“Will do. Listen, Beth, I got wind of something at the newsroom. I don’t know if it means anything. In fact it probably doesn’t, but…David Quentin Gray—Mordecai’s ex-lawyer—escaped from Attica last week. They found him dead, shot once in the head, the next day.”
Beth got a chill that didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. “Who shot him?”
“They don’t know.”
Beth sighed. “It’s probably nothing,” she said. “He didn’t know anything about me. I mean, how could he?”
“No. It’s nothing. I’m sure of it. I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks, Julie.”
“Here’s your drink,” Dawn said. “Can I talk now?”
“Just a sec, hon. Beth, if you need us, let us know. Sean and I can be there in no time. We love you, you know. And we owe you a hell of a lot.”
“I’m the one who owes you, Jewel. Now put the brat on the phone before she has a fit.”
She heard the telephone move, then Dawn’s voice came on the line, and Beth let it wash over her like rain over a dying flower. Dawn talked about her senior year of high school, her teachers, her classes, her plans for graduation and where she might go to college. She was driving now. Her Jeep had gotten a dent from a kid in the school parking lot, and she was mortified about it, and so on and on and on.
Beth listened, commenting in all the right places, and she somehow managed to keep the tears that were sliding down her cheeks from being evident in her voice.
It was Lizzie. This was her!
Mordecai’s heart had pounded, and he’d barely been able to catch his breath as he watched her running along the winding country lane. Running. Hands clenched into fists pumping at her sides. As if she were fighting.
And then she slowed and walked right up to the front porch of the very house he’d been watching: the fading, former Blackberry Inn. All night, he’d been parked in his car, keeping the boy under surveillance, just as the guides had told him to do. It had made no sense. He’d been frustrated, thinking it stupid and senseless to sit there, cold and uncomfortable, overnight. He knew where the boy lived now, so what was the point? Even if he was to be Mordecai’s heir…
Now he understood. This was the point. The boy was a beacon, pointing the way to Lizzie. Already he was connected to Mordecai, already aiding him in his work. He had led Mordecai to Lizzie. Obviously he was the one. The boy, Bryan, was the one he’d been waiting for. He should have trusted, had more faith. The guides always had a reason for everything they told him to do.
Mordecai took out his binoculars and watched every move Lizzie made. He watched her sit on the porch, sipping tea with an old woman, watched the looks, the smiles, they exchanged.
They were close. The old woman was important to her.
Then the man came out to join them, and Mordecai’s body went stiff and his nerve endings prickled. The man had to be Bryan’s father—the resemblance between the two had told him that much. But what was he doing with Lizzie?
A short while later, she was running again. But this time the man ran with her. The bastard had no business there, Mordecai thought. Lizzie was his. Always had been, always would be. Dead or alive, she belonged to Mordecai.
He let them get a good distance away before starting his car and driving a little closer. He was careful not to get too close, and he never let them spot him.
God, how different she seemed…felt. The energy he sensed surrounding her was not the same as it had been before.
She’d changed.
She thinks she’s escaped you, Mordecai. Thinks she’s above you now.
Look at her, running. Trying to grow strong. She’ll fight you this time.
“She fought me last time,” he muttered. “Isn’t shooting me in the chest fighting me?” His chest ached a little at the memory, even though the Kevlar vest had ensured he only suffered a pair of broken ribs from the bullet she had fired at his heart…even as she kissed his lips.
She was weak, back then. And she still loved you, in some desperate, dependent way. She wept when she thought she had killed you.
But she’s not weak anymore. She won’t shed a tear for you now.
Mordecai decided to ignore the voices for a while, just the way he was ignoring the presence of the man, the interloper, and simply bask in Lizzie’s presence. In being able to see her, watch her. In being this close to her. God, how he’d loved her once. Still. As he should.
Jesus had loved Judas, even after his kiss of betrayal.
Mordecai followed her to where she lived, in a cottage just at the edge of Blackberry. He knew it when they slowed to a walk, entered the house. He even saw her opening the door with her set of keys.
They’ve seen the car, Mordecai.
“Yes. I know.”
You know now. You know where to find her. You can come back.
Nodding slowly, Mordecai drove past the two this time. He had to return to his rented home away from home, because there were things that needed doing. He’d begun the preparations, but he had to finish them. So he went to his temporary home. He took time to shower, to change clothes, to get a bite to eat, take his messages off the machine. The school had called. He phoned back and agreed to come in on Monday. Then he rechecked the cord he had run throughout every room of the house, along the baseboards, and the batteries in his remote control. Finally he drove out of town and got himself a different car.
A few hours later he was back at Lizzie’s house, in a dark blue, late model sedan almost as unremarkable as the first car had been. He’d transferred all his supplies into this one. The trunk was filled with various controlled substances, some of them too powerful even to be carried by the average pharmacy—like the vial of salmonella, a bit of which he’d used on poor Nancy Stillwater’s picnic lunch. Cruel, but effective. It wouldn’t kill her, though she would be terribly sick for a week, maybe longer. That was all he needed.
Mordecai didn’t kill unless Spirit dictated it. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a tool of God. Besides, Nancy wasn’t an evil woman. She’d even phoned him to see if he, too, had become sick. When he said he hadn’t, she ruled out her picnic lunch as the source of the food poisoning and wondered aloud where she could have picked it up.
He parked the car in a pull-off, where autumn foliage concealed it from view. Then he walked back to Lizzie’s house and took up a position on a tree stump just inside the edge of the woods across the street. This time he had a video camera, a digital camera and a pair of high-powered binoculars.
He never let her out of his sight for the rest of the day.
A woman delivered groceries around eleven. Beth ate an early lunch, alone at a small table in her kitchen. Yogurt and a banana. After lunch, a teenage boy showed up, and Mordecai recognized him even before he raised the binoculars for a closer look. It was young Bryan.
He and Lizzie worked over textbooks in the living room.
I have a private tutor. The boy’s voice repeated the words in Mordecai’s memory. He closed his eyes, thanked his guides for putting the boy into his path, apologizing again for doubting them earlier. The boy was more than just an honest young man and heir to Mordecai’s gift. And more than a signpost, pointing the way to Lizzie. He was connected to her in some way. Connected to him, too. He marveled anew at the intricate web of the universe and the complex machinations of almighty God. The brilliance of linking Mordecai to Lizzie through this new child. The son.
“No wonder I couldn’t find her right away,” he whispered. “She barely goes out. She’s entirely self-contained. Except for that run in the morning.”
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