By Your Side (29 page)

At nearly midnight. Because the thought of her driving there alone made him crazy with worry. And because it had been one more chance to
 
—

“We had such a great time, Fletcher. Running down that beach, watching the stars, laughing at your stupid jokes . . .”

It hadn’t been that way at all. Not even close. Jessica had been desperately sad then, scattered, fragile
 
—riding a self-destructive roller coaster that threatened her life. Fletcher was the only constant, the one person she trusted. He’d done everything he could to keep her safe, and accomplished it. The same summer he’d rescued a child from a storm-damaged house. But now, when it was his own mother who needed help, he couldn’t make it happen.

Why, Lord? Where are you?

“It was July, I think. Sweltering, anyway.” Her voice sounded wistful. “The air was so thick you could spoon it up. It smelled like pink popcorn . . . and a bucket of those fat, grilled Gulf shrimp. Except that they’d already closed the restaurants.” She sighed with obvious regret. “And we missed the live music up on Pleasure Pier. My bad timing, of course. But it was still so great having the whole beach to ourselves . . .”

Fletcher closed his eyes, letting the soft-taffy pull of Jessica’s voice transport him across the miles.
Home . . .

“Do you remember that time, Fletcher?”

“Kind of.” He turned his collar up against the frigid Sierra breeze. “Feels like a long time ago.”

“And it sounds like I’m keeping you from something important. Sorry.” A distant siren replaced the drone of cicadas. “I just needed to hear your voice, that’s all. My break’s almost over, so I should
 
—”

“Wait.” Fletcher’s fingers tightened on the phone like it was a last vestige of hope. “How much time’s left on your break?”

“I don’t know. Three or four minutes maybe.”

“Good.” He released the breath he’d been holding. “Remind me of that time in Galveston. And anything else you can think of. Just keep talking, Jessica. I need to hear your voice too.”

The Buick was parked not twenty feet below him. In the garage, directly beneath where he lay now
 
—on his belly on the floor of the master bedroom. An empty, echoing space, cold and dark. As black as the unseeing eyes of his first deer kill. It was his father’s bedroom. And being here felt good . . . right. Especially tonight. This last night.

He propped himself up on one elbow, ran a palm over the familiar gold shag carpet. It smelled like his father’s cigarettes. Lucky Strikes. And like dog
 
—there had always been a dog sleeping at the foot of his father’s bed. But the last dog was gone. And so was his father, three weeks tomorrow. It was for the best. He’d never belonged in that nursing home. Never would have wanted to see it all come to this.

He reached for the old, tasseled couch pillow he’d snagged from the Buick, comforted by its lingering scents of gasoline and gun oil. He thought of the last time he’d seen his father’s face, the only time he’d ever been glad not to find recognition there. He folded the couch pillow to his chest, closed his eyes. The bed pillows at the nursing home stank the way those places always did: adult diapers, soured Ensure . . . and hopelessness. Even a flea-infested jackrabbit deserved better than that. His father should never have gone there.

He crawled across the carpet, raised himself just high enough to peer over the windowsill and across the driveway to the neighbor’s roof. He knew it like the back of his hand; he’d nailed every one of those shingles in place himself fifteen years back, when he was between jobs. And he’d plinked a few BB gun shots off that same roof maybe twelve years before that. He smiled, enjoying the thought.

Then he crawled back across the carpet, bunched the couch pillow under his head. Tomorrow it would finally be over.

“I
T’S A LITTLE RED,”
Macy told Taylor, shifting the phone as she leaned down to lift the Band-Aid away from her ankle. The tattoo was laser-zapped and gone as of two hours ago. “I probably shouldn’t have done the bike miles. My sock rubbed it. They said to expect some swelling.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Not too bad.” Macy sat back up. She’d forgotten the appointment until the reminder popped up on her phone this morning, then raced to the dermatologist’s office after only a few hours of fitful sleep. She’d been kept awake by a merciless flood of should-haves, regrets, and achy-sweet memories. Fletcher had never answered her texts. Or the pitiful “Call me?” voice mail she’d left around eleven o’clock last night.

“My ankle’s okay,” Macy added with a sigh. “I’ve had things that hurt a lot worse.”

