Fire and Rain (46 page)

Chris had spent the night with her. Whether he decided to move into the house or not, she knew they would be sleeping together from now on. She didn’t tell him what was disturbing her, although he tried to pull it from her. His fear for her was touching, and she had to reassure him several times that she was all right, that she wasn’t about to harm herself in any way. At least not physically.

More than once during the night, she thought of showing him the tape. At least then she wouldn’t be alone with the images that haunted her and the horror of what she’d learned. That would have been unfair, though. She let Chris hold her during the night, but that was all the comfort she allowed herself to take from him. “You’ve saved me from every other problem I’ve had in the past decade,” she told him. “This one’s mine alone.”

Sometime very early in the morning, she heard a car pull out of the driveway, and she knew it was Jeff’s. She knew, also, that he wouldn’t be back. She cried then, quietly, not wanting Chris to wake up and ask her to explain her tears. She thought of Mia, left behind. She remembered Delores Harvey’s hope that Jeff could find happiness somewhere after what he’d been through. Was it her fault that he hadn’t found it here in Valle Rosa?

Perhaps. Undoubtedly she’d forced him to leave Valle Rosa sooner than he would have liked. But no matter how many names he assumed, no matter how many miles he traveled from his home, Robert Blackwell would never be able to keep a low profile. He would stand out wherever he went. Sooner or later, he was going to be found.

DENNIS WAS WAITING FOR
her in his office. He stubbed out his cigarette when she walked in.

“Okay, Carmen.” He gestured toward the chair next to his desk. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

She sat down. “I can’t talk about it,” she said. “Not yet.”

He leaned toward her, bushy eyebrows raised. “Uh,” he said, with an annoying attempt at sarcasm, “you work for me, remember?”

“I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to present it.”

“Well, how about you tell me what it is, and I’ll tell you how to present it.” He looked at her empty hands. “And where’s the tape? Let’s put it on so I can see—”

“I left it home. I figured there wasn’t much point in me bringing it over because I got it under slightly false pretenses. I won’t use it until I get permission from the woman who made it.”

“
Carmen
.” He was beginning to sound exasperated. “We’ll get the okay. Whatever it takes, we’ll get it.”

She shook her head. “It would ruin my credibility with her to ask her right now. Then she’d never come on the
Sunrise
special and—”

“There won’t
be
a
Sunrise
special unless you handle this right.”

She moved her hands to the arms of the chair. “Look,” she said, “you’ve trusted me so far to know what information to release and when to release it. And it’s worked out pretty well, hasn’t it?”

“I have to admit you’re right there.” He couldn’t help a smile at the thought of
News Nine
‘s inflated ratings. Then he sighed. “Well, you always were a controlling woman, Carmen. Always wanted a hand in everything, didn’t you? I’d almost forgotten what a pain in the ass you could be.”

He wasn’t joking, and for a moment she felt afraid. She didn’t want him to remember anything negative about her tenure on
Sunrise
.

She tried smiling at him. “I was a perfectionist, yes, but maybe that was why my ratings were always through the ceiling.”

“You understand we can’t firm up an agreement on
Sunrise
until you come through with your end of the deal.”

“I know. That’s fine.”

He stretched back in his chair. “Well, in case things move according to plan and we have that kick-off
Sunrise
special— which we should do the second we announce you’re back on the show—I want to get the names of the people you interviewed. We’ll get in touch with them and make them an offer. I want to try to get the old man on the show, too.”

“Jeff’s stepfather?” She pictured the wheezing, frail old man who knew nothing about the loss of his grandchildren or the trouble his son was in. She would never put him through this. “I don’t think that would be possible,” she said. “He’s in for the rest of his life.”

Dennis waved a hand through the air. “We’ll persuade them to let him out for the show. Good behavior or compassion or whatever. If they won’t agree, we can send you there with a crew for an interview and run that on the show.”

“I don’t want to disturb him again.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t go soft on me, Carmen. Not now that I’ve just about got everyone sold on you doing
Sunrise
.”

