Echoes (40 page)

Can you see them?"

Chaz moved from one to the next. "No, mon."

Matt's phone rang, but he didn't want to lose his hold on Carly. He shot Rico a glance. "In my pocket."

Rico took the call. "That was Lynette Funio. Sofie and Eric are just around the corner."

"Split up, front and back. Try to see if he has a weapon." A warped part of him hoped he did, that Sofie wasn't willingly participating.

"I see them," Rico called from the bedroom. "They're walking close. I can't tell about a weapon. Maybe, maybe not." He paused, then, "Sofie unlocked the door."

Matt clenched his jaw. She was bringing Eric up. Maybe she had no choice, or believed she had none. It didn't matter. Even if she wanted this, he had to stop them from leaving. Eric was dangerous. Where were the cops?

Since they would probably check Sofie's apartment first, he turned Carly over to Chaz and went to stand by the door.

Behind him Chaz said, "Why do you struggle? We're trying to help you."

It wouldn't work to reason with her. Not now. He only hoped he could get through to one of the others.

Rico joined him at the door. The man was small but street tough, and Sofie had suggested he'd seen his share of fights. If they had to muscle her away from Eric . . . A commotion sounded outside the door. Lots of feet on the stairs in the hall. Kids' voices.

"They're going to school," Rico said beside him.

"Down from upstairs?"

Rico nodded.

Could they use that? No, it would risk the kids. The noise died down. He listened for other footsteps. Eric's. And Sofie's. Had they reached this floor? Gone into her apartment? He waited.

His phone rang. Sofie's tune. Rico handed it over. Matt set it to speaker. "Sofie?"

"Eric and I are on the roof." Her voice sounded shaky. "If you don't bring Carly up, he'll throw me off."

His stomach clenched. He hadn't even thought of that. But now he imagined the critical injuries of a four-story fall. Injuries or death.

"He wants Chaz and Rico, too, where he can see them."

Matt looked to see if the others had heard. They obviously had. He tried to process that into a plan, but his reasoning was blocked by thoughts of Sofie falling. Everything came back to that. "We're coming up."

He needed to think, but Chaz had removed his hand from Carly's mouth, and her crying overlaid the pounding in his ears. He took her arm. "You need to stay with me." Something in his tone must have told her not to struggle, or else she realized she was getting what she'd wanted. He asked Rico, "How do we get to the roof?"

Rico led the way up the stairs to the top floor, through a door to a narrow flight up. The next door opened onto the chilly morning. Matt hoped for sirens but heard only kids on the street below. Eric held Sofie near one edge. No sign of a weapon. Once he released her, how did he think he'd get past them all? Something wasn't right.

Carly tugged, but Matt didn't let go. He moved her to the center of the roof, Chaz and Rico flanking them. "What's the plan here, Eric?"

"Give me my daughter."

"It's not safe over there. It's my job to keep kids out of hazardous situations." As he spoke he scrutinized the man Sofie would have died for.

Eric looked to be sizing him up, as well, then shifted his attention to the child. "Come here, Carly."

Matt held her tight. "Let Sofie go."

Eric snapped his focus back. "Sofie doesn't want to go. She wants her little girl."

A chill spread through him as he looked into Sofie's face.

"Let her go, Matt," she said.

"You know I can't do that. Let's all go down—"

Eric stepped onto the raised edge of the roof, his knuckles whitening on Sofie's arm. "If I go, Sofie goes."

"Daddy!" Carly shrieked.

The wind tossed Eric's hair. Murder-suicide was not beyond him. Matt caught the thought like a blow to the chest. Eric didn't plan to get out of there. Sirens sounded—not near but coming closer. Matt clenched his jaw. If he could hold him off until the cops arrived . . . Carly yanked free and ran.

"No!" He charged after her.

Eric teetered. Sofie screamed. Carly lunged for her dad as he lost control. Wheeling, Eric grabbed onto her. Sofie clutched them both as he fell. No time to think, only act. Matt dove on top of Sofie and caught hold of Carly's arm as she dangled over the edge. The child's screams pierced his ears and covered the sound of Eric landing.

