SATURDAY
JOSEPHINE
“Please don’t be alarmed by this setback. Considering what she went through last night, she is doing amazingly well.” That soft voice was talking to someone.
Patrick was holding my hand and then softly kissing my lips. I could feel the hot tears that fell on my cheeks. My Patrick. He was so sensitive. Now he was stroking my arm, and I tried to smile, to tell him thank you for the massage.
I must have mumbled something, all garbled like, because he touched my cheek in the gentle way he had and said, “Oh, Feeny. You’re so brave. Don’t worry, my love. You’re not going to let what happened last night stop your progress. And Paige is fine.”
Now Patrick was gripping my hands and whispering. “No more secrets, Feeny. I told the detective everything that happened. It’s okay. You’re going to be fine, and there will be no more secrets, my love.”
What had happened? My head had that crushing pain. I was thirsty. I closed my eyes and saw the man crying and saying he was so sorry he shot me. He shot me?
Or had someone shot me during The Awful Year? Was that our secret, Patrick? Was that why I was here now?
PAIGE
When Detective Blaylock arrived, Aunt Kit left with Milton for a walk, casting confused glances over her shoulder as Milton dragged her out the back door, far away from the crowd out front. Hannah hurried the detective inside before the press could snap any photos.
Now Detective Blaylock sat across from me in the den in an oversized tan leather chair. I was tucked under a blanket on the couch. Hannah had fixed the detective a cup of coffee, and I had my chai. A plateful of pastries sat on the glass-topped coffee table and a fire crackled in the fireplace as if this were merely a cozy visit between friends.
“How are you feeling today, Paige?” he began, reaching for a chocolate-covered macaroon. He took a bite and then a long sip of the coffee. His eyes were red and his uniform crumpled. I wondered if he’d slept at all.
“It’s all a bit surreal.”
“You’re a brave kid.” I thought I saw a hint of admiration in his tired eyes. “A face-off with three armed policemen.”
I shrugged. “Like I said, it was all a bit surreal. I was trying to protect Momma. I was afraid she could be accidentally shot.”
He nodded.
“And,” I added, taking a long sip of chai and not meeting his eyes, “I was afraid they’d kill Henry.”
“Henry? You’re on a first-name basis with him?”
“We met in the ICU waiting room Monday night. I’ve talked with him a few times. And with his wife, Libby.”
“That’s right. The officer with you last night told me you stayed with their sick son while Mrs. Hughes was questioned.” He stared out the picture window. Then he set down his coffee, hunched over his knees, deep in thought, and shook his head, as if clearing it of a few cobwebs.
I nibbled my lip, managed to glance up at him. “I guess I felt sorry for them. Their situation.” Now I let my gaze wander to the blazing fire. If I closed my eyes I was thirteen again and the youth were sandwiched into every spot of this room, singing praise choruses while snowflakes crystallized on the windows. And Drake was sitting next to me.
“Henry admitted he shot Momma, but he said he was hired to do it. So I guess I reacted to that instinctively. I mean, what good would it be to kill him without knowing who hired him?”
“Exactly.” Detective Blaylock actually smiled at me. “But just so you know, once Henry put down his gun, my men weren’t going to shoot.”
I gave a halfhearted grin. “Well, that’s reassuring.”
The conversation felt lethargic, as if the detective were slowly pulling a rope of information out of me, hand over hand, and I was unwinding, with no strength to resist. Why would I resist?
“Paige, can you recall exactly what Henry said to you and then to your mother? It’d be helpful to have your testimony.” His digital recorder sat on the coffee table waiting for my answer.
“He confessed. I mean, he literally confessed his guilt to Momma.” I couldn’t banish the image of Henry in the cafeteria asking me those questions—questions that held the meaning of life—and then the image of him beside Momma’s bed, pleading for her to answer the same things. “He’s desperate for his son, but he also just seems desperate for life. And he’s been reading Momma’s books. He told her he’s read two of them and is halfway through another.” As best I could remember, I related my conversation with Henry in the cafeteria.
Detective Blaylock furrowed his brow, fidgeted as usual, looked like he was trying to decide about something, and finally said, “We’ve found out more about the guy—Henry Hughes.”
