Last Chance Christmas (Last Chance #5)(40)
Author: Hope Ramsay

No, she didn’t belong here. She belonged on a plane to Africa, leaving day after tomorrow. And after what had happened out at Golfing for God, she knew she’d be okay. She’d found that invincible place where every war correspondent lived.

She handed Damian a card with her editor’s name on it. “I’m going to be in Africa for a while, and then, who knows. But if you need me to testify at the trial, just give my editor a call. He’ll be able to find me wherever I am.”

Damian nodded, and they both stood up. “You’re not going to stay? See how Stone is doing?”

“I’ll give the hospital a call. You tell him to take care of himself, okay? And I’m sorry about the ashes on the eighteenth hole.”

Damian laughed, his smile flashing in his dark face. “Oh, I think Elbert will forgive you for that. From what I heard, the ashes may have saved Lizzy or David’s life. You know, it’s funny how these things work. Folks will say it was your ashes and a freak wind that saved the day. But I think there’s something else going on out there.”

“Are you saying you believe in angels, Deputy Easley?”

“Ma’am, I do. And I think you just might be one of them. You have a good Christmas, you hear? And someone will be in touch with you if this mess comes to a trial.”

She turned and headed toward the door.

“You driving to DC tonight?” Damian asked to her back.

“That was my plan.”

“It’s a long way. You stay safe. And if you get sleepy, you stop someplace. When the caffeine and the adrenaline wear off, you might need a good sleep.”

Lark nodded and left the police station. As she walked to Pop’s SUV, it struck her that Last Chance, South Carolina, was lit up with Christmas lights from Bill’s Grease Pit all the way to Dot’s Spot. And high above it all, the sky had cleared into a cold, velvet darkness.

A star was shining high above the place. She stared up at it for a long time. It was too bright to be a star. It had to be Venus or Mars or one of the other planets. As she drove away, she could still see it hovering over the town.

Chapter 21

Now, Mr. Rhodes, I don’t want you to worry about the hallucinations,” the doctor said.

Stone sat up in the hospital bed. The doc had a fresh face and looked like he’d have trouble growing a beard. He reminded Stone of the marine recruits he’d trained during the time he’d been a DI at Parris Island.

Hallucinations, huh?

“All your tests are negative for serious brain injury. But concussions can be tricky.”

Hallucinations. That’s what the docs had said about Haley’s visions a little more than a year ago. They said the bump she’d gotten on her head had caused her to see things that weren’t there. They said the emotional trauma, coupled with the head injury, had resulted in Haley externalizing the fiction of the Sorrowful Angel.

Now that Stone thought about it, this was exactly what everyone said about Daddy and Granddaddy and even Great-Granddaddy. Every one of them had gone to war. Every one of them had gotten bumped on the head. And every one of them had ended up seeing angels that weren’t supposed to be there.

Was this some brain weirdness handed down through the generations, or something else? Like a curse? Or maybe it was a blessing.

He stared at the doctor and felt oddly disconnected. Was it a curse to see Sharon when he longed for her so much?

He was losing it. “Right,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be fine.” What else could he say?

The doc nodded and signed Stone’s discharge papers. When the doc left, Stone got stiffly out of bed and dressed in his civvies. His ribs might not be broken but the bruises were mighty painful.

He checked his watch. Daddy and the girls were going to be there to collect him in about thirty minutes. He had time.

He headed up to the orthopedics floor and found David Raab’s room. The kid had had surgery on his shoulder. Plates and screws and all that. He’d be in physical therapy for a while.

Stone strolled into the room and came right up against David’s lion of a momma. Before he could even talk to the kid, she was right up in his face, pointing a finger at his chest. “This is all your fault. You and your daughter. I told you I wanted you to keep her away from him and you—”

“Mom, shut up.”

Both adults turned toward David, who was lying in bed with a huge cast on his arm. He looked unusually pale with an unnatural stain of red across his cheeks. He was probably in pain and running a fever. Poor kid.

“I am your mother. You don’t tell me to—”

“Shut it,” the kid said again, and his mother actually stopped talking.

“Is Lizzy okay?” David asked Stone.

“She’s fine. She’ll be here shortly, and I was just checking to see if it would be okay if she came to visit you. And also, I wanted to thank you for saving her life.”

“What?” Mrs. Raab asked. She had obviously not been paying attention. David was something of a hero.

“Your son saved my daughter’s life. When the sheriff started shooting, David kept his head and got the two of them out of the Ark, where they were sitting ducks. I will be eternally grateful to your son. And I just wanted to let you know that I think you’ve done a good job with him. He’s precisely the kind of boy I want my daughter to be friends with—the kind of kid who looks beyond labels. The kind of kid who knows right from wrong.