He groped his other hand down to Carly's shoulder joint and heaved her up as Chaz and Rico caught and pulled her over. The sirens drowned Carly's screams while Chaz dragged her away from the edge. Matt rolled off of Sofie and pulled her down from the four-inch rise. She gasped with pain, and he guessed he'd broken or bruised her ribs, collarbone maybe. But if he hadn't landed on her, they'd have all three gone over.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY- FIVE

O
n his knees in the hall, Lance prayed. The fierce knowledge that lives hung in the balance had gripped him, and he'd kept on without stopping until it let him go. Now, spent and stiff, he opened his eyes. Afternoon had yielded to evening, and no sounds of other workers reached him. He turned.

Rese sat against the wall, her expression more querulous than concerned. "Are you back?"

Pain shot up his thighs from knees that felt numb. His hamstrings pulled as though he'd run for miles. "Yeah." He pressed a fist to the small of his back.

"Can you move?"

He sat back on his heels, drawing his toes forward, a burn running the length of his Achilles tendons. "I didn't finish the floor."

She shrugged. "You were doing something else."

He eased back against the opposite wall and drew his legs out from under him. "I could have finished this hall."

"You will."

She was taking this better than he'd expected. He tried hard to avoid any hint of preferential treatment, so maybe no one had noticed his lapse.

"Randy came up to take the sander, since you weren't using it."

Lance noted it standing where he'd left it when he had dropped to his knees.

"He shook your shoulder to tell you."

Randy was a Saxon behemoth. How had he missed that mitt on his shoulder?

"A few years ago, someone broke a Seagram's bottle over his skull in a bar fight. He has chronic headaches and recurring double vision. This was a bad day." She raised her head. "Until he touched you."

Lance took that in. He'd been so deep in prayer the contact hadn't registered.

"He came downstairs with a weird look on his face. Said his head was full of butterflies. Then it cleared and he was pain free."

She wasn't expecting an explanation, so he didn't try. All he knew was that God had impressed him to pray. Sofie and Matt had been primary in his thoughts to begin with, then the awareness of God had overwhelmed everything else.

"The guys wanted to go up and see. Randy guarded the stairs."

He dropped his gaze to his hands. Rese had taken a chance, letting him into her professional life. Now this. "So I'm a freak?"

"No more than I've always been. But . . . watch out if they want a new mascot."

"Fagedda-bout-it."

"Actually that's one role I wouldn't mind passing on."

He doubted he'd ever replace her legend. He'd seen enough to know the crew revered her work but still considered her a challenge to work for. Teasing her, even if half their efforts were wasted, restored the balance. No telling what they'd think of him.

She tipped her head back against the wall. "Ready to go home and see what's for dinner?"

"Okay." He managed a grin. As much as he would enjoy whatever Nonna and Star had cooked up, he longed to take raw ingredients and create something himself, longed for the aromas and textures of his art. And if it kept him in the shelter of Quillan Shepard's kitchen, where the Lord's sneak attacks went unremarked, so much the better.

He'd never shirked life, but he'd never been out of control either. Maybe this intensity in prayer would fade. He got the idea he could stop it if he wanted, but did he? What if his prayer today had been a channel of grace and power in a situation too far out of his hands to even know? Sofie still had not taken his calls. It wasn't like her, but she had Matt, and maybe he'd underestimated their connection.

And if it wasn't Sofie it could be someone else. How could he tell God thanks, but no thanks? He pushed up from the wall, met Rese in the middle, and took her hands. "Tomorrow, one sanded floor. I promise."

————

Sofie held Carly in her lap as a monitor counted each beat of Eric's heart. His crushed and battered organs were shutting down one by one, and after six years of waiting, these moments would be all she had. No words, no explanations, no apologies.

Now she knew the terrible wound she had caused the ones she loved by spurning her own life. The wound she had caused him. A betrayal worse than his. No wonder he hadn't forgiven her. How could she ever forgive herself?

She'd gone on, but the life she'd returned to had been the grand gestures of a specter trying to be seen among the living. Bold words, trying to be heard. Echoes of love and life she could no more contain than her veins had held the blood. Lance's prayer had passed through her. Nothing was real but the child in her arms. Eric's child.

A rattle started in his throat. Carly turned her head. "He sounds different."

She stroked her back. "He can't fight much longer."

"Why don't they do something?"