“Does he have a record?”
“Not much of one. But his father did. Small-time crook. And he was shot during a convenience-store heist—right in front of his son. Henry’s mother had died a few years earlier.”
“That’s . . . that’s horrible.”
“Yes, it is. Henry grew up around violence. And he’s got a sick son. Needs money. Evidently his son has had a lifetime of heart surgeries.”
I was processing this information and placing it alongside the man I’d gotten to know. “So he hired himself out to save his son. But that doesn’t help us figure out who hired him.”
“He claims he doesn’t know. Says his contact is the middleman in this affair.”
“Poor Henry!” I whimpered. My head was pounding, and I buried it in my hands.
The detective didn’t say anything.
Massaging my temples, I said, “Yeah. I know it seems crazy, but this whole scenario is crazy, Detective Blaylock. I don’t really know why I feel protective of poor Henry and Libby and Jase. I just wish I could help them.”
“He won’t say a word about the person who hired him. Says the guy has threatened his son, and Henry believes he’ll follow through. He’s terrified.” He cleared his voice, cocked his head, tugged on his beard. “Would you be willing to talk to him, Paige? See if he might open up with you?”
I brightened and straightened up. “Sure! I can do that. Sure!”
“You might be able to ask questions in a way that takes him off guard.” Detective Blaylock winked at me. “You’re real good at that.”
I thought the interview was over, but we were only at an intermission. He checked his cell phone and said, “Paige, your father is coming back here, and he’d like to have a conversation with you and Hannah and the young man, Drake, about those months when your mother was away during The Awful Year.”
I bristled. “What about it?” When he didn’t answer immediately, I said, “Is Daddy a suspect?”
He reached over and took my shoulder. “Paige.” His eyes bore into me. A long pause. “Put your mind at rest. Your father is not a suspect.”
Not a suspect, but he had kept all those letters and not told the police about them and now he was coming to “have a conversation” with us. What did it all mean?
Detective Blaylock continued to look me in the eyes. “Paige, your father wants to tell you the real story. . . .”
I felt a chill zip up my back. The real story? What has he been keeping from us?
“And who will stay with Momma?”
“I believe your Aunt Kit is heading back to the hospital. And your neighbor is there.”
I groaned. “You should talk to Aunt Kit. She’s the strangest person in the whole family.”
“Oh, I have, Paige. You’re right. She’s a very interesting character.” He chuckled, then added, “I’m heading back to the station.” He left the den, then reappeared a moment later, reminding me again of Columbo. “One more thing—I’ll have an officer pick you up tomorrow afternoon and bring you down to the station to talk with Henry. Will that work for you?”
“That will work,” I answered, but the enthusiasm I’d felt about meeting with Henry had evaporated, replaced by dread of what my father was going to tell us now.
When Drake and Hannah and Daddy arrived back home they joined me in the den, me with my cup of chai, the others with mugs of coffee. Daddy looked like an elderly stranger as he began to talk, hunched over his coffee, his eyes turned down. Hannah, Drake, and I huddled together on the couch and listened to his monologue.
“I came home from work early . . . at noon. I planned to surprise your mother with a lunch date before we headed to the airport at two. But when I walked into the house, Milton was whining and pawing at the door. You know how anxious he always gets when he sees your mother packing her bags. I just patted him and called out to let her know I was home, but there was no answer. I started up the stairs to The Chalet, expecting to find her trying to answer one last piece of fan mail, and Milton tried to block my way.
“But she wasn’t there, and by now Milton was barking at me. He bounded back down the stairs ahead of me and into our bedroom. I found your mother in bed, and at first I thought she was just taking a nap. Then I saw the way her arm was hanging over the bed, the bottles on the bedside table. . . .”
“Oh, Daddy,” I whispered.
“I called 911 in a panic and carried her downstairs to wait for the ambulance. Once I knew she was going to survive, I hurried back from the hospital, determined to clean everything up before you girls got home from school. My worst nightmare had come true, except—” Daddy paused, finally raised his head and looked at us one by one, his eyes all glassy with tears. “She hadn’t died. I marveled at the timing. If I hadn’t come home early . . . I decided I would make up a story, anything except the truth. Anything except that Feeny had tried to take her own life.
