Until Dark (12 page)

“I would have happily done that.” He was close to her now, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. “I’d have taken care of you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. At least not for long. It’s not a healthy kind of relationship. I know. I’ve been there. Not just with Greg, but with my mother. After my brother’s disappearance my mother just collapsed emotionally, and hung in that state for months. I took care of her, totally, for all that time. It was as if our roles were reversed. As if I was the mother and she the child. I grew very dependent on that role, Adam, and it wasn’t healthy. I almost resented her when she started to come out of it and do on her own, for herself. It was hard for me to go back to being the child again. And let’s not talk about how I felt when she told me she was going to law school, or that she was getting married again.”

She reached her arms up and drew him closer. “That’s not the kind of relationship I would have wanted with you. It’s not a relationship that can grow into anything good.”

“So you’re saying it’s either a good relationship or no relationship?”

“Well, why would anyone want to get into a relationship that—”

His mouth silenced hers, softly at first, then more insistently. She remembered what it had been like to kiss Adam. Had never forgotten. And he didn’t disappoint.

When she could catch her breath, Kendra leaned back and said, “And just for the record, I was interested. I was very interested.”

“You were?”

She nodded. “I still am.”

“Well, then”—he bent down and kissed her again, more gently this time—“I guess that’s a start.”

He held the door for her and she eased onto the cool leather seat, her heart still pounding and her head still swimming.

“I guess we’ll have to go back and pick up your car,” he said as he slid behind the wheel. “Where are you staying tonight?”

“Home,” she told him.

“Home?” He frowned. “Why would you drive all the way back there tonight?”

“It’s only a few hours,” she reminded him, “and besides, my day is going to start early and I have a big dinner date tomorrow night.”

“It figures,” he grumbled, his good mood swinging south.

She laughed. “I volunteer to provide dinner to Father Tim’s shelter for homeless men once a week.”

“They let you cook?”

“Smart-ass. Tomorrow’s my night.”

“Father Tim must be pretty desperate.”

“Please. Anyone can put together a spaghetti dinner.” She rolled her eyes. “But if the truth were to be known, I am having a little bit of help.”

“Ha!”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Selena offered a few jars of sauce that she made last summer.”

“Selena who made the wonderful soup?”

Kendra nodded.

“If her spaghetti sauce is as good as her soup, these guys are in for a treat. Think anyone would notice if I sneaked in for one night?”

“Not a chance. Father Tim will feed anyone who comes and sits at his table. No questions asked.”

“How do you know you’ve made enough, if you don’t know how many will show up?”

“Somehow it always works out that there’s enough.” She shrugged.

“Sort of like the loaves and fishes.”

“Sort of.”

“How did you get involved in that?”

“Through Selena. She met Father Tim when he was first starting up his mission over in Reedsboro to help homeless men and was looking for volunteers. One thing she could do was cook. So she started a program where meals would be served every night of the week and she got others to sign up to take one night. Pretty soon she had enough volunteers to have each person responsible for only one night out of the month. There are beds for a few who have no place else to sleep, and he helps to get medical care for those who need it. There’s a shop there where the men can trade hours of service, working on the house or the grounds, for clothing if they need clothes. Residents get three meals a day. . . .”

“. . . more than I’ve gotten lately,” Adam noted under his breath.

“. . . and there are volunteers to help the men look for jobs. And there are opportunities to earn a few dollars working around the Mission.”

“Father Tim sounds very ambitious.”

“He is”—she nodded—“and very successful. He’s helped hundreds of homeless men over the past few years.”

“Can’t that prove to be dangerous?” Adam asked as he pulled up alongside Kendra’s car on the street near Grace Tobin’s house. “Aren’t some of those men potentially unstable?”

“There have been no problems that I know of. And Selena is a psychologist. She has provided some counseling services over the years.”

“She sounds like quite an interesting woman.”

“She is. Did I tell you she’s psychic?”

“I thought you said she was a psychologist.”

“She is. But she’s psychic, too.”

“For real?”

“The only real one I’ve ever met.”

“Does she read your mind?”

“Sometimes I think she does, though she doesn’t mean to, and tries to hide it when she does.”

“I’d like to meet her sometime. I’ve never met a real psychic. Ask her if she can help us solve this case, why don’t you?”

“It doesn’t work like that with her.”

“How does it work?”

