Chapter 15

Andrew reached their house. Soon afterward, Sylvie arrived. They had both heard Josie’s other two advertisements. Raving, they found the words touching. Josie hadn’t allowed herself or Colin to hear them. After the way she felt while listening at the station, she didn’t want to go through that experience again. She knew the need for organs and knew well enough what would happen if someone sitting beside her didn’t get one.

She’d wondered about the man caller but dismissed the message once she asked Colin later and he said the men didn’t mention her name; he just asked to speak to his sister. Someone certainly could have called the wrong number.

Colin bounced with enthusiasm, his hands never stopping while they accentuated his story. “You should see what a real DJ sounds like up close,” he enthused, “especially when he’s looking straight at you. And he did this to me.” Colin raised his thumb.

Andrew slapped palms with him, and Josie thought Colin looked a foot taller. He tossed a football across the den to Andrew, who said, “Bet you can’t get this one.”

Colin scrambled. “Got it.” He tucked the ball to his chest and shifted behind a stuffed chair. “Catch this.”

Andrew scooped up the ball and tossed it back. “A high pass.” The football bounced off the ceiling. “Whoops,” Andrew said as the overhead fan wobbled. A bulb from it shattered.

Colin gave a slight cough. Then bent over with giggles. “I’m glad you did it and not me.”

“What a good influence you are,” Josie said, grinning. She helped Andrew scoop up the glass. Sylvie came in with a new bulb, telling Andrew it was no problem when he apologized.

Colin stopped laughing and he said, “I guess you need some lessons in throwing, huh Andrew?”

“I guess so. Maybe Sunday I’ll take you on for a game at the park.”

“Yeah!” Colin’s face gleamed. His hand shot up in the air. With his sleeve falling back, Josie could clearly see new pocking farther up his arm. Even though they’d played only a short time, he was winded.

After the room was back in order, she and Andrew had iced tea in the kitchen. Then Josie headed out the door with him but noticed the den was totally quiet. She went back to peek.

Colin nestled against Sylvie on the sofa. She had him swaddled beneath her arm and was murmuring into his hair with her finger tracing his shoulder.

An instinct told Josie to get the camera.

But that would break the endearment. Her intrusion would put a halt to this instance, so special and so seldom experienced.

Instead of the camera, she let her mind capture the scene.

* * *

Andrew started her car with no problem. “How about if we drive down to the beach?” he asked Josie.

“I’m with you.” She slid into the front passenger seat.

He took the old highway down to the coast and parked in a spot overlooking the water. They rolled down windows to hear the surf’s whistle and get the scent of sea spray.

“Pretty moon,” Andrew said once they’d sat awhile without speaking.

His words broke Josie’s trace, and she paid more attention to his arm holding her. She wished she felt like returning his smile.

He squeezed her arm. “I know you’re anxious, but worrying won’t help.”

So he knew where her thoughts were. “You know what?” she said “Colin is so happy for a boy in Gulfport who’s having a transplant tomorrow. But you know how I feel? Jealous. I’m jealous because somebody else gets a better chance of surviving. How horrible is that?”

He rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sure your campaign will help.”

“How much good can I do? Oh Andrew, why do people get so hung up about keeping everything on their bodies after they’re dead? It’s only skin. A cornea. Or a kidney.”

“You’re doing what you can, but you can’t expect miracles. Everybody isn’t going to run out and say, ‘Here, please take mine.’”

She offered a grim smile. “Why not?”

Lifting her hand, Andrew studied it by the slit of moonlight that fell through the windshield.

“He’s not getting better,” Josie said, as both of them knew. Her chest heaved. “Sometimes I get so angry I think I could actually kill to get Colin a kidney.”

Andrew chuckled. “You don’t like to kill ants and won’t let me swat a fly.”

His mirth enraged her more, until the absurdity of her comment made her lips twist into a slight grin.

He pulled her closer. “You might be helpless in that situation, but I know one you could help out with.” When her eyebrows rose, he said, “I need some snuggling. I believe you’ve forgotten me.”