“I hadn’t been able to protect her enough before. But now, now I could protect her from the aftermath. I decided not to tell anyone else, except Mamie and Papy. You girls would think your mother was at The Motte, taking a break as she always did after a novel came out.”
Daddy’s voice kind of petered out for a moment, and I could see in his eyes that he was reliving the whole horrible incident. He cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter and continued. “She stayed at the hospital in Asheville for a week, until she was stabilized. Then I enrolled her in a mental health facility near Knoxville that offered a three-month treatment program for women suffering from depression or other mental illnesses.
“I was allowed to visit her often. The program encouraged the family to take part in the healing, and I felt torn. Should I bring you girls into it? Perhaps I was wrong to keep it a secret.”
In Daddy’s eyes I read a desperate plea for us to understand his dilemma. I did understand and felt sick to my stomach. But before I could reassure him, he kept going with the story.
“I was trying to protect your mother. I was absent from you girls, and that made everything even worse than it had been during that truly awful year.”
He took a long, low breath and let the air out slowly. Then he wiped his hands over his face and sat back in the wing chair. I started to say something, and Hannah rose to go over to him, but he shook his head and said, “Let me finish, kids. I need to tell it all, at last.”
I braced myself. Were there worse secrets to be revealed?
“I started drinking. I missed some important deadlines at work. Then I got the DUI. I didn’t seek help—from the Lord or from others. I thought keeping the secret was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t.
“Your mother needed me to be near her, but so did you girls.” Daddy met our eyes again and said, “I’m so sorry. So very sorry about it all.”
———
Daddy wasn’t away on business or “gallivanting,” as Aunt Kit had accused. He was trying to save Momma.
Because Momma had tried to kill herself.
That was Daddy’s secret, the one that made him stop smiling. He was living with the knowledge that his wife had attempted suicide. And he feared that if he didn’t protect her from everyone and everything, if he didn’t make her well, she might try it again.
My parents rarely argued, and never in front of us, and Daddy had the softest voice. Momma said it always surprised her to see him so competitive and almost ferocious playing soccer, since he was kind and even-tempered off the field. For all my growing-up years, he had played on a local amateur team, just for fun. He’d dreamed of playing on a professional team when he was young. According to Momma, he had the talent but had sacrificed the dream for her because she didn’t do well when he was away.
She’d get a little teary whenever she’d tell this, and Daddy would look at her tenderly, with the sweetest smile, and what I read in his eyes was his great love for Momma and how he didn’t think of it as a sacrifice at all.
But I thought of that word sacrifice a lot.
I grew up seeing my parents sacrifice for each other in lots of little ways and some great big ones. I didn’t know as a child if those sacrifices were wise or foolish, but I knew one thing. My parents knew a lot about real, deep-down love. They knew it hurt, they knew it cost something valuable, they knew it was worth keeping.
But now I understood the full extent of Daddy’s sacrifice. I had been right. Daddy had loved too much.
I didn’t realize until he finished telling us the story that I was clutching Drake’s hand, fiercely clutching it, and resting my head on Hannah’s shoulder. Daddy gave a huge sigh, wiped his face with his hands again, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m sorry we never told you before. We thought it was for the best. I’m so sorry, kids. I’m going to tell Aunt Kit tonight. I just . . . I just wanted to share it with you three first.”
I read sorrow and relief in those soft brown eyes. As one, Hannah and Drake and I got up and surrounded him. When he stood up, we engulfed one another in a tight and desperate hug.
HENRY
They fed me some lunch and a lady brought me my meds and sat there watching as I popped them into my mouth. One was for my PTSD, I knew, but the others were the same as they’d given me the night before to calm me down. She stuck her finger in my mouth to make sure I swallowed them down. Of course I did. Wasn’t any need for me to be holding my Glock anymore.
I wondered about a lawyer. I figured we’d need one real bad, but we sure didn’t have money for that. But then I remembered the detective said the state would get me someone if I needed.
