“Mr. Delaney!”
Shad looked up. Charissa was stumbling toward him, tripping over some of the brush. Still on his hands and knees, Shad staggered more than crawled in her direction.
“Take it easy, Charissa. Don’t hurt yourself.” His voice was still hoarse and raspy.
Charissa was easily covering more ground than Shad. He had floundered only a couple of yards when she reached him. Shad managed to sit up to a kneeling position and Charissa threw her arms around his neck.
“It’s all right,” Shad croaked as he wrapped his arms around her and patted Charissa’s back. “It’s over.”
She was snuffling but not fully crying. Charissa clung to him as though her life still depended on it, and Shad only had enough strength to keep patting her while he watched for red and blue flashing lights to finally appear at the house upstream.
The deputy called in an ambulance, and while the EMT ministered to the cut above Shad’s left eye, Charissa informed him that he was rehired. Shad’s first thought was that Demetri’s counsel was going to have a field day with the fact Shad had nearly delivered Charissa to a sex offender.
He accompanied the girl to the hospital in order to keep Charissa company, not because of the EMT’s insistence Shad should get that cut stitched. It was just an inch long slash on the corner of his brow, so the only good stitches would do was prevent a scar. Shad decided the butterfly bandage would be good enough. One more scar was the least of his worries.
Tess, Eliot, and Monica arrived at the hospital to see Charissa. That was Shad’s cue to leave with the sheriff and answer a few questions – this time as a witness instead of a suspect.
So Shad was able to get some information. Wally, back in St. Louis, apparently figured he wasn’t going to go down alone and was readily naming names. The sheriff already had the hit man in custody. He worked in security at the mall, which Shad found rather scary. When Dulsie winged him along the jaw, the would-be murderer hightailed it to Vic to get patched up. That was when Vic learned the identity of Wally’s target.
It was late evening by the time Mam and Pap picked Shad up in Jefferson City after he dropped off the rental car. Still sore and bruised, he couldn’t be very exuberant about getting to see them again, but Shad was more grateful than he was able to show. It had been a long two weeks.
And he still had one more matter to take care of.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.
--Genesis 2:24
When Shad parked the Buick in the Wekenheiser home’s driveway the next morning, his fluttering stomach was just another item to add to his list of ailments. Shad drew that well-practiced deep breath to steady his nerves, and walked up the driveway and onto the front porch.
He was wearing a lime green button-down shirt and blue jeans – because of Shad’s bandaged brow, black eye, and busted lip, Shad figured his face was enough of a distraction people didn’t need to see the scrapes and bruises on his legs, too. Shad knocked on the door.
In a few seconds Karl opened the door. He didn’t try very hard to conceal his surprise when he saw Shad’s face.
“I see you’ve taken up sorting wildcats,” comprised Karl’s greeting.
“Something like that.” Shad nodded. “I came to see Dulsie.”
Karl broke into a grin. “You can do more than that, you can even talk to her.”
Karl stepped aside so Shad could walk into the living room. Karl shut the door behind him.
“She’s in the kitchen.” Karl nodded toward the rear of the house. “Jill took off to get her some things. She’s kinda reckoning Dulsie’s gonna stay here for a while.”
Not if he could help it, Shad thought. “That’s ... nice of her.”
Karl regarded him a bit curiously, and Shad wasn’t sure exactly what that was in response to. “Uh-huh. You know, you’ve always been my favorite son-in-law. I figured on keeping you around for a while.”
Karl almost sauntered through the kitchen doorway, and his voice was cheerful when he spoke up.
“Dulsie, you’ve got a visitor.”
Dulsie was sitting at the small kitchen table that Jill and Karl used for everyday dining. Her left arm was bandaged in a navy blue sling across her chest, and her right hand was resting upon the newspaper she was reading. Dulsie was wearing an untucked button-down blouse and jersey shorts in differing shades of blue. She looked up as Shad followed Karl into the kitchen, and Dulsie raised one eyebrow when she saw Shad’s face. Other than that, her expression remained impassive.
Shad’s heart drummed harder for a few beats. “How are you doing?”
“Not too bad.” Dulsie sounded perfectly normal. “Considering this time I wasn’t faster than the speeding bullet.”
Guilt surged through him again. “How’s the baby?”
“Hanging in there.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to stay longer at the hospital. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you again before now.”
Karl suddenly coughed and started heading toward the back door. “I’d better go count the turkeys, make sure they’re all there. It’s gonna take me a while ‘cause I gotta take off my shoes after I run outta fingers.”
One corner of Dulsie’s mouth twitched upward, but Shad knew it was for her dad and not him.
Karl stepped out and shut the door without another word and Dulsie continued to regard Shad with an expression that was so neutral his heart began to hammer harder. She was the first to speak, however.
“Did the dogs drag you out from under the porch?”
Shad stepped closer to the table. “I had a busy day yesterday.”
“Going for the understatement, aren’t you?” Dulsie tapped her forefinger on the newspaper. “They actually got some of your story in here already.”
Shad started to raise his eyebrows, but that hurt just enough to make him quit.
“Don’t worry.” There was something rueful in the slight smile that finally formed on her lips. “They don’t mention you at all. It’s just a little article buried inside about the arrest of the guy who shot me.”
“There’s a lot more that happened.” Shad rested his hands on the back of the chair next to Dulsie. “There’s a lot I need to tell you.”
“Sit down, then.” Dulsie motioned toward the chair where he was standing. “I can tell this is gonna take a while.”
Shad told her everything that happened yesterday, even including his darkest moment when he was ready to reduce Wally to a grease spot on the concrete. Dulsie listened but didn’t say much except to ask a couple of questions for clarification. Shad finished with describing how he comforted Charissa on the riverbank while they waited for law enforcement to arrive.
“I was already back home with Mam and Pap before I realized what had happened.” Shad looked down at his hands clasped together on the table. “I had the wrong feelings about this girl only last week. But nothing like that happened yesterday.” He looked back up at Dulsie. “I know I was exhausted, I know I was in agony, but I would like to think something ... paternal ... asserted itself instead. I’m not gonna claim this thing’s gone back into latency, because it just isn’t that easy. But I have hope again that I haven’t had in many days.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” But Dulsie’s voice matched her expression.
“We know this is gonna haunt me for the rest of my life, but it doesn’t have to haunt you. I’ll go into therapy if you want me to. If we have a daughter and it makes you feel better, we’ll establish some ground rules about what I’m allowed to do. And if you feel comfortable enough to leave her alone with me, I promise I won’t even have so much as one beer. I’m at your mercy. What you say is law.”