The phone rang on his desk and he picked it up. “Ketchum,” he barked into the receiver. He looked at her, something like suspicion in his eyes. “Hold on a second, Frank.” Then to Carmen, “Rumor has it Cabrio left town this morning.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t notice him at Sugarbush, but he’s usually at the warehouse by the time I get up.”

“Check it out,” Dennis spoke into the phone again. “Make some phone calls. Call that Smythe guy, and get back to me right away.”

He was growling when he hung up the phone. “Look, Carmen, at least give me enough of what you’ve got so we can run a teaser throughout the day. You know, ‘Carmen Perez at last reveals the truth about Valle Rosa’s mysterious rainmaker.’”

“Don’t run teasers, okay?”

“No,
not
okay. How about, ‘The drama of Jeff Cabrio’s life climaxes tonight on—’”

Carmen groaned. “That’s revolting. If you have to run a teaser, just say Carmen Perez concludes her story on Jeff Cabrio tonight at six.”

“Hmm.” His face reflected his disdain. “Real catchy, Carmen.” He lit a cigarette.

“He’s a human being,” she said, “not some brand of toothpaste you’re trying to sell.”

He took a drag on his cigarette, eyes narrowed at her again. “What the hell did you find out?”

She was relieved when the phone rang, and he turned his scrutiny away from her. “Yeah?” he said. “Are you sure—shit.” He hung up the phone, and she knew what he’d learned even before he told her.

“Your ticket back to the top just slipped out of town,” he said. “You’d better pull out all the stops tonight, girl. We’re counting on you.”

CHRIS WAS TURNING ON
the television when Mia appeared in the doorway of his cottage. Even through tne screen door, he could see that her eyes were red.

“Can I watch Carmen with you?” she asked.

He opened the door, and she stepped into the hug he offered. He could feel her crying more than hear her.

Sometime that afternoon, he’d noticed the open door to Jeff’s cottage. He’d walked inside to find all belongings cleared out, and the sadness he’d felt was so overpowering that he’d sunk onto Jeff’s sofa and simply stared out the window for nearly an hour. He would have liked, at least, to have had the opportunity to say good-bye. And to thank him. There was so much to thank him for, though, that he wouldn’t have known where to start.

He hugged Mia tightly, pressing his cheek to her hair. “What time did he leave?” he asked.

She let go of him, wiping her cheeks with her fingers. “Sometime during the night.” She glanced at the television, then at her watch. “Do you know what she’s going to say?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea. Whatever it is had her upset most of the night. I don’t think she slept at all.”

Mia dropped onto his couch. “I couldn’t watch it alone, you know?” she said. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m going to see or hear or how I’m going to feel.”

He turned up the volume on the TV and sat at the other end of the sofa. The anchors were beginning to roll with their news. Chris couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying. Apparently Mia couldn’t either.

“I’m so glad he’s gone,” she said. “I’m so glad he doesn’t have to be here to listen to this.” She bit her lip and gave Chris a worried look. “They’ll go after him, though, won’t they? Whoever it is he’s running from? I should have let him take
my
car. He could have hidden his, and then they’d be looking for his car, but he’d actually be in—”

“He’d never do that, Mia, and you know it. He didn’t want us involved any more than we were. It wasn’t your place or my place to—”

“Shh!” She sat forward as Carmen appeared on the screen.

Chris was stunned by Carmen’s pallor. “She looks sick,” he said. “And she missed her cue.” There was a second or two of dead air before Carmen began speaking.

“Rainmaker Jeff Cabrio left Valle Rosa today,” she said. “The rain will continue on schedule, according to Mr. Cabrio’s assistant, engineer Rick Smythe.”

Carmen looked down at her notes, another second of silence filling the air. Chris felt a film of sweat break out across the back of his neck as she raised her eyes once again to the camera.

“Jeff Cabrio was a very private person,” she said. “We’ve learned some things about him, some things perhaps he’d rather we had never learned. In many ways he remains a mystery to us still. All we in Valle Rosa really care to know is that we are richer for having known him, and we wish him Godspeed. Back to you, Bill.”

The camera was once again on Bill Jackson with his patent leather hair. His look of stunned surprise said it all—no one at the station had expected Carmen’s report to be so brief and so thoroughly devoid of news.

