Wrapped in Rain(30)

I waved, acted strong, and as soon as they disappeared from sight, I walked off toward the quarry and cried until Miss Ella found me curled up beneath the zip lines. She sat down, rested my head in her lap, and brushed the hair out of my face until I quit shaking. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to. And, when I looked up, she was crying too.

A week later I learned the truth. Rex was holed up in his office consummating his latest deal with his newest best friend. I was lying on the floor, my ear pressed into the grate of the air vent, listening to the conversation through the vents that led from the floor of my room into Rex's office. I cared less for what he said and more for how he said it. The how was my way of knowing which side of Rex would exit his office-the bad or worse side. We could handle bad, but it was the worse one that usually hurt. Listening through the grate was my way of taking his pulse. If he started using more cuss words than not or making promises he didn't intend to keep, then I'd slide down the banister and find a way to get Miss Ella out of the house until he either cooled off or passed out, hopefully the latter.



With my ear pressed to the grate, I heard the other man ask, "Heard you hired a local real estate developer to head your office in Atlanta. Made him a pretty good deal."

"Yeah," Rex said above the tinkle of ice in his glass, "that's what he thinks." Another pour, a few more pieces of ice, and a controlled sip. "Had to relocate him and"another sip-"his daughter, if you know what I mean."

The other man laughed below his breath. "Your son found him a sweet young thing?"

Rex got up and walked to the window, where he could survey his world. I craned my ear, sliding the lobe into the grate. "If my eldest boy is going to grow up and saddle the horse that I sired, then he's got to toughen up. Mason Enterprises can't be run by a man who gets weak in the knees at the first young thing to come along. Not even at this age." Another sip. "Got to nip that in the bud now, and when he gets older he'll learn the real reason to keep a woman around."

They laughed. "Yeah," Rex said over the practiced striking of the match that lit his Cuban, "I almost feel sorry for the guy. He'll arrive in Atlanta with his happy family who think they've finally found the American dream. He'll work a couple of weeks with a grin on his face, and then he'll find himself under investigation for stealing fifty grand from Mason Enterprises. Not to mention the half-dressed woman he'll find waiting in his office when my attorneys arrive to explain his options." Rex laughed above the inhalation. "Let's just say it won't look real good for a devoted family man." Another pause and Rex's voice lowered. "And when I offer him a deal to disappear and take his sweet young thing with him, he'll tuck and run north. Shouldn't cost me but ten or fifteen grand."

"Guess she really had her little hooks in your boy."



"Better to tear them out now," Rex said. "Do him good to get a few scars on his heart. Make a man out of him."

That's when it hit me. I raised my head, looked through the vent, smelled the cigar smoke, and for the first time in my life, knew what death smelled like.





Chapter 9


I REACHED INTO MY WAISTBAND AND TOOK OUT THE revolver. I opened the cylinder again, then handed it to her, butt first. They toweled off while I built a fire. In the kitchen, I turned on the gas line to the stove and lit the burner. Finding tea bags in the cabinet, I put on a kettle of water in case she wanted tea.

"Katie, I've been traveling a week. I'm so tired I can't see straight. But you're welcome to stay here. Whatever you're running from, it won't find you here. Between these four walls is the safest place on earth."

"I remember," she whispered. She dried her son's hair and then her own, which was cropped short. She looked like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music without the smile or song. She knelt next to her son and pushed his bangs out of his eyes. `lase" -she looked up at me-"this is my friend Tucker."

I knelt down and held out my hand. "My friends call me Tuck." He cowered behind Katie. The friendly kid I had met at Bessie's was now scared out of his mind. "That's all right. When I was your age, most grown-ups scared me too."

I walked to the front door and Katie followed. "Are you going to call the police?" she asked.

"Do I need to?" She shook her head, and her shoulders relaxed to an almost-normal tilt. "Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow." It had been a long time since I'd seen Katie, but my guess was that if she was guilty of anything, it was of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.



I pointed to the front door. "I'm going over to that ostentatious-looking house just across that granite walkway, then I'm falling down the steps to the basement and into my bed. And I don't plan on getting up with the sun. Your car is cooked and you probably know as well as I that there's not a mechanic within twenty miles of this house. Even if they were up and open for business, I doubt if they'd know how to fix a Volvo. But if you want to steal something to make your getaway, the tractor's in the barn."

"Thank you," she whispered through a half-smile, holding back the tears. Jason raised his head over the sofa and clung to the pillow with both hands. I wasn't wearing a hat, but I looked at him, motioned like I was tipping my hat, and said, "'Night, pardner."