Stranded Page 5

  He left his medical clearance on Chief Smyth’s desk, before calling Jessica to tell her he was on his way home. He was not going to fall into the old pattern of coming and going as he pleased, leaving her to guess when he’d show up. She asked him to stop by the store and that’s how he found himself peering into the freezer case of their local megamart. He needed something called Moonie Mocha Fudge Ripple. He was determined to find the exact ice cream Jessica had asked for as it was his first experience with the cravings of pregnancy and he didn’t want to blow it.

  Of course it was chocolate, what else would it be? He finally found the right one and bought two. Then he added a couple of jars of pickles and some anchovies to the order, hoping she’d find that funny, hoping it would ease some of the tension between them.

  He paused before going inside the house, determined that tonight he would be honest and clear with her. She deserved no less and, face it, unless he learned how to trust her, sooner or later she was going to walk away and not look back, and that thought was so terrible it made him ache.

  He suspected anyone who had lived through years of trying to have a baby didn’t take a moment of pregnancy for granted, never assumed everything would turn out right. The worry was always there. He could see it in Jessica’s eyes and he could feel it in his own heart.

  A minute later, he unlocked his front door and stopped short. A crowd had gathered in the room and they were all staring at him, all grinning. He was so flabbergasted to find his living room full of people that he couldn’t make sense of it. And then they yelled “Surprise!” at the same moment and the faces took identities—neighbors, fellow officers and friends from years before. Jessica approached and he handed her the grocery bag as the room instantly filled with music and noise.

  “You didn’t really need this stuff, did you?” he asked.

  “Not really. People were still arriving when you called so I gave you an errand. Are you surprised?”

  “I’m stunned,” he said truthfully.

  “I hope it’s okay,” she added, her brow furrowed a little. “Your family wanted to come but it was too far away for such short notice. They wanted me to tell you they’re coming to Blunt Falls right after Memorial Day.”

  “I know. My mother called me twice.”

  “You can’t blame her for being relieved you’re alive and well.”

  “I realize that. And everything here is perfect,” he assured her, anxious to chase away her worry. So what if he would have preferred a quiet evening alone with her? He leaned down and kissed her soft cheek and people applauded, of all things.

  “I like your haircut,” she added, then kissed his cheek and went to put away the ice cream.

  He was flattered by the attention and uneasy with it, too. He’d never craved the limelight nor did he relish repeating his survival story, but he did it anyway, kind of moving into a rote pattern as people asked the same questions over and over. Was he injured in the crash? Had he known search planes were looking for him? What did he eat? How did he survive the snow and freezing conditions? How did he finally manage to escape and make his way to civilization?

  And the hardest one of all: What was it like to be home?

  The part with Jessica? As well as could be expected leaning cautiously toward great. The part where he’d learned someone may have wanted him dead and might even try again? Not so good.

  As the evening wore on and people with younger kids returned to their own homes, Alex found himself in a group of his fellow officers, many of them in uniform as they had shifts to start soon or had just come off of one. Dylan suggested he and the other officers in attendance go outside and Alex wondered if his partner had noticed his discomfort indoors. He hoped not. He didn’t want Jessica to see it.

  “Before we go outside, I want you guys to look at a photo,” he said and they all followed him into his den where he produced the photograph of the man Struthers said might be involved in whatever mayhem was brewing. “I imagine the FBI will share all this with the department if they haven’t already, but just in case, I wanted to give you guys a head’s up.”

  “Smug-looking cuss,” Dylan said. “Who is he?”

  “I’ll explain in a minute. Let’s go outside, okay?” Alex said, and tucked the photo back into his desk drawer.

  The weather had deteriorated in the past few hours and the stars Alex so longed to see had been swallowed up by swirling ground fog that brought a sense of chilled dampness. Still, they settled gamely on the wicker furniture Jessica had somehow taken out of storage while he was gone that day. Obviously, she had not stayed inside with the alarm set or spent her time poring over her students’ math papers.

  Kit Anderson was the officer who was going to lose his chance at promotion now that Alex was back and he was the first one to speak. “So, I heard you went into work today to make sure you still had a job,” he said.

  Alex stared at the dark form of his fellow officer. The man’s deep voice was tinged with anger.... Maybe Dylan had underestimated how much a promotion meant to Kit.

  “What did you expect him to do?” Carla Herrera said.

  “I don’t know,” Kit grumbled.

  “Just be patient,” she added. “Your turn will come.”

  Alex studied his folded hands and took a deep breath. A cool breeze blew under the eaves, whisking away the smoke from Chief Smyth’s cigarette. The chief had arrived an hour ago with his very own newspaper reporter in tow. He’d posed for a couple of pictures with his arm around Alex’s shoulders, made a small speech about miracles and was now lingering long after the reporter had gone off to meet his deadline. The man was obviously lobbying for the job of chief to become his on a permanent basis. The glow from the end of a burning cigarette marked his location off to the side. The other officer present was a guy Alex just met. Hank Jones was a new hire and seemed to be on the quiet side.

