Breaker's Reef (33 page)
Authors: Terri Blackstock
“Let’s go find Sadie.”
Her father took her clammy hand and led her through the people. She looked for Sadie, knowing she’d feel better when she found her sister.
S
adie reached the backyard and watched Cade spin Blair around. “She actually
married
me!” he shouted to the wedding party.
They all laughed as the photographer snapped pictures.
Scott came to stand beside Sadie. “You look good, Sadie. The bride was pretty and all, but it was you I couldn’t take my eyes off of.”
She smiled. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” She hugged him, but as she did, she saw Matt over his shoulder. He was brooding, clearly not happy to see her in Scott’s arms. She pulled back.
“Hey, Matt! You and your folks did a great job with the flowers. They’re gorgeous. I don’t know how you do it.”
Matt shot Scott an unappreciative look, then bent down to hug Sadie. “I’m glad they turned out all right.”
She stepped back to look at him. “You clean up nice. I’ve never seen you in a suit.”
“You look pretty too, but I’m sure I’m not the first one to tell you.”
“Thank you.” She felt the tension between the two men and wished she knew how to handle it. She bit her lip and looked at the people coming around the house. Her mouth fell open when she spotted Amelia. “My sister came! Amelia!”
Amelia looked in Sadie’s direction. She lifted her hand in a wave … then froze …
A
cross the lawn, Amelia heard Sadie call her, turned to see her sister, standing between two men. Both turned to look at her.
And then she saw him.
The man who’d been with Nate the night they’d abducted her, the one who’d bound her with duct tape, wrestled her out of the car, watched as her best friend was shot …
Dizziness wafted over her, and a scream tore from her throat.
T
he terrified scream cut through the crowd, and Cade turned from his well-wishers, searching across the heads for its source. Amelia was backing into people, hysterical. “It’s him!”
Blair looked at Cade. “The accomplice?”
Cade saw McCormick and yelled, “Seal off the place! Don’t let anybody leave.”
“Everyone stay where you are!” McCormick yelled out. “Sit down at the nearest table, please!”
But no one listened. Everyone strained to see what had set Amelia off.
S
adie looked all around her. What was happening? One minute Amelia was calling to her, smiling and waving, and the next she was screaming.
“It’s him! You
monster!
You killed my best friend!” As the words registered, Sadie stepped toward her. “Who? Amelia, who is it?”
“Him!”
But the crowd had filled in, and Sadie couldn’t tell whom she was pointing to.
Amelia’s screams went up an octave. “Stop him! He’s getting away!” She fought her way through the crowd.
Sadie turned and saw Scott running, and her heart jolted. Was he the one? She watched him, horror-stricken, as he ran.
Then, up ahead of him, she saw Matt Frazier, dodging through the crowd flowing around the house. Scott … was chasing
him.
“Matt Frazier!” Sadie screamed. “It must be Matt!”
Matt jumped into his van, parked on the side of the property, and pulled out toward the crowd, spinning up a cloud of dirt.
The crowd split and people screamed as he drove through them.
Sadie turned to find Cade. He was already running.
T
he moment Cade jumped into his police car and took off after Matt, Blair hiked up her big skirt, grabbed the camera out of the hands of the photographer, and took off running to her own car.
“Blair, you can’t follow them!” Morgan shouted. “He may have a gun. You could get shot!”
“I’ll be all right,” Blair shouted back.
“But your wedding dress! You’ll ruin it!”
“No, I won’t.” She flicked the tulle from her veil back over her shoulder and got into her car.
Morgan stepped in front of it to keep her from leaving. “Please, Blair. Get out of the car!”
When Blair started the engine and began backing away from Morgan, Morgan turned to Jonathan, who was running toward them. “Jonathan, stop her!”
“You know better than that. The only thing to do is to go with her.”
He grabbed her car door and flung it open. “Hold on, Blair. I’m coming too. Come on, Morgan.”
Morgan jumped into the front seat, and they started to pull out. “You’re crazy, you know that? Cade’s going to be all right. He’s a professional. He doesn’t need you to follow him when he’s in pursuit of a criminal.”
“Somebody has to get the story,” Blair said as she drove. “It might as well be me.”
M
att tried to make the curve to Ocean Boulevard, back toward Hanover House, and saw that he was cornered. Police cars surrounded him on three sides, and on the fourth, there was nothing but ocean.
Instead of stopping his van and surrendering, he turned into the South Beach Pier’s parking lot, drove through it and out onto the sand. Then, leaping out of his van, he took off running down the long pier.
Cade jumped out of his car and took off running, as well. He heard other footsteps pounding the planks behind him.
Matt had a gun now and was waving it around, threatening to use it if anyone got too close. He reached the end of the pier and turned around, holding the gun out with both hands.
“Don’t come any closer!” he shouted. “Stay back or I’ll kill all of you. I have nothing to lose! I’m not going down for two murders I didn’t even commit!”
Cade stood several yards from him, arms extended, his own gun pointed at the kid. “We know you were just the accomplice, Matt. We know you didn’t pull the trigger. A jury will go easy on you if you surrender now.”
