Down and Dead in Dallas, page 19
She laughed hard. “Not much quiet in his world, I expect.”
“I expect not.” Jackson grinned. “The thing is, we sat there a long time and never said a word. Then, he let out this big sigh, and said, ‘Ah, that’s much better.’ He thanked me for sharing my quiet with him, went inside, and gave his sermon.”
“What did you do?”
“I followed him,” Jackson said. “I had been quiet and listened but I couldn’t hear what God said, so I figured I’d go listen to what He told Pastor Brown.”
“How did that work out?”
“Well, we met under that tree for quiet talks with God the rest of the time I went to that church and I never missed a sermon, so I guess it worked out pretty good.”
Christine smiled. “God does work in mysterious ways.”
Jackson slanted her an amused look. “Don’t He though?”
A pungent smell wafted to her. She followed it and saw the biggest pots she’d ever seen. Burners burned, open flames beneath them. “What are they cooking?”
Jackson sniffed. “Shrimp—likely corn on the cob and new potatoes, too—or maybe crawfish.”
“Spicy smell.”
“Spicy taste, too.” He grabbed her hand. “Let’s have some.”
They walked over to one of the plywood tables covered in butcher paper. People stood around it, filling plates from a mound of food that had been dumped in its center. Jackson filled two plates, then looked over at her. “What kind of sauce do you want?”
The squirt bottles, she surmised. One was red, the other white. “What’s the difference?”
“One sets your mouth on fire and the other doesn’t.”
“The non-fire one, please.”
He grabbed the white and squirted some on her plate, then on his own. “Good call,” he whispered. “The seafood is spicy enough on its own. Grab us some drinks and let’s find a shade tree.”
She snagged some napkins and two mason jars full of tea from a bin and they walked away from the fray, beyond the horseshoe game, to the tree where Jackson had caught twenty winks in its forked limb.
Christine sat down on the grass and lowered her plate in front of her.
“Not afraid you’ll mess up your dress?” When she nodded she wasn’t afraid, Jackson sat down beside her. “You look pretty wearing it, I have to say.”
“Thank you.” He looked really good to her, too. Jeans and a sky-blue shirt that made his eyes look amazing. “If you’d ever seen me try to balance a plate on my knees, you’d know why I’m on the ground.”
“It’s easier to peel the shrimp not doing a balance act.”
“I’d be wearing them.” She shelled one, dragged it through the sauce, then popped it into her mouth. Flavor excited her taste buds. “Mmm, good.”
“You make fast work of shelling. You’ve done this before.”
“I have,” she admitted. “Though this sauce is new to me.”
“Remoulade,” he said. “Mayo, Creole mustard, horseradish, pickle juice, a little Tabasco and garlic. This was made yesterday.”
“How do you know that?”
“The flavors have had time to mingle and marry.” He took a bite of corn. “Takes at least half a day to get that blend.”
They ate and talked about all kinds of things. Everything except Caro. When they finished their meal, Christine eased into Jackson’s tree-fork and leaned back. Her all-night jaunt through the Park, the warm breeze and her full tummy conspired. “I could take a nap right here with zero guilt.”
“Go ahead,” Jackson said. “I’ll try my hand at a game of horseshoes.”
“Have you played before?”
“No, but how hard can it be?”
Famous last words. Smiling, Christine rested back against the tree-fork and settled in. Just as she dozed off, Jackson came back over to her. “I didn’t fare so well at horseshoes. It’s harder than it looks. I’m going to give baseball a shot.” He pointed further away, to a baseball diamond.
She cranked open an eye. “Sounds good.”
He headed in that direction and, hearing voices coming from behind her, she sat up. People were walking down the path—to and from the forbidden area! It must be okay to go there on Little Independence Day. Seizing her chance, she scooted off the rough limb and headed down the path.
A couple coming toward her passed, then a man walking alone. Both returning from…whatever was ahead of her. Flowering crepe myrtles lined the path and huge bunches of blooming wisteria wound through the trees. Christine walked on, beyond a bend, and came to an abrupt stop.