They took everything from me—the Glock, of course, and my phone and my keys and my wallet. I wondered if there was any way the police could figure out which phone number was my contact’s. Kept thinking about the instructions Nick gave me and the way he shouted at me over the phone the other day. I still thought it was real strange that a woman wanted Miz Bourdillon dead. And saying, “Take her life and let it be consecrated,” or whatever. Even when Nick was shouting that at me, I recognized those words. They were from a song they sang at Libby’s church. I thought it was pretty strange that whoever hired me knew about that hymn. For sure they did, because no way would someone say those words who hadn’t ever heard the song. And why would anybody want Miz Bourdillon dead in the first place?
Ended up surprising myself by praying that somehow, whoever had the idea to kill Miz Bourdillon would step out of the shadows and into the light.
JOSEPHINE
2007 . . . Josephine held the familiar-looking pink envelope, pink like cotton candy or summer roses or a child’s barrette. It looked light and delicate and innocent. But she knew what was inside. A voice of wisdom in her head said she shouldn’t open it. She ignored it.
You think you’ve hidden it so well, but you know you’re guilty! It’s your fault she died! I’ve told you to stop writing your stories before someone else hurts themselves! Why don’t you just take your life like my daughter did? That would solve all our problems!
The words on the paper blurred as she sank into the leather sofa and listened to deafening silence.
You know you’re guilty.
Yes. Yes, she did. Guilty of a thousand lies that swarmed around her like bees. It was too complicated, twisting and turning in her mind.
The tunnel got dark again. She wasn’t reasoning well. She wasn’t reasoning at all.
What was it she was guilty of? It felt so nebulous and yet so real. Yes, she was guilty. She was guilty of not being good enough for her parents, for Kit, for readers, for Patrick and the girls; she was guilty of not being perfect. The darkness grew, and she couldn’t see God’s forgiveness or grace. The hole increased.
She looked at the letter. Why don’t you just take your life!
But that was her mother’s legacy. How could she put her family through such grief?
She couldn’t do it.
Or could she? Of course she could!
In the darkness, she knew it would be better, so much better for those she loved if she were not alive.
The idea landed so gently in her mind that she thought it was a gift. And once she had the plan in place, the darkness lifted, not toward the light, exactly, but to a neutral gray. A calm in the eye of the storm. She had a plan. She would not torture her family or herself anymore.
Josephine gathered pills, she wrote letters to Patrick and the girls. She slowly removed the beautiful Huguenot cross and put it into an envelope for Paige. And she felt relief, such great relief.
And Jesus, forgive me, but I will soon be with you.
———
It was a miracle that Patrick found her alive. She had planned it carefully, done her research as a good novelist should. But he found her, he saved her, and he spent his sanity on resurrecting hers. From the hospital ICU to the inpatient treatment center and the therapist and beyond, he was there.
Patrick succumbed to exhaustion and stress. The girls felt the terrible strain in those months alone with him, but they had no idea of the truth. He created a lie, refused to let anyone know what Josephine had done. He feared the publicity from this suicide attempt would send her right back to death’s door and beyond. When she was lucid enough to talk to the girls on the phone, she listened to them sob about their daddy being angry and absent and forgetful.
They never told the girls what really happened.
But they lived with a lie that weighed them down.
After Daddy’s confession, Hannah left for the hospital, but I just sat numb on the couch in the den, staring at the TV screen. The media’s coverage of my family was nonstop, showing video clips of downtown Asheville where the shooting occurred and then of reporters and fans outside the hospital as Momma lay in her coma. And of course, over and over and over, the video of Henry and Momma and me and the police.
Predictably, the American people reacted as they always did with big news stories. Everyone had a right to voice an opinion, and many did so with vitriol. It seemed that the craziness of the past hours had only escalated as people screamed their accusations at Henry Hughes over every possible social media platform. Some even paraded in front of the police station where Henry was being kept, holding up signs demanding the death penalty.
Who were these people? Surely not Momma’s beloved readers who wrote heartfelt letters about how her books had changed their lives. Thank goodness Momma couldn’t see the rage on their faces or read their cruel words! Were people so fickle? Or was this a mass of humanity who simply needed a fight, any fight, and who used the public arena to air their private anguish? I didn’t know, but something was brewing in my mind.
