Unspeakable (26 page)

"Yeah, thanks for calling. She'll be right there."

Jack hung up and faced Anna. David was still pestering her, whining that he was hungry and asking for her to go into the kitchen and fix his breakfast.

"Hey, Captain Rocket Ranger, sir," Jack said, saluting him. "Are you brave enough for a mission? Think you can get your own cereal this morning?"

"Can I have Cap'n Crunch?"

"Why not?"

"Okay!" After clumsily saluting, he raced from the room.

Anna was staring gravely at Jack. He didn't keep her in suspense any longer. "Delray's all right, but very upset. Somebody slipped and told him about Cecil's visit to the hospital." Raising her fists to her temples, she mouthed a curse. "You took the words right out of my mouth," Jack said, although she wasn't looking at him and didn't realize he'd spoken. He hadn't known a peaceful moment yesterday until she and David had returned from the hospital around midnight. Without her knowing it, he had followed them when they went into town after Cecil Herbold's visit. He wanted to see if the convict would make good his promise to go see Delray for himself. He hadn't been surprised to find Herbold's Mustang in the hospital parking lot.

Parking a few rows away, he had waited in his pickup until he saw a Blewer policeman escorting Cecil to his car. When he left, a sheriff's car had pulled out behind him and followed him as far as the county line. Jack had taken over from there, tailing him another two hundred miles. With every mile, he grew more nervous over being away so long. When he decided to turn around, he broke every speed limit getting back to Blewer and was glad that he arrived at the ranch ahead of Anna. As long as she remained at the hospital she was reasonably safe. With his face now a regular feature of every news broadcast, Carl was too smart to show up in a public place.

It was close to sunset and none of the daily chores had been done. He'd rushed around doing what was absolutely necessary but kept a close watch on the house and on his wristwatch, growing anxious again when the hours stretched out and Anna didn't come home. Even after dark, the night had been still and hot. The parched earth emanated absorbed solar heat like a radiator. He took periodic strolls around the property, listening for unusual noises, scanning the area for any strange movements in the shadows. Every so often he had to go back inside the trailer and stand in front of the noisy air conditioner to dry the sweat off his skin. Worry had made him irritable, and the heat only made it worse.

With every passing hour, he had imagined a new, unspeakable peril he was sure had befallen Anna and David. Her car could have gone on the blink again and she was stranded in the dark. He was no goddamn mechanic. She should have had that fuel line checked out by an expert. She and David could have been in an accident. They would be admitted to the hospital ER and someone would ask the name of her next of kin. And she would say that her only next of kin was in CCU upstairs. No one would think to notify the hired hand who was out at the homestead going out of his fucking mind with worry.

And the Herbolds were a constant, gnawing worry. So he had followed Cecil almost all the way back to Arkansas. So what? These were not petty crooks. They'd been born bad and they'd had years in prison to become well-seasoned criminals. Cecil's stunt could have been a smoke screen for brother Carl. Cecil could have staged it as a diversion while Carl had his sights set on Anna and David, the only two people Delray Corbett held near and dear. That was it! They had been abducted by the Herbolds.

He had snatched up the keys to his pickup, ready to speed to the hospital and reassure himself that Anna and David were safe, when he saw her headlights coming through the gate. By the time the car reached the house, Jack was standing in the shadow of a wisteria vine at the corner of the porch. He should have made his presence known and offered to carry David inside for her. He should have stepped forward and asked for an update on Delray's condition. But, recalling her harsh final words that morning, and still a little peeved with her even though he'd been frantic to know that she was all right, he had kept to the shadows and watched her lift her sleeping son from the backseat and carry him indoors.

He hadn't returned to the trailer until he knew they were safely inside the house and all the upstairs lights were out. Exhausted from tension and the hours of hard driving, he had collapsed in his bed and fallen into a deep sleep.

He touched her arm to get her attention. "What happened at the hospital? Did Herbold threaten you or Delray?"

