Love Mercy Part 23

"Forget it," Magnolia said. "On the house. From one scorned sister to another."

Rett gave a small smile. "That's a good song hook."

"Go for it," Magnolia said. "Write that man right outta your hair. Want me to call Love and tell her you survived?"

Rett knew there was only one acceptable answer to that question.

"Sure. Tell her I'll be right home."

Rett walked the three blocks to the feed store, watching the sun set on the Pacific Ocean. With the orange-juice-colored sun glowing behind Morro Rock, the beauty of the moment made her wish there was some way she could capture it in a song. But writing about scenery in a way that people could see it was hard. Relations.h.i.+ps were always easier.

It was a little before five p.m., the air that unreal purple blue tint that seemed deeper here in the West, when she crossed the feed store threshold. Mel sat behind the counter leafing through a catalog with pictures of flowers and giant pumpkins. She wore a green B & E Feed sweats.h.i.+rt and brown cords. Behind her a radio was playing softly. Rett couldn't make out the artist.

"Hey," Rett said.

Mel looked up from the catalog. "Hey, yourself. How'd things go with you and the b.u.t.t wipe?"

Rett grinned. "Is that, like, cop talk or something?"

Mel gave her a half smile and tossed the seed catalog aside. "Nah, that there is scorned woman talk."

Rett laughed. "That's the second time I've heard that word today."

Mel lifted her eyebrows in question.

"Scorned," Rett said. "Magnolia has been scorned too."

"Yeah, well, it's a big club. Lots of members."

"So I hear." Rett leaned against the counter. "I told Dale I'd give him back his banjo."

Mel nodded. "Probably best. Want me to get it?"

"Yeah, but I'm giving it back to him tomorrow. Want him to suffer one more night. And I want to play it one more time."

Mel didn't reply, just stood up and went through the doorway into the small office behind the counter. Rett heard a closet open and close. Mel came back a few seconds later carrying the banjo case.

"This sucker is heavy," she said.

"Tell me about it," Rett said. "I lugged it clear across the country."

"Next time, fall for a harmonica player."

Rett giggled. It felt good to be joking with another woman about Dale. It did almost feel like she'd gained members.h.i.+p into a kind of club. The scorned sisters, Magnolia had called them. Members.h.i.+p requirement: one broken heart. She felt her heart beat faster. That did sound like the beginning of a song.

Mel smiled, then like a flash, her expression changed. She stared over Rett's shoulder, a look that Rett could only discern as fury on her face. Rett turned around and saw a heavy-chested man standing in the feed store doorway. He wore a dark trench coat, like those eastern city detectives on Law and Order. His hair was short and curly, his complexion s.h.i.+ny red, especially around his nose and cheeks. He reminded her of her second stepfather, Roy, who was a total alcoholic.

"I need your help, Rett," Mel said, her eyes not leaving the man. "Call Brad and tell him I had to leave. Tell him you'll stay here until he can come close up." She grabbed a pen and jotted something down on the wooden counter. "I'll be back soon." Rett could feel some kind of emotion radiating from Mel, like a three-way lamp switched on bright-it seemed like fear or anger or something else? Who was this man? Why could he rattle someone as unshakable as Mel?

Without waiting for Rett's reply, Mel met the man just as he stepped through the doorway.

"Not here," Rett heard Mel mumble. She pushed past him and with a quick glance at Rett, he followed her without uttering a word.

"Okay, sure," Rett called after Mel, nervous about what just happened. She looked down at the countertop where Mel had written Brad's phone number. Under it was written the word triggers.

Triggers? What was that? Like on a gun? Was it this guy's name? Was Rett supposed to tell Brad that? She called the number and got Brad's voice mail. She quickly told him what Mel said and hung up, wondering what she should do now. She knew she couldn't leave the store without locking it up, and she didn't have any idea how to do that. Her grandma. That's what she should do, call her grandma.

The answering machine picked up after the fourth ring, and Rett left a quick message for Love to call her back at the feed store. Then she tried Love's cell. Again, voice mail. Why didn't her grandma answer her cell phone?

What now? For some reason, she knew deep inside that she had to tell someone right away about Mel leaving with that scary-looking man. It didn't feel right to her, and the burden of being the only one who knew frightened her more than anything ever had.