Josie kissed him. “Never.” She peered at his eyes while his arms tightened around her. She had felt trapped in the depth of those dark eyes ever since they met.

She drew her head back. She needed to ask about what kept troubling her. “Is something happening with you?”

Andrew straightened. “Me?”

“Sometimes I’ve phoned when you said you’d be home. You didn’t call back or give me any explanation.”

“Do you want me to tell you everywhere I go?” he asked with a wry laugh.

“No.” There was so little, actually probably nothing. Yet he also hid those numbers at Big Ted’s. His forehead knitted with a frown.

She hated accusing him. He wasn’t her father.

Sound carried of waves splashing the shore while her mind filled with questions. Why had he showed a similar pattern as before? Taking his hand, Josie asked softly, “Do you think we should start going to those meetings again?”

He looked injured. “We worked on my problem together. I’ve had to fight my addiction, but I believe it’s totally under control. Why don’t you?”

She wished her life didn’t feel so heavy. She wanted to let go of her concerns.

“If I start to fear that it’s coming back strong again,” he said, “I’ll tell you. Then I’d go back to the groups.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“I understand. I really do.”

They shared a brief kiss. He peered at the gulf. So did she. While both mulled on their thoughts, the wind blew stronger and cooled. Stringy gray clouds slid past. A handful of stars came out.

Andrew appeared to be brooding. He looked at Josie, his expression a mixture of hurt and anger, and the pain inside her made her want to slam away everything that had happened before and take away what she’d said.

Andrew turned on the radio.

“She was definitely strangled, but the sheriff has no leads. Her family is offering a reward.”

He turned it off and stared at Josie. “You need to be careful.”

She tilted her head. “Do you think he wants me?”

“You never can tell.” A small smile brightened Andrew’s face. “Any guy would be a fool not to.”

“Well thanks.”

“You know what I mean.” He gave her lips a light kiss and drew his head back. “Maybe you could take a course in self defense.”

She threw a playful karate chop. “Sure. I have lots of time for that.”

His hands intercepted hers. “Sometimes you get home late. You shouldn’t go shopping at night.”

“Somebody needs to get groceries.”

“Yes, but you need to be careful. You won’t carry a gun, but you ought to have something.”

She smirked. “A knife?”

“Sure, but you wouldn’t use it.” Andrew’s eyes clouded in thought. “You could carry your keys, anything, and have them ready when you go out to your car.”

“Don’t worry, if anyone comes at me, I’ll jab him.” She grabbed her purse, raised it, and softly tapped it down against his neck.

“Good girl.” Shoving the purse aside, he wrapped his arms around her. “And if somebody in this car tried to get to you now, what would you do?”

She peered at his face. Josie slid her body to mesh tighter against his. “Give in.”

The comfort of his loving combined with the gulf breeze promised Josie that her life would be lovely.

* * *

Few cars were out when Josie drove to work the next wet morning. Lightning followed a crack of thunder. She jumped, then forced herself to stare ahead through the sheets of rain and not peer at the dark sky to wonder where the next lightning bolt would come from.

Headlights shimmied across her windshield. She couldn’t see the centerline or the side of the street and wasn’t sure she was in her own lane.

A passing truck sent a water spray over her view. She clutched the steering wheel. Rain cooled the day but her palms sweated. Blood pulsated harder through her temples.

The scene was the same as right after the girl died.

Jill—that was her name.

A finger of lightning touched down, exactly like it did back then. That flash of light had pronounced Jill dead.

“Get those kids away from here!” Jill’s father, a huge man with a bull face, screamed. Jill’s mom’s face had turned the color of ashes. She was such a little lady, and the sobs that finally left her lips seemed much too large for her.

It could’ve been me, Josie remembered thinking.

A cold numbness enveloped her. She turned left at Randolph Street and drove, still immersed in that scene. Someone had phoned for Sylvie but she couldn’t be found. Where had she been? Josie tried to recall.