She reached for a pad and wrote, "I had taken David downstairs for lunch so I wasn't there, but Marjorie was. Herbold went to the CCU waiting room and demanded to see Delray. He was told he couldn't. He made a scene. Police were called. He was escorted out. That's all."

"That was enough to upset Delray when he heard about it." Jack rubbed the back of his neck.

"What the hell was he doing? What was all that about?"

But Anna had no answer for him. In a hurry to dress and leave for the hospital, she had already turned away. She got only as far as the door of the study, where she was met by David, who was sobbing his heart out.

"I spilled the milk," he blubbered. "I didn't mean to, Mom. It was an accident." Anna looked frazzled, rushed, and at her wits' end as she went through the door and headed for the kitchen. Jack went after her, reached out and grabbed a handful of nightgown, jerking her to a halt.

"Go get dressed," he said calmly when she turned to confront him. "I'll take care of the emergency here. You take care of the emergency at the hospital. David can stay here with me today. Okay?"

"Can I, Mom? Can I?" Tears drying on his cheeks, David excitedly hopped from foot to foot. "I hate the hospital. It smells like when you get shots. Can I stay with Jack, please?"

***

"I want you to leave. Today. You and David."

Jack had said Delray would wish for them to go away. Jack had been right. Jack always seemed to be right, which was both reassuring and perturbing.

Anna had accepted his offer to baby-sit David, all day if necessary. She would have felt guilty about leaving her son for an unspecified amount of time, and for the inconvenience she was imposing on Jack, except that they seemed to be enjoying themselves even as they mopped up spilled milk. Down on all fours, butts in the air, Jack's covered with faded denim, David's with Star Wars pajamas, they had waved her off with a distracted good-bye.

As soon as Anna arrived at Delray's intensive care cubicle, he began making his argument for her to leave town and take David with her. He looked better with some color in his cheeks, but the cause of that color was concern. It was up to her to calm him.

" We're perfectly safe, Delray. "

"You'd be safer somewhere else."

" I will not leave town while you're in the hospital. How can you think I would go away at a timelike this? "

"Under ordinary circumstances, you wouldn't. But Cecil Herbold was here yesterday. That makes these circumstances anything but ordinary."

He didn't know that Herbold had come first to the house. Had he known that, he might have gone into cardiac arrest.

" I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here with you. "

"Please, Anna. Do this for me. You and David are all I care about. I sheltered Dean from those boys, best I could. Never would let them get near him. Cecil and Carl are my responsibility, my mess. You sure as hell don't deserve to inherit them. Please, Anna, I don't want to die fearing—"

"Well, how's the patient?" The doctor breezed in, cutting short Delray's plea. Anna wrote him a quick note. "He raised quite a ruckus this morning."

"So I heard."

"Did his distress do any damage to his heart?"

The doctor glanced through the records in a metal notebook. "I see a blip here on his EKG. That was probably when he was threatening to sue us." He frowned at Delray, who scowled at him. Laughing, the doctor decisively snapped the notebook closed. "I take it as a good sign that he has that much energy and feels that strong." Looking at Delray, he asked, "How would you feel about a helicopter ride?"

CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN

"M
ind if I go across the street and cash my paycheck?" Russell, seated at his desk with his feet propped on the corner of it, tipped his newspaper down and glowered at Cecil. Of course it was hard to tell that he was glowering because be frowned habitually. "It'll count as your break. Fifteen minutes."

"There might be a line."

"Fifteen minutes." He went back to his newspaper.

The son of a bitch, Cecil thought as he slipped on his sunglasses and stepped out into the syrupy heat. It wasn't like he had asked for any special favor. He used his coffee break every Friday morning to go to the bank and cash his paycheck. That had been his routine since working at the garage. Russell just got his rocks off by being an asshole.

