Hidden Summit (20 page)

“Kickboxing?”

“You just can’t imagine how much fun it is. There’s a group of us who go to the community center for the class. And you know what? We’re not terrible!”

“I’m not at all surprised. But listen—I’m having issues with Greg. He is still bothering me. He was down here again. Can you do a little detective work for me? Make a phone call or two? I’d like to see Allison. Can you call her and maybe set something up? I’ll meet her wherever, but I have to talk to her about Greg, who is driving me crazy. And I’d like to talk to her alone. Tell her it’s very personal and important.”

“Sweetheart, what is it?” Candace asked.

“It’s just that I don’t understand myself, Mom. How did I not notice this about him for the eight years of our marriage? Does the whole town think I’m just an idiot? And why didn’t I know I was being
used?
”

“Oh, crap, Leslie—you’re overthinking the whole thing. The ‘town’ thinks you were the best thing that every happened to Greg Adams and he was a damn fool to let you get away! As for Allison, I doubt she’ll confirm that for you. But I’ll call her and try to set up an appointment with her. Maybe you can meet her at the mall or something. Get it all off your chest, then we’ll go out for sushi.”

“Sushi?” Leslie asked.

“We just started eating sushi. It’s wonderful. Don’t you think?”

She just shook her head. “Be sure to tell Allison I’m not upset or anything—I’m very happy in my new life. I just want to…check in with her. Tell her I have a baby gift. And it’s girl stuff—not for Greg! I won’t take much of her time.”

But when Leslie got to Grants Pass, what her mother had arranged for her came as quite the surprise. “Well, she wasn’t very receptive to this idea, nor was she impressed by the baby gift. Do you actually have one?”

“Not yet, but I can get one on my way to see her.”

“I bought you one to give her. I had it gift wrapped. And to be classy, I also bought a gift for the mother—some lotions.”

“You are the best,” Leslie said.

“What’s bothering you?”

“I’m not sure. I’m afraid there’s a part of me that still loves Greg. I hate that, but…”

“Phhhttt,” Candace said, giving her hand an impatient wave. “I saw that godlike man in your house. And I got to know him a little. Funny, smart, attentive… You can’t be pining for Greg!”

“Okay,” Leslie said, “this time are you telling the truth? Or in ten years are you going to tell me you never liked Conner in the first place?”

“Absolutely not! At least not unless he screws up and hurts my little girl. Now, hurry and put on some fresh makeup. Look your best. You’re meeting Allison at Premier Nails on Nineteenth. She’s getting a mani-pedi at noon.”

“No way,” Leslie said.

“That or nothing, honey. She wasn’t exactly easy to persuade. She said she has nothing to say to you. She was rather bitchy.”

“What’s up with that?” Leslie asked her mother. “She won! How can she be mad at me?”

“I’m sure by the time we get to sushi, we’ll have at least some of the answers. Now get going!” Candace looked her over. “Don’t you have something nicer than jeans to wear?”

“I have a fresher pair of jeans, but that’s it.”

“Well,” Candace said. “Whatever.”

The nail salon was crowded, it being Saturday. The owner immediately asked if he could help her, and she shook her head. She lifted the gift bag. “I’m just here to see someone.” And she craned her neck, trying to spot Allison.

Fortunately she was in the back of the room, sitting in a large, leather chair that reclined slightly, soaking her feet in the pedi whirlpool tub. Her eyes were closed—ah, clearly unstressed about this meeting. And her pregnant belly was huge. She wore a red sundress with spaghetti straps and some kind of pattern in blue and green—very bright. Her thick blond hair was pulled back and held with a headband, as though she might be getting a facial today, as well.

Leslie approached warily. “Allison?” she said softly.

Her eyes opened lazily. “Oh. It’s you.”

“I brought you something,” Leslie said, holding out the bag.

“You can put it right there,” she said, pointing to the floor. “Right beside my purse and shoes.”

Leslie put down the gift bag and looked around uncomfortably. “I was hoping we could talk. Maybe privately.”

“Unfortunately I don’t have time for a private meeting today, Leslie. You can pull up a chair and state your business or forget about it. This is just about the only time I have for myself all week. This is it. Take it or leave it.”

“It’s personal,” Leslie tried.

“Then speak a bit softly if you like. I assume it has to do with Greg.”

Leslie tilted her head. This wasn’t like Allison. She was usually much more pleasant. Not warm, certainly, but at least polite. Leslie looked around for a chair; there were only little ones on rollers, the kind the manicurist used to be seated at the client’s feet. She shrugged and pulled one over to the pedi tub, sitting at Allison’s feet. Like one of her subjects.

