River's Edge (29 page)

T
he calm after the storm left Cade feeling strangely empty and melancholy. If he’d thought the media circus was bad before Barr’s arrest, it had been ridiculous since. They got footage of Cade’s confrontation with Barr, then security tape that showed him dragging the woman through the building. Then from the helicopter they caught the drama on the roof. Every news station played the footage over and over, several times a day.

The story Vince Barr created had, indeed, made him famous.

Alan Sims was charged with medical fraud, then released on bond pending his trial. Meanwhile, the DA subpoenaed records from his office, and was building a rock-solid case that was sure to put Sims out of business and behind bars. Cade was finally able to let Ben go to finish grieving his wife’s death.

And then there was Sam Sullivan.

Cade hadn’t spoken to Blair since she’d written the piece about Sullivan in the paper, but the firestorm from
that continued. The phone had rung off the hook since, mostly from local reporters who wanted Cade to confirm that Sullivan had confessed to fraud. He’d heard that Ben Jackson had filed a lawsuit against the mayor-elect. He hoped Sam got what he deserved.

He knew that the solving of the murder probably meant the end of his job. Any day now Sam would ask for Cade’s resignation and put some yes-man in to replace him. He supposed it was inevitable. Though public opinion had shifted against the mayor-elect, he supposed he still had the power to take away Cade’s position.

McCormick sat in his office now, helping him sort through all the papers on his desk. “Best I can figure, Chief, Barr killed Lisa in her own home. Must have been waiting for her there after she confronted Sims. Killed her right there with her own telephone cord. Piled her body into the car, grabbed a pair of Ben’s shoes and his baseball cap, drove her to the river, not drawing anybody’s attention, and pushed her car into the river. Must have put the shoes back in the house after the crime.”

“We need to run the cap that was in the car through forensics. Maybe there’s a hair or something—”

“Doubtful, Cade. It was underwater, remember.”

“You never know. Doesn’t matter, though. We’ve got enough to nail him. The DA says it’s cut and dried. I guess the rumor Sam Sullivan started was what gave Barr the idea. The mayoral candidate who murders his wife for his mistress. Made a great story.”

McCormick grinned. “We did it again, man. We’re good.”

Cade laughed for the first time in days.

“Hey, Chief, Art Russell from the City Council is on the phone.” Cade looked up at Alex Johnson, leaning in his doorway. “Wants to talk to you.”

“Well, here it comes.” Cade grabbed a bottle of Tylenol out of his desk drawer. Pouring two pills into his hand, he shot McCormick a look.

“He said it was urgent.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Cade swallowed the pills and bottomed the glass of water on his desk. Finally, he picked up the phone. “Yeah, Art. What is it?”

“Cade, there’s been a new development at City Hall, and I wanted you to be the first to know.”

Cade closed his eyes. “All right.”

“Sam Sullivan resigned this morning.”

“He
what?”

“Came in and resigned. He really had no choice. The phone has been ringing off the hook ever since Blair’s article came out about him. Everywhere he went, he faced attacks about what he’d done. There was no way he could be effective as mayor under the circumstances.”

Cade put his hand over the phone and told McCormick. McCormick started to laugh. Cade held up a hand to quiet him, so McCormick rushed out to tell the others. “So what happens now?”

“We may have to call another election, but we’ve got Judge Evers looking at things, trying to decide what the proper course of action will be. We hope he’ll rule sometime today.”

Cade thanked him for the information, then hung up and stared at the phone. Maybe his job was going to be saved, after all.

The phone rang again, and McCormick stuck his head back in. “Chief, I know you don’t want to be bothered again, but it’s FOX News.”

Cade groaned. He wasn’t in the mood to make a statement, but he supposed they needed information about the murderer-reporter they had helped make a hero. He picked up the phone. “Chief Cade.”

“Chief, this is Mike Lassiter from FOX News. We wondered if we could get you to come on this afternoon and talk about Vince Barr.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll give you a statement on the phone, but that’s it.”

The reporter grunted. “What is it with you people? We tried to get Blair Owens earlier, but she refused, too. You know, it served Chief Moose of Virginia well to come on our network when he solved the sniper case. Now he has a huge book deal, and there are rumors of a movie.”

Blair had turned them down? When she’d had the chance to go on FOX News and comment on the story, she’d declined?

He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his desk. Why hadn’t she seized that opportunity to build up her subscriber base?

“Chief? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you. I’m not looking for a book or movie deal, Lassiter. I just did my job.”

“All right, then we’ll have to make do with the phone interview. Chief Cade, tell us how you learned that Vince Barr was the actual murderer in the Jackson case.”

Cade told him about the interview their network had done with Vince, in which he’d mentioned the telephone cord. He explained how the media had played into the man’s hands, aiding and abetting as he’d built himself into a media star, using the simple avenue of murder.