Magnolia was the next person who came to her mind. She was looking up the number for the b.u.t.tercream in the tattered Morro Bay Yellow Pages when a man walked into the feed store. He was an older guy, not as old as her grandma or Magnolia, but not as young as Mel. Forties, she guessed. He wore a fleece-lined denim jacket, Levi's and muddy roper boots.

"Howdy," he said in an obvious Texas accent. "Mel around?"

She was silent for a moment, not certain what to say. "Uh, she stepped out for a moment, with a . . . She'll be back . . . uh . . . soon?"

He c.o.c.ked his head while she stammered, his brown eyes serious. "Is everything okay?"

She nodded and swallowed hard, not trusting herself to speak again.

Something in his face s.h.i.+fted. He glanced around, taking in the empty feed store. "Are you here alone?"

She hesitated, not wanting to answer a question that would point out her vulnerability. Should she lie and say Brad or Evan was in the back? Would this guy fall for it? Who was he, anyway? She put the banjo case in front of her thinking that if he tried anything crazy she could throw it at him and run.

He walked up to the counter, pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. "My name is Ford Hudson. I'm with the San Celina County Sheriff's Department. Mel and I are friends. Is there something wrong, young lady?"

She stared down at the badge. It looked real enough, but what if it was a fake? She'd seen on television about how many fake police badges there were out there. She wasn't an idiot.

"Smart girl," the man said. "Yes, it could be fake. What can I do to convince you I'm an actual officer and Mel's friend?"

Before she could answer, the phone rang. It was her grandma.

"Rett, are you okay? What's going on? Is Dale threatening you?" Love's voice sounded out of breath.

"No, I'm fine," she said, keeping her eye on the man. "I'm at the feed store. Did Magnolia call you?"

"Yes, but she said you were on your way home. Then I listened to your message. You sounded scared."

"I'm okay. You know, like, a lot of people here in Morro Bay, right?"

"I suppose you could say I do. Why?"

She gazed up at the man in the denim jacket. "Do you know someone named Hudson . . . uh . . ."

"Ford Hudson," the man repeated, smiling. "People call me Hud."

"Hud?" Rett said into the phone.

"Of course," Love said. "Hud's a sheriff's deputy. He has a daughter around your age. She was in my 4-H group for years."

"What's he look like?"

"Medium height. Short, brownish hair, gray at the temples. Has a Texas tw.a.n.g. Why?"

"He's here looking for Mel and I wasn't sure-"

"Where did Mel go? Are you at the feed store alone?"

Rett turned her back to Hud, and in a low voice, quickly told her the story. "I left a message for Brad. I can't leave the store unlocked. She left in such a hurry with this creepy guy who showed up and just told me to call Brad."

"Let me talk to Hud."

Rett turned around and handed the phone to Hud. "She wants to talk to you."

He listened, then said, "I don't know what's going on. I just walked in. Maybe Rett can tell me. Okay, sure. Here she is." He handed the phone back to Rett.

"I'll be right down," Love said. "Sit tight. Tell Hud whatever he wants to know. You can trust him.

Rett hung up the phone. "My grandma said you were okay."

"Can you tell me where Mel is now?"

Rett nodded. "She left with a man. It was kinda strange. I mean, she was sort of jumpy. The guy was big, like wrestler big. He wore a trench coat. He had curly short hair. And a red face. Like he was a drinker." She paused. "My stepfather drinks a lot, that's how I know that."

He put both hands on the counter. "Tell me exactly what happened."

She told him everything she could remember. "He didn't say anything, but it was like she knew he was coming or something."

"Did she say anything about where they were going?"

Rett shook her head. Then she remembered and pointed at the counter. "She wrote Brad's number for me and something else."

He came around the counter and looked at the message: triggers. "How long ago did they leave?"

She glanced at the black-and-white schoolhouse clock that hung on the wall next to the doorway. "Maybe fifteen minutes? Twenty? Do you know where they went? Does it help at all?"

He reached over and patted her hand. "It helps tremendously, Rett. You did real good. Is your grandma on her way down here?"

Rett nodded, suddenly afraid for Mel, though she didn't exactly know why.

"Then I'm going to take off. Don't worry. I'm pretty sure I know where they went."

"Okay," she said, watching him walk out the door. "Good luck," she called after him. Then added under her breath, "Okay, Mister G.o.d, you gotta give Mel a break. She really, really needs your help. Please make everything okay. In Jesus's name, amen."

TWENTY-FIVE.

Mel We'll take my car," Mel said, walking toward her truck. w "I'd rather drive," Patrick said.

