Healing Waters (37 page)

“Are you sure about that? Sometimes people just quit, you know.”

“She sent Hudson away. He baked cookies for me, and then she got mad at him and he went away.”

“Not because he baked you cookies,” I said.

“No, he did something else bad, I think. And Holly was bad. She stole stuff from my mom. I heard Marnie say it. And I guess Uncle Chip was bad because he never came back.” Her face began to crumple. “Will you please promise to be good so my mom doesn't send you away too?”

She fought hard to keep the tears back. I wanted to tell her to let them go until there were none left to torment her, but she seemed determined to get them under control. I knew the feeling.

“Do you see this thing about the place you don't want to go?” I said, waving the brochure.

She nodded.

“You're not the one going away. It is.”

I tore the paper into as many pieces as I could until I'd reduced it to a pile of rubbish in my hand.

“Follow me,” I said.

She trailed me into the bathroom, where I opened the lid to the toilet.

“Would you like to do the honors?” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“That means flush this awful place down the potty.”

The round moon lit up, and with the same painstaking exactness with which she did everything else, she scooped up a handful of pieces and poured them ceremoniously into the toilet. I let her push the handle, and we watched as the thing she feared circled and disappeared.

“Now then,” I said, “do you think there is room for me to bring another bed into your room?”

“Why?” she said.

“Because I would like to room with you from now on, if that's okay with you. It's lonely where I'm staying.”

“My room is ugly,” she said.

“That's not a problem,” I said. “What color shall we paint it?”

The smile she gave me seared into my heart.

God, please let it mean she no longer thinks I would send her away
because she interrupted me when I was doing . . . what? Listening to
Sonia's request for lounging pajamas?

“Could we make it look like a princess lives here?” Bethany said.

“We'll go buy the paint right now,” I said.

And Sonia could find somebody else to fetch her personal pillow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

S
ully watched from the front window of the guesthouse as the Escalade pulled out of the driveway with Lucia at the wheel and Bethany in the backseat. He liked seeing them get out of the house. Maybe it would help Lucia decide to keep working with him.

He let the curtain fall and nursed a pang. If she didn't, he'd have to find another place to stay, possibly even go back to Porphyria's and regroup. He couldn't justify continuing to hang out here if he wasn't doing therapy with Lucia, no matter how much yard work he did.

He glared at his laptop. He'd tried all day looking up more distant divinity school acquaintances and discovered he couldn't remember most of their names. Partials like “Ulea Somebody” and “Something Harrison” didn't help much. He considered calling Anna for help, but discarded that idea as well as her suggestion that the “old gang” get together. He couldn't see doing this by committee.

He actually didn't envision anything, except drinking another cold Frappuccino from the six-pack he'd picked up when he went out for Starbucks. He pried the cap from his second one and stared at the computer screen again.

Anna had said something about Fall Creek Falls. It probably had more to do with her than with Lynn—most things did—but maybe a picture would tease something else out.

Fall Creek Falls State Park came up right away, with a photograph of water tumbling from the top of the Cumberland Plateau to the base of the Cane Creek Gorge.
The highest plunge waterfall
east of the Mississippi River
, the caption said. How could he have forgotten something that impressive?

He hadn't, he remembered as he cruised through the Web site. A small group of them went that last year he was working on his master's. Right—the three couples had scraped together enough to rent a cabin for two or three days of spring break.

He couldn't shake loose the names of the couple from Ukraine, but he did remember them all in front of a fireplace. Tom stoked the fire, and Lynn whispered to Sully that he was making it too hot. If he could remember that detail, come on, there had to be more.

Sully got up from the computer and paced the room that became too small. There was something . . .

Lynn talking. Lynn saying . . .

“I'm the only one here without a college degree.”

It was like picking one tiny hole in a water balloon. That was all it took for the whole thing to burst out.

“And your point is?” Anna had said.

Everyone else followed suit. Nobody cared. But Lynn wouldn't let it go. It came up in every conversation after that.

When it was time to eat, she wouldn't let anyone else cook. Shooed Anna and—what was that woman's name? Ursula? Chased them out of the kitchen like a hen. Said smart women shouldn't waste time at the stove.

When they sat down to eat, she talked about what novels were selling at Davis-Kidd, the bookstore she managed, while the rest of them discussed Paul Tillich. She was the first one to point out how much more sophisticated their reading material was.

They had all hiked the short trail from the top of the plateau down to the base of the gorge to get access to the waterfall's plunge pool, and they'd watched in awe as the water shook a boulder loose and sent it tumbling like a small toy.

“I can't believe I ever wasted a moment wondering whether the resurrection actually happened,” Sully could hear himself saying. “If God can move that rock, why couldn't He move the stone away from the tomb?”

“You have wondered that, Sully?” his Ukrainian friend said.

Clyde, was it? His accent had sharpened with somewhat judgmental surprise, Sully remembered now. The guy was in the ministry track, and he and Sully had several friendly debates about what should be questioned and what should be left alone.

“Of course he has,” Tom said. “He wonders if Mary was actually a virgin. Why shouldn't he wonder that?”

A discussion had ensued, during which Lynn insisted on giving him a neck rub. Later, when they were alone, she asked Sully if he was upset because his friends had given him a hard time. No, he was upset because she fawned over him in front of his fellow scholars. He didn't tell her that, did he?