When he’d said all he was going to say and the man had stopped recording, he leaned back wearily in his chair. “So you say Blair refused to talk to you? Did she say why?”

Lassiter sounded amused. “She said she was too busy, but I’m guessing it was because of her scars. Who could blame her, really? She doesn’t exactly have a face for television.”

White-hot anger whipped through him at the remark, and he ground his teeth and thought of telling the man that he wouldn’t know beauty if it bit his nose off, because if he had the slightest taste he’d realize that Blair Owens was the most beautiful woman in the entire state, and she didn’t need some screaming news show to elevate her self-esteem.

Instead, he slammed down the phone. How dare he say that about her? Cade hoped Lassiter hadn’t said those things to her face. She didn’t deserve that.

He thought of all the things he’d said to her himself, when he’d chewed her out about her special edition that had wound up saving the day.

And he realized that solving the murders and closing the case meant little to him, after all, if he didn’t have Blair to share it with.

M
organ felt a little shaky when she came back to herself after the laparoscopy. She had been awake through the whole procedure, but couldn’t remember a moment of it. The hypnotic drug they gave her in the place of anesthesia had an amnesiac effect.

Jonathan helped her get dressed, and they waited for the results.

Dr. Anderson looked sober as he came into the room. “How you feeling?”

“Fine.” She clutched Jonathan’s hand. “Did you find anything, Doctor?”

His smile was tentative. “As a matter of fact, I did. Morgan, the results of all of your tests—including your FSH—were normal. I’m afraid it was as we thought. Dr. Sims falsified the results he gave you.”

Morgan caught her breath. “But if that’s true, what caused my miscarriage? My infertility?”

Dr. Anderson’s eyes had a pleasant twinkle as he regarded her. “It may be due to the small fibroids I found in your uterus.”

“Fibroids?” Jonathan asked. “Tumors, you mean?”

“Benign tumors.”

Morgan got tears in her eyes. It was structural, then. Physical.

“I’d like to schedule you for a procedure called a hysteroscopy. We can do it next week, if you’d like. We’ll go in and remove the fibroids with lasers. I can’t promise that this will solve your fertility problem, but the chances are very good that it will. It’s worked for quite a few of my patients.”

Morgan stared at him for a moment, letting the hope sink in. “Really, Doctor?”

Jonathan wanted to make sure he understood. “Are you telling us that this could be resolved in one minor surgical procedure? That after that, we might be able to have a family without problems?”

“Again, I can’t guarantee anything, but that’s my hope.”

Morgan started to laugh and threw her arms around Jonathan. And the bright light of joy began to shine on their lives again.

T
hat afternoon, Morgan came home to an early dinner cooked by the residents of Hanover House. Even Sheila had helped.

Sheila attended to Caleb over dinner. He had warmed up to her now, and sent her frequent smiles and giggles. The mother-son bond was renewing itself. It was a miracle of grace to Sheila, and as difficult as it was for Morgan, she found herself happy for Caleb.

When Blair burst in, everyone stopped what they were doing.

“I was just at the courthouse! The judge made his decision about the mayoral race!”

Jonathan groaned. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. He’s going to put us through another election.”

“Wrong!” Blair crossed the room, took hold of his shoulders, and looked him squarely in the face. “Congratulations, Jonathan. You’re the new mayor.”

Morgan’s mouth fell open, and she gaped at Jonathan. He stared at Blair as if he didn’t believe. “But…how can that be? Sam was elected. I wasn’t.”

“The judge cited the city’s bylaws, which say that if something happens to a candidate-elect to keep him from serving, a new election would be held,
unless
another candidate had gotten at least forty-five percent of the votes. In that case, that candidate would win the race. Jonathan, you got forty-six percent!”

The residents sent up a loud cheer, whooping and hollering and congratulating the new mayor. Even Caleb joined in the celebration.

T
here was so much to celebrate, yet Blair found herself wanting to be alone later that evening. She left Hanover House as everyone fluttered into action preparing for Karen and Gus’s wedding on Saturday. Church members filled the house to help decorate, insisting that Morgan not lift a finger after her procedure that morning. Karen seemed to walk on a cloud.

Blair wondered if that day would ever come for her.

The sun was dropping over the horizon, but it would still be light for a couple more hours. What was Cade doing? Was he floating in the aftermath of solving the murder? Had he heard that Jonathan was going to be his new boss?

Was he still nursing his anger toward her?

