The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape (15 page)

To further lighten her mood, Quaker Lowe had called not fifteen minutes ago, just before she left work. He said he should know about the appeal within the week, and he had sounded hopeful. That cheered her considerably. She didn't let herself think they might be denied. Leaving the pharmacy by the rear door, she checked the alley, glanced between the parked cars, then moved toward her own car. She unlocked the driver's door, tossed her purse on the seat—and was jerked backward. Hard fingers dug into her shoulder, jerked her off balance, she hit her head on the door frame. Falon spun her around, threw her to the ground, the rough surface ripping her outthrust hands.

He crouched over her, pawing at her dress. She tried to shout but was mute with fear. When he shoved his hand under her skirt she clawed him and tried again to scream. It was broad daylight, four o'clock, there were people on the street, people in the drugstore, someone had to hear her if only she could make some sound. He grabbed her hair, jerked her up so hard blackness swam, pulled her close, pawing and stroking her. When he leaned down as if to kiss her she bit him in the throat. He struck her hard across the cheek. She grabbed his face, dug her fingers in his eyes. He let go, knocked her hands away, and bent over, pawing at his eyes. Free of him, she pulled herself up into the car, but again he lunged at her.
She kicked him in the crotch and reached frantically under the seat, feeling for the gun.

She couldn't find it. Searching, she hit her head on the steering wheel. Behind her Falon was bent over groaning, holding himself. She spun around and shoved him off balance. He stumbled back. She jerked the door closed and locked it, snatched the key from her pocket, jammed it in the ignition and started the car. As the engine roared she pressed her face to the window, he was getting up. She backed out fast. She'd like to put the car in low and ram him. Careening out of the parking lot she swung into traffic nearly hitting an oncoming car. Falon would be parked nearby, would be behind her in seconds, and she didn't dare lead him to Anne's. Turning off Peachtree she sped two blocks to a gas station and swung in. Staying in the locked car with the window half down, she asked the attendant to call the police. The grizzled old man stared at the black car swerving in behind her and raced for the office phone. Falon paused, watching the attendant, then swung a U-turn, narrowly missing the gas pumps, and took off again.

When the police arrived she told them only that a man had attacked her behind the drugstore, that he had chased her, that she didn't know who he was. The attendant gave them the make and model of the Ford but he hadn't been able, at the angle and speed it moved, to see the license plate. She gave the police her Rome address, she said she was in town only for the day. If Falon didn't know where she was staying, she didn't want him finding out by some fluke at the police station, by some clerical indiscretion. If her lies caught up with her, she'd deal with them later.

Falon would be back, she was only grateful that he had come after her and not Sammie. Driving around the business district watching behind her and watching the side streets, she kept seeing the look in his eyes.

She drove around for half an hour and didn't see the
sporty black Ford. She hurried on to Anne's, got out quickly, opened the garage door, pulled her car in beside Anne's Cadillac, jerked the door closed from within. Locking it, she could hear the fiery music of Stravinsky coming from the living room. Mariol had told her Anne didn't use the record player often, usually when she was upset, perhaps after some conflict in one of her women's club meetings. Fishing her compact from her purse, looking in the little mirror, she frowned at the bruises already darkening her forehead and cheek, wondering how she was going to explain that. Carefully she combed her hair, straightened her blouse and jacket, tried to put herself in some kind of order.

Letting herself into the foyer, she looked into the empty living room, its ivory-toned velvet furniture and pale Oriental carpet pristine and untouched. The cream-colored afghan lay tangled on the couch among the throw pillows as if Sammie might have been napping. Following the scent of hot chocolate she headed past the dining room to the kitchen, pausing just outside the half-closed door.

Sammie was crying, a shaky sniffle; then she blew her nose. Anne's voice was soft. “I cried, too, I cried after such a dream. Oh, so many times. But she's all right, Sammie. Your mother's all right now.”

“But she
isn't
all right
.
That man hurt her, that Brad Falon—the man who watches us, who broke into our house. The man who killed my Misto.”

Becky stood dismayed. Had Sammie had a daytime nightmare, had awakened from seeing Falon's attack? Awakened frightened and crying—and Anne had been there for her, had reached out to her? Something tender in Anne had reached out?

