The Rescuer (8 page)

"I'm counting on it." She patted his cheeks. "I'l be fine. I promise."

His fingers entwined with hers. "Yes, you wil be. You're stubborn that way."

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67 Six

PRESENT DAY

monday, june 25 WHITFIELD, ILLINOIS

Meghan fixed tea for Stephen. His offer to come by and give her a lift back to Silverton surprised and pleased her. She was making a deliberate attempt during this trip to Chicago for Jennifers visitation to renew old friendships. The teapot whistled. She turned off the burner and picked up the kettle with a hot pad.

She hadn't wanted to intrude on the O'Mal eys' grief, but it would be good to spend some time with Stephen rather than just talk on the phone, as they had done occasional y over the last few years.

The power went out with a snap-the TV she was listening to went dead and the appliances jolted to silence. Meghan froze. She was carrying a teapot ful of hot water. The darkness didn't change for her, but she left the room lights on for her dog, and she had to figure out where he was before she moved. Blackie could lead her safely across a street with heavy traffic or around a crowded mal , but he couldn't handle cats, the smel of onions, which made him sneeze, or thunder.

She tried not to tease him about his weaknesses, at least not

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too much. He was okay with al three when he was in the harness working. Her col ie gave her priceless freedom. "Where are you, Blackie?" The animal's tail slapped against her leg. "Why don't you go under the table for a minute, okay? I don't want to step on your tail."

She waited until she heard the sound of his movement before she carried the teapot to the counter to finish fixmg the tea. Her grandparents were such creatures of habit that Meghan was able to find the cinnamon by first finding the glass jar of lemon drops and turning the spinning rack two items to the left. It had been that way when she could see, and years later it was stil that way. Whoever said new was better was badly missing the value of predictability. She would like to strike new from her vocabulary now that she couldn't see.

The TV came back on as abruptly as it had gone off, the appliances resuming operation with a hum. She stirred honey in her tea.

Stephen had taken a leave of absence. She tossed her spoon toward the sink and heard the satisfying sound of metal striking stainless steel. If she were smart she would get over the anger before he got here, but then again maybe not. Maybe it would be better to just give him both barrels of her emotion so at least he'd have to deal with it. Running away. Repeating history. She thought she'd broken him of the habit when they were children.

She pul ed out a chair, stopping her hand at the last moment to move the chair slowly until she figured out she wasn't going to give her dog a headache. Did Stephen real y think leaving was going to help? She was an expert on running from unattractive realities in life, and it just meant he would inevitably crash into a wal and do it far from home and everybody who cared for him.

Meghan rested her elbows on the table and turned her cup around to grasp the handle. This was a lot more serious than the whispered words from Kate last night had made it out to be.

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Meghan adored family members that had the nerve to meddle, but had Kate whispered in the right persons ear? It had been over a year since she last talked to Stephen for more than a casual, "Hi, how are you?"

and she was supposed to rescue him tonight?

Jesus, I'm no rescuer. Stephen has that title locked up in spades. As do You.

Thunder crashed overhead and she flinched. For years she had chased lightning and hail and tornadoes with Ken and laughed at natures fury Now thunder cracked without warning and her nerves couldn't handle it. The storm sounded as if it were directly overhead.

Jennifers funeral had been this morning. Stephen needed to go out in this storm somewhere and cry his eyes out, release the emotions. But he wouldn't do it.

Instead he'd run. And she knew for certain that if he ran, he would come to regret it. But she wouldn't push, not if his family had already decided to back off and let him go.

' Lord, please help me figure out what to say tonight. At least

blindness had clarified her sight in other ways. Al of life was a

('spiritual battle on one level or another-acceptance, endurance,

peace, joy Trying to find those things without Christ was an exercise in futility. If he kept avoiding the subject of Jesus, Stephen wouldn't find the peace he sought.

