Suzanne Mcminn - A Hero's Redemption

“Tell me the truth,” he gasped hoarsely, reaching frantically for her hand again. “You’re with them, aren’t you?”

“Them? Who are you talking about?”

“The ones who did this to me.”

“The ones who did what?” she whispered, and his vision reeled backward as if sucked through a vortex, and he could see her, now, backing away, her hand slipping from his. He was scaring her.

But she was scaring him and the spinning of his vision was making him sick.

“The ones who did this to you,” he said, almost blindly, the edges of his vision folding together now, darkness closing in.

“Did what to me?” Panic rose sharp in her voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“The ones who killed you.”

Then the black swallowed him whole.

The hair lifted at Calla’s nape. She felt cold again suddenly, and more than a little unnerved.

The stranger had passed out now. He’d been half out of it even when he’d had his eyes open. The ones who killed you.

Was he crazy? Or just disoriented? Maybe he didn’t know what he was saying. He hadn’t been able to tell her his name. Did he even remember his name? He had a head injury.

And he was freaking her out.

She picked up his wet clothes and walked out into the front room. The urge to check the locks on the door was suddenly almost unbearable, as if she thought someone was out there, poised to break in. The stranger’s words reverberated in her head. She shook herself. It was snowing so hard, she’d barely been able to see when she’d gone out to the shed to turn on the generator. She’d been almost frightened she wouldn’t be able to get back to the house. Thank God she hadn’t had to go that far.

There was no one lurking outside waiting to kill her, not in this storm, and not ever. There was someone inside, and that was enough to make her uncomfortable. He couldn’t hurt her, not in his condition, she repeated to herself. And she wasn’t that twenty-year-old girl she’d been once, either. She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, not ever again. The old panic deep in her gut didn’t believe her sometimes, but she did, in her heart, in her head. She was older, wiser, tougher. And the stranger was just out of his mind from hypothermia and possibly concussed.

Chuck was stretched out in the middle of the floor, flat on his back, legs splayed out in total abandon.

“This is all your fault,” she said softly as she passed the dog. His tail thumped the floor lightly but he didn’t get up. He was exhausted from his big day of following her around the farm, chasing the new kittens, and finding a stranger in the ditch for her.

Not that Calla could regret finding the man, John Doe for now, tonight, since she didn’t know his name. If she hadn’t found him, he’d have died. And she couldn’t bear that thought, knowing that bringing him in meant she’d saved a life. And it hadn’t really been Chuck’s fault, though he was the one who’d directed her to the ditch.

How had he come to be here? There were only two reasons she would have expected people at Haven Christmas Tree Farm today—to get a tree or to talk to her about a job, and in this weather, she hadn’t expected either, though there was always room for a miracle after losing both her farmhands this week. Pete had done another of his disappearing acts then Jimmy had taken off the next day. Something had scared the bejeebers out of him in the woods. Probably a bear. But there’d been no talking sense to Jimmy, especially with the recent nonsense going around town.

It had all started after a so-called paranormal detective with some cable TV channel had reported earthquakes could release “positive ions” into the atmosphere and trigger supernatural activity. She was pretty sure everything since was the product of the town’s collective overactive imagination. Either that or it was the mayor’s latest attempt at beefing up tourism. She just hoped it meant more people came to Haven to buy Christmas trees.

She flipped the light on in the small utility room off the kitchen and dumped the bundle of clothes on the butcher block counter beside the washer. The shirt was soiled from where he’d lain on the ground and she set it aside. She’d try some stain treatment, but it might be hopeless. She stuck her hands in the pockets of the pants, hoping for something, some identification, some clue to the stranger.

Nothing. No wallet—she’d noticed that as soon as she’d stripped his clothes off, but she’d been hoping—She started to pull her hand out then realized there was something. Small and wet.

She pulled out the folded bit of paper, carefully laid it on the counter and used her fingernail to slowly pull the soggy pieces apart to reveal the printed logo at the top. It was a receipt. A-Plus Cleaners, Haven, WV. There was a hand-scrawled drop-off date. June 7, she thought, but the date was blurred, the ink smeared from moisture. It looked like June 7…of next year? She picked up the wet receipt, too quickly, to hold it up to the bare bulb above the counter and it tore in her hands. She put the two halves back down on the counter, and there was that chill lifting the hair at the back of her neck again. Jeez, what was wrong with her?

Of course the date wasn’t next June. It had to be last June. The stranger must not wear his suits very often for the receipt to still be in his pocket in December. But it didn’t matter and she couldn’t read it now anyway. The receipt had torn right across the year. And she was just still good and freaked out about his earlier comment and that whole positive ions hooey. She focused on what the receipt could mean.

The stranger hadn’t seemed to recognize the name Haven when she’d asked him if he was from here, but clearly he’d had tailoring done on his clothes in town. Calla had never seen him around, but that didn’t mean much. She didn’t know everyone in Haven even though she’d grown up there. She’d been gone for nearly twelve years between college, graduate school and the career she’d thought would be her lifetime work. Then it had all gone very, very wrong, and she’d come home to lick her wounds, start over. Haven hadn’t changed much, though it had certainly grown in population.

Once the phones were back, if the stranger still didn’t remember his name, she’d be able to give the receipt to the authorities. They could call the shop. Maybe they’d have records, be able to track down his ID. Or maybe his confusion tonight was temporary. He’d know his name tomorrow.

Not that that was her problem. Once the roads were clear, he would be someone else’s problem. All she had to do was make sure he lived till then. And if he would just stay in bed, he would probably be fine. His skin had already begun to feel warmer to the touch, and his color had been coming back.

She popped the pants in the dryer and set the stained shirt to soak. And she wondered if she would really forget the stranger as easily as that, as easily as dropping him off at the county hospital or the police station, depending on his condition when she could get him out of here. She checked on the stranger again. He was alive, sleeping. She went to the living room, grabbed the folded quilt off the back of it and stretched out. She tried really hard not to think about the fact that a man was sleeping in the next room. In her bed. A stranger.

Mostly, she tried not to think about the morning.

Dawn crept through lace at the windows and Dane McGuire stared at the rectangle of light in the shadowed room, his head throbbing, his mind searching through some disembodied sea of broken pieces that slipped and slid on waves of pain. The courthouse, the conviction, the crash—The woman who couldn’t be Calla Jones.