Song of the Surf (Pacific Shores Book 3) (11 page)

Dakota became aware that both her hands were covering her mouth. She lowered them slowly and shook her head, but she could do nothing to stop the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. “No, no… I just… That was the summer of 2007, right?”

Riley nodded, a puzzled frown bunching her brow.

Dakota fumbled for the right words. “I was the girl. The girlfriend.”

And then the sudden understanding of all she truly was responsible for washed through her. “Oh Riley, oh Riley.” She groped for something to sit down on. The deck, and the restaurant and the ocean were all spinning around her in a dizzying vortex, but there was nowhere to sit. She buried her face against her forearms and sobbed for all the pain a single bad choice had leveled on the world.

“Dakota? I’ll get help.” Riley's footsteps slapped across the boards, and the door to the restaurant
whoosh
ed open.

Somewhere at the back of her mind she realized if she didn’t pull herself together Marie’s reception dinner would be ruined, but Dakota couldn’t find the strength to stop Riley.
Dear God. Dear God. Dear God!
She thought of Riley's baby, a little boy who had been denied his first breath at the hands of his angry father….

…And the chain of events that led to that moment shot straight as an arrow back through time and landed directly on her doorstep.

Chapter 9

Justus watched quietly as Jalen stepped back inside from the deck and said a few words to Dakota. He scrubbed the back of his neck with one hand and twisted his empty, upside down coffee cup around on its saucer with the other.

All evening he had been pushing away the niggling reminder that tomorrow was the wedding and after that he had to make a decision about what to do with the rest of his life. He'd given eight years trying to reach boys who were heading down a path that could lead only to trouble. Up until a few weeks ago, if anyone had asked him if he felt like his job made a difference he would have unequivocally replied that of course it did. Troubled boys came to his program, and responsible young men exited it.

That's what he
would
have said…

But Treyvon McAllister had changed all that.

Justus massaged the skin between his eyes, and battened down the curl of nausea in his gut.

Treyvon McAllister had come to him much like any of his other boys came to him. Much like he himself had been before he ended up in the system. Trey’s grades had dropped at school. He'd ended up in juvy a couple times, always angry at home, never respectful to anyone in authority…

The principal had called Justus. Asked if he had any room. Enrollment had already been at its peak, but Justus had made space on the roster for one more kid. He converted the storage closet at the end of the dorm into another bedroom. And he’d poured his heart and soul into Treyvon McAllister.

He'd even thought he was reaching the troubled boy. Trey had quit complaining about morning devotions, he'd started doing his list of chores without constant reminders, and he had also started pitching in to help a couple other kids with their chore list from time to time. His grades had improved along with his attitude. So when graduation day rolled around, Justus hadn't even hesitated to give him a passing grade and send him home.

Trey hadn't been home for even a week when Justus had been awakened in the middle of the night by frantic pounding on his door. Half asleep and still rubbing his eyes, he'd stumbled down to his entry and fumbled with the lock to find Trey's mother covered in blood, sobbing and trembling on his front stoop.

“You havta come, Mista Teague! You havta come! My Trey he didn't mean it. I swear to you he never meant it.”

A cold wash of horror swept through Justus as he took her in from head to toe. “Are you hurt Mrs. McAllister?”

“No, no. Not me. You havta come! Come now, Mr. Teague.” She’d grabbed his arm and tugged.

Justus came back to the present when Jalen sank into the chair beside him.

He was trembling, he realized. He clasped his hands together and shoved them under the table, then tipped a nod toward the deck. “Everything okay?”

Jalen stretched his feet out in front of him and leaned into the slats of his chair, folding his arms. “Not sure, to be honest. Something's been bothering Riley ever since we pulled into the parking lot out front. She's quiet normally, but tonight… Well, something more was going on. Dakota is out there talking to her now.”

The waitress came by and set generous slices of cherry cheesecake before them. “Would you gentlemen care for a cup of coffee?” she asked.

Justus turned his cup over and nodded his acquiescence. “Thanks.” He forked off a bite of the cheesecake and chewed without really tasting as Jalen did the same.

His thoughts returned to the past.