Maybe she would have a chance to talk with him about seri-

,/ous things during the drive. Her bags were by the front door, the

bed was already stripped, the sheets washed and now in the

V dryer. She'd been planning to crash on the couch for the few

, [hours before her father arrived. Since sleep wasn't going to hap-

'dpen in this storm, she'd much rather be on the road.

"^Meghan set down her cup of tea and stood. She walked

through her grandparents' vacation home to turn on the outdoor lights.

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Stephen needs to find some comfort tonight, Lord.

Since he doesn't know You, I'l have to reflect to him how much You care about him. The sadness he's feeling about Jennifer must be incredible. 1 wish he understood that You're therefor him. The man needs to find You. She knew it in her head and felt it in her heart, and she ached at the realization that he didn't. Years of praying for Stephen hadn't opened the door, but Meghan wasn't giving up on him. God hadn't. Please remind him to drive careful y. There have been enough tragedies on nights like this.

Outdoor lights came on next door.

Jonathan Peters froze. Meghan was blind and couldn't see him, but if she had company coming over... He finished unlocking the side door of the dark house.

He'd like to give Neil another stroke for not hiding the gems that needed to cool off in something straightforward like a box buried under the woodpile or beneath attic insulation. Neil's wife, now deep in the confusion of Alzheimer's, had sold her china dol col ection to her sister without asking her husband-and with it a hidden ruby bracelet worth a smal fortune.

In the interwoven friendships of Silverton there was a certain logic to Meghan's grandparents buying a vacation home next door to Neil's wife's sister.

Jonathan eased open the door. Neil had given him a key. With the owners traveling, the house was empty tonight, and the storm was good cover.

Jonathan had no choice but to be the one who tned to recover the bracelet. He couldn't trust Craig now that it was clear his friend was frying his common sense on drugs, and Neil wouldn't be going more than a hundred feet from his sitting chair for the foreseeable future.

The stroke had partial y paralyzed Neil's left side and ended his craftsman ability and thus their profitable sideline career. Future income would have to come 71

",from sel ing pieces they had already taken. Because of that, it was

important not to let the ruby bracelet be lost or to have the cops

^>How many pieces over the years had disappeared by acci-

* <,-j

»fdent as Neil's wife lost her sense of the present and gave away

iitems?

*Jonathan turned on his flashlight and looked around the living room, careful not to let the light pass across the windows.

\Shelves had been emptied and tables cleared of pictures and

*%*knickknacks. They were having the rooms redone-the project

of a retired lady with too much time on her hands.

Would the

dol s be out or tucked in some boxes somewhere?

t'i

vHe would have to pressure Neil to tel him where the

^remaining pieces were hidden. He had no leverage with the man

/

tyand didn't expect the pressure to yield much, but if he had to go

to Silverton after Neil died and rip up his house and jewelry store-it would be a headache creating the block of free time in his schedule. His manager was already demanding to know what was so urgent that he had to fly back to the States for a long weekend and miss an opportunity to rehearse with the London symphony.

^In a way he was glad of Neil's stroke. The stealing had run its

course. Find the pieces, consider the income from their sale his nest egg, and wrap this up for good.

*Neil was a tough old man. He'd probably live another ten

lv years, but if he didn't? Jonathan wasn't looking to change things as much as create some insurance.

Would Neil have kept so many pieces on his own property, among his own things? Or had he spread them out tucked in spots around town? Maybe at '

Meghan's-the fact she couldn't see would have made her home an ideal stash site.

The mere thought of being in a race with Craig to find the stones Neil had hidden wasn't something Jonathan wanted to

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contemplate. It was definitely time to start thinking about how to handle his friend before the occasion arose.

The china cabinet was empty. Couldn't she have waited another two or three days to begin redecorating? He sighed and started looking through the boxes that weren't taped closed.

Time crawled by as Meghan waited for Stephen to arrive. She paced back and forth in the living room.