“I’m not taking my chances on a jury! They won’t understand!” He was crying like a frightened child. “I never meant for it to get like this. I was trying to help my cousin! He killed Emily. He was on crystal meth and he came on to her at the concession stand. When she rejected him, he got violent, like he always did, and he forced her to go with him. After he killed her, he came to me all panicked, begging me to help him dispose of the body. The boat was the easiest thing, and I had just read about doing that in one of Marcus Gibson’s books. But I shouldn’t have helped him!”
“The jury will listen to that, Matt. Just don’t make it any worse. Now drop the gun.”
Matt shook his head. “And then I went to see him at the Flagstaff, to warn him that he had to go to treatment, because things had gone too far. We argued, and I told him that because of his stupid addictions he had dragged me into this. I threatened to turn him in. And then he warned me that if he went down, I was going down too, because I helped him. But those girls … they were listening to everything, and we couldn’t take the chance of their reporting us.”
“So you abducted them to shut them up?”
“It all happened so fast. I panicked, then Nate said we had to make sure they didn’t talk. I didn’t think far enough ahead to realize what that meant. I just knew I couldn’t go to prison. But after we got them into the car and took them out to his grandfather’s land, one of the girls tried to run for it, and he shot her. After that, I didn’t want any part of it anymore. But I was in too deep.”
“Then you didn’t kill anybody yourself? If that’s true, Matt, then Amelia and Sadie will tell the jury. It may not even be a murder charge.”
“Don’t lie to me! I know what happens in court! You’re not going to let me get away with this!” He kept his gun trained on
Cade and backed up to the railing at the end of the pier. He pulled himself up on it, put his leg over.
He was going to jump.
Cade heard McCormick behind him, talking into his radio, calling for the Coast Guard.
And then Matt put the gun to his head.
“Don’t do it,” Cade shouted. “Matt, suicide is not the way out. Put the gun down.”
“What do
you
care? It’ll save the taxpayers money. I’ll get what’s coming to me, and I won’t have to suffer through a trial.”
Cade suddenly felt sorry for the kid. “I care, Matt. You got caught up in something bigger than you. You’re not beyond redemption.”
“Aren’t I?
I’m
the one who set you up! When you came by the florist that Saturday to buy the flowers for your proposal, I heard you telling my dad your plans.”
Cade moved closer, trying to keep him talking. “So you took Jamie out to Breaker’s Reef?”
“No! I didn’t. But I told Nate, and he did it. He thought it would throw everybody off, and he got all excited about implicating the chief of police. All I did was hack into Gibson’s computer to make him look guilty too. I figured the more suspects there were, the less likely they were to trace any of it to me.”
As he spoke, Matt moved the gun’s barrel to his throat. Cade moved two steps closer.
“You did a good job. We never traced it back to you. The initials
SC
threw us off.”
“Scott Crown.” Matt’s smile was bitter. “He deserved it. Going after Sadie when she was vulnerable …”
So that was it. Matt wasn’t the innocent victim he imagined himself to be. He’d used the deadly situation to his advantage.
“You’ve made things hard for yourself, Matt, but you can overcome it. Drop the gun. Just drop the gun.”
As Cade came closer, Matt lowered the gun …
… then tossed it to the floor.
Cade went for it, as Matt dove into the water.
Cade ran to the railing, looked over into the surf. Matt was swimming out toward the deep … straight toward the Coast Guard boats speeding toward them. Within minutes, they had surrounded him, and divers went in and apprehended him, pulling him out of the water and into the boat where he was restrained.
Cade breathed a sigh of relief. It was over.
He wiped the sweat on his forehead and turned to shake McCormick’s hand. “Good going, guys,” he said to the other officers.
He looked through the crowd of police officers, and at the entrance to the pier, saw his bride in her wedding dress and veil, snapping pictures with a big, clunky camera he’d never seen before. She was working, he thought with a grin. Recording the story for her paper, intent on getting the scoop. Did she plan on spending their wedding night getting out a special edition?
Oh, no. Not if
he
could help it.
He straightened his tie, raked back his hair, and cut through the people. “Excuse me, everybody. Mrs. Cade and I have some business to attend to.”
Before Blair could protest, he swept her off her feet. She laughed and put one arm around his neck, thrusting the camera at Jonathan. “Get this, Jonathan. It’ll make a great front-page shot.”
Cade laughed and kept walking until he reached the police car where Scott Crown stood. “Give us a ride back to our wedding?”
Crown laughed. “Sure thing, Chief. I’d be honored.”
McCormick rushed ahead, opened the back door, and Cade set Blair down, got in, and pulled her onto his lap. “We’ll take it from here, Cade.” McCormick’s grin almost split his face. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Scott turned on his siren and lights and made his way the mile or so back down Ocean Boulevard, followed by Blair’s car with Jonathan and Morgan, until he got to Hanover House where the guests waited.
“So …” Blair looked down into Cade’s eyes. “Tell me every little thing Matt said. I couldn’t get close enough to hear.”