A cemetery?
She’d asked what was in the forbidden area and Lucas had said nothing. Wildlife, and that was it. Miss Emily’s private reserve.
It didn’t look like nothing to Christine. Dozens and dozens of headstones lay in uniform rows. Two stones had white cloths draped over them. She slowed her pace and walked down the rows, reading the names. Miss Emily, Darby, Lester, Daisy Grant, Mark Jensen… Wait. Christine stopped. Jackson Grant had called Rose Daisy on the phone—just after his sister had rammed Matthew’s Jag into Martin’s Lexus. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Christine slowly moved on. Jenkins, Speckles, Abigail …
Christine’s mouth went dry. Her hand shook. She lifted the edge of the nearest headstone covered in cloth. Caroline Branch Easton.
“Jackson!” Christine screamed, and kept screaming.
In right field, Jackson heard someone running toward him and turned toward the sound. “Mr. Jenkins?” Why would the unflappable Mr. Jenkins be running, looking scared to death?
“Come. Now! It’s Chr… Caro… her!”
Jackson dropped the glove and followed, running full speed toward the tree where he’d left Christine. “What happened?”
Flustered and red-faced, Mr. Jenkins’ voice filled with dread and regret. “Infernal woman went into the forbidden area.”
“Oh, no.” Jackson muttered under his breath. “What did she see?”
“What do you think? She saw everything—including Caroline’s headstone!”
“God help us.” Jackson ran full out, found Christine sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up close to her body, her arms curled around her knees, and slumped over, crying her heart out near Caroline’s headstone.
He stopped running, and walked up behind her.
“I called you.” Christine looked up at him, pain ravaging her face. “But you didn’t come.”
“I didn’t hear you.” He sat down beside her. “But I’m here now.”
“She’s dead, Jackson.” Stricken by grief, Christine touched the cold stone. “Caroline is dead.”
He softened his voice, noted Mr. Jenkins keeping watch on the path. “There are stones for Miss Emily and Darby, too.”
“And Lester and Mr. Jenkins,” she said, sniffing. “But I’ve seen and talked to them. Not Caroline.”
“It’s okay, Christine.”
“Okay?” She looked ready to murder him. “I’m sitting at my sister’s grave—my only relative in the whole world, Jackson—and you’re telling me it’s okay?” He touched her arm and she flung his fingertips away from her. “No. No, it is not okay.”
“You had tea with Miss Emily and Darby. Did they look dead to you?”
Christine stilled. She had, and Mr. Jenkins, too. “So what is this? Is everyone in Sampson Park dead?” She couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around this.
In a sense, yes, they are,” he said.
“What?” The horror of that response would be with him all the days of his life.
“Symbolically,” he explained. “They’re dead symbolically.”
“I don’t understand.”
His expression closed. “And I’m not at liberty to explain.”
“Don’t you dare tell me that.” She pointed to Caroline’s stone. “Her name being etched into that stone entitles me to an explanation and I want it. Is my sister dead or alive?”
“I’m really not sure.”
“Those are not the words I want to hear, Jackson Grant. But… why aren’t you upset?”
“I am upset. How could I see you like this and not be upset?”
“You’re not making a spitting bit of sense.” Christine couldn’t stop the flow of tears from starting up again. “Caroline is my sister. I’ve given up my life to protect her. If she’s dead, then I failed. I’m devastated—and if you at all cared for me, you’d know that and you’d be devastated, too.”
“Christine, don’t.” Jackson cupped her chin and turned her head, pressing her to look into his eyes. “Death is relative—at least, it is here. Even if Caroline is dead, she’s not dead.”
“What?” Crazy. Her puzzlement cued him flawlessly. To her, he sounded crazy.
“People die here all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Some die and then come here. Some die after they’re here—mostly so they can keep breathing. I don’t know where Caroline is, so I don’t know if she’s dead or alive, but I’d bank money that wherever she is, and dead or alive, she’s breathing just fine.”