The power was out again. The radio in the bathroom might stil have good batteries. She walked with her hand trailing along the wal into the hal way then to the stairway. Her dog bumped against her knee as she walked, pressing so close he interfered with her balance. She lowered her hand to stroke his head.

Meghan took the radio from the bathroom counter into the guest bedroom to try and find a location that got better reception. The local news crackled with static. A thunderbolt cracked overhead. Her dog yelped and she heard a door hit a wal .

"Blackie." He must have headed into his favorite hiding spot-the open walk-in closet. She tried to coax him out but he refused to come. She final y crawled in after him, shoving back the hanging coats to sit beside him.

"I can't blame you, boy. It's loud enough to hurt your ears." She leaned her head against his warm coat.

Glass broke and Meghan flinched. Somewhere a tree limb had just pierced a window. She left Blackie to his temporary shelter, tossing a glove back at him to distract him. She fol owed the noise and realized it was the bathroom window. The rain was reaching her standing in the doorway, and she could tel from the wind it wasn't a little tap by a twig. Stepping on glass or cutting her hand was a bad idea. She gave up dealing with it herself and closed the bathroom door.

She thought there was plywood in the garage that could be

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&.

Jonathan found the china dol s wrapped in tissue paper in a box

$'in the living room. He had unwrapped six before finding the one

V*with painted black eyelashes, rosy cheeks, and a smal red dimple

,/<,on the right cheek. He opened up the base of the dol stand and

I;'1'the rubies tumbled out. The piece was gorgeous.

He didn't

,,remember who he had stolen it from. Had it real y been that many

i,years and that many pieces? He slipped the bracelet into his

Vpocket. His percentage of the sale price would pay bil s for a

^couple months. |,Hearing a car slow, Jonathan clicked off his flashlight.

£'Headlights crossed the windows. He walked over to the win-

'¥

jvdows, staying back far enough from the curtains that his presence

Ifwould remain unnoticed. The car pul ed into Meghan's dnveway.

yl,A man he didn't recognize with a basebal cap on his head dashed

|tyjthrough the rain toward the house.

^if1

if vJonathan wanted to check the other dol s and find out if Neil

ij ihad tucked another piece in one of them and forgotten, but a

'ijguest noticing lights over here wasn't worth the risk.

Tomorrow

J\or the next day, he'd be back if necessary. ;iHe walked through the room removing any signs of his pres-i{;ence. He slipped from the house. The entire subject of Neil and

fyir

he rescuer 73

I>used to patch the window for the night. Stephen was a good cart

;#tonight. She heard the potted fern in the bathroom shatter on the

^,tiles. This was going to be a huge mess to clean up.

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to ».

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J!Craig needed to be thought through in detail.

Stephen wiped water off his face. He had gotten drenched from his run to the house. Meghan had left the door open as promised. He slipped off his wet 73

jacket to hang on the coatrack,

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going off memory, for the kitchen was dark, the only il umination coming from lightning. "Meghan, where are you?"

"Up here. I left a flashlight on the stairs for you."

He hoped the power came on soon. He wasn't nearly as good at walking around in the dark as Meghan was.

He found the flashlight and headed upstairs.

The first sight of her was one he would reme^nber for quite a while. She was dragging a rol of heavy plastic from the spare bedroom. Her jeans were new and her sweatshirt was faded red. Her feet were bare, and her hair was blond. She'd been a brunette yesterday at Jennifer's visitation. She looked cute as a blonde.

"Watch the toolbox."

He spotted it in the hal way beside a piece of plywood and stopped on the top step to stay out of the way.

"You're a trusting soul to leave the door unlocked."

"Who else is going to be out in this downpour? Your shoes are squishing."

"And my socks. It's a minor flood out there. Can I help?

"

She settled the plastic against the wal . "The bathroom window got taken out by a tree limb. I'm going to let you do the hammenng if you don't mind getting a little wetter."

"I doubt I'l notice more water. When did this happen?"