She went to the boathouse and fired up the boat. She hadn’t used it in quite a while. They’d used it as a ski boat during her teenage years, but mostly her father used it for fishing. Jonathan kept the motor well maintained, so it started right up. She guided it down river,
out toward the sea, and headed through the waves to Breaker’s Reef. It was one of her favorite places on earth—a cavern you had to dive under water to get into. The payoff was inside, glorious in its beauty. Her father used to love anchoring his boat there and enjoying the quiet—and the occasional glimpse of a sea turtle—when he needed to think or pray. He used to bring her here sometimes to fish, and they would sit for hours in perfect stillness, listening to the whisper of the breeze stirring up frothy waves that hit the rocks of the cave. Sometimes he would forget she was there—or maybe he hadn’t forgotten at all—and would talk aloud to Jesus, as if he sat in the boat with them. She hadn’t recognized the value of that then, but now, as she looked out over the brilliant horizon, she knew it was true. Jesus had a thing for boats, after all.

Her boat rocked in the water as she looked up at the setting sun, its red-gold hues bursting across the water. It was glorious, like the grace God had bestowed on her ever since she had given her heart to Christ. She had no right to ask for anything else.

Still, she did.

“I never expected to have somebody fall in love with me,” she whispered. “A girl like me with her face all disfigured, is happy just to live a normal life without people gawking and staring wherever she goes. But then Cade came along…and I guess I got my hopes up.”

Tears came to her eyes and she blinked them back.

It wasn’t just Carson Graham who had buoyed her hopes. She had hoped it before Graham uttered his predictions. That’s why she wanted to believe him.

“I thought maybe you were behind this. After all, it was a miracle that Cade would even look twice at me. An act of God. But maybe I jumped the gun just a little.”

She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. The breeze blew her tears dry. “I’ll try to be okay with him not being my long-lost love, the future father of my children, the one I grow old with, if you’ll just let him be my friend. Everyone who knows Cade is blessed to be his friend.”

The tears came harder then, and she realized that friendship wasn’t going to be enough. Not for her. The pain that would cause would be so deep that she didn’t know if she could stay in town to endure it. Maybe she would have to leave, after all. Maybe she could sell the paper, start over somewhere else…

Then she heard a motor on the wind.

She turned, shaded her eyes, and saw another boat in the distance, coming toward her. As it moved closer, she realized it was Cade in the department’s speedboat. Her heart burst.

He slowed and came to her boat, stopping beside her. “I figured you’d be here.”

She hadn’t seen him out of uniform since the night they’d gone to Carson’s show. Now he wore a yellow tank top and a pair of navy shorts. He looked younger in the waning sunlight, more relaxed and at ease. But his face held a trace of tension.

“Jonathan said you were taking the boat out,” he said. “Can I come on board?”

“Of course.”

She watched him tie their boats together, and then he climbed over, careful not to bump his leg. The scar down his flesh was healing, but it would forever remind her of how close he’d come to death, not so long ago.

As he stepped into her boat, hope fired in her heart like a fourth of July display. He stood there looking at her, the boat rocking beneath his feet. Her heart constricted her throat as she waited for him to speak. Instead, he reached out, slid his fingers through the roots of her hair and pulled her into a kiss.

She melted into it, realizing that God had answered a prayer she wasn’t even confident enough to pray. The kiss said things they’d never uttered, made promises they’d never made. Could it be that it wasn’t over?

He pulled back, breathless, and touched those flaming scars as if he didn’t even see them. His eyes were misty as he gazed down at her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he whispered. “Can you forgive me?”

She tried to blink back the tears in her eyes. It was stupid to cry right here in front of him like this. He would think she was some sappy heartsick teenager. But the mist in his own eyes was glistening. Did he feel the same way?

“Of course I forgive you.”

“I had no right to jump on you like that. You saved the day. Instead of fighting with you, I should have trusted you. We’ve always made a great team before.”

“We have, haven’t we?”

His eyes were soft as he gazed into hers. “I’m tired of this surface dating game, Blair. I’m ready to put my cards on the table. The truth is, I think of you constantly. I want to be with you all the time, even when I’m mad at you. I want to assume that you’re my girl, and that this is going somewhere.”

She swallowed and breathed in a sob. “I want that, too.”

“And the town, they’ll know we’re an item. They’ll rib us, tease us, even try to marry us off before we’re ready.”

She grinned as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m tough, remember? I can take it.”

He kissed her again, and she melted in his arms, thinking that if she fell over into the ocean and died right then, she would have had almost everything she’d ever wanted.

He broke the kiss and held her against his chest, his breath gentle against her ear. “I’m taking you to dinner tonight, and I’m going to hold your hand in public and let everyone know that I’m in love.”

Her heart burst with the sheer grace of it. She started to cry so hard that she could hardly get the words out. “I love you, too.”

She kept her head against his chest and watched as the sun melted into the water, sending a twilight of gold that beckoned the night.

It was like a smile from God.