Faultlines (28 page)

“It’s all right,” Libby said. She took another slow step, darting a glance at Jordan, who nodded. His self-control was astonishing; she was grateful for it.

“Those ambulance guys,” Jordan said, and Libby took another step, “the paramedics, they got me back. You’d left by then, by the time they came.”

“Yeah. I had to. Cops were on my ass that night. I’d been doing some stuff—I mean, I was on my own fucking land, up at my grandparents’ house, but there’s a warrant out—I couldn’t stick around, you know.”

“Well, I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you, so, it’s like I owe you. Owe you big-time.”

Libby had come even with Jordy and slipped behind him so that she was between him and the front door. She looked at Ricky, but he didn’t seem aware of her anymore.

His focus was on Jordan. “You sure you aren’t dead? I’m really seeing you?”

“Yeah. I mean, it was bad for a while, but I got better.”

“What about your buddy?”

“He died, man. Not there, but later in Austin, at the hospital.”

“Christ. I’m real sorry.”

Libby stepped from behind Jordan, going for the bedroom and the shotgun. She was afraid to leave Jordan in the cottage alone even for the minute or two it might take to get her phone. Ricky might appear oblivious, but she couldn’t count on that or anything. He was too unstable. Like an armed grenade. The slightest vibration, one wrong word, might set him off.

“I guess you don’t want to tell the cops what you saw that night.” Jordan was making conversation.

As a cover for her, Libby thought.

Jordan said, “You know, the cops think I was driving, right? They’re getting me for manslaughter. I could get thirty years. You could tell them what you saw; they’d let me off.”

Ricky said he’d like to help. “But there’s that warrant—”

“Ricky?”

He looked at Libby in the doorway, and when he realized she was holding a shotgun, he put up his hands and smiled, a rueful, one-cornered smile. “Now I know I’m dreaming.”

The way he said it was so charming, Libby almost laughed; she was that fooled. She wasn’t prepared when he put his head down and charged at Jordan, knocking him down.

Stumbling, Ricky yanked at the front door, kicking out at Jordan when he got to his knees. Jordan grabbed his foot, bringing Ricky down beside him. The men tumbled, a grunting mass of gyrating limbs.

Libby watched breathless, light-headed. She couldn’t shoot for fear of injuring Jordan; she couldn’t get through the door to her phone. She passed precious seconds in a kind of jerky, slow-motion haze of panic and uncertainty, and then the disturbance was over.

Ricky got free. Jordan had him, and then he didn’t, and seizing the moment, Ricky was gone through the door. Jordan went out, too, Libby on his heels. She was in time to see Ricky vault the picket fence and head east into the cedar thicket. He was soon lost to view.

“Going to his grandparents’ house, I bet.” Libby set down the shotgun.

Jordan stood looking into Ricky’s wake, hands on his hips, panting. “I had him, and then he went limp, like he was all out of fight.”

“We need to call the police. They’ll get him.”

Jordan took out his phone; he talked to the 911 dispatcher, and when he hung up, he said, “We’re keeping those people hopping today.”

Libby sat down in a porch chair and dropped her head into her hands, taking a moment.

She felt Jordan’s hand on her shoulder and looked up at him. “You were very coolheaded in there,” she said.

“It was you,” he said. “I was just following what you did.” He sat in the chair beside her.

“It’s not going to do him any good.”

Jordan looked at her.

“Running,” she said.

“I thought about it.” He scooped something off the porch floor and tossed it.

“You’re still here.”

“Got no wheels. No way really to get anywhere. I could hitch, but where to?”

They looked out, over the porch rail. Libby waited to hear a siren, but maybe since Jordan had told them no one was hurt, the police officer who came wouldn’t use it.

“Besides,” Jordan said, “you can’t run from yourself, you know? It’s like my grandma says: ‘Everywhere you go, there you are.’”

18

I
’m so afraid I’ll forget things about him. The sound of his voice, the way he laughed . . . ”

“You won’t,” Sandy said. She reached over, cupping her palm over the knot of Jenna’s hands in her lap. They were parked in the driveway outside Sandy’s house, still sitting in the truck. “Trav’s memory, his essence, will always be with you. Even if his physical characteristics, those tangible things, dissolve, still, you’ll have your love for him.” She looked at Jenna, the sharp outline of her profile, and she thought how stupidly inadequate her words were, any words in the face of such loss—they were like vapor. Even the breath used to utter them was worthless.

“I can’t cry,” Jenna said. “Earlier, that was really the first time.”