  Alex felt some of the tension in his neck and shoulders ease as he settled against the wicker. They talked shop for a while and then Alex told them about the visit from the FBI. It was too dark to see expressions, but he could feel a watchful current ebb and flow as he spoke. “The bottom line is that we’re supposed to be cautious while they try to track this person. There’s concern he or she is close by. I’m not worried about myself so much, but I would greatly appreciate everyone keeping their eyes open. I don’t want Jessica scared or hurt and I can’t watch her 24/7.”

  “Of course we’ll help,” Carla Herrera said amid a chorus of assenting voices.

  “Thanks.”

  “So they really think your plane was rigged to crash?” Carla asked.

  “It looks like it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve thought about what happened and I can’t make it anybody’s fault. I just wasn’t myself that day. In fact, I’d thought for a while that I might have been getting whatever stomach bug Jessica said she had.” He laughed softly to himself. “Unless I’m the only pregnant man in the world, that obviously wasn’t the case.”

  “So do you remember every moment like it happened in slow motion?” Smyth asked.

  “Not really,” Alex admitted. “I hadn’t slept well the night before.” He’d been up arguing with Jess, but he didn’t add that part. “And then I got a late start. Well, you remember, Kit, you called me at the last minute for something. I honestly can’t remember what.”

  “Just an address,” Kit Anderson said. “I was taking over the Hannigan case while you were gone and I didn’t know where the guy’s girlfriend was staying.”

  “That’s right, now I remember,” Alex said. “Anyway, maybe Nate is right. Maybe I was so disorganized I missed something.”

  Again, that undercurrent of alarm stirred the air around them. Well, it was an alarming situation.

  “But why did anyone want the three of
you dead in the first place?” Kit asked.

  Dylan spoke up. “Because Mike Donovan had called them to go back to Shatterhorn and help him figure out if there was a conspiracy, which we all now know there was.” His voice sounded impatient as though this was old news which it was, at least for almost everyone but Alex. “Mike was killed for his trouble, Nate Matthews was wounded and the speculation is that Alex’s plane was tampered with. All by a bunch of patriotic zealots.”

  “Yeah, I remember now,” Kit grumbled, and they all fell into a pronounced and prolonged silence.

  Finally, Alex heard the creak of the gate across the wooded yard and wondered who was arriving just as things were breaking up. Sitting forward, he strained to see through the fog. A person approached, footsteps crunching on the gravel. Whether it was the effect of the fog or a matter of stature, the figure appeared short and a trifle squat, wearing bulky clothes, walking with hesitant steps. There was something about that walk and the emerging shape that struck Alex as both familiar and a little spooky.

  “Can I help you?” Alex called as the person stopped shy of the steps. Who was it?

  “Mr. Foster, is that you?”

  Recognition came in a rush. Billy Summers, Jessica’s ex-student. And the way he’d walked through the fog just now had triggered another recollection for Alex, but this one drifted outside his grasp. No matter, it would come eventually.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Alex said. “You’re a little late for the party.”

  “Then it’s true, you really are alive,” Billy said, his whisper tinged with awe.

  “Yeah, it’s true. How can I help you?”

  “I have to tell you something,” he said in a rush.

  “Sure. Come on up onto the porch.” Alex turned in the direction of the burning cigarette and added, “Chief, switch on that other light there by the door so Billy can see his way up here. Come on, Billy, have a seat and speak your mind.”

  The light went on and everyone blinked against the sudden illumination, even though the fog diffused the brightness. Alex looked down the three shallow steps. Billy was staring up in alarm, his gaze traveling from one officer to the next, eyes wide, mouth agape. It came to Alex suddenly that the kid hadn’t realized there were other people on the porch.

  Billy had to be about twenty now, a guy with a round face and perpetually pink cheeks. His shaggy brown hair flopped over his forehead and down his neck and was mostly covered by an old cap whose logo had all but disappeared under layers of oil and grease. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans with a dark green windbreaker over all.

  “Go ahead and get comfortable, Billy,” Alex said. “I want to thank you for all the work you did on this yard while I was gone. It meant a lot to my wife and to me, too. And it will mean a lot to the families of the veterans come Memorial Day. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “Mama told me you got back,” he said with a sideways glance at Alex and away. He wasn’t the brightest guy in town, but he was always friendly and pretty reliable. There was no doubt he had his share of burdens to deal with. Besides his own learning impairments, his mother was a difficult woman who had once been a great beauty. She’d married an out-of-work mill worker right out of high school but the guy died a few weeks after Billy was born. After his death, rumors circulated she slept around, but slowly those gossipy whispers were replaced by ones concerning her descent into some kind of undefined mental issues that now kept her more or less trapped in the double-wide she shared with her only son. Billy took care of her as well as doing odd jobs at the airport. Money had to be tight.

  “She must have read it in the newspaper,” Alex said.

  “She likes to collect newspapers,” Billy said, his gaze lifting to meet the intense interest of the other officers, then sliding away. When Smyth cleared his throat, Billy jumped a few inches.

  Smyth was fiftysomething, with a shaved head and a hooked, prominent nose with a tight, strong body thanks to weekend trail biking. His unblinking gaze sometimes reminded Alex of a hawk. Given the cornered look on Billy’s face, he agreed with that assessment.