“Also, you should know that Lizzy’s heart will be broken if y’all move back to Michigan. To be honest, I wish you wouldn’t go. You living in our town gives everyone a chance to practice tolerance. And I can’t help but think that if we’d been better at it back in 1968, Nita Wills might have followed her heart, and my granddaddy and Jimmy and Lee Marshall might all still be alive. So before you start pointing fingers, just think about that.”

He nodded at the woman and turned toward David. “You going to be okay?”

“Yes, sir. And thanks for coming after us. If you hadn’t shown up, it might have been bad. And when you see Ms. Chaikin, would you thank her for me? She probably saved my life when she threw those ashes. She was impressive. I guess we never got our interview with her about what it’s like being a war correspondent, but we sure did get a taste of what it takes to be one. To be honest, I was terrified. But she seemed to be impervious to it.”

Stone felt a pang of regret. He’d tried Lark’s cell phone a dozen times, but she hadn’t answered. He needed to thank her, too. But he was afraid to see her.

He wasn’t sure what to say.

He forced himself to give David a smile. “That’s the way it is, David. Sometimes in a firefight you just have no time to think. Instincts take over. And that’s where you find your courage.”

He left David’s room and went back to his own. Daddy showed up shortly thereafter. David’s mother relented and let Lizzy visit David for about five minutes. And then they all got in Daddy’s truck and headed back to town.

An unearthly shiver seized Stone the minute they turned onto Palmetto Avenue and passed under Santa and his reindeer. He tried to shake away the feeling but it crawled through him. Cold and sort of… itchy.

And a thought came to him from out of the blue. “I need to go to church,” he said. The words surprised him almost as much as Daddy.

“Son, you’ve had a head injury. I think I need to take you—”

Before Stone could come up with a good explanation for his request, Haley piped up from the backseat. “He’s only doing what the Sorrowful Angel wants him to do. She’s been talking to him the whole way home from the hospital, all about how she wants to go into the church. He saw her last night, but he’s not seeing her now.”

“Haley, why do you always have to make yourself and your stupid made-up angel the center of attention?” Lizzy said.

“Lizzy,” Elbert said sternly and gave Liz his scary look in the rearview mirror.

“She’s here?” Stone asked. His pulse quickened with the idea.

“Yeah. She stayed with you at the hospital. She always stays with you when you sleep,” Haley said.

Lizzy made a noise and rolled her eyes. Stone ignored her. “She does?”

Haley nodded. “Yeah. She really, really wants you to go to the church. She says that she misses it.”

“Well, that sounds exactly like her.”

Haley frowned. Lizzy sat up. Daddy looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, which was sort of ironic.

And suddenly Stone had a deep understanding of everything Haley had been going through for the last year. He felt another flood of guilt. Would he ever get over this feeling?

“She was always nagging me about going to church,” he said.

“She? You mean Sharon,” Daddy said. “Not Haley’s angel.”

Stone didn’t respond, and Daddy didn’t argue the point. Instead, Daddy pulled the van up to the sidewalk in front of Christ Church.

Daddy eyed the other cars parked along Palmetto Avenue. “Looks like the church ladies are up there getting the place ready for services tonight. You sure you want to go up there? You know how they can be.”

Stone nodded soberly. “Yeah,” he whispered. Something was pushing him. “I won’t be long,” he said. But of course, he had no idea how long he would be. He had no idea why this compulsion had come over him. Obviously, the bump on his head had rattled something loose.

He got out of the car and walked up the steps and into the sanctuary.

Dozens of poinsettias graced the choir section and the base of the pulpit. Pine roping outlined the altar and the walls. The sanctuary smelled like evergreen and beeswax.

Lillian Bray was up on the altar fussing with an arrangement of red roses, white mums, and holly. Several other members of the auxiliary were polishing the brass offering plate and altar cross.

His own brother Clay was up there arranging music on the organ.

Memories of another church in Florida assailed him. Sharon had been a devoted member of the ladies’ circle. She had been involved in everything and was always a whirlwind of activity at this time of year.

He slipped into the back pew, lowered the kneeling bench, and got on his knees. He closed his eyes, but he didn’t pray. He merely wished for Sharon with all his might.

A strange cold came over him, and when he opened his eyes, she was sitting right beside him. A glowing presence.

“You’re real,” he said.

“Of course I am,” she said in that voice she always used when he’d said something supremely stupid.

“I’m sorry. I—”

“Stone, you don’t need to be sorry. You need to forgive.”

“But I’m not mad at you. I mean I was when you died. I was mad at you for leaving me. But it’s not you I’m angry with anymore.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I need to go. I don’t want to stay here. But you’re keeping me here.” She wiped a tear from her eye. Another tear formed right behind it.

“You’re crying?”

She nodded. “Do you remember what I used to say about Christmas?”