"I drive, or I don't go." She wouldn't give in on this point. She knew that it was crazy even going off alone with him, despite the fact that she'd left a clue on the desk that she hoped Rett would pick up on. It would at least give them a place to start looking if she disappeared.

"Whatever." He grunted and squeezed his hefty bulk into the front seat. "I just want to get this over with."

"No more than I do," Mel said, driving slowly down Main Street.

"Where are we going?" he asked. "Why not just go to your place?"

She stopped at the on-ramp to Pacific Coast Highway and glanced in her rearview mirror. No one behind her. She turned to look at him. "I think that little paint job you did on my garage answers any questions about why you are not welcome at my house."

He had the grace to look embarra.s.sed. His already florid complexion, a rougher, rounder facsimile of Sean's handsome face, turned a deeper red. "I was just trying to get your attention."

"It was juvenile," she said, pressing her foot on the accelerator as they took the curvy on-ramp. "There's a bar in San Celina where we can talk."

"Only thing I want to talk about is you giving back the money."

She didn't answer but pressed down harder on the accelerator. She contemplated more than one of the pa.s.sing light posts, calculating how fast she'd have to hit one to kill them both. But, somewhere inside her, another voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Cy's, argued against that drastic solution.

"Not many situations on this earth are totally unfixable, Mel," Cy told her once. "With G.o.d's help and a little perseverance, most things can be worked out. The secret is not giving up. If something doesn't work, you simply try another path."

They'd been stacking alfalfa bales in the back lot, and she'd not answered. She loved Cy like a father, but when he started talking that G.o.d stuff, she just s.h.i.+fted her mind into neutral and let him rattle on. She didn't want to offend him, but it all seemed just too improbable to her. And ironic, she thought now, coming from someone who died from something that couldn't be fixed. But she understood what he was trying to get across to her and what he was trying to do: give her hope.

His words about not giving up made her think of Love. If nothing else, what Love had gone through in the last year was reason enough for Mel not to kill herself. She'd never put her friend through that kind of pain. She'd at least try to heed Cy's advice and try another path with Patrick.

It was dark when they reached Triggers, a bar that Mel had gone to a few times on her lonely night drives when grisly memories kept her from sleep. It was down by the San Celina bus station. The bar was a place that didn't do a thing to attract tourists but prided itself in maintaining its hard-core working-cla.s.s roots. The flat-roofed, cinder block building had been around for fifty years, had opened and closed at least ten times, and every one of those hard years was apparent in the scarred wooden booths, the chipped dark brown linoleum floor and the rust-stained bathroom sinks. It was past the point of being quaint and was what it was: a place for people down on their luck to sit, drink and brood. The television on the wall was always turned to sports, never CNN. There were only hard-core country songs on the jukebox: Haggard, Jones, Cash, the Williams boys, father, son and grandson. No one knew Mel there-she didn't frequent it often enough-and the bartenders changed as quickly as the tide. It felt like the right place to have it out with Patrick.

She chose a back booth, and once their drinks came, Patrick started in on her. In the background, Dwight Yoakam wailed about being a thousand miles from nowhere.

"Okay, enough of the bulls.h.i.+t," Patrick finally said. "Just give me the money, and I'm on the first plane out of here."

She was ready for him, had been carrying them around since he called, expecting this moment. She pulled her checkbook and savings account statement from her back pocket, slapping them down on the table in front of him. The wooden table jiggled with the force, and his beer sloshed over the rim of the mug, wetting the edge of the blue and white bank statement.

He glanced over them. "What's this supposed to prove?"

"Look at the balances," she said, keeping her voice quiet. She needed all the edge she could get, and she'd learned from years on the force that often speaking low commanded more authority than loud bl.u.s.tering. It forced the other person to lean in to hear you, giving you the psychological advantage. "In case you have trouble with numbers, the checking account has approximately nine hundred bucks in it and the savings a little less than a thousand. What don't you understand? That's all my worldly goods, right there."

He shoved the papers back across the table. "Doesn't prove s.h.i.+t. You could have the money squirreled away in some other account."

She picked up her own drink, a whiskey over ice, and took a sip. She'd make this last, let the ice melt and water it down. She had to keep her wits about her. "Except that I don't."

"Yeah, right." He gave a harsh laugh and rubbed his knuckles across his strong chin. She could hear the rasp of his beard against skin-covered bone.