The Apple of My Eye Page 17

  I would have hugged them both right then and there on the front porch had their overladen arms not made it impossible. Instead, I swept the door open wide and welcomed them inside.

  While Mom and Dad arranged the berry pies, biscuits, chicken salad, and spinach salad from Martha and the chips, soda pop, cookies, vegie tray, and deli tray Amy had purchased, I ushered my friends into the great room.

  While I contemplated how to deal with all the inevitable leftovers, avoiding thinking about the upcoming conversation, my friends arranged themselves on couches and chairs expectantly. Once again, in not so many days, I found myself needing to deliver difficult news.

  I was nervous but shouldn’t have been. Once I started, it was easy to relay everything to my friends. They gasped, they cried, they shook their heads, and they offered their love and support. It was as I knew it would be.

  However, I was also anxious to move on. So I corralled everyone with, “Okay, enough of that. I’m starving. Let’s go party!”

  As we entered the kitchen, I heard Noah crying from upstairs. “I’ll go get Noah. Please, go ahead and start without me.” I could read the hesitation in their eyes. “If you don’t, I’ll think you’re just trying to pity me!” With that challenge laid down, I bounded upstairs to collect my son.

  When I returned with Noah a short time later, I was happy to see everyone eating and chatting merrily. Mom and Dad had made meatballs and quiche along with a broccoli salad and my favorite snickerdoodle cookies. We could have fed a football team and had leftovers.

  I did notice, gratefully, that despite the abundance, everyone, including Alaina, had avoided serving any form of apples.

  . . .

  The party lasted well into the evening. It was a perfect summer night, and we threw open the windows, letting a gentle breeze dance around the happy gathering. When we were done passing food around, we took turns with Noah. Everyone played with him in his or her own way. Amy got down on the floor and crawled beside him. Martha held him and read him stories. Professor Haynesworth impressed him with a zooful of animal noises. Dad played tickle games while Mom played peek-a-boo. I just held him, amazed at my good fortune. I had a beautiful son, and I was surrounded with people who loved and cared about us. How could I want anything more?

  It was drawing near to Noah’s bedtime. Before he got too sleepy, I insisted we all gather to take pictures. At first, I couldn’t find my camera. It wasn’t in my office like usual. Had it been stolen? Then I remembered a week earlier putting it in my purse to take to the park with Noah. That seemed like a lifetime ago. My plans to take pictures that day hadn’t really panned out, had they?

  Now I just needed to find my purse. Everyone started looking. Mom started to walk me through the last time I had it. We finally deduced that I had last used it when we had checked out the grocery stores that had been robbed.

  “It must still be in Paul’s car! We were so tired when we got home that I bet I left it and just walked into the house without it.”

  Sure enough, I got to Paul’s car and upon opening the door, found my purse on the floor. I had apparently knocked it over with my feet.

  Bending down, I started to gather up the contents of my purse. I reached under the seat to check for any runaway items. My hands touched something solid. I grabbed hold of it and pulled it out. I wasn’t sure what it was. It was a handheld device of some kind with a key pad and a small screen.

  I hadn’t heard Amy approaching, but she had followed me out to the car. “That’s a collection device, you know like a utility reader. It’s called an Automatic Meter Reader.”

  I turned to her with a look of confusion. “A what?”

  “Okay, so you know how the utility companies have meters around your home? Well, they have remote devices like that to read those meters. No more traipsing from home to home. Some of the devices can be used by driving by the house, but the latest ones allow them to be miles away and just collect your information by plugging in your location. Some of the meters even send out information continuously, so the reader automatically collects it as it’s sent.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “My dad works for a utility company. He showed me something like that once.”

  I looked at it again, processing what she was saying. As I stared, something tickled the back of my mind. I turned it over and over in my hands, trying to jog my memory loose. “Wait!” I exclaimed, as a matching image came to mind. “I think this is what I saw Alex handing off to his friend.” I looked at Amy again, “What do you think this one’s for?”

  She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I haven’t a clue.” Neither did I.

  I placed the reader in my purse along with all the other items I could find. For good measure, I reached under the seat again. I was surprised once again when I touched something hard. It was heftier than the last item. I pulled it out for a better look but paused to check that this was the last of my surprises. When I deemed that the space under the seat was at last empty, I stared at the heavy, rectangular item. It also looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it, as if it was somehow out of context. I turned to read Amy’s expression, but it was clear from her knit brow that she couldn’t place it either.

  I gathered everything in my arms and headed back inside, still pondering the last item I had found. Setting everything but the camera down in my office, I went to find the others and snap some pictures.

  It wasn’t long before Noah was in bed asleep. Automatically everyone lowered their voices and began to wind down. As Mom and Dad cleaned up, I divvied up the leftovers with my friends and saw them one by one to the door.

  Martha paused and looked directly at me. “What’s up? You’re distracted.”

  “You read me too well. I just came across another puzzle. I think it’s going to be one of those long nights again where I can think.”

