A Scarlet Cord (23 page)

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Erika told her, reaching across the
vehicle’s console to pat Melanie’s knee. “It was a good idea to make some fun plans for today.”

“Well, I didn’t want to sit home and mope. I’ve had about all the moping I can stand.”

Erika offered a sympathetic smile and, thankfully, changed the subject. By the time they arrived at the zoo, they were excitedly discussing ideas for redecorating the sunroom off Jerry and Erika’s kitchen. They parked the car and unloaded the wagon they’d brought for the girls to ride in when they tired of walking. Melanie loaded sweatshirts and a cooler full of snacks and drinks into the wagon, and the four of them headed down the trail to the children’s zoo.

Jerica and Ami pranced from exhibit to exhibit, leaving Melanie and Erika breathless trying to keep up. The little girls squealed with delight as noisy lorikeets flew to them and perched on the edge of the cups of nectar they bought. Melanie had forgotten what fun it was to see the zoo through the eyes of a child. They meandered through Discovery Corner and the River’s Edge exhibit, saving Jerica’s favorite—the otter exhibit in the children’s zoo—for last. The girls ran to watch the playful creatures through the Plexiglas display window, then hurried to get in line for the clear tube slides that allowed them to feel as if they were swimming with the otters.

The sun grew warm as it climbed the blue ladder of sky, and when the girls finally tired of the slides, Melanie and Erika found a spot in the shade on a bench near the edge of the walkway where a forest of water geysers spouted randomly from the ground. The women watched and laughed while the two girls danced and splashed in the cool spray.

The zoo was crowded on this first warm weekend of the year. Melanie leaned back on the bench and observed the other children and families who had come to enjoy a day at the zoo. She battled to keep her thoughts in check as everywhere she looked couples strolled
arm in arm, and fathers hoisted daughters onto their shoulders for piggyback rides. Perhaps the zoo hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She squeezed her eyes shut, grateful that the dark sunglasses she wore veiled the threatening tears.
Help me, Lord. Don’t let me ruin this day for everyone else. Help me to dwell on the blessings you’ve given me. Thank you that Jerica seems so happy. I have so much to be thankful for
. When she looked up a few minutes later, she felt better.

Until she saw him.

He stood not ten feet in front of them with his back to her, watching a group of rowdy boys. His arm was draped over the shoulder of a leggy blonde, but the familiar sway of his back, the way his hair curled into the collar of his shirt, were unmistakable. Melanie’s heart beat a tight staccato, and the blood pounded in her temples.
Oh no!
She could not risk letting Jerica see him.

She sat upright on the bench, and she must have gasped, because Erika turned to her with alarm on her face. “What is it, Mel? What’s wrong?” Erika followed her gaze to where the couple stood. Just then the young woman laughed, and the couple turned to face the bench where Melanie and Erika sat.

The man’s eyes held hers for a second, then in the absence of recognition, swept on to another stranger. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were a deep, burnished brown, and his face bore little resemblance to Joel Ellington’s—nor did his cheek bear Joel’s distinctive scar. Relief and disappointment flooded her in concert.

“It’s … nothing …” she told Erika, who was still watching her carefully. She shook her head and took a deep breath, entreating her heart to slow its pace. “I think I … fell asleep for a minute.” It wasn’t really a lie, was it? Perhaps it had been a wisp of a dream that caused her to conjure Joel from a complete stranger. It was understandable that on this day that was to have been her wedding day, Joel would be in her thoughts.

“I’m exhausted,” she told Erika now. “Are you about ready to call it a day?”

“Whenever you are, dear.” Erika began to gather up their things and load them back into the little wagon.

“Jerica … Ami.” Melanie hollered for the girls, giving the stranger one last longing glance as he and the woman strolled on down the path arm in arm.

The following Tuesday evening, the shrill ring of the phone split the air. By the time Melanie picked it up in her bedroom, Jerica had already answered in the kitchen. Answering the phone was a new privilege, and Melanie listened in to see how the little girl would handle the call.

“Hello, this is Jerica LaSalle speaking,” the little voice chirped.

“Well, hello there, Jerica LaSalle,” Jerry boomed on the other end, obviously amused by his granddaughter’s well-rehearsed spiel.

“Grampa!” she squealed.

“Can I talk to your mommy, please?”

Melanie moved her hand off the receiver. “I’m right here, Jerry. What’s up?”

“Hi, Mel.” His voice softened for a minute. “Jerica, can you hang up the phone please? I need to talk to your mom.”

The silent breathing continued on the other end. “Jerica, hang the phone up right now,” Melanie scolded.

They listened for the click on the extension, then Jerry’s voice became serious. “Melanie, I got a call from Don Steele this afternoon. There’s some bad news that might … well, it concerns Joel.”

Her heart stopped beating, and she tightened her grip on the phone. “What is it, Jerry? What’s happened? Have they found him?”