“I’m not really sure. I think things just come to her.”

“Well, see if something will come to her before another woman loses her life, will you?”

“She knows about the case. If she was getting anything on him I wouldn’t have to ask. She’d tell me. She just doesn’t always know. She tries not to know things.”

Kendra thought back on the incident with Lola, and related the story to Adam.

“Someone left a poisoned
sandwich
in your backyard?” His eyebrows raised.

“It was an accident, I’m sure.”

“How do you accidentally leave a poisoned sandwich someplace?”

“I can’t think of any reason why anyone would have done it intentionally. I think it was a mistake. That it got tossed there somehow by mistake.”

“Oh, out of a passing car, perhaps?” he said sarcastically.

“No, but by someone passing by in a canoe maybe. People canoe and kayak back there all the time. Every day.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“Of course. They identified the poison as one of those over-the-counter spray insecticides.”

“How’s the dog?”

“Oh, she’s fine. She totally recovered within two days.”

“Well, I guess your friend won’t be letting her dog run loose anymore.”

“It’s tough to keep her from running off, Adam. Selena’s yard is small and fenced, and Lola likes to run. She often comes to visit with me when Selena is at work or when she sees patients at the house.”

“She sees patients at her house? Alone?” Adam frowned. “Are you all nuts back there in Smith’s Forge?”

“Nothing ever happens in Smith’s Forge, Adam. Nothing ever has. Probably never will.”

“Well then, we’ll have to see what we can do about that,” he said as he drew her to him.

“Why don’t you come and see for yourself over the weekend,” she suggested. “If you can get away, that is.”

“I’m tied up this weekend,” he told her. “My father’s getting married on Saturday. There will be hell to pay if his only son—and best man—is among the missing.”

“Your father is getting married again?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t look so happy about it. Do you know the bride?”

“Sure. Clare was an old friend of my mother’s.”

“I see.”

“Actually, I don’t see, but my sister tells me I’m being immature and shortsighted and keeps reminding me that my father deserves to be happy, and that he’s been alone for a long time. Which isn’t quite true, since he started dating Clare within six months of my mother’s death. They just didn’t admit to it until last year.” He shook his head. “I think it would be easier to accept if they hadn’t been so deceitful about it.”

“And if he was marrying someone other than your mother’s friend?”

“That, too. It feels too much like a betrayal to me.”

“If I could give you some unsolicited advice?”

He gestured for her to go right ahead.

“Whatever your feelings are for her, he’s still your father. Be grateful you still have him. Be grateful your sister is still a part of your life. Be grateful for any bit of family you still have. Any one of them can be taken from you like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“I’ll work on it,” he said with a nod. “Now, are you sure you won’t change your mind and stay over tonight? I’m sure we can get you a room at the hotel where I’m staying.”

She shook her head.

“Not this time. I really need to get an early start tomorrow,” she said, thinking of cakes to be baked and fruits to be cut up for salad. “I’m not used to cooking for crowds, you know. I have no idea how long all this prep work is going to take.”

“I’ll walk you to your car then, since I can’t talk you into staying over.”

“Thanks,” she said as she got out of the passenger side.

He opened the back passenger door of her car after she’d unlocked it.

“Sorry,” he told her. “Force of habit. Just checking the backseat.”

“With everything that’s been going on, don’t bother to apologize. I appreciate the gesture.”

“Keep your doors locked.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful. And in a few hours I’ll be home, safe and sound in my own house.” She leaned up and kissed him soundly on the mouth. “Now you go back to your room and get some sleep. You look like the walking dead.”

“Careful, too much flattery could turn my head.”

“Go then.” She got into her car. “Don’t set the alarm, don’t ask for a wake-up call. Just sleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” He closed the door for her, then stepped back and watched her turn the car around, waving as she passed. Adam walked back to his own car, got in, and headed for the hotel, praying that tonight there would be no new body, no new call.

Chapter
Eleven

Selena Brennan had met Father Tim shortly after he purchased the house on Main that had once belonged to her grandparents in Cole, the next town over, and soon became involved in his work of feeding, clothing, and providing a home for indigent men. Before the doors had opened to their first residents, Selena had organized a network of volunteers who would, once a month, provide dinner for whomever needed a good meal. Her network helped to feed Father Tim’s flock three hundred sixty-five nights of the year.

