Speak Now (25 page)

Love you,

Cara.

~*~*~*~

“So, anyway, I got out of my car and decided I didn’t want to walk back up those steps again.”

“Oh, Cara, you could have been hurt!” Diane Laas hugged her daughter, staring horrified at Russell over her shoulder.

“But I wasn’t, Mom. I mean, I knew I was being ridiculous last night, but I was exhausted and I decided to humor myself. I need to go back down to the police station, and I promised to call Jona—.”

Cara stopped mid-sentence, her eyes riveted to the television screen. A police sketch of a man wanted for rape and robbery took over one third of the screen as the news anchor gave the latest
“breaking news.” Her finger shook as she pointed to the sketch. “That’s him! That’s the man— She grabbed her purse. “I’ve got to go tell Officer Tiller.”

Heedless of her parents’ questions and her mother’s concerns, Cara jumped in her car and raced toward the police station, ignoring posted speed limits and pushing through a yellow light that should have slowed her down a bit. She burst through the doors, her eyes already looking for familiar faces among the staff from the previous evening.

“Hello, I was hoping to find Officer Tiller?”

“He won’t be on duty until nine o’clock.” The bored tone of this officer rankled.

“Who do I speak to about my case and another open case?”

“What case?”

“I was robbed last night. I spent several hours going through your database and then went home for a nap. While I was eating breakfast—” she saw the clock and amended her words, “well, late lunch I guess, I saw this face on the news. Someone had sketched it. He’s wanted for rape and robbery.”

The man pulled a sheet from a desk behind him and laid it on the counter. “Him?”

“That’s the one. That’s the guy from last night! He stole my phone, my purse, and—” Cara choked. “—my necklace.”

“Your name?”

Cara gave her full name, the name of both officers who had met her at her home, and then asked, “Do you think it can possibly be the same man? I mean, robbed us both but not attacked—”

The man, flipping through her report, interrupted her abruptly. “It says here you were talking on your cellphone when he attacked and that you told whoever you were talking to that someone was there?”

“That’s right.”

“That probably saved you. He knew whoever it was would send help to you. He just didn’t have time.”

“I wonder if anyone looked to see if my phone was lying around anywhere close. He didn’t wear gloves…”

“I’m sure they looked, but it was dark. I’ll send someone over to get another look, just in case. Getting a fingerprint could help
us nab this guy faster.”

She spoke with the sketch artist, asked for a few slight changes to the man’s face, and then nodded with satisfaction. “That’s almost perfect. I’d be curious to know if the other woman agrees.” Cara hesitated. “Are you allowed to tell me if they found her anywhere near my house?”

“Well, I’m not sure where it happened. I wasn’t here when she came in; she walked all the way here.”

Instinctively, Cara knew it was the woman she’
d seen as she left that morning. “Can you give her my number—in case she wants to talk or something?” She frowned. “Well, it’ll go to voicemail until I get a new phone, but still.”

~*~*~*~

It would be dark in an hour. She needed to get home before it was too late, but Cara wanted nothing more than to turn her car around and drive back to her parents’ house once more. She could do it. She could wash her clothes, wear them to church the next day, and come home afterward. It wouldn’t hurt anything…

Resolutely, she snapped the blinker, changed lanes, and turned left on the main road to her home. Her attitude had moved from understandable to a bit ridiculous. She needed to face the bugaboo before it took over her life. Within minutes, she had parked her car, held her keys ready to open her door or gouge out any eye that got in her way, and had climbed the steps to her townhome. The light on that side of the building still illuminated everything.

Thankful for a west facing door, Cara opened the door, slammed it shut behind her, and slid the dead bolt into place. “I feel like an idiot. The odds of him coming back are so far out there that it’s ridiculous.”

Keeping up a running
mumbled monologue, Cara rushed upstairs, grabbed her favorite silky pajama shorts and camisole, her ratty robe, and climbed into the tub. She’d sit with her bubbles until her toes wrinkled, the water chilled, and she felt utterly relaxed. She lit candles all around her and soaked as the sun’s light gave way to moonlight, plunging her bathroom into darkness illuminated only by the few flickering flames of her candles.

Water splashed over her chin. Cara sat up, her heart pounding. She’d fallen asleep. Climbing from the tub, she hurried to the shower, turned on both spray nozzles, and thanked the Lord, something she did nearly every time she showered, that she’d paid extra for the second showerhead. Her hair clean, the stress of the past week gone, Cara pulled on her comfy lounging clothes and jogged downstairs. She’d have Indian delivered—something nice and savory.

The answering machine light flashed rapidly, telling her she had several messages. Officer Tiller, her mother, Todd Graham, her mother, her cousin Kirky, her mother, her father begging her to call her mother, Carly demanding to know why she wasn’t answering her cellphone, Jonathan…

“Oh,
no!” She glanced at the clock. He’d called two hours ago. He must be worried. Well, she couldn’t do much about it now. She ordered her dinner and then punched his phone number into her phone, praying she remembered it. It was wrong. She tried again. Another wrong number.

Frantically, she called her mother. “Mom, help! I promised I’d call Jonathan back and I don’t have his number. It was in my cellphone.”

“Call information.” The answer came quickly and automatically.

“They don’t have him.
Men like Jonathan Lyman have unlisted numbers.”

“His mother?”

“In my cellphone. I can’t think of anyone who might—unless—Julia?”

“You could try. Meanwhile, email him while you try to find him. Maybe he’s online.” Diane jumped into the spirit of things. “I was worried about you when you didn’t call back. I didn’t realize you didn’t have your phone.”

“Guess I didn’t tell you that. Sorry. Okay, I’ve got to call him. I said I’d call today, and today is almost over.”