“I hear you.” There was empathy in Taylor’s voice. “Did you get tired of people asking if you’d tattooed pinto beans on your leg?”

“Just . . . not a ballerina.” Pain jabbed that had nothing to do with the laser procedure. Nonni had been wrong about that, too.

“But you’re almost a homeowner.”

“Yes.” Macy glanced at the brass door set she’d polished during those sleepless hours. If the contractor agreed to install it, she wanted it shiny. “I’m meeting the Realtor there this afternoon. To take a thousand pictures.”

“I can’t wait to see them. You’re at work tomorrow, too, right?”

“Bright and early.”

“Good. I need to get to that dentist appointment, but we’ll talk in the morning. I . . .” Taylor seemed to hesitate. “I want to run something by you. A new life plan, I guess you’d call it.”

“Wow. Sure, I want to hear it. I’m all about making a new plan . . .” Macy stopped herself before she told the volunteer chaplain the rest of her thought:
Because it’s not like God’s working on one.
She wasn’t going to dump any of this on Taylor.

“Yes, ma’am,” Fletcher told the thirtysomething jogger who apparently managed
 
—determination over exhaustion, no doubt
 
—to do her daily run behind a stroller carrying chubby twins. “That’s a good, detailed description. And you’ve never seen this man before?”

“Never.” She peered down the quiet, tree-lined street, well outside what the FBI believed was the target area. “And that’s what made me suspicious,” she explained. “Even if it wasn’t that car they showed in the
Bee
.”

Not even close. Fletcher would make a sizable bet the shooter would be smarter than to trade the nondescript Buick for a pumpkin-orange muscle car. Or even to risk being seen in daylight since the police sketch went national. There had been no reliable sightings since the night Fletcher followed the Buick off Macy’s street. The shooter either had successfully fled the area or was lying low somewhere.

“I didn’t like the way he was sort of checking out the neighborhood,” the jogger finished, jostling the stroller as one of her twins began to fuss. “And there are still a few foreclosures in here. One of them has been vacant for at least a year; the bank sees to it that the front lawn’s reasonably kept up, but who knows what’s going on inside? It’s not even on the market right now. Someone could easily hide in there. You know?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Between the Feds and local law enforcement, it had probably been checked off the list of vacant homes already. “If you know the address, I’ll drive by there right now. Give it a look. And I’ll pass on the information about the suspicious car to the deputies who work this area.”

“Thank you.” A flicker of anxiety crossed her face. “That bank manager, she was only two years older than I am. I don’t know how my husband would cope if he had to manage the boys without me, and . . . I just want this whole thing to be over with.”

“Keeping citizens safe is our top priority,” he told her,
reminding himself that it was why he’d chosen law enforcement. For the chance to keep that promise.
Service with Concern
 
—it was painted right on his car.

Fletcher took down the address, then gave the young mother a card with the phone numbers for making reports. Then watched as she and her twin boys continued their jog through the neighborhood. His cell phone buzzed the instant he slid back into his patrol car.

“Bad time?” his mother asked.

“No. No problem.” Unless she’d been Macy. Fletcher almost called her after that voice message last night, but he still hadn’t figured out how to handle it. “What’s up?”

“Spaghetti,” she told him. “With Spanish olives and the last of that ground venison you brought us. And I wanted to be sure you’re not beating yourself up about the HLA test.”

“Maybe I should get a second opinion.”

“Maybe you should stop worrying and remember who’s in charge of this. Way bigger than both of us
 
—even with Texas factored in.”

“Ma . . .” Fletcher didn’t know what to say, how to say it. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that viatical brochure on his mother’s kitchen table. And the horrible truth hit him like a fist in the gut: maybe, in the end, that self-serving weasel, Rush, could offer his parents more peace than he could. “It’s hard not to be doing something about this myself. I came here to do something. Help you. Not stand by and watch.”

“I know. But that’s the thing about faith.” Her voice was as gentle as when she used to purse her lips and blow a kiss onto his skin scrapes. “You have to wait. Hang in there.”
There was the barest of chuckles. “Faith isn’t like a carton of milk. There’s no expiration date.”

“Right.” He frowned, scrolling through the updates on the car’s MDT computer.

“I forgot to ask when I invited you for dinner,” his mother added. “Are you seeing Macy tonight? She’s more than welcome to come for
 
—”

“No. Macy’s busy. I’ll be there for dinner. And . . .”

