A Love for Safekeeping (17 page)

Hoping she wouldn’t upset Kyle’s mother, she explained briefly. “I thought he’d tell me what to do,” Jane said. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but—”

“Don’t touch it, Jane. Paul’s here. Let me put him on the line.”

Within moments, Paul answered. “Hold on, Jane. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

After giving Paul her address, Jane hung up, stared at the ominous box, and waited.

When she heard the car pull into the driveway, Jane flung open the door and her heart soared when she saw Kyle. The tension tearing through her had reached its peak, and she threw herself into his embrace.

Seeing Jane’s fear, Kyle ached and held her tightly against his chest, eyeing the box near the foyer doorway. When her trembling subsided, he eased her back and kissed her hair.

She scowled. “I thought you were—”

“Dad was just leaving when I got home, so I came instead.” He’d known something was very wrong when he’d looked at his father’s face.

“I’m glad.”

“So you’re thinking this isn’t a surprise birthday gift, huh?” he asked, trying to make light of the situation.

“No, I’m sure it’s not. My birthday’s Wednesday, but look at the note. It’s like the others.”

Kyle took the paper and studied the note, then slid the message back into her hand and knelt beside the box. “I suppose the only way we’ll know what’s inside is to open it.”

Though he planted a casual look on his face, inside he seethed with anger and frustration. He drew a pocket knife through the wide packaging tape and eyed Jane’s shaking limbs as she backed to the sofa and sat.

“Good,” Kyle said, glancing at her, “now, stay back.” He tore at the cardboard and lifted the lid. He peered inside, tipping the box one way and then the other. “It’s a cement block. That’s it.”

She rose and leaned above him, bracing her trembling hand against his back. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He reached in and pulled out a gray concrete block. “I don’t know what to think.”

He rolled the block over to reveal a piece of paper. His mind flew, staring at the ominous numbers. A date? House number? Code?

Jane eyed the note. “Looks like a lock combination.” He leaned forward. “
5 5:9.
Is that what you see?”

Frustrated, he returned the block to the carton, then sat on a chair and stared at the box. “Could I see that note again?”

Jane handed him the slip of paper, and he stared at it silently. The marks meant something. Some kind of clue, but he didn’t get it.

“I’ll have someone from the Precinct pick up the block, Jane, but I’ll take the note with me. I don’t understand the message at all.”

“Take it, please,” Jane said. “I don’t want to look at the package or the note.”

He rose and dropped the newest note into his pocket, knowing he had to speak about another issue. “I want you to know I went for the Kitzmiller interview.”

“That’s where you were?”

“You told me to do what I was led to do, right?”

Jane nodded, but he saw the sadness in her face.

How could he make her understand he had to do this for her? It was his sacrifice.

“H
appy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.”

Kyle and his parents circled Jane as Ruth held the candle-lit birthday cake. The woman had overwhelmed Jane with the special birthday dinner and now the cake.

Kyle grinned at her, his wounded arm resting on a bookshelf. “Make a wish, Jane.”

Here first thought was the stalker. “You all know my wish. It’s not a secret.” But Kyle’s handsome face rose in her vision, and her heart two-stepped. She smiled. “But I have another one I can make.” She closed her eyes and blew out the thirty candles.

Kyle chuckled. “Takes a lot of air to blow out thirty of those babies.”

Ruth held the cake in one hand and swatted at him with the other. “Now, you leave this poor girl alone. We all wish we were only thirty.”

Kyle winked and brushed Jane’s cheek with a kiss.

Ruth sliced the cake and poured coffee, and when the dessert was eaten, Paul rose and cleared his throat.

His expression caused fear to skitter down Jane’s
back, stopping her in midconversation. Her smile faded.

“I hate to ruin the celebration, but this morning, I believe I figured out the numbers on the paper with the cement block.”

Kyle brushed Jane’s arm. “I showed Dad the note when I got it home.”

A weakness washed over her, and from Kyle’s look, she knew her face had paled. She clutched her hands into a knot on the lace tablecloth and waited.

“What caught my eye after I studied it was the colon between the numbers,” Paul said.

Jane scowled. “Colon?”

“I missed that,” Kyle said.

Paul continued. “A pastor immediately sees a scripture reading. When I opened the Bible, I decided the first number five had to be a book. Either Deuteronomy or Acts. So I looked at the Old Testament first. Deuteronomy 5:9. I didn’t need to look further.”

“What is it, Dad?” Kyle asked before Jane could.

Paul lifted the Bible from the buffet and turned to the page. “‘I am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers.”’ He looked at Jane. “It’s someone from your past, Jane. Someone who knew your father. I have that feeling.”

Jane felt nailed to the chair. Icy blood ran through her body. “But…I—I just don’t get it. Who would punish me for the sins of my father?” She leaned toward Paul. “You told me my dad was a good cop. For years, I thought he’d been mixed up in the rackets, but you convinced me he wasn’t.”

“Remember, the newspaper accounts indicated otherwise,” Paul reminded her. “That was part of the
cover-up. Other than the police department, I was one of the only people who knew the true story.”