“That’s it?” Mia asked, the expression on her own face a reflection of Bill Jackson’s confusion. “Jeff said she knew.”

Chris smiled. He wished he was at the station so he could wrap his arms around Carmen. “She knew, all right.”

“But she didn’t tell.” Mia broke into a grin, and an instant later, actually leapt up to stand on the couch, arms above her head. “Thank you, Carmen!” she yelled.

Chris laughed.

She looked down at him, her expression sobering. “They won’t give her
San Diego Sunrise
back, now, will they?”

Chris folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the back of the couch, smiling up at Mia. “I guess she decided there are some things more important to her.”

Mia flopped down again, and for a few minutes, neither of them spoke.

“Which way do you think he’ll go?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know.” He had purposely not thought about this. He didn’t want to know. “Let’s just hope he goes far and fast.”

She fell quiet again, one finger idly tracing a pattern on the sofa cushion. “Someone else will figure it out, won’t they, someday?” she asked. “I mean, it’s going to catch up with him sooner or later.”

“Maybe not,” Chris said. “Maybe he’ll be lucky.”

He knew Mia was right, though; Jeff couldn’t run forever. But he wanted to hold onto the fantasy a while longer. It was fitting. With Jeff, the impossible had seemed possible. He’d nurtured the dreams of everyone he met. And when their lives had seemed irretrievably bleak and barren, he had given them hope. It would be his lasting gift to each of them. His lasting gift to Valle Rosa.

October

MIA HADN’T REALIZED
how big a task it would be to clean out her desk. She shouldn’t have left it until her last day at work. Between the phone interruptions and educating Chris’s new office manager, Donna Caro, on the idiosyncracies of the fax machine, she would never get it done.

It was nearly noon when she started sorting through her file drawer. Donna and Chris were at lunch, and Mia was alone in the office when the phone rang for the twentieth time that morning. She groaned and picked it up.

“Mayor’s office,” she said.

For a moment, there was silence on the line. Then, a male voice asked, “Is the wood sprite out of her jar today?”

She caught her breath, then burst into tears. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m okay. I’m fine. Better than I have been in a long time.”

She wasn’t certain how to tell him that the phone might be tapped. She couldn’t bear the thought of him hanging up on her, abruptly, in fear. But she had to say something. “They might try to trace this call,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” he answered. “We’ll make it short. I can’t say too much, anyway. I’ve made a decision about what I have to do, and I feel good about it, but first I wanted to thank you for all you did for me.”

“All
I
did for you?” He had it completely reversed.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “You gave me back something I’d lost, Mia. Valle Rosa gave me something back. I felt worthwhile again. I helped a few people out of a mess.”

“You helped a lot of people who were on the brink of disaster,” she corrected him.

“Mmm,” he said, and she could hear his smile. “It’s still raining there, right?”

Mia glanced out the window at the chaparral flourishing on a distant hillside. “One day a week,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “I’m not a total screw-up after all, I guess. I’m not totally inept.”

“Jeff…” She frowned. “Of course you’re not.”

“And I’m capable of loving someone. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do that again.”

She suddenly understood why he felt grateful to her. To Valle Rosa. She knew his past now. The time for hiding the truth—any and all truths—was over.

“Carmen had a videotape of the fire,” she said. “She showed it to Chris and me before she destroyed it. She destroyed all her tapes and notes about you.” All three of them had cried, watching the tape, Carmen most of all. That very evening, despite her refusal to share the rest of Jeff’s story with her audience, she had been asked to host
Sunrise
again. Not only did she turn down the offer, but she quit
News Nine
altogether. Having no idea what lay ahead, she’d been frightened that night. But new offers came pouring in the instant word was out that she was a free agent. She now had her own morning show—a very different sort of show—on a competing station.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Jeff said.

“I’m sorry, Jeff. I’m so sorry. Your children. I can’t imagine how—”

“Shh,” he said. “Don’t try.”

She chewed on her lower lip, wondering how much she should say over the phone. “At first I was hoping you’d come back,” she said, “that somehow you’d learn Carmen hadn’t revealed anything more about you on the news. Did you know that?”