Food for the Mission was donated by individuals or by local corporations looking for tax write-offs. The residents could stay as long as they needed to, no questions asked, and in return, they offered their services in accordance with whatever abilities they might possess. Some might paint porch railings or repair a ceiling damaged by a leaking pipe, others might help with the landscaping or volunteer to work in the Mission’s thrift shop, where clothing donated by various churches throughout the state was sold.

The residents changed from month to month, week to week. Some would come seasonally, as did the man who worked the cranberry bogs, then sought a bit of a respite before moving south when the cranberry season was over. He would stay at the Mission and offer his services as a mechanic, tuning up whichever of Father Tim’s vehicles needed work. Over the years, the Mission had been the recipient of the charitable donations of two pickup trucks, a sedan, a van, and a station wagon. While used mostly for the Mission’s needs, there were times when a resident who held a valid driver’s license might need transportation to a job interview, or to visit an ailing relative, and Father Tim always made a vehicle available under such circumstances.

The Tuesday dinner crowd at the Ministry of Hope generally numbered around eighteen. When Kendra and Selena arrived with the provisions for the spaghetti dinner they’d volunteered to provide that night, several of the men had already arrived and claimed their places at the two tables that ran the length of what had once been the living room of the old house. Furnishings were intentionally sparse, so that additional tables could be brought in as needed. A serving table was placed at one end of the room, and it was here that plates and flatware could be picked up and taken to the place of choice. Several large bowls of salad and baskets of bread were already on the table.

“How many tonight?” Kendra asked Father Tim when he stuck his head into the kitchen.

“Looks like we’ll have maybe nineteen or so.” The balding, middle-aged man stepped into the room and lifted a pile of plates. “I’ll take these out for you.”

“Thanks.” Kendra smiled.

“Smells good.” The priest nodded toward the large pot of spaghetti sauce.

“Selena’s secret recipe,” Kendra told him.

“So secret it’s on the back of the tomato paste can,” Selena said as she came in through the back door, tying an apron around her waist. “Here, Kendra, I brought one for you, too.”

Kendra held still long enough for Selena to slip the apron over her head.

“I see Paul is back,” Selena said to Father Tim.

“Yes, he didn’t have much luck in Baltimore, I’m afraid.”

“And Alex, I noticed, is here.”

“Same story.” Father Tim shrugged. “For some, it’s a tougher world than others.”

“Who’s the man in the red-and-black-checked jacket?” Kendra asked, looking out the window. “He looks familiar.”

“Could be,” the priest nodded. “He’s Cal Lukins’s ex-son-in-law. Lost his job in Virginia and tried to move back home, but his family isn’t having any of it, since he had all those problems with drugs last year.”

“Is he clean now?” Kendra frowned, remembering Cal as the teenager who used to follow her and Selena to the lake when they went swimming, often standing behind the trees at the edge of the lake to watch.

“Would he be here if he wasn’t?” Father Tim pointed out. “They all know the rules. No drugs, no alcohol, no women.”

“Everyone washes up for meals every day, and no one starts eating until everyone has been served and grace has been said,” Selena added.

“That pretty much sums up the rules of conduct,” Tim nodded.

A car door slammed in the driveway just beyond the open window, and Selena turned to stare at the four men who got out and stopped to chat with Cal. Then, all five walked toward the house.

“Are they here for dinner?” she asked the priest.

“Yes, they’re residents. Ted, he’s the tall one with the beard, arrived about a month ago. The two men in the middle there, John and Albert, have been here for most of the winter. Peter, he’s the one with the glasses and the ponytail, he’s been here on and off for several weeks.”

Her eyes narrowing, Selena continued to stare, until Kendra poked her.

“What?”

“I said, do you want to put the pasta on now?” Kendra waved a hand in front of Selena’s face.

“Oh, yes, sure . . .”

“I’ll go make sure everyone who’s eating with us tonight is at their place.” Father Tim left the room, a pile of white stoneware plates in hand.

“Is something wrong?” Kendra asked.

“No.” Selena shook her head. “Here. Take the rest of these plates in and come back for the flatware. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Dinner was a civilized affair since Father Tim insisted that the residents bring their manners along with their appetites. Following tradition, Kendra and Selena ate with the residents. Twice, Kendra looked over at her friend to find her sitting quietly, her hands folded in her lap, as if she were meditating. On two other occasions, she’d noticed Selena’s eyes moving from man to man, as if searching for something.