“No … Some money from the building fund is missing.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Just under fifteen thousand dollars is missing from the fund for the new addition. Darlene wrote a check to the contractors for
the down payment, and the church got an overdraft notice today. When they checked the account, they discovered that the money was missing.”

Slowly, the implication of what he was saying began to soak in. She was immediately defensive. “What? Jerry, what does that have to do with Joel?”

“I don’t think I have to tell you, Melanie. It looks like we’ve found Joel’s reason for disappearing.”

“What are you talking about? No. I don’t believe that!” Her voice rose a pitch, and her hands felt clammy on the receiver. “Joel would never do something like that, Jerry. No … I don’t believe it.”

“I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you, but the news will be out soon enough, and I wanted you to be ready for what people will be saying.”

“Is there any way they can prove it was Joel?” She tried to rouse that defensive spirit again, but in the space of a minute it had shriveled like an airless balloon.

“I don’t know, Melanie. I haven’t heard all the details yet, but it … Well, it does make sense. Joel was in charge of a lot of the fund-raising. He made some of those deposits—or at least that’s what he told Darlene. It looks like the cash deposits from several fund-raisers and donations never made it to the bank.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The correct deposits were all there on paper—on the church’s records—but when Darlene compared it with the bank’s balance, they discovered that some of those amounts weren’t included. That money never got deposited,” he repeated. “At least not in Cornerstone’s account.”

Melanie sank down to the bed, unable to speak.

“Mel, I’m sorry. I am truly sorry … but at least now you know. Now you don’t have to spend the rest of your life wondering what went wrong.”

“Jerry, I’ll … I’ll call you back. I can’t talk about this right now.” She hung up the phone and tried to cry, tried to feel a sense of relief that she finally had her answer, but the tears refused to come. Instead, she felt only a dull ache where her heart used to be.

All the papers carried the story the following weekend. It ran alongside a photo of Joel, cropped from their engagement picture. KMOV Channel 4 ran a tongue-in-cheek spot on the ten o’clock news that made Melanie sick to her stomach. The media apparently loved the idea of a mysterious disappearance, a jilted lover, a large sum of missing money, and of course, Joel’s close connection to the church’s building project.

Melanie lived the humiliation all over again. None of the stories accused Joel outright of the theft. The words
alleged
and
suspected
were carefully inserted in all the appropriate places, but Melanie knew there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Joel was guilty.

And in spite of the defenses that had come to her so readily when she’d first heard the news, in spite of the fact that she simply could not believe the man she loved was capable of such a thing, one nagging thought kept coming back to her: There didn’t seem to be any other explanation.

Twenty

Joel Ellington threw the newspaper down on the bed in disgust. “What are we going to do now?”

John Toliver leaned back against the low dresser in the shabby hotel room and eyed him thoughtfully. “
Do
you have the money?”

“You know I don’t.” Surely Toliver knew him better than that by now. The inspector had seen how frugal he’d been with the funds WITSEC had provided.

“Do you know who does have it?”

“I can’t imagine.” Joel paced the filthy, matted green carpet, his mind whirling at this turn of events. “Only three or four people have access to the church’s bank accounts, and I can’t imagine any one of them taking it. Unless they’ve hired someone new since I left … The bank only had one account. All the different funds were separate on paper only. The building-fund line item had been there for probably five or six years before I came to Silver Creek and it was never drawn on.”

“You mean the money could have been missing for a while and nobody discovered it until a check bounced?” Toliver scratched his chin.

“I suppose so. The donations could have been recorded, but the money just never got deposited.” He picked up the newspaper again
and skimmed the article. “But this makes it sound as though they can trace the missing money right to the time I left.”

Toliver actually smiled. “Apparently someone took advantage of your disappearance.”

Joel still couldn’t fathom who at Cornerstone was capable of such a thing. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his face. “I hate it. I hate this whole thing. No one is going to question this story, and I can’t even defend myself. And who could blame them? It … it seems logical that it was me—even to
me
.”

“And that’s why we’re not going to do one thing. We’re just going to be grateful for the alibi it gives you.”

“Alibi!” Joel wheeled to face Toliver. “What’s going to keep them from starting a manhunt for me?”

“I hate to break it to you, but in the whole scope of things, fifteen grand from the coffers of a small-town church isn’t going to be a high priority. From where I stand, the alibi is worth more than that.”

“I don’t need an alibi! I need justice.”

“For now, you’re going to have to settle for the alibi, Joe.”

Joel glared up at him. “Quit calling me Joe. Joe Bradford is dead.”

Toliver waved a hand in resignation, slid from his perch, and rose to his full height. “I’m gonna head out. I’ll be back in the morning. With any luck, by the end of the week we’ll have a permanent place nailed down.”

Silence.

“Joe … Joel … if this goes like it’s supposed to, it’ll all be over in a few months, and you can have your life back.”

“Which life?”

The inspector acknowledged Joel’s query with a grimace and a slight bow of his head. Then, jangling his keys in his pocket, he went to the door and let himself out.