She moved into the kitchen. Anne sat at the big kitchen table, her back to Becky, holding Sammie in her lap, cuddling her close and tenderly in a way Becky would never have guessed. “I cried, too,” Anne repeated softly, “but your mother's all right. And you and I are all right.”

Sammie looked up at Anne and reached to touch her face. Around them the airy white kitchen was fresh and welcoming with its mullioned-glass cabinet doors, white tile counters, and the three deep-set windows crowded with pots of green herbs. Mariol stood at the double sink washing vegetables, her back to Anne and the child.

“We're together now,” Anne said. “Now, when the nightmares come, you have not only your mother to tell, you have me and Mariol to tell, if you want to.”

When the child glanced across at Mariol, the slim, mulatto woman turned to look kindly at her. Anne said, “Until now I have trusted only Mariol to keep my secret. But you have all three of us, Mariol and me and your mama, to hold you when the ugly dreams come, to hold you and keep you safe.”

“But you can't change what I see,” Sammie said. “No one can. He hurt Mama and he'll try again.”

Shaken, Becky moved on into the kitchen. Sammie leaped from Anne's lap and flew at her, hugging her. “Are you all right, Mama? He hurt you.” When Becky knelt, holding her, Sammie gently touched Becky's bruised forehead and cheek. Pulling out a chair, Becky sat cuddling Sammie as Anne had done, smiling across at her aunt.

“He got away?” Anne said. “How badly are you hurt?”

“Just bruises,” Becky lied, not mentioning the pain where she'd fallen and where he'd hit her. She watched Mariol empty an ice tray, wrap ice in a dish towel, and hand it across to her. As she pressed the coldness to her face, the pain and bruises didn't matter, only Anne's words mattered.
I cried, too, after such a dream. Oh, so many times.
What was this, where had this come from? To hear Anne confess to the same prescience as Sammie's left her indeed shaken. Did Sammie's strange talent, then, belong within their family?

Two half-empty mugs of cocoa stood on the table beside Sammie's open picture book, and a third mug where Mariol had been sitting. That was another strange thing about
Anne, Becky thought, that while most Southern households would not permit colored help to sit at the table with their employers, this was not the case here. In this house, even as proper as Anne was in other matters, she and Mariol were equals, were dear friends. Mariol might, Becky thought, be the closest friend Anne had, maybe her only true friend.

Mariol poured fresh cocoa from a pan on the stove, set the mug on the table before Becky, then took her own place again, her dark eyes, when she looked up at Becky, filled with concern. “You
are
all right?”

Becky nodded, drawn to her kindness.

“She's a special child,” Mariol said. “She's fortunate to have parents who understand.” She looked at Anne companionably. “And lucky, too, to have an aunt who understands.” And Becky wondered if Anne, in her own childhood, had not been so lucky.

L
EE PAUSED IN
the doorway, watching across the visiting room where Morgan stood hugging his family. The minute Morgan entered, the little girl had flung herself at him, he'd hugged her tight and drawn his wife close. Lee couldn't see much of the child from the back, her long blond hair, one strand caught on the collar of her blue gingham dress. Her gangly legs with several scratches, tomboy legs. And the eager way she clung to Morgan, the three of them wrapped around one another, their voices soft and caressing. Lee wanted to turn away, this emotional family reunion had nothing to do with him. Painfully out of place, he'd rather head back to his cell and crawl in his bunk.

The room itself seemed out of place, had no relationship to the rest of the prison; even the bars on the wide windows were half disguised by the potted white flowers on the sills. He stood not on hard concrete but on a tan tweed carpet, the walls painted white instead of government green. Soft-looking couches and chairs were set about in little family groupings, the effect cozy and unreal. Taking in the
unnatural scene, he turned to leave—but he didn't leave. He had promised Morgan.

And something else held him, the child held him, her likeness to Mae made him turn to watch her. From the back she looked so like Mae that he felt jerked into the past, returned to their childhood. Her thin body as light-boned as a fledgling bird, just like Mae, her long legs and the way she stood as if she might leap away any instant. He wished she'd turn around, but he was afraid of what he'd see.