“Okay, spill,” Kendra said on the way home. “What was going on back there?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. The eyes roaming around the room like you were . . . I don’t know, expecting something to happen.” Kendra frowned.

“No, I didn’t expect anything would happen.”

“Then what was it?”

“More like . . . a sense of something. Someone. I don’t know.” Selena put on her left signal to make the turn onto the dirt road. “Like someone . . .”

She struggled for her words.

“Out with it,” Kendra sighed.

“Something made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up tonight and I can’t put my finger on what it was,” Selena admitted, “or who it was who made me so uneasy.”

“You’re kidding. One of the residents?”

“It would have had to have been. The only others there were Father Tim and the two of us. I can’t explain it. It was a . . . a foreboding, I guess is the best word. A dark . . . something.” She shook her head. “I tried several times to identify it, to focus on the source, but I couldn’t. There were too many people there, too close together. I just couldn’t separate one from the other. And I’ve ignored these . . . sensations . . . for so long now, that I don’t even know if I could identify the source even if I tried.”

Selena passed her own house and drove another mile down the road to Smith House.

“That’s a little scary,” Kendra said as the car pulled into her driveway. “Maybe you should say something to Father Tim.”

“Something like what? Oh, by the way, I got bad vibes from one of your guests at dinner the other night, but I don’t know which one it was or what it meant, if anything?” Selena shook her head.

“Father Tim knows that you’re, well, sensitive. He respects that.”

“I don’t know how ‘sensitive’ I am anymore. I tried so hard for so long to push that part of me away, that I don’t know how reliable my ‘feelings’ are. I may have pretty much destroyed or distorted any sensitivity I may have had at one time. I don’t know when, if, to trust what I feel anymore.” She shrugged. “In any event, the evening’s over and if anything should have been said, the time is past. I imagine it was nothing anyway.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Kendra opened the passenger door and got out, then leaned back in the window. “But if you get any more of those feelings, pass them on, would you? I for one would be interested in knowing what’s behind them. And besides, you know what they say about safe being better than sorry.”

Stretched out on the single mattress on the bed in the second room to the left of the stairs, he crossed his legs in the dark and went over the entire evening, from the minute he realized that she was there, in the Mission. There for him to see, to speak with. He could have reached out and touched her if he’d wanted to. No one would have thought it odd or unseemly.

She hadn’t suspected. Not for a second.

He was at once elated, and at the same time, disappointed.

She hadn’t known him at all.

And hadn’t it been such a rush, seeing her here, under the same roof? She’d passed him his cup of coffee, smiled at his conversation, chatted graciously.

It had been a risk, he’d known, to stay, knowing she was there. But it was a risk he simply couldn’t resist taking.

She’d been right there, inches away from him.

But she never really
looked
at him. And had she really looked, might she have known?

Unlike that friend of hers, he frowned. That one had scared him a time or two. Something in the way she stared at him had set off his internal alarms. He hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t liked it one bit.

And she’d sicced that dog on him, he was certain of it, sending it down to the water’s edge to frighten him.

He smiled in the dark, wondering how the dog had liked the sandwich he’d left for her.

He turned over onto his side. If he moved up on the pillow just a little, he could see the woods there in the moonlight. From the room’s other window, he could see the lake in the center of the town. He liked it here, as much as he had liked any place. Too bad he couldn’t stay on and on.

The time would come, soon enough, when he would have to leave and not look back, lose himself again, become someone else again. The thought made him sad. But he’d never forget the kindness of Father Tim and his Ministry of Hope. Father Tim had been good to him. Someday, he vowed, when he had gotten what he’d come for, he’d give something back. Anonymously, of course, but he would show his gratitude. After all, look at all Father Tim had done for him.

Fed him when he was hungry. Offered him shelter, a place to sleep. A place to hide.

Allowed him the use of that old van so he could travel about. Letting him work in the thrift shop so he could earn the money he needed for gasoline and tolls. Not to mention that the shop provided him with a source of clothing so he could always replace what he’d had to dispose of.

No questions asked, ever.

Yes, the Ministry of Hope had been very, very good to him. He was grateful to have found it.

He yawned and pulled the blanket up over his shoulders, ordered himself to sleep. After all, tomorrow was going to be another busy day.

He smiled in the dark. He could hardly wait.