As Mrs. McAllister had run to her old Nissan still idling in the drive, he'd hastily dialed Jalen to let him know what was going on. Thankfully they were between terms and had no other boys on campus. He grabbed a jacket, and followed Mrs. McAllister back to her house all the while trying to assure himself that if it were a real emergency she would've called 911. But her hysteria bothered him. That and the fact that before they left his place he hadn't been able to get any more information out of her.

Jalen cleared his throat. “Mind handing me the cream?”

Justus worked his jaw from side to side to keep the words of frustration bottled up inside. Jalen didn’t take cream in his coffee, and well he knew it. He picked up his coffee cup only to find his hand trembling again, and set it back down.

Jalen eyed him speculatively. “You ready to talk about it?”

Justus shoved his dessert and coffee away from the edge of the table and rested his face in his palms. “Not now, Jalen. There will be time enough for reality after the wedding. I don't want to ruin this day for Reece and Marie.”

Jalen snorted. “The truth is you’ve helped more boys over the years than you could count if you wracked your brain for a month, and you’re letting one boy’s poor choices make you question all the good you've done over the past eight years. They were terrible choices – horrendous choices – yes. But they were his choices, not yours.”

The familiar spout of horror and frustration that had been riding close to the surface lately threatened to erupt in a geyser of anger. But he clenched his teeth and managed to hold his silence.

Mrs. McAllister had turned the corner onto their street, her taillights jittering in a shorted-out flicker that felt oddly appropriate for the circumstances.

Justus had thought through the gamut of possibilities, and by the time he pulled into the McAllister's garbage-littered driveway, he'd convinced himself that since Mrs. McAllister had driven all the way to his place to get him nothing could be too terribly wrong.

He clambered from his car at the end of the drive. It was a cold miserable night. Pacific Northwest rain hung in a thick cloud of mist, the kind that soaked through even the hardiest of rain jackets and clung to skin with damp clammy claws.

He huddled into his collar and felt relieved to see that Mrs. McAllister seemed calmer as she waited for him in the weak beam of the streetlight at the end of the walk. Treyvon had an old girlfriend who’d brought nothing but trouble into his life. Justus fully expected to find that Treyvon had fallen back in with the wrong crowd, done something stupid, and gotten himself beat up for it.

So when Mrs. McAllister led him through the kitchen’s back door and he saw Helene lying in a congealing puddle of blood on the chipped yellowed tiles, shock threw his hands to his head.

Trey sat huddled in one corner of the kitchen, his arms wrapped around his ears. A black hole with crumbling edges marred the plaster above his head. He was rocking back and forth like a little boy who needed soothing and didn’t even look up when they entered.

Justus’s hand trembled as he reached for his phone. He knew by the staring eyes before he even bent and touched the pulse point in her throat throat that Helene was dead. But the stillness beneath her cold skin confirmed it.

Treyvon finally glanced up with wide, wild eyes. “I didn't mean it, Mr. Teague. I didn't mean to hit her so hard.”

Justus had no words. He swallowed down bile as he tapped in 911 with a shaky finger.

Mrs. McAllister turned from where she’d set her purse on the cluttered counter. Her gaze fastened on the phone in his hand. “No!” She lurched at him, almost knocking the phone free. “You can't turn him in! You can't turn in my boy!” She clawed at his arm. “I done got you so’s you’d help him! My Trey didn't mean it! He didn’t!”

“This is 911, what is your emergency?”

Justus held up one arm to fend off the crazed mother who was still punching and clawing and hitting.

“I-I need to report a…death,” he called over the commotion.

“Sir, can you tell me your address?” Rapid-fire typing sounded in the background.

Justus felt like every thought had to be pulled from a miry bog. Mrs. McAllister was kicking him now and scratching at him as he held her at arm’s length from the phone. “Uh, give me a minute…” He tried to grab Mrs. McAllister’s hands without success, and grunted when one of her fists connected with his ribs. “Mrs. McAllister, stop! What's your house number?”

The woman only screeched and clawed. “Gimme that phone! You can't turn in my boy. He done turned eighteen. This will be the end of him!”

