Baxter slumped into a seat opposite me at a table, looking nothing like the man I knew. His hair had been cut short, his eyes were dulled. Gone was that pulsing power, the confident arrogance. In their place hovered shame and brokenness.
I straightened in my chair, arms folded. Remembering his “sincerity” in front of Pastor Steve at my house that fateful day.
Baxter leaned forward, hands laced upon the table. His shoulders were stooped. “Thanks for coming.”
I nodded.
Baxter watched his thumbs rub over one another. He cleared his throat. Looked at me. “I just wanted to tell you in person how sorry I am. For…everything. Linda. The fear I put you through. The chase I sent you on. The lying.”
The rawness of his expression and tone, of him, left me flailing.
Surely he couldn’t be telling me the truth. He had to have some angle.
But what would be his reason for now playing the penitent? He was in jail, far away from the church and town.
I filled my lungs with dusty air. “Okay.”
One side of his mouth curved the slightest bit. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
How does one know when a liar stops lying?
“I don’t know what to believe.”
Baxter dipped his chin. “That’s understandable. It may take a long time for people to believe I’ve changed.”
“Why, Baxter?” The words burst from me. “What happened to you and Linda? She was so happy when she married you.”
He swallowed and looked away, as if wanting to turn from the memories. I waited him out. He wanted forgiveness? I wanted answers.
“I never hit Linda until after we were married.” His voice ran low, pained. “I grew up watching my dad hit my mom. Thought I’d never be that way. Especially as a Christian. But one day this rage just welled up. And I lashed out. I was horrified. I apologized all over the place. Promised it would never happen again. And then it did.” He paused. Sighed at the table. “After awhile I couldn’t control it. Fear built up inside me. Of who I was becoming. That Linda would tell someone. That I’d lose my reputation. The more fearful I became, the more I lashed out. Then the more I had to hide. Around and around we went. Linda…” Baxter’s voice caught. “…was a saint.”
My own throat tightened. Yes, she was.
If only I’d reacted differently the day she came to me. Once I missed that opportunity, Melissa arrived, and Linda and I had no more private time together.
Baxter shifted in his chair. Blinked a couple of times. “The ironic thing is, Linda wanted a foster child because she believed having a third person in the home would stop me.” He shook his head. “She had me believing it too. And I tried. I really did.”
“You obviously didn’t try hard enough.” I couldn’t keep the accusation from my voice.
He lowered his eyes. “No.”
“You could have prevented all of it, you know.” My anger spilled out. “That very first time you hit Linda—did you ask anyone for help? Confess to our pastor, go for counseling? Did you ever ask God to forgive you? To help you change?”
Baxter could not raise his eyes to my face. “I was too ashamed to pray.”
I made a disgusted sound in my throat. “Too ashamed, that makes a lot of sense. Like God didn’t know the truth.”
Baxter raised a hand, palm out. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve been over this a thousand, million times? I stepped off the path. It wasn’t that far to step right back on, with God’s help. But I didn’t. And then I just got farther and farther away…”
I couldn’t stand to look at Baxter a moment longer. My head snapped to the side, my eyes glaring at the wall. Emotions raged through my veins like floodwaters. I wanted to strangle the man for his arrogance. I wanted to rage and cry. Turn back time, like Superman. Everything that happened—it was all so avoidable. So totally, completely stupid.
Why hadn’t I forced Linda to tell our pastor, the police? Why did I let her get away with her silence?
“I’m sorry, Joanne.” Baxter’s words were a mere whisper. “I wish I could change everything.”
“Me too, Baxter. Me too.”
My eyes burned, and the tears fell.
Now at Linda’s grave I reached out to slide my palm over the smooth top of her headstone. “I still don’t know if Baxter’s ‘change of heart’ is real. I know God can change people. He can. But I just…”
Out of nowhere, Melissa’s sneering voice surfaced in my head. “Miss Lying Christian…”
I closed my eyes.
“God’s changing me, Linda. That I do know.” I aimed a wan smile at her flowers. “I have some things to sort out.”
Like willing myself to forgive Baxter—whether he was still lying or not. I hadn’t been able to say the words yesterday as we parted. But I needed to get to that point, or bitterness would overwhelm me.
And I needed to look within myself, through God’s eyes, and root out any deceit that lingered in me. I didn’t know what that would do to my work. How do you skip trace without pretexting once in a while? (Pretexting—such a benign word for lying.) Perry said I was “catching the bad guys,” so it shouldn’t bother me. “Cops lie during interrogations,” he told me. “Sometimes they have to—to see justice done. You saw that happen with Trovky.”
But was God okay with that?
One thing I did know. If I opened my heart to God’s leading, he would show me any deceit he wanted me to shed.
For fifteen more minutes I sat at Linda’s grave. Praying silently. Talking aloud to her. Telling her how much I missed her.
“Well.” I took a deep breath. Tilted my head toward blue sky. “I should be going. I’ll be back soon.” I struggled to my feet. Brushed off my clothing. “Perry’s coming over for dinner.”
A regular occurrence these days—at least twice a week. Perry had hired new help at the store. So he could spend more time with me, he said.
Not such a bad thing, I thought as I walked away from my best friend’s resting place.
Besides, the smart man always brought Jelly Bellies.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader:
Thank you for taking yet another Seatbelt Suspense® ride with me. I hope I’ve entertained you as well as raised some provocative questions in your mind about man’s natural tendency toward deceit. Some willfully dwell in it; some dabble. Others allow themselves to be pulled in, then can’t seem to escape. Thank God that he is able to deliver us from all manner of deception, if only we will allow him to do so.
And now I must thank some very helpful folks.
First, the usual suspects. The Zondervan team, ranging from editor Sue Brower to copy editor Bob Hudson, and all the assistants and proofreaders and marketing people along the way. Julee Schwarzburg, freelance editor, made this a far better book than its original draft. Thank you, Julee!
In my research for the field of skip tracing, I ran across Robert Scott’s Skiptrace Seminar.com—The e-Book. Scott, owner of Inter-Agency Investigations in Los Angeles, deserves credit for his detailed work, from which I drew much information. Tips on how to disappear were culled from skip tracer Frank M. Ahearn’s site.