“So this might be a…what?” Kyle asked. “A relative or friend of someone looking for revenge?” The cement block crashed into his thoughts. Revenge? What did it mean?

Paul pinched his bottom lip. “A child of someone, someone seeking revenge for a parent. Maybe, someone prosecuted during the big scandal. I don’t know.”

Kyle nodded. “It makes sense, Dad.”

Jane stared into space, trying to piece together the puzzle. “I guess it makes sense. Someone’s trying to make me suffer like they’ve suffered over the years.”

“I think so,” Paul agreed. “Something like that.”

Jane shook her head. “But who?”

When she arrived home from work the next day, her mind plowed through the situation as she ate dinner. Malik seemed off her list of suspects. And now she had somewhere to focus her thinking, on the “sins of her father.” Fear ran through her again as she struggled to swallow her food.

After dinner, she dragged out the last two diaries. She pored through one, then grasped the final book. She opened it, tossing the key on the table, and leaned back. “January 1. Happy New Year. I graduate this year and then off to college.” She scanned the page and turned to the next. On and on. She’d grown less naive in her comments, but so much seemed routine, day-to-day activities. Little else.

As her eyes grew heavy, Jane squinted at the blurring words, and she started to close the book. But a reference to her father jumped from the page, and she stopped herself.

As she read, memories returned. The diary recalled threats to her family that occurred late in her senior year. As far as she could calculate, the time and situation coordinated with the crime that Kyle’s father told her about.

If she and her mother had been threatened at that time, could these threats be related? She read the pages again, skimming on until she read no more references to the situation. But she faltered, stumbling over the entry for the day her father was killed. Those horrible months arched and struck like a cobra in her memory.

When Kyle arrived, she handed him the diary. The tiny journal looked small in his large hand as he tucked it in his pocket. She sighed. “Maybe you can make some sense out of it.”

Kyle wondered, and his heart stirred. Fear had lived in her eyes since the cider mill incident, the day they realized the stalker events weren’t coincidental.

“Come here,” he said, taking her in his arms. “First, I’ll talk to Dad, then I’ll look back in the files on that case, too. If we can find one connection from that time to now, it’s a beginning.”

“Beginning of the end,” she said. “I can’t bear much more.”

“I know, and you deserve better.”

She deserved more than he could say, and his heart filled with a mixture of relief and sadness, knowing he could give her better. “I want to accept the administrative position Kitzmiller offered me.”

He tried to read her eyes, but whether he saw relief or sadness in her face, he wasn’t sure.

“No, you can’t.”

Her words shocked him.

“I know you’re doing it for me,” she said, “but I
don’t know how I can let you. You love your work. Someday you may resent it. It would come between us.”

Nothing could ever come between them, his reason said, but his heart thundered with her comment. “I love you too much to lose you. I prayed, and I can do it.

He shifted and grasped her by the shoulders. “You know, Jane, changing jobs will make my folks happy, too. You’ve heard them. The Bible says to honor parents, and I went against my dad’s wishes for my own needs. Maybe it’s time to do some sacrificing for the people I love.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, and her lips eagerly joined his. In that moment, Kyle tasted the joy of sacrifice for the woman he’d grown to love so deeply.

When they drew apart, Jane raised her eyes to his, and he witnessed a sacrifice of her own.

“Please, don’t make any rash decisions right now,” she pleaded. “Let’s wait until this terrible situation is over. Please. In a couple of days you’re returning to work, and I feel safe knowing you’re there. Once this is settled, then we can talk. I’ll think more clearly then. Please wait a little. For me.”

He didn’t understand. For so long, she’d been vehement about his work. Yet today her eyes begged him, and he knew she meant what she said.

“I’ll wait, Jane. But I have to give Kitzmiller an answer soon. I can’t hold off too long.”

“Just a little while. We’re making some headway. Just until this terror is over, and then we can talk.”

Jane stared out the living room window as the snow fell in heavy flakes. Her trembling hand rested on the telephone and she wondered what to do. Three times
the phone had rung, and when she answered, no one spoke.

Now that Kyle was back to work, she’d felt more at peace. He promised to follow any lead he could find. He’d gone over the story with his dad and scavenged the files. Tonight he said he’d stop by if he had time. Yet if the bad weather kept up, she knew that would be impossible. Too many motorist problems.

When the telephone rang again, she jumped. I won’t answer. But after the fourth ring, she thought of Kyle, and hesitantly picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

An open line, but silence. Dead silence.

She slammed the receiver back on the cradle and went to the kitchen. Cocoa was soothing, and she needed something to calm her. Jane mixed hot water with instant chocolate in a thick mug, then returned to the living room and snapped on the television.

An alert ran along the bottom of the screen warning motorists of unsafe driving conditions. No question she wouldn’t hear from Kyle tonight. She grabbed up a magazine, and with one eye on the TV, scanned the glossy pages.

With the winter sun hidden by heavy cloud cover, darkness had fallen around five o’clock. Jane faced a long, lonely evening. Friday night without Kyle dragged. She should have called Celia or maybe Betsy.