“And?”

“I talked to Jessica last night. I was thinking maybe I’d try to take a couple days off and fly home. See some friends, check on the house
 
—” He stopped short as dispatch voiced a pending prowler call. He scanned the text of the call on his MDT, put the patrol car in gear. “Gotta go. I’ve got a call. See you tonight.”

He keyed the mic and told the dispatcher, “94-Boy-1. I’ll take the 910 on Atwood. I’m about four away.”

“Copy, 94-Boy.”

Fletcher checked his mirrors and pulled away from the curb, stepped on the gas.

Possible prowler at a vacant house. Reported by a neighbor. He’d check it out. It would probably amount to nothing. But it wasn’t a pumpkin-orange muscle car, and it was within the shooter’s target area.

Macy balanced on the porch rail and stretched up precariously
 
—Band-Aid pulling against the laser blister
 
—to get her phone close enough to snap a photo of the nest. She smiled as another round of insistent and hungry peeps rose.
A nest and baby birds. Tucked, somehow, into the porch overhang, only a few feet above the door of . . .
our house. Our nest.
Goose bumps rose. She couldn’t wait to show Leah. What could be a better sign of good luck than
 
—?

“Swallows,” the perspiring middle-aged man told Macy, appearing at the edge of the porch.

“Oh, hi.” Macy rebalanced her footing and peered down at him. He’d been working in the yard next door, watching covertly as she waited for the Realtor. “It’s a swallow nest up there?”

“That’s right. Here.” He raised his metal rake and stepped closer, rubber thong sandals slapping. “Use the handle to knock it down. Couple of good pokes should do it.”

She stared at him. “There are babies in that nest. Can’t you hear them?”

“Junk birds
 
—you don’t want to let them get a foothold. They always latch on right over the door.” He gave her a cursory once-over as she climbed down from the rail, brushed at her blouse. “You showing the place?”

“Meeting the Realtor.” Macy decided against telling him more. She worked during the day. Hopefully she’d rarely see this obnoxious neighbor.

A siren sounded in the distance, and the baby birds began another round of hopeful cheeps.

“Folks will tell you all kinds of things about how to discourage ’em,” the man continued, frowning at the nest. “Paint the overhang blue, squirt shaving cream up there, hang plastic owls, install those wire spikes . . .” He seemed to enjoy her grimace. “Doesn’t work. They’re stubborn little cusses. Knock them down when you first see them and then
keep at it. That’s the only way they’ll get that they don’t belong there. Trust me.” He shrugged, glanced toward his house. “Well, I’d better get back to work.”

Macy watched as he ambled back to his yard. If she’d had some decent sleep, she wouldn’t let this guy get under her skin.
“Junk birds . . . stubborn little cusses . . . don’t belong there . . .”
If that man thought these little birds were stubborn, wait until he met his new neighbors. Maybe she’d ask the Realtor if the contractor could install wire spikes to keep
him
from being a nuisance.

She chuckled aloud, then glanced at the time display on her cell phone. If the Realtor ever got here, that is. Fifteen minutes late now. She’d left a voice mail, but he hadn’t called back. No one was returning calls, it seemed. Only a short all-okay text from Leah after her doctor’s appointment today; they’d had a cancellation and squeezed her in early. There were no return messages from Elliot . . . or Fletcher. Still no word from Fletcher.

Stop it. I’m moving forward.

Macy stooped down to pick up the brass door set and crossed to the red-lacquered door. She eyed the cheap, temporary latch the bank had installed after the previous owner removed the original. Doubt crept in
 
—would Nonni’s set fit this door? Were these measurements standard? She had no clue. Her learning curve as a homeowner was going to be as steep as the face of El Capitan.

“Macy.”

She turned, dropping a screw from the door set.

“Elliot. You scared me.”

Two blocks from the address of the prowler call, Fletcher’s radio squawked with an update. “94-Boy-1, be advised: Neighbor reports possible smoke from windows at the Atwood Court address. Fire has been dispatched. Unknown if suspect is still on scene.”

“94-Boy. Copy. Be there in two.” Fletcher slid the lever for the siren and lights. “I’ll be going code.”

Arson?