern outskirts of Denver and stepped on the accelerator. He was now only an hour from Ranch Springs. “Why the hell did she not confide in me?” he wondered. “She knew the whole time it was Gary Popineau who had raped and tried to murder her.” Mike passed a long line of cars. “Why didn’t she want him brought to justice?”

He jumped at the blood curdling screams of Sara. Every night she woke, bathed in sweat and quaking to her core. And every night he sprinted to her room and held her in his arms while she sobbed and shared stories of the brutalities she had suffered. He held his daughter close while quietly cursing the men who had robbed her of her innocence. He took comfort in the fact that he had ended the life, or at least thought he ended the life of the man who had hurt his little girl.

Mike tucked into traffic, slowing as he passed another highway patrolman sitting on the side of the interstate. His ears burned red hot and his breath came heavy, in short rhythmic puffs. The epiphany exploded in his brain. He now realized why Sara was doing this. Her nightmares would only end after Popineau was sent to hell where he belonged.

Sara s
at in her car, running her fingers over the Ruger. She expertly checked to see that the safety was on and that a .45 caliber round was seated snugly into the chamber. She released the magazine, counting eight rounds. Plenty to complete the job. Through her open window she could hear hymns being sung by the small group partaking in a Saturday evening devotional. At times, she thought she could make out the booming voice of Pastor Gary Popineau. Her skin crawled. She had been kept waiting for over an hour now and her resolve only grew stronger by the minute.

Mike blew past the t
owns of Loveland and Windsor, almost missing the exit that would take him through Old Town Fort Collins directly to Ranch Springs. His tires squealed as he climbed the oval on-ramp to Highway 14. He knew he was too late to stop this from happening, and he wasn’t sure what his reaction would be once he found Sara. His heart pounded. Of course he knew what his reaction would be.

Popineau stood at the double doors to the chapel and shook hands with the last of his congregation. Sara watched with contempt as Pop hugged the teenage daughter of a smiling middle-aged couple. She thought he held the embrace just a little too long, and wondered if the young girl was as repulsed as she was by the smell of
Popineau’s cologne and sweat.

             
He finally waved goodbye, then closed the chapel doors to the world. Sara sat, breathing deeply as the lights in the church went out, followed by the lights in the ministry quarters switching on. She waited until the last car had pulled away, then quietly stepped from her Honda and walked to door of Pop’s home.

Mike tried to accelerate but the winding road to Ranch Springs forced him to slow his Taurus to a manageable speed. He expected to see flashing lights from ambulances and state cruisers as they sped to the murder scene of Pastor Gary Popineau, but found himself alone on the two-lane highway instead. Maybe she hadn’t done it. Maybe she couldn’t do it. Maybe, Mike had over-reacted to this entire fucking mess.

              “No,” he thought to himself. “Sara is going to kill him.”

S
ara tried the front door. Ssurprised to find it unlocked, she opened it slowly and slipped inside. Sounds of running water mixed with the clanging of pots and pans could be heard coming from the kitchen. A soft glow of yellow light spilled into the hallway as Sara inched along the wall, listening intently for voices from any person other than Pop. Over the running water she could hear the throaty humming of “Bringing in the Sheaves”. She smelled him before she saw him, but fought the urge to run. Raising the .45 from her side, Sara entered the kitchen.

Mike turned off the highway onto Ranch Springs Road and passed the corner store/café. A sheriff deputy’s Ford Explorer
and three other vehicles sat out front. He was astounded that the town was quiet. This was not the scene he had expected for the past three hours. He slowed to a crawl and inched up the hill toward Chapel of the Pines.

She turned the corner and spotted him at the sink. His back was turned to her; his
black Stadelmaier shirt draped over the back of a kitchen chair. Pop stood in a worn and stained undershirt, his black slacks unbuttoned and loose. He soaped and scrubbed a dirty saucepan with deliberation.

             
“Hello, Pop.” Sara said, just loud enough to startle the heavy man. “Do you remember me?”

             
Popineau jumped and turned, spilling soapy water down his front as he did.

             
Sara stood, legs shoulder width apart, comfortable–not tense, .45 raised in front of her pointed directly at Pop’s heart.

             
“Oh, sweetheart, you startled me,” he said, smiling at first, then frowning as he took the scene in before him.

             
Sara relaxed a bit, then pulled the hammer back on the Ruger with her thumb.

             
Pop held out a wet hand. It shook as he struggled for words. “Now, sweetheart, you will want to lower that gun. God is in this room with us, and He condemns any violence in His house.”