“It’s all right,” Sandy said. “There’s no rule book.”

“Don’t say I’ll get through it, because I might not.” Jenna turned to Sandy now, locking her gaze.

“You only have to be here this minute, okay?”

Jenna shifted her glance, looking out the windshield. “Thank God Jordy made it.”

Sandy went still.

“I mean it,” Jenna said. “I didn’t want to believe Trav would do something so stupid as to drive a car drunk.”

What mother would want to believe it? Sandy couldn’t be sure that in Jenna’s shoes she wouldn’t have put herself into the same state of denial.

“I’m sorry.” Jenna squeezed Sandy’s hand, and she looked over at her, seeing her through a prism of tears, the tiny faultlines of their shared love and sorrow.

Emmett came to the house. Sandy had called him before leaving Jenna’s—she’d called Emmett, not Roger, but Jordy’s dad. She had needed Emmett, and the fact that Roger didn’t even come into her mind until later wasn’t lost on her. She was taken aback by it when Emmett knocked on his own back door. She opened the screen, and she was so grateful for his hug. The comfort of his presence, his smell, the familiar and sorely missed shelter of his arms. He hugged Jenna, too, and watching them, Sandy felt the smallest flicker of hope that there might be a way to mend all the damage, to begin again, to make something new.

Her phone rang, and her heart bumped when she saw Roger’s name on the ID screen. She walked into the mudroom. “Roger?” she said, greeting him, and she was cautious, tentative. “I guess you’ve heard about Huck?”

He said he had and asked if she and Jordy were all right. “What a hell of a thing,” he said.

She said yes, that it was, and then in a rush, she said, “About the other night. I’m so sorry for how I behaved—”

“No,” he said. “It’s all right. You were entitled, given all you’ve been through.”

“Thank you for that, but I don’t want you to think—I never meant to lead you on—”

Roger said, “No,” again. He said, “I think you’re the only one who might be confused about where your heart belongs.”

Her throat tightened. “You are a lovely man,” she said.

He laughed and as quickly sobered. He said he and Patrol Sergeant Ken Carter needed to meet with Jordy. “There have been some developments,” he said, and he told her that Ricky Burrows had been apprehended, and how.

Libby brought Jordy home. Sandy and Emmett waited for him in the driveway. She threw her arms around him first, hugging him fiercely, and when she stepped away, Emmett did the same.

“You’ve had a hell of a day, kid,” he said, holding Jordy at arm’s length, checking him over.

“Not a dull moment,” Jordy said, and Sandy smiled. His humor was balm.

She leaned into the truck cab. “You’re really all right?”

“Yes, thanks,” Libby said. “You heard Ricky was caught?”

Sandy said she had. “Up at the old farmhouse.”

“One of the officers who was there when they arrested Ricky came by the cottage after and said Ricky was still pretty shaken up. He kept talking about seeing a ghost.”

Sandy laughed; it was funny in a gruesome way, Ricky’s mistaken belief that Jordy had risen from the grave. But as Jordy had said, it might well have saved their lives. Sandy asked if Libby wanted to come in, but she said no.

“I’m on my way into town to stay the night with Ruth Crandall,” she said.

“I’m glad,” Sandy said, and she was. She didn’t want to think of Libby out on her place alone. Not after everything that had happened. “I’m so grateful to you,” she said, and it was hard, working the words past the knot in her throat.

Libby’s gesture was dismissive, but Sandy sensed she felt it, too, that an odd sort of bond had formed between them, one that stretched across old bitterness and haunting regret, one that would exist somehow, perhaps stubbornly, in spite of their history. “Jordan told me there was news regarding his case. He didn’t know what it was.”

“None of us do, yet,” Sandy said.

“Well, I hope it’s good.”

“Me, too,” Sandy said. “We’ll let you know.”

“I’d like that,” Libby said.

Sandy was following Emmett and Jordy into the house, where Jenna waited in the great room, when Roger pulled into the driveway. Ken Carter was behind him in his patrol car. Sandy felt panicked at the sight of them. She exchanged a worried glance with Emmett and then looked at Jordy. The color had drained from his face, and the scars that lanced the right side of his brow stood out, vivid and red, brutal reminders of how tenuous life can be. She looped her arm around his waist.

They sat in the great room—Roger and Jordy on the sofa, Jenna and Emmett in the armchairs on either side of the fireplace, and Sandy on the matching ottoman. Only Sergeant Carter remained standing.