  “Okay, you do what you need to do. And this time, let me know when I can help.”

  “I will,” I conceded. Then we hugged, and I was left with my thoughts.

  ONE MORE NIGHT

  Now that everyone had left, I sent Mom and Dad up to bed. Then I retrieved from my office the two items I had found in Paul’s car. Sitting down on the carpet in the great room, I placed the two items in front of me. What were they, and why did Paul have them?

  I started with the Automatic Meter Reader, as Amy had called it. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. What was this for, and what did it read? There were no identifying marks on it, no serial number or manufacturer. I didn’t know if Paul had bought it, had it made, or made it himself. While I sat pondering, I realized I needed to add to the list - or had he stolen it? I wasn’t used to thinking of Paul that way, and the thought made me squirm.

  As I did so, the night began to close in around me, but I was not the same person from two nights ago. In a strange way, Paul had taught me to be different. He may not be able to speak from the dead and tell me he loved me. He may not be able to right all these wrongs, but he taught me that I could still choose my way. I could be strong. I would be strong. I would push back the night. Erasing it was not in my power, but choosing not to let it in was.

  I shut the night out of my sights and concentrated my energy on the two things in front of me. I could make no sense of the reader, so I turned to the heavy, rectangular item. It had a slit down one side, kind of like a knife sharpener, but that was where the comparison ended.

  As I stared into the slit imagining what it might be for, the obvious hit me with full force. How could I have not seen it immediately?

  I had seen this object a million times and one that was big and boxy like this one very recently. Going through my mind like a camera, I examined the mental pictures I had
taken when at Harper’s Mart. This looked like his credit card scanner!

  In turn, I thought of Stan’s Emporium, All-Nite Grocery, and Corner Mart. Each picture in my head could be cropped to highlight the same bulky credit card machine. I felt my veins fill with energy, with life. With a little more thought and effort, I knew I could understand this and put all the pieces together. I was close, so close. So absorbed was I in thought, that I failed to notice how the night was deepening around me.

  Staring at the credit card scanner, I began to trace its outline in my mind. An audible, “Oh!” escaped my lips as I saw its image dance before me in another form - the embodiment of the schematic upstairs in the safe. The safe! I had neglected any thoughts of the flash drive with the program and the drawing. Maybe I should have handed them over to the police for them to sort out after all, but that thought was a little late. Maybe it was meant to be this way, since I was putting the pieces together like Lego bricks, one at a time. They were fitting together perfectly. How then did the computer program fit in?

  I was so immersed in my thinking that I didn’t notice the literal darkness creeping closer, nor how the crickets outside had stopped chirping. I didn’t notice, until cold, hard hands came from behind me, stifling my screams, closing in around my mouth.

  Terror froze me to the spot as I was unable to comprehend what was happening to me or what to do. The hands did not move, and certain I would suffocate, I began to breathe rapidly out of my nose, my breathing growing more erratic and panicked by the moment.

  A guttural voice rasped earthy and black in my ear, frightening me, making me feel like a small, helpless child. “Now, little lady, tell me what you know.” He shifted his hands from off my mouth so I could speak, only to reposition them around my neck, not squeezing, but touching, threatening to tighten at his whim. The touch of his fingers on my bare skin sent chills up and down my spine.

  As he shifted behind me, the contents of the floor in front of me became visible to him. “Hmm,” was his surprised yet sinister sounding response. “I wish you hadn’t seen those.”

  At those words I shivered, adding to my fears that I was now certainly dispensable. Talk to him, get him talking, was the only thought I had.

  “What are they?” I naively asked. It was the wrong move on my part. I had forgotten how to play the stupid card, and I couldn’t pull it off believably anymore.

  “Don’t play funny with me, lady. I can crush this skinny, little neck of yours, or if you prefer, I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid to use it. Already done it once, won’t make no difference if I use it again,” he said with cruel abandon.

  Shocked, I whirled on him to look him in the eye. How dare he talk so casually about killing my husband! Unfortunately for him, he had just replaced my fear with resolve. I stared deep into his eyes, the only thing I could see. He had a ski mask on, and his eyes were like black holes – all dark, with no light in them at all. My gaze seemed to penetrate and unnerve him, and he growled at me, “Turn around, lady.” I complied.

  Only when he hastily moved to put his hands back around my neck did I realize I had momentarily freed myself with my quick movement. I grumbled to myself at blowing the opportunity, because regrettably, now he would be expecting it. I didn’t think I would get so lucky again, but he surprised me when a moment later he dropped his hands. That sensation was immediately replaced with what must surely be a gun in my ribs. I had never felt the muzzle of a gun before, but I had seen it played out on TV. It felt just how I imagined it would.

  “Now,” the man’s voice began, “let’s talk about what you know, shall we?”

  I nodded readily, wondering in the back of my mind if either of my parents would come down to check on me. Much as I wanted to be rescued, I could think of no good outcomes if they became involved. They would be completely expendable in this man’s eyes. I must keep quiet enough so as not to rouse them. At all costs, they must be safe. If I did not make it through this, Noah would have them, must have them.