“Well,” she began. “I’m tired of telling your husband I don’t want to be friends. We’ve been divorced for two years and—”

“Not my husband much longer,” Allison said coolly. “I filed for divorce a month ago.”

Leslie’s mouth fell open, and she stared at Allison in shock; Allison returned the stare with cold eyes. “But you’re having a baby!” Leslie said.

Allison rolled her eyes. Right at that moment a young Vietnamese woman pushed a low chair on wheels over to the pedi tub and pulled on her latex gloves. She gently lifted one of Allison’s feet out of the tub and began to remove the polish.

“Please,” Allison said, not in the least intimidated by their audience. “I don’t need Greg to have a baby. He’s pretty useless anyway. What does he do? He does nothing but schmooze and network and try to impress people. Sometimes I wonder if he even has an office—it seems all his work is done on the golf course or at lunch and dinner meetings. It didn’t take me too long to get bored with playing on the Greg Adams team.”

“But, Allison, you haven’t been married all that long!” Leslie said.

“Long enough, in my estimation. I have a very busy practice. I don’t have time for more than one baby.”

“But, Allison,” she said, lowering her voice. “I thought the two of you were madly in love.”

Allison just shrugged. “I thought we wanted the same things. When I first met him, he was all about forming a power couple. His ambition was tantalizing. He put a very good face on it. I admit, I got a little hooked.”

“When did the two of you meet?” Les asked. “I don’t think I ever heard that story....”

Allison sought the answer in the ceiling tiles. “Hmm. I think it was at an investment seminar. He was talking with a couple of my partners about tax shelters and limited partnerships, and I asked him if I could buy him a drink to learn more about it. He was more than willing. And willing and willing. I thought he had a lot of money. I thought we were headed in the same direction. He said you were holding him back.”

“Me?”

“Uh-huh. It took me a while to figure out—he wanted me to play second chair. He wasn’t really interested in playing Bill and Hillary. He wanted to play George and Laura.” She made a little face. “I could go along with that as long as we were perfectly clear—I’m George. Greg just isn’t smart enough to take the lead.”

“And his money?”

Allison laughed. “Leslie, he doesn’t have any money. He
spends
money, he doesn’t save or invest, not exactly a big earner, either. Big talker, though. Thank God I kept our finances separate and wrote us a pre-nup.”

Leslie started to wonder if she’d ever be able to close her mouth again. “I’m not really hearing this.”

“You can have him back,” Allison said.

“I don’t want him back! But don’t you love him?”

“I suppose I did. For a while. He does seem to know how to treat a woman. Most of the time.”

Leslie frowned. “Most of the time?”

“He’s chivalrous. Amusing. He does things like bring flowers. Loved the engagement ring—I think I’ll go ahead and have the stone reset.” Then she leaned closer and whispered. “He does have that little bedroom issue.”

“Bedroom issue?” Leslie asked.

Allison leaned back again and ran her hand over her big belly. “Not exactly reliable in the erection department. You know what I mean?”

Leslie tilted her head and affected a perplexed expression. “I have no idea what you mean. Of all Greg’s shortcomings, that certainly wasn’t one of them. At least with me. In any case, it seems to have worked well for you—” she nodded toward Allison’s belly “—at least once.” She stopped herself just short of claiming Greg was a stallion. Leslie stood up from her little chair. Now she could look down at Allison. “So—what tipped you over the edge?”

“I decided to run for City Council. He informed me, in that extremely polite and superior way of his, that he would run first, and then, if I was still interested, I could file the paperwork for my own campaign. I told him to go to hell. It pretty much deteriorated from there.”

“Oh, my. And are you? Running for City Council?”

She nodded. “The baby’s due next month. The primary is in the fall.”

“Well, then. Best of luck.” She nodded to the gift bag. “Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”

“Girl. Thank heavens. I don’t imagine Greg will take much interest.”

“Best of luck, Allison. I hope it all goes well…the delivery and everything.”

“Sure. Right.”

Leslie just looked into those icy blue eyes for a second, and without really meaning to, she uttered, “Poor Greg.”

“Poor
Greg?
” Allison repeated. “He’s a
loser!
Poor
Greg?
”

“He’s a lot of things, true. You’re right—he’s pretty self-centered. He’s also kind. There’s not an ounce of malice in him. I can’t say that about you.”

“Hit the road, Leslie. You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

Leslie left feeling as though she’d just had an out-of-body experience. And yet—she suddenly felt she understood everything. First of all—Allison had gone after him. He’d been what she wanted at the time. And while Greg was always looking for someone to promote him, Allison was undoubtedly every bit as inclined. She’d wanted Greg because she’d thought he’d be good arm candy. And she was also cruel. Cold and very, very calculating.