Sully stopped in front of the computer and stared at the picture. They'd been standing on the plateau during that conversation, watching a raccoon fish below in a patch of moonlight. It was a romantic venue where he should have taken her up on that neck rub, told her he didn't care if she read Danielle Steele instead of systematic theology. Did he do that?

He scratched his hand through his hair. It stabbed at him that he couldn't remember
what
he did. Was she that inconsequential to him at that point? Was that why she didn't want to live? Anna said he was all she had cared about.

“Come on, man,” he said out loud. “You're going to drive yourself crazy.”

When he knocked the laptop sideways at the tap on the door, he was convinced he was losing his grip.

He tried not to look too terribly insane as he opened the door. “I hope I'm not interrupting,” Lucia said, making an obvious effort to look him in the eye. “It sounded like you were on the phone.”

“You're fine,” he said.

“I don't know about that,” she said. “But I want to be.”

He watched her throat work, and he knew he was seeing a woman swallow her pride.

“Will you please help me?” she said.

Sully nodded, enough times to get control of his voice. Still, it was thick when he said, “I'll meet you tonight.”

Sullivan was out by the river early, face in his hands. I knew he was praying, but it always looked so desperate to me somehow. Maybe that was how you were supposed to do it—like you actually believed you'd get an answer.

Bethany had been asleep for an hour. I had worn her out, not only buying everything that even remotely suggested a princess, but by making her try on school uniforms and pick out supplies and listen to me trying to convince her that this thing called school was special. When I tucked her in, I told her there were only three more wake-ups before she got to go be a big first grader—and come home every day.

I had a few minutes before I was supposed to meet with Sullivan, and I had to get through them without changing my mind.

I went resolutely into Sonia's office to get my Sullivan Crisp folder, still next to three envelopes I'd separated from the rest, now staring at me accusingly. They were the hate mail, the kind of letters Sonia told Deidre Schmacker she never received. Either she had never gotten anything like them before the plane crash or she had out-and-out lied, and frankly I didn't know which to believe. At least I only had two options to choose from: tell Special Agent Schmacker, or don't.

At the corner of the desk, I'd left a nest of things people had sent Sonia—coupons for the Christian bookstore, a vial of water from the Jordan River, a jar of burn ointment. They were at once touching and absurd, and I decided I could throw them away without feeling guilty. Just as I was about to dump them into the wastebasket, I saw a crayoned drawing at the bottom. Interesting. All the rest of Bethany's artwork hung on the refrigerator, the deep freeze, the washer, and any other large appliance I could attach a magnet to.

I lifted it out and studied it. It was one of Bethany's better efforts, embellished with detail I could imagine going on while her pink tongue worked at the corner of her mouth.

The figure drawn in peach crayon was obviously female, with a mass of black curls and eyelash-fringed blue eyes that took up half the face's circle. She wore black, but she didn't look funereal. The bright red lips were drawn as a heart-shaped smile.

I held it out to get the long view. Sonia? No. Sonia's hair wasn't curly. And the only person around here who wore black was me.

“Can I draw you?” Bethany had said to me.

I eased the wrinkles out of the paper and pawed through the drawer for a thumbtack. I was still hunting when the doorbell rang. I picked up the drawing and my Sullivan folder and glanced at my watch as I made my way to the foyer. Who the Sam Hill was dropping in at eight
PM?

You shouldn't talk to strangers, Bethany had told me, and the man on the doorstep definitely fell into that category. He was stocky and pockmarked, with skin the color of a Florida sunburn. He all but breathed fire.

“I need to talk to Lucia Coffey,” he said, “like, now.”

Sullivan chose that moment to lope up onto the porch. He gave the man, whose fists were now doubled, a long survey and eased his way between us.

“What's this about? You look a little worked up, my friend.”

The guy shoved his fists into the pockets of a pair of dress slacks that rode below his protruding belly.

“Look, I'm fired up,” he said, “but I'm not here to make trouble. I just need to talk to Lucia Coffey.” He looked past Sullivan at me. “I'm Patrick Fargason.”

“Are you Sonia's accountant?” I said.

“Yeah. And I got something to say.”

Although he looked more like WWE in a necktie than a CPA, I nodded at Sullivan, who stepped aside and let the man pass, but his eyes never left him.

“This is private,” the man said.

“I'd rather he stayed,” I said.

Sullivan, to my relief, didn't look like he was going anywhere anyway.

“Is there something wrong with Sonia's finances?” I said.

“Yeah, and I've already turned that over to her lawyer. There's money missing—and don't start in on me. I had nothing to do with it. If I had, I wouldn't have pointed it out to him, now, would I?” His face went a deeper red, if that was possible.

“I wasn't accusing you of anything,” I said.

“No, you people are too busy focusing on my brother.”

“Your brother?” I felt my face knot up. “Who's your brother?”

“What, are you new?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. I had nothing to do with my sister's business until her accident.”

He jerked his neck. “Oh. Then maybe you don't know.” Some of the redness slid from his face. “Hudson Fargason,” he said. “He was Sonia's chef.”

I exchanged glances with Sullivan.

“The FBI's at my brother's door, accusing him of having something to do with her ‘accident.' ” Patrick made quotation marks with his fingers. “The biggest explosion he ever made was lighting a baked Alaska, but they won't leave him alone. He got fired from Fleming's because they harassed him on the job. Lost the best gig in town, all because of that—”