Now a photo of Momma flashed on the screen, followed by one of me—both taken at The Motte the year before. We both looked pretty and polished.
Next came a mug shot of Henry, looking like a blond version of Frankenstein.
I gave a shriek, and Drake came from wherever he had been and sat beside me.
“Bourdy, this isn’t helping you at all,” he said, and he clicked the power button on the remote. “Or this,” he added, as he picked up my cell phone from where it sat beside me and put it in his jeans pocket. “You go see Momma Jo for a little while. I’ll stay here. Milton and I will take care of Aunt Kit when she returns.” He gave me a wink.
I shrugged and stood up, letting Drake enfold me in a hug—warm, sturdy, secure.
An officer took me out the back of the house and through a wooded path to another part of the subdivision where his patrol car was waiting. I had a baseball cap pulled low on my head and was wearing sunglasses. If this was what being a celebrity felt like, it stunk. Looking back, I saw that cars were still snaking up the mountain road to our home.
When I got to Momma’s room, I felt deeply grateful that she was sleeping peacefully.
Hannah met me at the door, eyes shining. “She’s been calmer!” she whispered excitedly. “She’s understanding everything I say. She doesn’t seem as agitated, thank the Lord.”
“That’s great news,” I said, and I meant it, but my voice lacked enthusiasm.
“Mrs. Swanson and Aunt Kit left a little while ago,” Hannah said, and we grinned.
“Between Mrs. Swanson and Drake and Milton, I think Aunt Kit will be in good hands.”
“But what about Daddy?”
“He’s finally resting at home. Poor Daddy. I think his confession wore him out.”
Hannah and I spent the next hour with Momma, who remained asleep. I had put the Lucidity Lath on the windowsill in between a flourish of bouquets. Now I plucked one of the flower arrangements from the sill and asked Hannah, “Do you mind if I go down to the Pediatric ICU to check on Jase?” I cleared my throat. “And Libby?”
“You don’t need to ask my permission, Paige. Of course, go. Momma would want you to offer comfort to them too.”
I bent down and kissed Momma’s cheek. “I love you, Momma.” Holding the flower vase in one hand, I gathered up her laptop in the other and just shrugged when Hannah looked at me quizzically.
The policeman sitting in front of Jase’s room gave me a sympathetic smile and motioned for me to go in. Libby was lying on a long bench that had been transformed into a bed. She had a blanket pulled haphazardly around her, and her strawberry-blond hair fell to the side and brushed the floor. She looked almost as vulnerable as Jase. I set the bouquet of yellow roses beside the orchids and tiptoed over to his bed. When I looked down at him my stomach cramped, seeing his immobile form. But the machines were beeping their proclamation of life.
I plopped down in the chair by his bed and tried to process the last week, from the terror of the assassination attempt to the dread that had invaded my heart when I thought about Daddy and The Awful Year, to Drake’s declaration that he was waiting on me and then Henry taking me hostage. I thought of my father’s confession this afternoon and of the thousands of emails and Facebook posts and tweets and snail mail letters declaring their love and prayers for Momma, and I thought of the CaringBridge site, which had garnered not only hundreds of personal comments but quite a few donations. I wondered why someone had harassed Momma for so many years with those pink letters and why Momma and Daddy never reported it to the police before or after The Awful Year. And I wondered how hard it would be to find the letter writer now.
I tried to understand the way my heart had gone out to Henry and Libby and this frail little boy lying so still in front of me. And what were we to make of the crowds watching our life on the news and over social media as if we were the newest series on Netflix?
I sat beside Jase’s bed while Libby slept, and I whispered almost like a prayer, “Open your eyes, little boy. Please wake up and get well. Please.” Then I repeated the gesture I had made with Momma—I brushed Jase’s hair from his forehead and kissed him there.
As I listened to the silence, I opened Momma’s laptop and let the thoughts that had been brewing seep onto the computer screen. If Hannah had been there she’d have given me a look that said, Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Would the police approve? But I didn’t need anyone’s approval. This was pure instinct.