  Billy swallowed and tried talking a couple of times, but the sentences ended in stuttering and were difficult to understand. Alex tried to get him to sit down, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t, nor did he recover his ability to speak coherently. He paced a little, stared at Dylan, paced some more, stared at Herrera, paced some more, darted a quick glance at Chief Smyth.

  During this uncomfortable interlude, Alex had a sudden memory of the day his plane lifted off the Blunt Falls runway, something he had completely put out of his mind until that moment of watching Billy aimlessly move around the porch while darting looks this way and that. Add the vision he’d created earlier when he walked through the fog and it suddenly gelled. “You were at the airfield,” he said to Billy.

  Billy stopped pacing so abruptly he almost tripped on his own feet. “What?” he said.

  “Yeah, you were there,” Alex said. “In fact, when I came out of the office after taking Kit’s call, you were on the field. You’d been deicing someone’s windshield, remember? You were carrying the equipment and you were walking toward me during a light snow flurry. In fact, you’re the last person I saw that day.”

  The kid’s Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat as he swallowed.

  “You don’t remember seeing Alex?” Dylan asked, hands planted on his knees.

  “I forget,” the boy said, swallowing yet again. Little beads of perspiration sprang out across his forehead and the redness in his cheeks paled.

  “Sounds to me like you’re hiding something,” the chief said.

  “No, no, nothing,” Billy sputtered.

  “Then why did you come here tonight?”

  “I’ve been helping...helping...you know...Mrs. Foster...with yard work.”

  “At eleven o’clock at night?”

  “No. No. Mama told me Mr. Foster came home. I wanted to see if he was okay, that’s all.”

  “You said you wanted to tell him something,” Herrera said.

  “I don’t remember,” Billy said quickly, his voice high and anxious.

  The porch door opened and Jessica appeared carrying a tray laden with tall cups of what smelled like coffee, probably in deference to those who still had hours of work ahead of them. Her warm smile faded a bit as her gaze settled on the obvious distress of Billy’s expression. Cups slid as the tray dipped. Alex grabbed it from her just in time.

  “What’s going on?” she asked as he settled the tray on a table.

  “Billy came to talk to me,” he said.

  She looked at the formidable group facing the young man and stepped forward. “Did you ride your bike into town this late at night and in the fog?” she asked Billy, casting him a kindly look.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he squeaked.

  “Would you like something hot to drink?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay,” she said softly. “But be careful on that road, okay?”

  He nodded, his gaze downcast.

  “Come back tomorrow when you remember what you wanted,” Alex added.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, but he wasted no time hustling down the stairs to beat a hasty retreat toward the gate. The fog swallowed him up after just a few steps.

  Jessica looked after him with confusion on her face. “That was odd. He’s not usually forgetful.”

  “The boy couldn’t get his thoughts straight if he wanted to,” the chief said. “But looking at what I can see of your garden amazes me. Who would have thought the kid had this kind of beauty in him?” He dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out beneath his heel. “The wife just got back from spending a week with our daughter at her college. I guess I’d better get home. And by the way, Alex, I saw your medical clearance on my desk when I stoppe
d by the precinct on my way over here. We’ll see you bright and early Monday morning, okay?”

  Alex grinned. “You bet.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Jessica said, and led the chief back into the house. He’d arrived late and he’d used the front entrance. No backyard gates for him.

  Dylan got to his feet and heaved a deep breath. “I think the party’s over.”

  * * *

  “THANK YOU FOR TONIGHT,” Alex said as he got ready for bed.

  Sitting at her dresser and brushing her hair, Jessica glanced in the mirror where she saw Alex’s reflection. “Did you really like it?”

  “What was not to like?” he said which she took as a nonanswer.

  “Oh, I don’t know. After being alone for so long, all these people might have been difficult for you to handle all at once. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to surprise you.”

  “You did what you thought best,” he said. “It was fine.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to stop making nice all the time. She knew he was worried the peace they seemed to have found was too fragile to withstand brutal honesty, but he’d have to get over it if they stood a chance at a real marriage. “How about Chief Smyth bringing a reporter?” she asked, shaking her head. “What is that guy’s problem?”

  “My guess is that he was trying to score points with the mayor by getting his picture front and center in Sunday’s newspaper. The reporter had the look of a guy making a few extra bucks.”

  She turned to face him, watching as he unbuttoned his shirt. “That was odd about Billy, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But he’s always been a little awkward with people.”

  “I think seeing all you cops must have unnerved him.”

  “That’s what I thought. All of us have been out to his mother’s place a few times over the years. She’s had her share of trouble.”

  He pulled his shirt off, stood up and unbuttoned his jeans. He was leaner than she’d ever seen him, but stronger, too, the muscles in his chest and shoulders honed by the work he’d been doing to stay alive. She couldn’t really imagine what he’d gone through, how he’d survived the first few days of storms and snow with a badly injured leg and cuts on his face. She’d asked him to tell her in greater detail, but he’d glossed over all the facts, dismissing the experience as yesterday’s news.