Missing Pieces(23)
“Sure,” she said, grateful for the chance to extract herself from the heavy sadness that had settled over the house.
Once to the car, Sarah realized that she had left her purse in the Bronco. She trudged through the tall, wet grass, the ground spongy beneath her feet, to the vehicle that Celia had parked near the outbuildings. Sarah opened the passenger’s-side door, retrieved her purse and just as she was shutting the door, heard indistinct voices. No words were intelligible, but the tone was earnest. Without thinking, Sarah crouched down next to the Bronco so that she was just able to peek through the windows but remain unnoticed by the source of the heated conversation.
Dean and Celia were moving toward the smaller of the two barns. Dean’s mouth was moving rapidly, and he gesticulated wildly. Celia, walking a few paces in front of him, stared straight ahead, her expression set in defiance. With one large hand, Dean grabbed Celia’s arm to stop her, his thick fingers encircling her forearm. A squawk of pain erupted from Celia. She tried to wrench free, but he held tight. Sarah opened her mouth to call out, to intervene, when Celia’s hand shot out and connected with Dean’s cheek with a resounding crack. Taken off guard, Dean dropped Celia’s arm and she made a dash back toward the house. Even from her distant vantage point, Sarah could see the rage on Dean’s face, as well as the fear that overcame Celia once she realized what she had just done.
Sarah crouched down behind the Bronco, her heart beating madly against her chest. She tried to hold completely still, hoping that Dean wouldn’t look her way.
What was that all about? she wondered, trying to steady her breathing. She thought back to the conversation in the house. Had Celia said something that would anger Dean? Celia had defended Amy when Dean suggested that she might know more about Julia’s fall than she had let on, but was that enough to enrage him?
Maybe Celia had told Dean that Sarah had been asking questions about Jack’s parents and their deaths. Maybe he was angry that Celia would share such private family matters with Sarah. But that didn’t seem to be a good enough reason to evoke such violence, either.
Cautiously, Sarah peeked around the Bronco. Dean had moved toward a mud-splattered pickup truck, climbed in and roared away. Once he was out of sight, Sarah hurried toward the rental car, grateful that Dean had chosen to leave in his truck rather than the Bronco. She didn’t know what she would have done if he had caught her cowering behind his wife’s vehicle.
Once in the car, she drove quickly away, eager to leave the farm and all its violence, past and present, behind her. The way Dean had manhandled Celia left her feeling uneasy. He outweighed Celia by nearly one hundred and fifty pounds. He could have snapped her arm in two. Even more surprising, however, was Celia’s reaction. She had slapped Dean squarely on the cheek with no indecisiveness, no hesitation. The regret came after the blow had met its mark. But the question was, was Celia sorry that she had hurt her husband, or was she sorry that she’d have to face Dean’s wrath for fighting back?
She should tell someone. But who? She could tell Jack, but at the moment she had her own questions for Jack about his own secrets. And somehow she knew that he would just tell her to mind her own business. Dean and Celia could handle their own marital spats without the two of them butting in. Besides, she was ashamed to admit, what if she told Jack and he went to comfort Celia? Would Sarah be inadvertently pushing her husband into the arms of his first love? She tried to shake the thought away.
She began to second-guess herself. What had she seen, really? She couldn’t hear what Dean and Celia had been saying; she didn’t know how hard Dean had actually grabbed Celia’s arm. Neither of them looked any worse for wear. Coward, a small voice inside her head scolded.
Right now, there was nothing she could do, and there were important preparations for Julia’s funeral that needed tending to. All of this would have to wait.
As she drove to Cedar City, the largest nearby town, her heartbeat returned to a normal cadence.
Sarah mentally ticked off the days in her head. Hopefully Julia’s autopsy would only take a few days and then her remains would be released. There would be a wake, the funeral and maybe a few days to help Hal put Julia’s affairs in order. Five days, a week at the most.
She pulled into a strip mall that included a clothing store where she was able to find some clothes for them to wear to the wake and the funeral. She then stopped into a big-box store and quickly ran through the store aisles, tossing some basic items that she and Jack would need for their extended stay in Penny Gate into her cart. She paid for her purchases, stowed them in the trunk of the car and collapsed into the front seat. A few minutes outside of town she tried to call Jack to see where she should meet him—at Hal’s or Dean’s. No answer.
She rubbed her eyes and checked the clock. It was only five thirty, but she felt as if it could be midnight. Her head ached with too much caffeine or maybe not enough.
Consulting the rental car’s GPS, she began the drive back to Penny Gate. She wasn’t quite ready to head back to Dean’s, and she decided to go in search of coffee. She pulled into an empty parking spot in front of a small redbrick building with a faded sign that read The Penny Café.
As she opened the café door a bell tinkled announcing her arrival and Sarah felt as if she had stepped back into the 1950s. She walked across the grimy black-and-white checkered floor to a counter that was surprisingly clean. Sarah sat down on an orange stool, careful not to catch her sweater on the torn vinyl. She read the offerings printed neatly on a large chalkboard, then ordered a cinnamon latte.