And where did that leave Leslie and what she’d experienced in her marriage and in her divorce? Well, it was pretty simple and awfully sad.

“I think I was a pleaser,” she told her parents with a shrug. “As annoyed as I could get with Greg, I never wanted any trouble. I just wanted a happy home. I wanted to laugh and relax and have harmony. I didn’t care if Greg wanted to be the mayor, if that made him happy. That Allison,” she said with a shake of her head. “Boy, she’s cold. I wouldn’t want to tangle with her. But if you ever have to go to court—you should hire her. Not a lot of emotion there.”

“Seemed like she adored him and he adored her,” Candace said.

“Birds of a feather,” Robert said. “I almost feel sorry for Greg.”

“Well, I do feel sorry for him,” Leslie said. “He’s always had these grandiose ambitions and this truly inflated image of himself and yet…he’s so totally alone. He has no one to believe in him. Even when we were married, I did what he asked me to do—wrote letters for him, took messages, kept his calendar. But I did all that to keep the peace, make him happy and show support, not because I really believed he was going to be a big political hero. I didn’t believe in him, either.”

“But he has a shiny Caddy and a very nice wardrobe,” Candace said.

“The poor slob,” Robert said. “He’s so shallow. You must have been so lonely while you were married to him!”

And she smiled. “Nah. I had you, I had a really fun job with a bunch of great guys, sometimes girlfriends. I was actually pretty happy. And yet…” She thought for a second and remembered what Conner had said to his ex-wife.
I’m happy now in a way I was never happy before and it has nothing to do with you.

“I’m going to skip sushi and just drive back to Virgin River,” she told her parents. “I want to spend some quality time on my flowers tomorrow so that when Conner comes back from visiting his sister, the yard looks perfect.”

Seventeen

I
t took Leslie almost four hours to drive back to Virgin River, and during that time she thought a lot about her years with Greg. He’d wanted so much more than she had since the day she met him. Then he’d traded her in for a prom queen, but boy did he get a tiger by the tail. Not only had Allison dumped him, Leslie had no doubt the word was out—he’d been cast aside. Chucked. Humiliated.

Greg would never be a mayor. He might not even be elected to City Council. But she wasn’t worried about him—he would land on his feet. He’d find another woman because he wasn’t good at being alone—he needed reinforcements, needed an audience. Now this whole business of wanting to be friends with her—it didn’t matter anymore. She could afford to be charitable. She wasn’t angry. In fact, she was grateful. If Greg and Allison hadn’t driven her out of Grants Pass, she might’ve never found Conner.

She asked herself if she should have doubts about whether Conner would turn out to be a bad choice, but she just couldn’t summon any. In fact, while she wasn’t a religious person, she found herself uttering a little prayer.
Please, please keep him safe!

And her cell phone rang.

“Are you out to dinner with the fun couple?” he asked.

“I was just thinking about you! No, I’m driving home. I did what I went to Grants Pass to do, felt much better about everything and decided to go home. Tomorrow is my day off and I want to spend it in the yard. If there’s time, I might drive my neighbor, Nora, into Fortuna just for fun.”

“And what did you go to Grants Pass to do?” he asked.

“Well, it was a very interesting day, now that you ask.” And she told him all about her visit with Allison and the conclusions she had come to. At the end of her story she said, “I feel a kind of peace about my divorce that I just didn’t feel before.”

“I understand,” he said. “I totally understand.”

“If I could just have your trial over and you back here, there wouldn’t be a tight nerve in my whole body.”

He laughed deep in his throat. “I really enjoy the job of loosening up those tight nerves of yours.”

“You’re very good at it, too. What’s on the agenda for you tonight?”

“We’re taking the boys to a pizza joint that will be crazy with loud kids and games and life-size singing puppets. We’re having a party because I’m headed for Sacramento in the morning. If there’s a God, it won’t take too long and I can do what I have to do and come home.”

“Aw. You think of this place as home....”

“I think of you as home, baby. You.”

His words wrapped around her like his arms had, and she knew she was more in love than she’d ever been. Her feelings had been quite real when she’d met and married Greg, even though she’d been so young, but with Conner, love had taken on a new dimension. It was grown-up love, steady and deep. Leslie didn’t have to worry about holding on to Conner by meeting his expectations. This love she felt for him, that she felt from him, was bigger than the biggest love she had ever imagined.