Christine’s eyes narrowed and she let that disclosure sink in. “The funeral homes. Symbolic deaths. Faked deaths... Is this about fresh starts?”
He nodded. “Sometimes to live, ya gotta die.”
“To get away from others trying to hurt you, or to shed the past that’s killing you inside.” Christine tore her gaze from the headstone, riveted Jackson. “Is that it? This is about healing?”
He hesitated. “I can’t say another word about any of this. I can’t. We’ve got to get out of here. If anyone found out I told you as much as I have, well, it wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
“Too late.” Lester stepped out from behind an oak. “You’re right, Jackson. It wouldn’t be good—and it isn’t.”
Others joined Lester. Miss Emily. Darby. Dr. Rossi. Mr. Jenkins. Lucas. Rose and Matthew. “Oh, boy.”
“Indeed.” Miss Emily frowned. “Lucas, please place these two under house arrest.”
“Miss Emily!” Jackson stood up and pulled Christine to her feet. “You’re putting us in jail?”
“House arrest.” Lester’s frown deepened. “You deserve worse, son.”
He was serious. Jackson swiveled his gaze to his sister. “Rose?”
“Sorry.” She raised her hands. “You deserve exactly what you get. You know the rules, Jackson Lee Grant. Every action causes a reaction.”
Miss Emily grunted. “You’re not going to jail, my boy. You either, Christine,” she said, revealing she knew the truth. “Until the committee decides what to do with you, I’m sequestering you in the cottages. Lucas, take Christine to her cottage and put Jackson in the blue one next door to it.” She turned her gaze back to Jackson. “Don’t mess with me on this. Either of you. Stay put and follow orders until the committee’s decision is made.” Looking at Jackson, she sniffed. “I can’t believe you put us all in jeopardy, Jackson.”
“She’s Caroline’s sister and Caroline is missing. She’s been terrified,” he said, attempting to explain.
“So why didn’t you tell us that? Why didn’t either of you?” Miss Emily swiped at the air. “Never mind. Whatever the reason, you’ve made us all vulnerable.”
“It’s all my fault.” Christine let her gaze slide from Miss Emily to the other end of the line at Rose and Matthew. “Jackson thought I was Caroline. When we got here, he had no idea—”
“Enough!” Miss Emily lifted a staying hand. “Lucas, take them.”
“Speckles,” Lucas called out.
“You’ll have to walk back with them,” Miss Emily said to Lucas. “I need Speckles myself.”
Ashamed, Christine glanced at the row of graves, not at all sure she and Jackson wouldn’t soon have stones beside them. Real ones.
Chapter 28
For hours, Christine paced the cottage floor. She couldn’t stand this. Fear and doubt and all the uncertainty of what the committee would do to them was making her crazy.
She’d already taken two showers, changed into exercise pants and a soft t-shirt and now she was replaying every word and glance and questioning every nuance of the entire exchange with the others in the forbidden area. Until the cemetery ordeal, she had been relaxed here and had felt safe. Now she felt like a prisoner. She was a prisoner.
And that emitted an entirely different feel to Sampson Park.
Fed up with her own thoughts, she grabbed a bowl of walnuts from the kitchen, set them on a little table beside the side window in the living room that faced Jackson’s cottage, then lifted the window open. She tossed a nut at his window. It pinged against the glass.
She waited but Jackson didn’t appear. She tossed another walnut. And then another.
On the fifth walnut that hit the glass, he appeared—and got smacked right in the head with number six.
“Yeow!” He jerked backward, grabbing his forehead. “Christine? What are you doing?”
“Sorry,” she said, hoping he and not the entire neighborhood would hear her. “I wanted to apologize again. This is all my fault, Jackson.”
“It’s okay. I told you, I understand. To protect the people we love, we do expected and unexpected things. I’ve done it myself.”
She hiked a hip and sat on the windowsill. “I don’t understand something.”
“What’s that?” He noted her sitting and mirrored her in his own window.