Cade grinned. “When I’m ready to call a press conference, you’ll be the first to know.”
The guests cheered as Scott pulled his car around the barricade and up onto the Hanover House lawn.
Cade got out of the car, pulling Blair with him. “Everything’s under control now. The perpetrator has been arrested and is in custody. Now, I intend to celebrate my vows.”
Applause rippled over the crowd as the string quartet began to play again. Cade pulled Blair into a kiss. “I love you, Mrs. Cade.”
Her smile burst with joy. “I love you too. I think I’ve always loved you.”
“Dance with me?”
She took his hand and let him pull her close, and they began to dance their first dance as husband and wife. Everyone around them seemed to fade out of mind. It was just the two of them.
“What a perfect day.” Blair sighed. “A wedding and a crime solved in the space of an hour. And pictures, to boot.”
“Stick with me, baby, and your life will never be dull.”
Their laughter rose on the breeze, making their witnesses smile.
And Cade felt the pleasure of the greatest Witness of all, smiling down on the union He had created.
I
wish I were the kind of person who had lived life according to God’s best plan for me, but my free will got in the way so many times, leaving me with a series of regrets that rear their ugly heads with hair-trigger consistency. I read the words that Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13-14—“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” And yet, I find myself constantly looking in my rearview mirror, working through the things I should have done, wondering how different things would be if I had.
I judge the paths I took and the decisions I made with the critical eye of a prosecutor determined to win the case, indicting myself, convicting, and executing all at once. I run through my parenting mistakes with the skill of a DA. I was too lenient, too strict; spoiled them too much, deprived them of what they needed; I was naive, I was suspicious, I let them have too much freedom, I didn’t give them enough. And then there’s my divorce, and my writing, and the people I’ve offended or hurt, or those I failed to validate or acknowledge …
I wake up nights and file through these things in my mind, asking God how He could ever forgive me for any of them, when compared to so many good people I know, I’m such a wretch. How can God use a loser like me? How can He count on my lazy, slow-learning spirit?
My friend Nell has the same thoughts late at night when she lies awake on the six-inch mattress provided by the county’s Department of Corrections. She’s been in jail on drug charges for fourteen years, since her children were small. They’ve grown up without their mother. If anyone has a right to regrets, she does.
She looks thirteen months ahead, to the date of her release, and knows that she won’t be able to step right back into her family and her life. She can’t get back the years her drug abuse cost her. But during the time that she’s been imprisoned, she’s learned of Christ’s forgiveness and has been discipled and mentored by people who love her because Christ loves her. Her faith has had time to grow deep roots, and she’s become something of a missionary among her cell mates.
She looks back on the last fourteen years and thanks God for all the suffering and the lessons she’s learned, for it’s given her a new life and transformed her into a new person. Instead of throwing up her hands as her children have grown up without her, she prays earnestly for them and shares Scripture with them on the phone. During occasional visits, she talks to them of the things the Lord is doing in her life. She looks forward to the day when her sons will marry and have children of their own. “I didn’t get to raise my boys,” she says, “but I’ll be the best grandmother you’ve ever seen!”
Nell has learned the lessons of pressing on and not looking back. She’s a poignant example for me.
The apostle Peter learned this lesson too. After the Passover meal that we often call Christ’s Last Supper, Jesus looked at Peter. “Simon, Simon,” he said, “behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32 NASB).
Peter didn’t know that in just a few hours, he would betray Christ three times. But Jesus knew. And don’t you know that Jesus’ words played through his mind over and over for the rest of his life? Jesus had told him—before the betrayal—that he would mess up, but when he repented, it would be time to move
on and fulfill his calling. Jesus didn’t say, “Peter, you are going to really blow it a few hours from now. You’re going to turn tail and run, and then you’re going to lie through your teeth about even knowing me. And it’s a shame, because you had a lot of potential, but you’ll be of no use to me then.” Instead, He anticipated Peter’s sincere repentance and reminded him that his calling would still be there when he came back. And for two thousand years, Peter has strengthened his brothers through his writings in the New Testament, and reminded us that you can’t move forward if you’re always looking back.
I realize that God is in control of the universe, that the mistakes in my past, while dramatic to me, did not ruin God’s plan beyond repair. God is sovereign, and His plans cannot be thwarted by someone like me. He can fill in the blanks of my mistakes, teaching my children what I failed to teach, restoring what I destroyed, rebuilding what I tore down, redeeming what I sold away.
And He tells me to stop looking back, to press on toward the prize … He knew my mistakes before I ever made them, yet He still planned to use me anyway. He didn’t see me as The Great Loser, but as someone uniquely gifted with something to be used in His kingdom work. Where I see myself as a disappointment, He sees me as an asset. He already knows the fruit I will bear for Him, and my future is on His mind so much more than my past.
If He can see me that way, why wouldn’t I want to press on toward that goal, and wave good-bye to my fragmented, imperfect past? The future is so much brighter in Christ, and I have so many sisters and brothers who need strengthening.
Thank You, Lord, for seeing my potential instead of my past.