Probably out shopping.

Josie had ridden home with her friend Sadie and Sadie’s father, and she and Sadie had huddled in the front seat. Steel gray rain enclosed their car, just like it did now. Josie’s heart had pounded so hard, she’d feared it would burst through her chest. She’d stilled herself, trying to let go of all the screams she’d heard when Jill died. Snuggling closer to Sadie, she had forced herself to concentrate on the swish-swish of the windshield wipers.

Before they had left Jill’s house, sirens approached. People screamed. Josie pictured the lifeless girl being lifted to that stretcher. She again felt hot tears on her cheeks.

During the drive from that death scene, she had remained shrunken in that front seat, trying to shove away the bad weather. She hadn’t been able to. Every time the thunder rumbled, her body jerked in spasms and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

Then that huge splash of water covered the windshield.

Josie had been so far down in the seat that she hadn’t seen anything passing, but something had sent a wall of gray over the glass in front of them, and Sadie’s dad had swerved. Josie knew they were doomed. They would all die, just like Jill.

She didn’t die but went to Sadie’s house, where both of her parents talked in a room away from the children. But Josie heard them. Sadie’s mom cried. Her dad cursed. Josie sat with Sadie on her bed, both staring at the pink walls. A burnt taste remained in Josie’s mouth and nose.

When Sylvie eventually came, she hugged Josie, shoved damp curls back behind Josie’s ears, and said, “Oh, my baby. Let’s go home.”

An evening-long thunderstorm made the walls shake, and in her own bedroom Josie had covered her ears and tried to stop the heaving of her chest while she cried.

Now Josie felt her fingertips against bumps behind her steering wheel. She shook her head to stave off the whole memory. “Nine eight seven six,” she said aloud, paying more attention to the road she was driving. She was an adult now, and rain was only fresh water, like a nice cool shower on a warm day.

Loosening her grip on the wheel, she made her shoulders relax. More cars had come around, with headlights bouncing toward her. The light from one seemed to twinkle, she noticed in her side mirror. Josie made up her mind to stop entertaining fearful notions.

The rain was slackening by the time she reached town. She easily parked beside the sidewalk empty of pedestrians.

Popping her umbrella open, she stepped toward the bridal shop. A few yards from her car, she noted heavy footsteps sloshing behind, the feet sounding as though they moved in sync with hers. Alarm rang through her brain. No other soul had just been out there.

She tried to glance unobtrusively back but could not. Her umbrella was so wide and the wind so strong she would have to stop, raise the umbrella high above her head, and turn her entire body around to see the person stepping close behind.

Hurrying her steps, she heard those behind her also rushing.

Josie’s heart thrust faster.

She stopped. No sound came but the plunks of rain against concrete.

She scrambled and turned back, recalling what Andrew had told her about keys as weapons and wondering if she could do it. She forgot the jutting concrete. Josie’s shoe struck the cracked section that rose. She toppled forward.

A hand gripped her arm.

“Josie!” Eve Walker knelt beside her. Right next to the curb, the car Eve had parked was still running, her driver’s door wide open. “I was pulling up,” Eve said with concern, “and I saw you take that fall. Are you all right?”

Josie scrambled to her knees, too embarrassed to consider how they burned.

Her co-worker grabbed Josie’s umbrella. She held it above both their heads while helping Josie to her feet. Heavier rain blew against them from the side. Josie’s umbrella had broken, offering them little shelter.

“I must have tripped,” Josie said.

Behind Eve, Otis Babineaux strode forward. Even beneath his black umbrella his mocking eyes were noticeable.

Beyond him, Randall Allen scurried forward with his own umbrella aloft.

“You had an accident?” Babineaux asked, the words seeming to chaff like his eyes.

“What happened?” Allen asked, clasping Josie’s hand.

“Just not paying attention, I guess.” Bumps rose on her arms and she saw her dress clinging to her skin. Trying to shield her torso by leaning forward, she realized two men and one woman all attempted to hold their umbrellas above her.