She embraced his pillow while she was falling asleep, inhaling his special scent, that woodsy musk with just a dash of his sandalwood cologne. They had talked for almost an hour as she drove, talked until his nephews were pulling at him and telling him to
come on, come on, come on....
He had talked about how he not only wanted a life with her but a different kind of life than the one he had before, that life that had been drenched in hard labor and only punctuated by short breaks of leisure time with his family. Until this visit he had never spent more than a day with them. He’d rarely taken a weekend or evening off away from the store—they had been open almost 24/7. After the trial was over, he was in search of more balance. And that balance included her in a major role.

When he gave in to his nephews’ urging to hurry up, he said, “All right, all right. I love you, baby. I’ll call later.” And in the background Leslie heard a small boy’s voice say, “What baby do you love, Uncle Danny?” followed by Conner’s deep, sexy laugh.

She was dreaming about him when somewhere deep in the night she was awakened by a noise. At first she thought it was a cat, then she realized it was crying. A baby was crying and crying. There was the sound of a door slamming, more crying from at least one baby or small child, then a shout. And another shout.

She sat straight up in bed. Another slam, but she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. And then there was a pounding at her front door and she hoisted herself out of bed and she ran. Without thinking, she threw the door open. There stood Mrs. Clemens, looking tinier than ever, wrapped in a very old, faded blue chenille robe, her white hair all springy and misshapen from sleep.

“He’s back,” she said with a small cry. “That man is back and I think he’s hurting her!”

“Who?” Leslie asked.

And before Mrs. Clemens could answer, Mrs. Hutchkins came sprinting down the street. She was wearing a gray sweat suit with a hoodie, and flip-flops on her feet. “Adie,” she yelled. “Go get someone right now! Go get Preacher or Nick Fitch or Ron from the Corner Store. Hurry!”

And with that, Martha Hutchkins ran right up to Leslie’s house, through the flowers that bordered the yard and grabbed the rake from the side of the porch where it had been leaning. “Hurry up, Adie!” Martha headed back through the flowers, the rake in hand.

“It’s Nora,” Adie said. “That man’s hurting her!” And then she shuffled at her fastest speed down the street and away in search of help.

Leslie shook the cobwebs out of her head. She heard another scream—these houses must be made of paper! The baby was crying her lungs out. She ran back inside and grabbed her broom and thought,
I need a baseball bat!
She put some power in her stride to catch up with Mrs. Hutchkins. “Did you call anyone?”

“I called Mike V, our town cop, but he’s at least ten minutes out of town. I’m not waiting for him, but he’s our closest law enforcement.” And with that, she moved quickly up the walk to Nora’s front door, which stood open. Mrs. Hutchkins pushed her way right inside, Leslie close on her heels.

What Leslie saw next was terrifying. The baby was on the couch, crying and wildly kicking her little legs. Berry was nowhere in sight, and some tall, skinny ugly guy held Nora up against the wall. Her hands were locked on his forearms, trying to push him away, and her legs were in motion as if she was running in the air.

While Leslie took in the scene frozen in shock, Mrs. Hutchkins wasted no time. She turned the rake around in her hands, holding on to the edge with the prongs, walked right up to the man and, with all her might, whacked him in the head with the handle of the rake. He dropped Nora to grab his head.

Nora slid to the floor, gasping in fear, while the man whirled around and, with eyes blazing, snarled at Leslie and Mrs. Hutchkins.

Leslie, feeling a little late to the party, pointed the handle of the broom at him, hanging on to the business end. “All right, back away from Nora!” she commanded. “The police are on the way!”

He laughed, and when he did, Leslie caught sight of rotting teeth. Who was this? Not the good-looking, badass baseball player, surely? This looked like a vagrant! His holey jeans hung low on his hips, the sleeves were torn off his T-shirt, his curly hair was long and dirty, and he didn’t exactly have a beard so much as hadn’t shaved in quite a while. And he had very scary-looking sores on both arms.

He reached right out and grabbed both the rake handle and the broom handle and shoved them away. In an act of fantastic cowardice, he settled his attention next on his small, white-haired attacker, advancing on Mrs. Hutchkins, giving her a slap and a hard shove that sent her tumbling backward and to the floor. And then he turned on Leslie.

Baseball player, was he? She assumed the batting position, broom handle over her shoulder, rocking back and forth. Behind him, Mrs. Hutchkins was slowly getting to her feet, and Nora was crawling away from the action, still looking terrified. She appeared to have a nosebleed and she wasn’t yet standing.

The man approached Leslie, and she took her swing. He intercepted the broom handle easily and gave it a hard tug to either wrest the broom from her or bring her close enough to hit.