Last night he hadn't slept well, he'd coughed all night, after the cotton mill. Awake and choking, he had tossed restlessly thinking about today, thinking about the child who was so like Mae, who dreamed as Mae dreamed. Periodically he had sat up on his bunk and done his breathing exercises, but it had been impossible to get enough air. He'd skipped breakfast this morning, had drunk some coffee and then sat in the thin winter sun hoping it would warm him. It would be Christmas soon; some wag had tied a red bow on the railing of the stairs that led down from the industries buildings. He had stood looking at it and thinking about this visit, about Sammie and about Mae, feeling curious and uneasy.

Now he sat down in the nearest chair watching the cozy family. Watched Morgan draw his wife and child to a couch where they sat close together. Becky was tall and slim, built like her daughter but with dark hair falling to her shoulders. She wore a plain tan coat over her skirt and white blouse, sheer stockings and flat shoes. He was watching the way Morgan held her so tenderly when the little girl turned, looking across the room at him. The shock sent him weak.

He was looking at Mae. This was Mae, this was his sister. The long-ago memories flooded back. Holding her hand as they waded in the drying stream on a scorching summer day—bundling Mae up in scarves and gloves in the freezing winter, lifting her onto his homemade sled. Mae slipping
away from their mother to the saddled horses, scrambling up into the saddle by herself.

Mae crossed the room to him . . .
But not Mae.
This was Sammie. She ran to him reaching for him, same dark brown eyes as Mae, same long blond hair tangled around her ears, Mae's own elfin smile. She stopped a few feet from him, shy suddenly. But then she flew at him, she was in his lap, her arms around him as if she'd known him forever. How warm she was, like a hound pup, shockingly warm and sweet smelling. This
was
Mae, this was his little sister, her hug infinitely comforting.

But of course she wasn't Mae, this was Morgan Blake's child, this was Sammie Blake who had dreamed of him in the same inexplicable way that Mae dreamed, seeing what she couldn't know.

Seeing his unease, Sammie lowered her eyes and drew back, her look as coolly shuttered as any grown-up's, shy and removed suddenly, plucking at the doll she carried. From the couch, Morgan and Becky watched them in silence, Becky's hands twisting in her lap, the moment as brittle as glass—until Sammie reached to touch his face.

“Where is your horse?”

Lee stared at her.

“Where is your gray horse?”

No one knew about the gray, Lee had never talked to Morgan about horses, the young mechanic had no interest in horses. Certainly he would never mention the gelding on which he had escaped after the post office robbery; he had never told Morgan about the robbery. “I don't have a horse. You can't have a horse in prison.”

“But you do. You have a horse. The gray horse. Where is he?”

If she had dreamed of the gray, had she dreamed of the robbery, too? “Sorry,” he said. “No horse. The prison guards won't let me keep one.”

This child knew secrets she shouldn't know, she had seen into his life as no normal person could do. He didn't know what else she might have dreamed, he was sorry he'd come, today. When he looked up, Becky's face was closed and unreadable, her hands joined with Morgan's, their fingers gripped together telegraphing their unease. When again Sammie started to speak, Lee rose, lifting her. He needed to get out of there. But when he tried to put her in her father's lap she clutched him around the neck and wouldn't let go.

He pried her arms loose. “You have to stay with your daddy, I have to leave now.” He handed her forcibly to Morgan, muttered a weak good-bye, and quickly turned away. Hurrying across the big room he could feel Sammie's hurt and disappointment. Unfinished business weighed on the child—and weighed on Becky and Morgan. Too much had been left unsaid, urging him to turn back. But he didn't turn; he pushed on out through the heavy door, nodded to the guard and hurried through the corridors to the safety of his cell. Crawling under the blanket shivering, he didn't want to deal with this. But at the same time, he was drawn to Sammie and to the mystery of the Blake family that seemed, that had to be a part of his own life.

L
EE WOKE WHEN
the Klaxon rang for first shift supper. He had slept for over an hour. He thought of skipping the meal, he didn't want to sit with Morgan, didn't want to try to explain how uncomfortable the child made him, he didn't want to talk. But in the end he decided he'd better eat something. Maybe Morgan would eat later, slip in at second shift. He washed his face, combed his hair, pulled on the wool jacket the prison had issued when the weather turned cool, and headed out along the catwalk. They'd have to talk sometime, he just hoped it wasn't tonight.