“You’re all getting wet,” she said. “And so is the inside of your car, Eve.”

Eve hurried to grab her own umbrella from inside the car before shutting and locking her door.

“I need to go home and change,” Josie told Randall Allen.

He grinned. “Yes. Unless you’d like to start advertising for swimwear.”

Otis Babineaux snickered. Eve handed Josie her broken umbrella, and Josie scurried to her car, overhearing Eve’s hushed voice. “That girl has such an absurd fear of bad weather. She was probably trying to run to get away from it.”

Josie admonished herself all the way home. Watching the rain clouds dissipate, she wondered how she could have been so silly. How could an event that occurred so long ago still have such an intense effect on her?

She hadn’t worked for these people long, and now when she was trying to prove herself to them and especially to elicit their help with the donor project, she’d made a fool of herself.

You were being irrational, she repeated as she pulled into her drive. At the same time, she wondered whose footsteps she had heard.

The rain stopped by the time she parked next to her house. Hurrying to the back door, she heard a vehicle driving up. Josie returned to the driveway. She peered curiously at the black truck parking behind her car.

A door opened, with Oysters for Sale printed on it.

“Josie.” The man leaving the truck wore yellow-tinted sunglasses and a Dolphins cap. He also wore a plaid short-sleeve shirt and jeans.

She had no idea who he was. Until she looked closer. But he looked so different. “Mr. Ripley?” She walked toward him. “Mr. Ripley, how are you?”

“Wonderful. How about you?” He spoke in a voice louder than she’d ever heard him use.

Shaking his hand, she noticed the calluses had grown. She also noticed the grass cutters pulling in next door at the Allen home.

Ripley’s pants were stained. The hair not hidden by his cap looked shaggy.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said, getting a strong whiff of seafood from his truck.

“This is how I dressed whenever I left the store. I’ve been fishing oysters for quite some time, and now I can do it every day.”

“You fished?”

Her former boss nodded. “I know you often wondered where I was going.”

She’d also wondered what often caused that unpleasant smell on him.

“Did you find another job, Josie?” Hal Ripley stood directly in front of her and lifted his dark glasses. A strange glint was in his eyes, making uneasiness speed through Josie.

A puttering began. On the Allen lawn, a burly man sat on a riding mower.

“Yes, I did,” Josie said, “and I need to change clothes and get back there.” She felt her hair clumped against her scalp. Ripley’s gaze at the front of her dress made her remember it clung.

“I had a little accident.” She crossed her arms over her breasts.

His eyes gleamed as he smirked. “Then I’ll let you go.” He didn’t move. “Did you need any oysters, Josie? I usually sell them to retailers. But you’re special.”

“Not today, thanks.”

“All right then.”

“Nice seeing you, Mr. Ripley.” Josie turned and strode to the patio. She stopped, realizing she hadn’t heard his truck start.

She returned to the end of the house. He was still standing in the driveway. “If you need any, Josie, anytime. You’ll get special delivery.”

“Thank you.”

Ripley walked to his truck watching the big man across the way cutting grass.

Josie thought of something. “Mr. Ripley, how did you know where I live?”

He clutched his door handle. His back was to her. He appeared to be frozen.

Josie expected him to say he’d recognized her car, but instead he uttered, no longer with assuredness, “It was on your job application, you know.”

That was so long ago, she recalled. Strange that he’d remember.

She waved, watching him back away, and considered how unusual it was to learn this person who’d worn nothing but suits had done this job on the side. She wondered what was going on between him and Cora. Actually, she didn’t know much about their personal lives. And she didn’t need to know.

She strode to the back door.

Something was taped there. A full sheet of unlined paper. Taking it down, she saw someone had used black ink to print I’LL BE WITH YOU SOON.

She turned the paper over. No letterhead. No scribbles. Studying the large letters, she saw them start to move and realized she was shaking. Josie steadied her hand to unlock the door and bolted inside.