Somewhere Between Luck and Trust

“You tell Jackson anything you want to,” she said. “He won’t listen.”

“Then maybe you’d better find another place to go.”

“Right, I have so many choices.”

“Clara says she’ll buy you a ticket to Oklahoma to be with her. She would tell you herself, but she doesn’t have your phone number.”

She felt a pang of guilt for not calling the moment she had arrived, but Clara was always sure she knew what was best for her little sister. Cristy knew if she was ever going to stand on her own two feet, she had to figure things out on her own.

“Clara already made that offer while I was still in Raleigh,” she told Sully. “I have a baby living in North Carolina. I can’t leave the state.”

“You would be safer.”

“Jackson will find me if he wants me. He told me as much today.”

He moved over to the chair he’d taken the afghan from and perched on the edge of the seat. “What else did he tell you?”

“I’m not under any obligation to report it.”

“I know. But if something happens up here...”

“If something happens? Like he tries to kill me—or does? You’d like to know if he warned me that he planned to?”

He didn’t answer.

She studied him. Jim Sullivan was older than she was, but a little younger than Jackson. He had been a few years farther along in school than she was, although she’d been held back a year, in the days when teachers still thought they had a chance of getting through to her. If he’d graduated in Clara’s class, he was probably twenty-six. She remembered that back then he’d always looked underfed, rangy, even gangly, and that he had played basketball, maybe even been a star, although she’d hated school so much she hadn’t gone to any activity she hadn’t been forced to attend.

The present-day Sully wasn’t really good-looking, but he had the bone structure of someone who would age well, the kind of face an artist lives to draw, the kind of face she had liked to draw before her father decided art classes were a privilege she didn’t deserve. Under better circumstances she might have thought Sully had nice eyes, too. But she had learned that eyes were not the window of the soul.

She didn’t know why she answered, but in the end, what difference did it make, except to encourage him to leave?

“Jackson made it clear I’d better not come back to Berle,” she said. “And he made it clear if I did, or if I said anything bad about him to anyone, that he might just take a paternity test so he can get custody of my son.”

“Could he do that?”

“What, take the test? Anybody can take a test. Will it say he’s the father? What do you think?”

“What I think doesn’t much matter.”

“I only wish it weren’t true. I wish anybody, anybody, else was Michael’s father, but it’s a little late for that.”

“The baby’s not here with you, I take it.”

“He’s with my cousin in Mars Hill.”

“That’s a long way to go to see him.”

Cristy shrugged.

“He’s doing okay?”

“I hear he is.” Then to keep him from asking, she added, “I haven’t seen him yet. Which is my business, so stay out of it.”

He switched the subject so quickly she wondered if he had planned to anyway. “Did Jackson threaten you physically?”

She gave a bitter laugh. “He’s not stupid. You don’t know him at all, do you? He just talked about Kenny—”

“Kenny Glover?”

“You do work for the sheriff’s department, right? You know Kenny Glover, Duke Howard and Jackson used to be best friends?”

“I know some, yeah.”

“Then you should figure out why he mentioned Kenny.”

“I know just about the time you were arrested, Kenny Glover killed Duke Howard in a fight in the woods, and Duke’s body wasn’t found until a hunter stumbled on it a couple of weeks later. I know Kenny admits he beat up Duke in a fight out there, even if he doesn’t admit he shot him. I don’t know what that has to do with you.”

She knew reminding Sully that Kenny, who had not yet stood trial, was innocent until proven guilty would only make things worse. Her credibility was already in tatters.

“What did he say about Kenny?” Sully asked, when she didn’t go on.

“That too many of his own friends were dying. Okay? Duke’s gone, and now Kenny’s probably going to end up on death row.”

“So that’s all he said?”

Cristy wanted this to be over. “He mentioned some woman named Nan. Probably a girlfriend I didn’t know anything about. He said she died in an accident. He was dredging up sad stories to make his point, to let me know that all kinds of people die young.”

Sully sat stone-faced. She was sure he didn’t see how any of this added up to a real threat against her life.

“So now you know the whole pitiful tale.” Cristy gestured toward the door. “He didn’t touch me. He didn’t tell me outright he would hurt me. He didn’t even threaten our son, not the usual way. He just said if I moved back to Berle, and he had to see Michael every day, he might have to ask for custody, seeing as how he’d be feeling all paternal.”

“And after all that, you’re planning to stay on here?”

“I’m going to stay away from Berle for good, and if I’m lucky, Jackson will return the favor and stay away from me.”

“Doesn’t sound like you think you can count on it.”

“Doesn’t matter. I need to stay close to Michael, and I’m in no position to take him right now and raise him on my own. The people who own this house have been kind to me.”

He got to his feet. “Then you’d better find a way to protect yourself.”

She wondered what he thought she should do. Sleep with a butcher knife? Nail all the windows shut?

“North Carolina’s made absolutely sure I can’t do that,” she said. “Jackson reminded me himself. Felon plus gun equals a return trip to prison.”

“It was more luck than anything else that I followed him here today. I’ll try to keep an eye on things, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Why should you? What does it matter? So you happen to know my sister, and she bugged you into checking on me. Knowing Clara didn’t stop you from thinking I stole that ring.”