On the other end of the line the dispatcher spoke in his ear, “Sir, are you safe?”

Mrs. McAllister might be violent, but she was less than half his weight and only as tall as his chest. “Stop, Mrs. McAllister. Just stop.” He finally grabbed a handful of her sweatshirt and held her against the kitchen cabinets.

“Mama…” Trey continued to rock. “What have I done, Mama?”

Like a cloak of civility had been dropped over her, Mrs. McAllister pulled away and darted to her son’s side. She clutched his head to her bosom. “Oh my baby. My poor, poor baby.” She rubbed his back as though maybe he’d been the one who was injured.

Angling away from her, Justus spoke to the woman on the other end of the line once more. “Please send some units.”

“Sir, I need you to confirm your exact location for me.”

Justus stepped out onto the deck and searched the front of the house for a house number, but there was none. “Listen, my name is Justus Teague. I run Deschutes Rejuvenation out on Highway 97. I'm at the home of one of my former students. I followed his mother here. There's no house number on the front of the house and I don't remember it. We’re on Seventh in Terrebonne. If you come in from Central, it's the last house on the northwest side of the street, and there is an old rusty pickup in the front yard.”

It had only taken the police a few minutes to arrive. The coroner had pronounced Helene dead a few minutes later and Justus had stood by while she was placed into the county hearse. A movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Trey was sprinting across the yard in a hard line for the fence. “Trey stop!”

The officer next to him was only a millisecond behind in reaction. “Freeze right there!”

Trey kept going. He leapt up, his hands scrabbling for the top of the fence.

A single shot rang out.

Mrs. McAllister screamed.

Trey collapsed onto the grass.

And Justus was sprinting towards him before he even realized he was moving.

Blood gushed from a jagged hole in Trey’s pants, soaking his leg and the grass below him. “They done shot me!” he groaned.

And then Justus was being dragged back. One officer stood over the boy with a gun, while another officer yanked his arms behind him and cuffed him.

Trey screamed and writhed.

Justus felt the damp soaking into his knees. The cold air stung his lungs. He would never forget the surreal feeling that had overwhelmed him as the flashing lights of the vehicles reflected off the mist around him. How his breath had fogged the air as an EMT had quickly set to work on Trey’s leg to stop the bleeding. How Mrs. McAllister’s screams tore through the night over and over and over again.

Trey had begged him to ride with him to the hospital, and Justus had agreed, though now he could only remember the ride and the following night in snatches. He’d gone with the police at some point to Helene’s parents’ home. Stood by quietly wishing he could offer something, anything, of comfort as the news tore them in two. But he’d had nothing. Nothing other than his own grief and the feeling that he should have been able to do something to prevent this.

With Trey’s confession of guilt, his case and moved through the courts fairly quickly. Just last week the decision had come down. Trey had gotten twenty-five years with the possibility of parole after fifteen. He would be thirty-three.

Justus now had to find the courage, the forgiveness—the ability to extend hope and not extinguish it—to go see the kid.

If he were anything like Mick, he would have already done so. He rubbed the place below his collarbone where his one and only tattoo resided and released a short breath. Unlike Mick, Jesus still had a long way to go in transforming Justus’s heart into one like His.

Justus could feel Jalen still pointedly glowering at him.

Justus sighed. “I know, Jalen. I know. How many years have you known me? I’ve never been one to give up easy, but this…took the wind out of my sails, I guess. I know D.R. does a lot of good for boys. I’m just not…I need to be sure that’s where I’m still supposed to be.” At the thought of giving up the ministry he’d served for the past eight years something roiled in the pit of his stomach. “I still feel like I want to help boys. I’m working on it. I just need some ti—”

The door from the back deck suddenly slammed open bringing Justus to a halt.

Riley's eyes were wide and frightened and fixed directly on him. “Something’s wrong with Dakota.”

A jolt of alarm so powerful it almost took the strength from his legs shot through him. He bolted up and dashed past Riley.

But by the time he got outside, Dakota was striding across the deck from near the rail. She held up a hand. “I’m fine. Let’s not ruin Marie and Reece’s dinner, but can you just take me home, please?”