  The gunman was talking, but I hadn’t heard him, and I suddenly feared that I would do something wrong and potentially trigger a bad reaction. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “What did you say?” I knew by speaking I was taking a risk, but I hoped it showed compliance.

  Impatiently he stated, “I want to know what your old man told you. Start talking.”

  “I, uh,” I wasn’t sure what to say that he would believe. I tried the truth. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

  “How stupid do you think I am? He comes to us with this great idea last summer, already had most of it planned out even. And then when we’re getting ready to pull it off, he tries to back out! I figure the only way a smart man does an about face like that is if his old ball and chain put him up to it. That’s the way I see it.”

  I forgot my danger for a moment in my relief at what he had just said. “He tried to back out? Really?”

  “You deaf, lady? Yeah, he tried to talk us out of doing it.”

  I was elated and incredulous. “But he never backed down from anything.”

  “Are you trying to argue with me?”

  “No, no,” was my quick reply. My mind was spinning. Was this true? I hardly dared believe it.

  “Yeah, he tried to quit on the whole thing, but we weren’t stupid. So then he says, ‘Well, you go ahead then, but I want out.’ Like that was going to work. Fortunately, we had our ways of convincing him he should stick to the plan.”

  “What ways?” He was so into his story that he failed to notice he was the one sharing information, not me.

  “We knew about you and your kid and where you lived. My colleague,” he said it as if they were legitimate businessmen, “found out even more about where you liked to go and what you liked to do. It was enough, shall we say.”

  “Oh!” I thought of Amy’s comments about Alex asking all about me and my interests. I just hadn’t known why before this moment. That must have been when Paul was trying to back out. But before I thought through it further, I knew I needed to keep my assailant talking.

  “So, were the signals Paul’s idea? He told you everything was a go, by saying he left the lights on, didn’t he?”

  “Hey, I thought you didn’t know anything.”

  “Paul didn’t tell me about it, but I guess I figured a few things out.” I wasn’t sure why I continued to talk. If anything, I was sealing my fate even more the more knowledge I had, but I couldn’t hold back. I was so close to understanding what had been happening, and somehow I was either going to get out of this despite what I knew, or I would die in the process. One way or the other, I hoped to exit knowing what had happened.

  A question had come to mind with this man’s disclosure. “If Paul was willing to go through with it and cooperating, why did you shoot him?”

  “He was an idiot! Right after the go signal, he gave us the stand down signal. He was still trying to weasel out of it.”

  “What signal?” There was more to this than I had thought.

  “Paul said, ‘No, turn the lights off!’ He wanted us to stand down, telling us the gig was off.”

  I had forgotten there was more to the conversation that Mr. Walker overheard. I pulled it up from the recesses of my mind. He did tell me Paul said those words, and then he said something that, in light of what I had just learned, must have been strong assurance that they should indeed stand down. It was something like, “Yes, I mean it,” although the exact words escaped me. I hadn’t realized until now that such simple words were actually an argument with his accomplices, with this man right here!

  I was desperate to learn as much as I could. Thinking quickly, I wondered if by appealing to this man’s ego I could keep him talking. I feigned sympathy for his plight. “Why w
ould he do that? You were so close.”

  “Yeah! But Paul was a softie, thinking we shouldn’t risk it if anyone other than the clerk was in the store. What a big baby. Who cared if someone was there?”

  “Is that why you had to shoot him?” I almost choked on the words, but this vile man was becoming more relaxed as he talked, especially as I seemed to side with him.

  “I didn’t really plan on shooting Paul, but he was threatening to mess up everything. Then the gun just went off.” He almost sounded apologetic, strange given he was here threatening me. And why do they always say “the gun just went off”?

  I was shocked by this whole turn of events. My husband was involved in this up to his eyeballs, but he was also trying to be the hero, to do the right thing while doing the wrong thing. It gave me courage to try to find the right thing to do in this wrong situation, to be brave against my attacker.

  The more my assailant talked, the more comfortable he had become, letting his guard down. While he was still holding the gun, it wasn’t pointed at my back anymore. Instead, it was held loosely in his hand, pointing off to the right of me. If he reacted suddenly and pulled the trigger, he would miss me.

  In a split second, I reached down and grabbed what I now knew to be a credit card scanner with my right hand, then swung my arm in a swift but long arc, gaining momentum as I spun my body around. It hit him squarely in the head, knocking him into the sofa behind him. Taking aim at his gun hand, I swung down on it and the gun came loose and fell to the floor. He was still slumped against the sofa, but he started to moan and then stir. I quickly hit his head again, and he fell back, silent, apparently knocked out. Hesitantly, I picked up the gun with my free hand and moved away from him, all the while still staring at him, looking for any further movement on his part.

  Setting the credit card scanner down next to the phone, I picked up the receiver and called 911. It took me two tries, my hands were shaking so badly.