First I set up a GoFundMe account for Jase. Then I went to Momma’s Facebook page and posted: Good news! Momma is stable again after the horror of last night. And we’ve also learned more about her would-be assassin. We understand now why he did what he did. He hired himself out to raise money for his six-year-old son, Jase, who needed open-heart surgery. That doesn’t make what he did right, but we don’t want Jase to be the victim of this. Even now, the little boy is fighting for his life. If you want to help the Bourdillon family, please leave the would-be assassin alone. Help us find the person who ordered the assassination attempt. If you know of anyone who has expressed anger at Momma, get in touch with the authorities in your hometown. Don’t post any names here. And if you want to make Josephine Bourdillon smile, donate money for Jase’s medical expenses here.
I inserted the link to the GoFundMe account, and attached the photo of Momma with Milton, and pressed Publish. Then I went to her Twitter account and tweeted an abbreviated message with the same information and the same photo and the hashtags #JosephineBourdillon and #SaveJasesHeart.
I left Jase’s room and went back upstairs to see Momma. Hannah was crouched over her, holding her hand, praying and whispering hope. Momma’s eyes were still closed.
In a flurry of words, I explained my Facebook and Twitter messages to Hannah.
“You’re a modern-day Robin Hood,” she said.
“Except I’m not stealing anything.”
“You’re not stealing money,” Hannah clarified. “But you’re stealing the attention away from Henry and raising money for his son. That sounds Robin Hood-ish to me. Only you would think of something like that.” She smiled. “It’s a good plan, Paige. We’ll just have to wait and see if it works.”
SUNDAY
Sure enough, as we slept, my Facebook and Twitter posts went viral. Drake, who had spent the night on the pullout couch in the den, knocked on my bedroom door early Sunday morning to announce the news. Hannah and I threw on sweat shirts over our pajamas and hurried down to the kitchen where Daddy, just back from the hospital, was making bacon and eggs. On the TV in the den, the reporter Lucy Brant was explaining to the world about my Facebook and Twitter posts and the GoFundMe account for Jase.
The comments on social media were totally polarized, from those proclaiming that Henry still deserved the death penalty to others who tweeted and posted on Facebook, Give him some grace! And little by little, money started coming in for Jase.
It felt like we could breathe again.
I couldn’t wait to get to the hospital and tell Libby.
When I reached Jase’s room I found her curled up in a chair. “I brought you a piece of quiche and a blueberry muffin and some juice.”
I watched her beautiful green eyes fill with tears, and she said, “Thank you, Paige. Thank you so much. For everything—the food and flowers and just coming to check on Jase. It means a lot.” She glanced down at her phone. “I just got a text from my pastor. He and his wife are driving over right after church.”
“I’m so glad.”
She nibbled at the food, and I hovered nearby. I almost told her what was happening out there in cyberspace, but for some reason I refrained.
———
Henry sat in the interrogation room, all forlorn and washed-out, a pale, ghostlike giant. He nodded when I came in, accompanied by a policeman.
“Hey, Paige. Right nice of you to come see me.” Then his face sagged. “Awful sorry I scared you like that the other night. I’m awful sorry about everything.”
I nodded and couldn’t think of a reply. Finally I said, “Hey, Henry. I brought you something.” I handed him a copy of Momma’s most recent book and then sat down in the only other chair in the room. The policeman stood off in the corner.
That made him smile. “How’d you know I was reading this one?”
“Detective Blaylock told me you’d asked for it.”
“Did he? Well, that was right nice of him. I don’t have anything else to do, so I figured I could finish reading it.” He had his cuffed hands resting on the little table between us.
“I saw Jase and Libby a little while ago,” I offered. “Jase is hanging in there. The doctors say his pneumonia is clearing up. Lots of people are praying for your boy, and the pastor and his wife are there with Libby. They’re staying at the Rathbun House too.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Paige. I’m hoping they’ll let me see Libby soon.”
“Yeah, that would be great, wouldn’t it?”
I took a breath, rehearsing Detective Blaylock’s suggestions. “You might be able to ask questions in a way that takes him off guard.” Unfortunately, so far I’d been lousy at following the detective’s advice.
I didn’t mean to be so blunt, but it came out. “Do you know why they let me come see you, Henry?”