He said, “You’ve heard we’ve got Ricky Burrows in custody—”

“Look”—Jordy sat forward, interrupting—“I know the guy is whacked, but he saw the Range Rover right before the accident happened. He knows—”

“You don’t need Burrows anymore.” Roger put a hand on Jordy’s arm.

“What do you mean?” Jordy and Sandy asked together.

She was aware of Jenna and Emmett behind her; she would have sworn that, like her, neither of them was breathing.

“The night of the accident, like Sergeant Huckabee, I was on patrol in the vicinity of CR 440 and FM 1620,” Carter said. “I was actually looking for Burrows. I’d followed him from the Little B. I knew he was up to no good—but that’s another story. Anyway, I was right behind Huck, maybe five minutes later to the scene. I know why he got the idea you were driving, son.” Carter looked at Jordy. “But I had a feeling about it, that he wasn’t right.”

“He wanted it to be me—see, because I—” Jordy looked at Sandy, eyes pleading with her. He knew that she knew about Coleta. Libby must have confessed to telling her, Sandy thought.

She said, “I think everyone here knows about Coleta now, Jordy. Well, maybe not Sergeant Carter.”

“You told—?”

“It had to come out, Jordy,” Emmett answered, and Sandy was grateful.

“It was in the letter Huck wrote.” Sergeant Carter shoved his hand over his head, uncomfortable.

“We heard he’d left a note,” Sandy said. “It’s true?”

“It wasn’t a suicide note, exactly. It was a letter of resignation,” Sergeant Carter answered. “He said he was leaving town, but he didn’t say how. Although he did say he was tired, that he felt like he wasn’t up for the job anymore. He talked about John, about missing him. He blamed himself for how John was killed. That sort of thing. It kind of rambled.”

“I didn’t realize he was still carrying so much guilt,” Jenna said quietly. “I didn’t know about his feelings—he never said—”

Sandy patted her knee. “He took John’s death hard. Probably harder than he let on.”

“I know how that feels,” Jordy said.

“What will happen to Coleta and Heidi?” Jenna asked, addressing the sergeant. “Do you know?”

“Preliminary word is she’ll get her green card. Something about the death of a sponsor. It speeds up the process?” He shook his head. “Weird as that sounds, and I could be wrong.”

The silence felt tense and confused, tangled with an assortment of emotions no one could really name.

The sergeant socked his fist into the palm of his other hand.

Emmett said, “You were saying Huck’s idea about the accident wasn’t right, in your opinion.”

Carter looked relieved. “Yeah, so, without getting too technical, when a car spins, the people in it tend to go in the opposite direction of the spin. The Range Rover rotated in a clockwise direction, which is why Travis went out the driver’s-side window and why you landed in the driver’s seat.”

“Yeah, and somehow, I got out. I had to help Trav.”

“Adrenaline,” Emmett muttered.

“Yeah. But here’s the other thing about a crash—when the car collides with an immovable object like a tree, the folks inside tend to recoil, especially their heads. Those cuts you sustained on the right side of your face? That happened when your head collided with the passenger-side window hard enough to shatter the glass.”

Sandy felt the hair rise on her neck, her arms. She cupped her elbows.

“When I examined the car, I collected tissue I found on that window. I just had a feeling, and I sent it to the lab to find out who it belonged to, you know, to determine whose DNA it was, because I knew that would tell us for sure who was riding in that passenger seat. We got the results this morning.”

“It was mine?”

“Yep, son, it was.”

“Oh my God.” Sandy felt light-headed.

Jordy’s fingers went to the divot at his hairline. He stood up.

Roger did, too. He laid his arm across Jordy’s shoulders. “You’re one lucky guy, you know that? I’m not trying to diminish what you’ve been through. But that was one hell of a hit you took. You’re damn lucky you survived.”

Jordy looked at Jenna. They all did. Sandy’s breath paused, seeming to wait.

Jenna left her armchair and crossed the floor to Jordy, and when she was right in front of him, she reached up and cupped his cheek. Tears filmed her eyes.

Sandy brought her tented fingertips to her mouth.

Jordy covered Jenna’s hand with his own. “I’m so sorry,” he said, and his voice was rough. “It should have been me.”

“No, Jordy.” Jenna’s tears slid down her cheeks, and she swiped at them almost angrily, then laughed, a small, broken sound. “He would have said the same, you know? If you had died, he would have wished it was him.” She looked at Jordy. “You two,” she said. “You were like the other half of each other, you know?”

A noise broke from Jordy, as if what Jenna had said, coupled with all they had lost, was too heavy to bear. Sandy and Emmett went to him, and together with Jenna, they held him, their boy who was left.