“When you went to play baseball, I saw people coming and going down the path into the forbidden area. I figured they were allowed there because of the holiday.”
“Well, that explains that.” He reached behind him and grabbed a can of cola. “I wondered why you’d deliberately do something you knew was off-limits. Course, when I mentioned that to Lucas, he informed me of your midnight jaunt.”
“Jaunt? What midnight jaunt?” No one had followed her. She’d bet on that.
“You scouted half the park between the time I left you and daylight, Christine.”
She couldn’t deny it. Not that there was any reason to deny anything now. “I was looking for Caro.”
“Figured that.” He cracked the walnut and pulled the nut from the shell. “So did Lucas.”
“Does he know where she is?”
“If so, he didn’t tell me.” Jackson shrugged. “Not that he would tell me anything now. My credibility is kind of shot around here.”
He sounded sorry about that, and guilt pounded into Christine. “I’m taking full responsibility. Surely the committee will let you go. I’m going to do everything I can to restore your reputation, Jackson.”
“You can’t. I broke the trust,” he said. “Not about you, but in what I told you at the cemetery. I knew better when I did it, but you were so upset. I couldn’t stand seeing you like that.”
She had been devastated. “Seeing Caro’s headstone was quite a shock.”
“I’m sure it was.” He popped the nut into his mouth and slowly chewed. “You know, Caroline told me on the way here she wished we could meet. She thought we’d be perfect for each other.”
Christine nodded. “She told me that too—when I talked to her on Christmas.”
“I think she might have been right.” Jackson sobered. “I’ve seen plenty of women upset, but none of them did to me what seeing you in tears did. Man…”
“For what it’s worth, I think she was right, too.” Christine dropped her voice. “I don’t have a ton of experience with relationships, but I understand all the fuss about them a lot better now.” She twisted, rested her back against the window-frame. “Have you had serious relationships?”
“A couple I thought were serious. Well, pretty serious.” He chewed a nut then swallowed. “But something was missing. I didn’t know what.”
“I didn’t think I wanted one. Probably because of my parents,” she said. “When they died, I hurt so bad for so long… I never wanted to care that much about anyone else ever again. Well, except for Caro. But then I already loved her because, well, that’s what sisters do.”
“I know what you mean. Rose was the rock—even when our mother was there. She wasn’t much on mothering. If it weren’t for Rose… she’s always loved me. I’ve always loved her, too. But to risk falling for a woman who could or would do what our mother did? That wasn’t happening.”
“I’m right there with you. People say if you fear being hurt so much you refuse to love, then you’ve blown your chance at it without trying. I say those people have never loved and lost or they wouldn’t spout off to other people like that.”
“So you could never love me?” Jackson asked.
“It’s a scary thought. To risk it, I mean. But the truth is, I—I wouldn’t object to finding out,” she hedged. “Would you risk it?”
He hesitated a long time. “I think you—we—might be worth the risks.”
Unable not to, she smiled. “I hope we get the chance.” House arrest. Good grief, who knew what that meant? “How long do you think they’ll keep us here?”
“No telling.” Jackson frowned. “It’s a serious offense and they won’t take it lightly. That much, I do know.”
Christine swallowed hard. “But they won’t really kill us, will they? I mean dead in the permanently dead sense.”
“If they feel they must to protect the Park and those in it, I think they would.” Jackson’s sigh carried to her. “Actually, I know they would.”
That was not the answer she’d wanted, but it was the truth as he saw it, and he knew these people a lot better than she did. “I’m thinking about the words written on the bronze at the foot of the bridge. The ones about Miss Emily.” Christine let the words replay in her mind. “I think that woman would kill us to keep the people here safe.”
“No doubt.” He agreed. “She died herself to start this place. Then died again to protect it.”
Christine tried not to gasp. “If she’d do it to herself…”
“Exactly.” Jackson looked desolate. “We don’t stand a chance.”
They fell silent for a long moment, stewing in their own thoughts.
“Jackson?”