Cara called her cousin, got a number for Jonathan’s aunt, called that number, and got a number for his mother. Finally, she reached Mrs. Lyman as her fingers hit send on her email. “Oh, Mrs. Lyman, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I was supposed to call Jonathan back—long story—anyway, my cellphone is gone and without it, I don’t have his number. Would you mind giving me that number or asking him to call me again?”

“Of course I’ll give you the number.” His mother seemed to hesitate. “Cara, are you okay? You sound a little out of breath.”

“Frankly, no, but I will be. I just feel awful that I said I’d call today, and as you can see, today is nearly gone.”

Jonathan picked up first ring. “I almost didn’t recognize your number. Are you okay? Irritated at me for not leaving you alone?”

“Irritated? I feel like a jerk for not calling yet. I’ve had the worst twenty-four hours of my life and then I had no way to call. Your number is in my cellphone.”

Jonathan sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about that.” The silence on the phone wasn’t their comfortable togetherness she’d grown accustomed to. Instead, it felt strained, awkward. “Cara, are you okay?”

“No.” She knew she sounded like a child with a scraped knee.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“No.” Cara nearly groaned at the even more pathetic sound of her response. She needed him to be strong for her—for him to talk. But would he?

“Well,” he began as if he’d read her mind and accepted the unspoken challenge. “How about mail? Did you get any mail today?”

“I didn’t check.” Her voice shrank to child-like tones. “I don’t want to go out there.”

“Aw, Cara mia, you don’t have to go out there. No packages or anything?” He sounded confused.

“Well, if they did come, I wasn’t here all day. I was at the police station until four this morning, tried to come home, couldn’t do it, went to my parents’ house, went back to the police station, and almost didn’t come home again.” She thought for a moment. “Should I be expecting something?”

“Well, I did have something sent to your house today.”

“Let me call Frank down at the office and see if it was left there for me. I wonder if he’d walk it over…” The doorbell rang. “I think that’s my dinner.”

“Let me have his number. I’ll call and you answer your door. Just don’t hang up.”

Her laughter felt normal—comfortable. “If I don’t hang up, how will you call Frank?” Everything would be all right eventually. “I’ll just—”

“I’ll use the landline to call him. I’m ready for the number.”

~*~*~*~

While Cara paid for her dinner, Jonathan called the association office, spoke to Frank, and discovered that a package had been left for her. In the middle of his own dinner, Frank promised to run it up to Cara after dessert. “I was going to go see her anyway. When I heard what happened—and now they’re saying the guy’s a rapist. She got off easy.”

Jonathan fought to catch his breath. “Thank you. She’s on the other line, so I’d better go. I think she’s feeling a little jittery.”

Cara chatted as she filled her plate and carried it and her phone to her couch. “Want some curry chicken?”

“Frank has your box, and I will take that curry, thank you very much. Mac and cheese and chicken nuggets with green beans isn’t my idea of a fascinating dinner.”

“Verna off for the night?”

“Weekend,” Jonathan contradicted. “She doesn’t work weekends.”

“That explains why you’re still overworked on weekends. I still think you should hire someone to give you a few hours once a week.”

“I might.” He pinched his nose, still struggling to process Frank’s comment. “I thought I’d keep talking at least until Frank gets there. Do you mind?”

“Do I mind if you talk to me… oh, yeah, that’s something I get so tired of, Jonathan-I-never-shut-up-Lyman.” Cara’s mocking tone sounded almost normal.

It didn’t last. Jonathan heard her plate clatter to the floor as tears flowed freely. “He got your key. He took the one thing I would hate to lose most. How could he take my key?”

“I doubt he went for the jugular on purpose. He just wanted whatever you had of value.”

“He didn’t take my earrings.”

“You were on the phone,” Jonathan reminded her. “He couldn’t risk it.” A new thought occurred to him. “Or maybe he didn’t see them with your phone covering and your hair—” Jonathan remembered his request for hair up and sighed.

Her whimper returned. Between sobs, she told him about the other woman. “If you hadn’t been talking to me—”

“Shh. I was. That’s all that matters. You’re safe, and they’re going to catch this guy.”

“But that poor woman…”

Jonathan didn’t know what to do. His natural instinct was to comfort her the same way he always comforted Riley, but it felt like treating her like a child too. As her tears became more audible, he threw hesitation aside and began to sing in his slightly off-key voice,
“Be not dismayed what e’er betide. God will take care of you…”

Through every verse, with every passing minute, Jonathan kept singing. He felt like a fool. Harboring no grand illusions about his ability to sing, he remembered how Lily had sometimes winced as she heard him singing to the children and grimaced. Cara probably prayed that he’d stop. Finally, the last word wavered on his breath as he finished.

“Thank you. That was—that was just what I needed to hear.”

“I wish I sounded—” he hesitated, searching for the right word
, but failed. “Better.”

“You sounded wonderful to me. Oh!” A knock at the door startled her. “I think Frank is here.”

“Make sure you look outside first.”

“Oh, Jonathan. I can’t live like this.”

“Open the door; I’m getting impatient.”

He heard her open the door and heard Frank ask if he could do anything for her. She thanked him, and even across the miles, Jonathan could hear the eagerness in her voice—eagerness to shut and bolt the door again. “It’
s a brown box…small. Oh, ugh.”

Discouragement filled Jonathan’s gut. “What’s wrong?”

“I dropped my plate of food all over the carpet. I’m going to have to have my carpets cleaned.”

“They’ll never be able to do it. They’d have to completely pack your house and unpack it again.”

“Oh, hush!” She sliced the tape off the box and folded back the flaps, ignoring the plate of food still upturned in front of her couch. “Oh, no! No! Jonathan!”

Alone in his home office, Jonathan grinned. He heard both the excitement and pleasure hidden between tones of dismay. She liked it, even if she wasn’t comfortable admitting it. “I couldn’t leave you there without the key—”