Thinking of Celia, she recalled that her friend had been quiet the past couple of days. But that was Celia’s way—unless the news was exciting. She kept troubles to herself. Rather than think of her own worries, Jane let her mind wander through Celia’s situation.

But when a thud sounded against the house, her heart rose in her throat. She ran to the front window and
flashed on the porch light. Nothing. No car in the drive. She dashed on wobbling legs to the kitchen and checked the back door lock, then headed for the side window. Nothing but darkness.

Another noise came from the side of the house. Icy chills rose in prickles on her skin. She rushed to the light switch and snapped it off, then peered out the back window.

She needed a strategy. Sliding her hand up the wall, Jane snapped on the porch light. A fleeting shadow fell across the white snow, then vanished. Her heart thudded, and a wave of dizziness reeled through her. She clutched the doorframe as something slithered over her ankles.

She jumped, then realized it had been Wilcox. Keep calm. You’re being silly. Following the shadow’s direction, Jane moved from window to window and peered at the snow. In the dim light, footprints appeared below the dining room sill. Large prints: a man’s. She crept along the wall and through the archway to the foyer.

Before returning to the living room, she flipped off the light. The telephone rang. Quaking, terror clutched her as she gaped at the telephone in the light of the television. Two rings. Three rings. She grasped the receiver.

“Hello.” Her voice was a whisper.

“What’s wrong, Jane?”

Her hand gripped the receiver. “Someone’s hanging around outside, Kyle. And I’ve been getting calls, but no one talks. I’m scared to death.” An intake of breath came through the line.

“Don’t panic, Jane. The telephone company’s reported tons of line problems tonight with the heavy
snow. Maybe it’s a lineman checking your pole out back.”

“Maybe, but footprints are under the dining room window.”

A lengthy pause hung on the line. “The lineman might be checking the connection to the house. Hang on, and I’ll get a car over there to check for a prowler.”

She breathed deeply, comforted that Kyle was taking action. “I wish you were—”

“As soon as I’m done, I’ll be there,” he said as if anticipating her sentence. “We’re really busy tonight.”

Disappointment mingled with fear. She couldn’t expect him to walk off his job for her foolish panic.

“I’ve been trying to check the files, and Dad promised to see if he can recall anything else. Howard Hirschmann was the informer. That’s all Dad could add.”

“Hirschmann? That sounds familiar.” She pushed her thoughts back in time. “I’ll be okay, Kyle. I’m jumpy, that’s all.”

“Anything happening right now?”

“No calls for a while, except yours. And it’s been quiet outside for a few minutes.”

“Keep the doors locked, and don’t open them for anyone. I’ll check with you later. I love you.”

“Thanks. And I love you.”

“And, Jane…say your prayers.”

When she hung up, Kyle’s words struck her. Once again, she tried to bear the burden on her own. In the flickering TV light, Jane bowed her head. God had been more than good to her. He’d given her Kyle and his loving family. Certainly the Lord would grant her safety.

Kyle’s willingness to leave his career settled in her
mind. Though her mind wanted it to happen, her heart said “no.” How could she love Kyle and ask him to give up his profession? She couldn’t. She had to have faith.

She saw again the stained-glass windows of Redmond Community Church and the outstretched hands of Christ, saying, “Come unto me ye who are weary and heavy laden.” If anyone could protect Kyle…and her, it was God’s loving hands.

The telephone’s ring ripped through the air. Jane’s body reeled with the sound. She closed her eyes, lifted the receiver and managed a “hello.”

“Jane, this is Len.”

Like a gift, relief rolled through her.

“Celia suggested we pick you up and bring you over here to spend the evening.”

Jane smiled. Celia did seem to have a sixth sense. “I’ve been jumpy, Len. Telephone problems, I think. But the weather’s too bad to come out. I’ll be fine.”

“Just a minute, Jane.”

She heard a rustling sound and muffled voices. “Sorry. Celia’s bellowing from the bedroom. She won’t take no for an answer. Get ready and we’ll be there shortly. It’ll be more fun than sitting alone.”

Though she hated to ask them to go out in the winter storm, Jane longed for company. “Are you sure?”

He chuckled. “Positive. You know Celia. She won’t have it any other way.”

“Okay, I’ll be ready.”

When she hung up, relief settled over her. She grabbed the telephone to let Kyle know where she’d be and then gathered her coat and handbag and waited until Len’s car lights reflected through the window. Though the old adage “two’s company, three’s a
crowd” marched through her thoughts, tonight “three” sounded wonderful.

Kyle relaxed after Jane called. He’d been out in the snowstorm most of the afternoon, and as he wrote up his reports, he knew now she’d be entertained until he could pick her up later on the way home.

He checked the time, deciding she’d be at Celia’s by now and dialed her cell phone, but it rang with no answer. Kyle frowned. Why had she turned it off?

Instead, he opened his wallet and pulled out Celia’s telephone number. She answered in two rings.

“Celia, this is Kyle. Can I talk to Jane?”

Dead silence weighted the phone line.

“Celia?” Kyle’s heart skipped a beat.