Behind the tinted lenses of the sunglasses, Cecil scanned the street but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The cops were probably still scratching their heads about his trip to Blewer yesterday. Thinking about the confusion that must have created caused him to chuckle. He wondered if Delray ever learned that his stepson had paid him a visit. If so, he hoped the old man died from the shock of it.

He went into the drugstore and ordered a lemon Coke at the soda fountain, asking the waitress to put it in a cup he could take out. He paid for his drink, a roll of root beer-flavored candy, and a hot-rod magazine. Back on the sidewalk, he strolled to the corner. Sipping his drink through a straw, he waited for the light to change.

He crossed the street, then doubled back on the opposite side. He paused in the shade in front of the bank to finish his lemon Coke, then, like any model citizen, placed the empty cup in the trash can conveniently provided by the local Rotarians.

Compared to the blistering heat outside, the air-conditioned bank lobby felt like the Klondike. He removed his sunglasses and slid them along with the roll of candy into the pocket of his uniform shirt, on which his name was embroidered in red.

The magazine slid from beneath his arm and fell to the floor. As he bent to pick it up, he glanced toward the door and spotted the bank guard. No more than nineteen, he had hair the color of carrot juice and plump cheeks made ruddy by acne. He was opening the door for a lady pushing an infant in a stroller.

Cecil walked to the island in the center of the lobby. He had brought a deposit slip from his checkbook with him. Using the ballpoint pen tethered to the counter with a little gold chain, he filled out the deposit slip and endorsed his check. He tried not to think about the cameras mounted high at intervals along the wall.

He compared the lines at the two tellers' windows. In one stood a fat man with an astoundingly full key ring dangling heavily from his belt and sweat rings staining the armholes of his shirt. The woman with the baby stroller was now behind him. She was cooing to the kid, trying to keep him entertained while she waited her turn.

The teller in the second window was helping an elderly couple. Behind them was a mustachioed biker in a bandanna-print do-rag and leather vest. His bare arms sported an array of lavish tattoos.

While Cecil was still debating which line would move the fastest, a man in a business suit and horn-rimmed glasses stepped around him and got in line behind the mother, effectively cutting in line in front of Cecil.

"Asshole."

The man turned. "Pardon me?"

"Never mind," Cecil muttered. He got in line behind the biker. The elderly couple was having trouble understanding the mechanics of travelers' checks. The biker shifted impatiently in his thick-soled boots and crossed his decorated arms over his stomach.

In the next line, the fat man concluded his business and lumbered out, the keys jangling like sleigh bells. The mother stepped up to the window. The yuppie in the gray suit was tallying the ledger in his checkbook.

Finally the teller in Cecil's line suggested that the elderly couple have a bank officer explain how travelers' checks worked. She summoned one over, who escorted the old folks to his desk. The biker took their place at the window. Cecil inched forward. Sensing someone behind him, he turned.

"Hey, Ceezeel."

"Hey, Pepe."

He was another mechanic that worked over at Russell's. Pepe was Mexican and, as far as Cecil could tell, associated only with other Mexicans. They'd never exchanged more than a few words, but the guy seemed okay. "Russell give you grief about coming over here?"

"Same as always, man," Pepe replied.

The biker pocketed the cash the teller had counted out for him, told her to have a good one, and left. Cecil stepped up to the window and slid his paycheck and deposit slip across the cold marble shelf.

"Good morning, how are you today?" the teller said, glancing down at the deposit slip. "Fifty back in cash, right?"

"Please."

"Any particular way you want that? Tens, twenties?"

The mother in the next line thanked the teller and wheeled the stroller around. As she moved away, the yuppie stepped to the window. The teller greeted him with a good morning. The handgun materialized out of nowhere.

It appeared in Carl's hand as though by magic.

"Don't even think about pushing any alarm button," he said in the same polite voice with which he'd said "Pardon me?" to his brother only moments before. If the situation hadn't been so tense, Cecil would have cracked up over his brother's disguise and yuppie affectations. "Just empty your cash drawer, quietly and calmly, and no one will get hurt."