"They can't fix all that's wrong." Nothing had, or ever would.

As they'd waited on the roof, he had called death their final unity, and she'd seen the depth of his illness, how it had hollowed him into a shell of the man he'd been or could have been. She had told him in the church that she couldn't go with them, but Eric had known she would not have let Carly go alone. They were bound together, survivors of a consuming love. And now co-bearers of this grief.

As Carly's soul-deep sobs covered the last of his breaths, Sofie couldn't stop the prayer that came to her lips—hope more tenacious than her weary mind could disregard.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy
.

Carly cried. Sofie rocked her, ignoring the pain in her ribs, seeking it. Together they mourned Eric's passing, sharing the grief—and the guilt. What if she'd said yes, if they'd gone in together for Carly? What if she'd told Matt to let it go, to stop fighting for her? Such painful words,
what if
.

A nurse came in and turned off the machines, then went back out. Somewhere police waited to be informed; other authorities to be notified. She would speak with Eric's mother when that was possible. Plan a memorial. Carly would need that. Then sorrow overtook her and nothing mattered but the loss—and the terrible freedom in its wake.

————

How could anything hurt so much? In the room at Sofie's, Carly squeezed herself. She was dying. She had to be, wanted to be. She had made Daddy fall. Because Matt wouldn't let go, she'd fought and run, and then . . . It kept going through her mind like a slow-motion movie. His arms wheeling, his body twisting, her daddy grabbing hold. For help. He'd wanted her to help, to catch him, to save him.

But she'd gone over too, and if Sofie hadn't held her, she'd be dead. She wished she was. She deserved to be. He had never hurt her. He only wanted her safe, and he'd tried to make her happy, tried his best to always make her happy. He couldn't help it if she wanted friends, and now she knew she'd been so stupid. What good were friends?

It was Daddy who had mattered. Now he was gone. She bent over with sobs. What if Sofie left her too? But then she was there, soothing, holding, crying with her.

"I know it hurts, honey. I know."

She knew because it hurt her too. She was the only person in the world who had loved Daddy too. And he'd loved her. It would have worked. They could have been together, if Matt had just let go!

Sofie rocked her in her arms and didn't make her stop crying the way Grandma had. She knew it would never stop. She had made Daddy fall, made Daddy fall, made Daddy fall. But it wasn't her fault.
Oh, please, please, please, don't let it be my fault
.

She pulled away, ran to the bathroom and threw up. There was hardly anything inside. The reflex had come so often since Daddy took his last awful breath, that there was nothing left to throw up, but she wanted to. She wanted to get it all out. All of it. All the bad feeling. All the pain. All the guilt. All the regret.

Why, why had she called Grandma? Daddy wouldn't have been in trouble if she hadn't. It was Grandma's fault she fell down. She shouldn't have gotten in his way. Stupid woman. And stupid Matt. Stupid, stupid Matt.

Sofie rubbed her back. "Come on, Carly. There's nothing left in your stomach."

She washed out her mouth. Sofie was wrong. The hurt was left. As hard as she tried she couldn't get it out. It was there just as strong.
Daddy
. "I want my Daddy."

"I know."

Why didn't she say she wanted him too? She looked at Sofie, saw the hurt in every shadow. She might not say it, but she wanted him. Because how could they live without him?

Carly gulped. "What will I do without him?" Who would she even be? No one. "I'm nothing." Worse than nothing.

"No, Carly. You're everything. And I love you."

"Don't leave me."

"Never."

But how could Sofie say that when they both knew it was her fault Daddy fell, and all he ever did was love her too much?

————

Matt rubbed his face. He had hardly slept for two nights; vigilant the first, regretful the next, wondering what he could have done differently. A longer reach. A better grip. He hadn't known Eric, hadn't liked what he'd known. But Sofie and Carly, who had suffered the man's warped affection, mourned him now, and he'd have avoided that if he could.

Maybe God had helped him help Sofie, and thrown Carly in too. He hadn't prayed to help Eric. Maybe if he'd asked better, known how to ask or been willing to, things would have turned out better. He nodded to Rico, doing crunches on the incline bench by the wall, then sank into a chair beside Chaz, whose Bible lay open on the table. "Any answers in there?"