He narrowed his eyes and then shrugged.
“They want me to try to get information out of you. To see if you’ll tell me the name of the person who hired you.”
That didn’t seem to worry him. He shrugged again, his big shoulders hunched up. “I told that detective the truth—I have no idea who’s really behind it. Just the man who talked to me, Nick.”
Then his eyes got wide, and he looked scared, like he was afraid he’d said too much. But I just placed my hand over his and said, “Can you tell me what this man said to you, Henry?”
“He called me on the phone with the instructions. Can’t say anything else about him.” He turned his eyes down. “But the thing is, he’s just a middleman. He’s not the one who pays the money or pulls the trigger.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. “Is there anything else, Henry, any other information that you could give us?”
He shook his head too quickly, then looked down at his cuffed wrists. “Naw.”
After an awkward pause, he turned his pale eyes on me and completely changed the subject. “Paige, what do you make of all those people on the TV and the internet wanting me dead? I mean, of course they’re right. I tried to kill someone. I deserve to die.” Tears came into his eyes, shocking me. “But what’s been bothering me is that your momma’s books have all those religious themes, and lots of the people who read them call themselves Christians.
“And those same Christians are some of the ones wanting me dead. Your momma, in her books she talks about grace. I thought that was the point of Jesus coming. I thought Christians were supposed to be different.” He reached his burly hand up and wiped his eyes.
He grabbed my heart with that statement. I knew just what he was talking about.
“Well, I used to go to church,” I told him, “until two of the people I respected the most turned out to be horrible hypocrites. And even though my sister always says that I shouldn’t judge Jesus by His people, I can’t help it. The Bible says we should be able to tell people are Christians by their love. I feel the same way as you, Henry. I want to see love, not hate. I want to understand what grace is.”
“Yeah. Well, I sure hope they ain’t all hypocrites. Least your momma isn’t. And I just bet there are other good people out there too.”
He looked pitiful to me, like a gentle, remorseful, defeated giant.
“Anyway, thank you for the book.”
“You’re welcome.” I stood up to leave and said, “If you want to talk any more, Henry, I’ll come again. I’m happy to come again.” Then I added, “But you need to get yourself a lawyer. Promise me you’ll do that, Henry.”
The look he gave me said he understood.
As soon as I was out of the room, I called Detective Blaylock on my cell. “He said the middleman’s name is Nick. That’s the only thing I got from him.”
As soon as I said it, a little voice sneaked up behind me and whispered, Way to go, Paige. Now you’ve ratted on Henry too.
HENRY
I sat on the little cot in my cell and thumbed through Miz Bourdillon’s latest novel, the one I’d started listening to on CD, till I found the place where I’d left off. I kept on reading and was surprised by all the ways that rich lady in the story was showing love, real love, like I wanted and like Paige wanted.
Then all the sudden I could hardly breathe, and my pulse throbbed in my head.
I’d gotten to a part about the slave girl—except now she was a freedwoman. Well, she’d had so many really awful things happen in her life that I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. And now they were gonna take her boy away from her, and that was just the last straw. And she’d been real strong and brave before, when they took her son away, she fell to the ground and wouldn’t talk to anyone but the Lord Almighty. And she was singing that same hymn, the very same one that that person who hired me had quoted. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Then, with her heart breaking in two, she stopped singing that ole hymn and just kept saying, over and over, “Lord, take my life! Take my life! I don’t want to live anymore. Please, Lord, take my life.”
As soon as I read that I closed my eyes, trying to pull those exact words out of my memory. What had Nick said? Sat still for a long time until I finally got it. “She started quoting some song to me. Like it was a twisted kind of prayer to kill someone. She said, ‘Take her life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee! Take Mrs. Bourdillon’s life. That’s your job. Take her life!’”
This time, I didn’t just think it was kinda strange to quote words from a hymn with directions about how to kill somebody. This time I knew it was strange, and suddenly I knew why. I knew just as sure as I had shot Miz Bourdillon who had hired me to shoot her. And it wasn’t any crazy reader.
It was Miz Bourdillon herself, telling me plain as she put it for that freedwoman in her story. Take my life.