Mrs. Hutchkins whacked him on the back of the head with her rake again. Leslie marveled. Martha was fearless! He whirled on her, and Leslie whacked him in turn with the broom handle. And now the growl that came out of him was enraged and a little crazed. He was done fooling around. He whirled on Leslie, grabbed the broom out of her hands and flung it aside with very little effort. He advanced on her fast, and she did the only thing she could think of—she kicked him in the balls. He never saw it coming; he dropped to his knees, grabbing himself in the crotch. He looked up at her with watering eyes that made it clear he was going to kill her.

He rose slowly. Slowly and as menacingly as possible while still clutching himself. Behind him Mrs. Hutchkins was scrambling around, looking for something else to hit him with. Leslie braced herself; she’d never get off another kick. With one big, meaty, dirty hand he circled her throat, hit her in the jaw with the other hand in a hard fist and lifted her clear off the ground.

And then he was gone. An arm appeared around his neck and pulled, and she fell from his grasp.

She shook herself, trying to clear away the stars, as she watched Pastor Noah Kincaid wrestle the man out the door of the house.

Leslie ran to the front door in time to see the good pastor rolling around on the front lawn, a lawn that was more dirt than grass, trying his best to stay ahead of the bad guy. She watched the pastor take a slug to the jaw, then return one. Nora was suddenly beside her, pressing the baby close. “He’s high,” she rasped out. “He’s going to be hard to subdue.”

“What’s he high on?” Leslie asked.

“Meth. Look at the sores on his arms. Meth sores. Oh,
no!
” she said suddenly. “Adie! Leslie, intercept her and take her to your house or something!” And sure enough, there was Adie, walking up the street in her old chenille robe, headed right for the fistfight on Nora’s front lawn.

Leslie turned around and scanned the little living room. “Where’s Mrs. Hutchkins?”

“She’s kneeling on the other side of the couch, trying to talk Berry out. Berry has been hiding behind the couch. Did someone call the sheriff or something?”

“Mrs. Hutchkins called Mike Somebody.” She looked back outside and saw Adie taking up a position behind a big tree. This was turning into an old lady military campaign.

A big, jacked-up truck came screaming down the street and screeched to a halt. Jack and Mike Valenzuela jumped out and ran to assist Noah. And then, just as Nora had predicted, it took all three of them to subdue him. He was so wired on meth, he had the strength of five men.

Adie came quickly to the doorway of Nora’s house. The three of them—Nora, Adie and Mrs. Hutchkins—all worked at comforting the children while Leslie couldn’t pull herself away from the front door. For the first time she noticed there were other neighbors with lights on in their houses, a couple of them looking out windows and opening their doors.

Eventually, Mike and Jack trussed Chad up like a roped calf. He was laid on his belly, his hands tied behind his back with a rope strung to his bound ankles. And he was still yelling and rolling around, trying to get loose.

Dr. Cameron Michaels showed up by the time the suspect was tied up and administered first aid in the form of ice packs and bandages to those who needed it. The sheriff’s deputy had been called, but, as the folks in this town had grown accustomed, he wouldn’t get there real fast. He had a lot of territory to cover.

“Nora, did you open the door for him?” Noah asked her.

She nodded and held both Berry and the baby close. Tears welled up in her eyes as she fought the feeling of being completely responsible for so much damage. “He said he’d break it down. I told Berry to hide behind the couch, put the baby on the couch and prayed he wouldn’t hurt anyone but me. Pastor, he could’ve gotten in anyway. I didn’t know what else to do. He wanted money. I gave him what I had, but it was only sixteen dollars. And it made him so mad!”

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s his fault. I’ll come over tomorrow afternoon with better locks. We’ll get the doors and windows reinforced. And it’s time for a phone, Nora. I know you’ve been avoiding it because of the expense, but you can’t put it off now. You need to be able to call for help from the inside of your locked house.”

She nodded and buried her face in Berry’s curls.

“How’d you get into this, Reverend Kincaid?” Leslie asked.

“Bad sermon,” he said with a shrug. “I was hoping for inspiration. It was keeping me awake and I didn’t want to bother Ellie. If I get up in the night, she gets up, too, so I decided to try the church office. Sometimes the church, in the middle of the night, is a wonderful place.” He ran a finger over his cut lip. “Ellie’s going to yell. She doesn’t even know I slipped out of the house.”

Jack put a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you were so scrappy, Noah. Next time we have trouble, I’ll give you a call.”

Noah looked at his bruised knuckles. “I might’ve had a slightly wayward youth on the Seattle docks before I tried the seminary. He is going to jail, isn’t he?”

“He’s going to jail,” Mike said. “With any luck, he’s got meth in his pockets or his vehicle so we can double up the charges.”