CHRIS WAS TURNING ON the television when Mia appeared in the doorway of his cottage. Even through tne screen door, he could see that her eyes were red.
“Can I watch Carmen with you?” she asked.
He opened the door, and she stepped into the hug he offered. He could feel her crying more than hear her.
Sometime that afternoon, he’d noticed the open door to Jeff’s cottage. He’d walked inside to find all belongings cleared out, and the sadness he’d felt was so overpowering that he’d sunk onto Jeff’s sofa and simply stared out the window for nearly an hour. He would have liked, at least, to have had the opportunity to say good-bye. And to thank him. There was so much to thank him for, though, that he wouldn’t have known where to start.
He hugged Mia tightly, pressing his cheek to her hair. “What time did he leave?” he asked.
She let go of him, wiping her cheeks with her fingers. “Sometime during the night.” She glanced at the television, then at her watch. “Do you know what she’s going to say?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. Whatever it is had her upset most of the night. I don’t think she slept at all.”
Mia dropped onto his couch. “I couldn’t watch it alone, you know?” she said. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m going to see or hear or how I’m going to feel.”
He turned up the volume on the TV and sat at the other end of the sofa. The anchors were beginning to roll with their news. Chris couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying. Apparently Mia couldn’t either.
“I’m so glad he’s gone,” she said. “I’m so glad he doesn’t have to be here to listen to this.” She bit her lip and gave Chris a worried look. “They’ll go after him, though, won’t they? Whoever it is he’s running from? I should have let him take my car. He could have hidden his, and then they’d be looking for his car, but he’d actually be in—”
“He’d never do that, Mia, and you know it. He didn’t want us involved any more than we were. It wasn’t your place or my place to—”
“Shh!” She sat forward as Carmen appeared on the screen.
Chris was stunned by Carmen’s pallor. “She looks sick,” he said. “And she missed her cue.” There was a second or two of dead air before Carmen began speaking.
“Rainmaker Jeff Cabrio left Valle Rosa today,” she said. “The rain will continue on schedule, according to Mr. Cabrio’s assistant, engineer Rick Smythe.”
Carmen looked down at her notes, another second of silence filling the air. Chris felt a film of sweat break out across the back of his neck as she raised her eyes once again to the camera.
“Jeff Cabrio was a very private person,” she said. “We’ve learned some things about him, some things perhaps he’d rather we had never learned. In many ways he remains a mystery to us still. All we in Valle Rosa really care to know is that we are richer for having known him, and we wish him Godspeed. Back to you, Bill.”
The camera was once again on Bill Jackson with his patent leather hair. His look of stunned surprise said it all—no one at the station had expected Carmen’s report to be so brief and so thoroughly devoid of news.
“That’s it?” Mia asked, the expression on her own face a reflection of Bill Jackson’s confusion. “Jeff said she knew.”
Chris smiled. He wished he was at the station so he could wrap his arms around Carmen. “She knew, all right.”
“But she didn’t tell.” Mia broke into a grin, and an instant later, actually leapt up to stand on the couch, arms above her head. “Thank you, Carmen!” she yelled.
Chris laughed.
She looked down at him, her expression sobering. “They won’t give her San Diego Sunrise back, now, will they?”
Chris folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the back of the couch, smiling up at Mia. “I guess she decided there are some things more important to her.”
Mia flopped down again, and for a few minutes, neither of them spoke.
“Which way do you think he’ll go?” she asked finally.
“I don’t know.” He had purposely not thought about this. He didn’t want to know. “Let’s just hope he goes far and fast.”
She fell quiet again, one finger idly tracing a pattern on the sofa cushion. “Someone else will figure it out, won’t they, someday?” she asked. “I mean, it’s going to catch up with him sooner or later.”
“Maybe not,” Chris said. “Maybe he’ll be lucky.”
He knew Mia was right, though; Jeff couldn’t run forever. But he wanted to hold onto the fantasy a while longer. It was fitting. With Jeff, the impossible had seemed possible. He’d nurtured the dreams of everyone he met. And when their lives had seemed irretrievably bleak and barren, he had given them hope. It would be his lasting gift to each of them. His lasting gift to Valle Rosa.