He looked at Terry-Joe. “Hi, Craig Chess, pastor of the Triple Springs Methodist Church.” He offered his hand.
“Terry-Joe Gitterman,” he said as they shook. He jealously noted the way Bronwyn stared at this man. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Craig turned back to Bronwyn. “So are you all right?”
She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re in the hospital emergency room in the middle of the night.”
“Oh. No, it’s… my brother had an accident.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Was it Aiden?”
“No, Kell. I don’t think you’ve met him. He’s my older brother.”
“How is he?”
“He should be fine. Nothing too serious.”
Their eyes met. Neither knew what held them there, but for a long moment they could not look away. Something passed between them, and a link that had been a mere thread grew more substantial and important.
Bronwyn blinked back to the present and said, “And what brings you here?”
“One of my elderly parishioners had a heart attack. Her family can’t be here until tomorrow, so I said I’d sit with her while they do their tests.”
“Is that part of your job?”
He smiled. “I always figured that is my job. The sermons are what I do to keep busy when no one has any immediate need.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
“Lots of people don’t. Lots of preachers don’t.”
She impulsively reached out and ran her fingers down his arm, brushing the fabric of his sleeve; she wanted more than anything to wrap her arms around him, but that would surely freak him out. Hell, it freaked her out, because she had no idea why she felt it so strongly. “I have to go,” she blurted.
“Okay. I’m glad you’re feeling better, and I hope your brother recovers.”
“He will. Hyatts are tough.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She firmly took Terry-Joe’s arm. “Good seeing you again, Reverend Chess.”
“Likewise. And nice to meet you, Terry-Joe.”
Terry-Joe said nothing, but looked down sullenly as she pulled him toward the exit. He risked a she’s mine glare back at Craig, but the preacher’s confused expression made it pointless. It seemed none of them knew exactly what had just happened.
Hidden in the shadows at the far end of the empty hospital parking lot, Bob Pafford watched Bronwyn and Terry-Joe climb into Kell Hyatt’s car. The dispatcher had confirmed both the car’s ownership and that the elder Hyatt had, in fact, been stabbed by Dwayne Gitterman at the Pair-A-Dice outside Needsville.
Pafford’s fingers tapped nervously on his polyester-uniformed knee. When the night’s dashboard video was finally seen, he would have a hard time getting around what it showed. The truth was so outlandish that no one would believe it, and he had far too many enemies just waiting for a misstep like this one. He could come up with no other explanation, unless he could claim it was all part of his plan to get the younger Gitterman boy and Hyatt girl to lead him to Dwayne. It was a long shot, but it was all he had, and it hinged on him apprehending the fugitive. So he watched the car drive off, started his engine, and followed them out of Unicorn and into the Cloud County night.
28
The car rumbled through the night, traveling up and down the uneven gravel roads far into the hills above Needsville. Terry-Joe—so tense, his chest hurt—skidded and nearly missed curves he normally handled easily. Bronwyn braced herself against the dash and passenger door, ignoring the seat belt.
Occasionally he thought he saw headlights far behind him, and wondered who else would be out at this time of night, on these isolated roads. But the lights always failed to appear when he slowed a bit to let them catch up, so he wrote them off as just other folks going about their own nocturnal business.
Bronwyn said nothing, simply staring ahead into the dark. Once Terry-Joe turned on the radio to break the silence, and she immediately turned it off. He took the hint.
Finally, forty-five minutes after leaving the hospital, he slowed and stopped at the side of a gravel road. The dust from their passage drifted past them and gave the headlight beams sharp outlines in the darkness. Insects almost immediately appeared, drawn from the surrounding forest.
He killed the engine, then the light. The thick old-growth forest blocked out most of the moon’s illumination. The noise of the summer woods quickly filled the silence. He glanced in the mirror, but saw no sign of their intermittent pursuer; perhaps he’d been imagining things.
He nodded at Dwayne’s pickup, its shape barely visible behind some thick bushes. Only reflection from the obsessively polished chrome gave it away. “His truck’s blocking the road. We’ll have to walk.”
“He’ll be drunk off his ass by now,” Bronwyn said with certainty. “Might even be passed out.”
“He’s scared, Bronwyn. He told me about jail once, about some of the things that happened. Stuff he did, stuff that got done to him. He doesn’t want to go back.”
“Should’ve thought of that before he stabbed Kell,” she said coldly.
Terry-Joe turned in the seat to face her in the darkness. “Maybe we should talk to Bliss Overbay or Mandalay Harris or somebody. One Tufa stabbing another might be something they should know about.”
“They know,” she snapped. “They always know. I’m surprised Bliss wasn’t at the hospital before we were. But this has nothing to do with them, this is between Dwayne and me.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. It was the first time he had touched her with any real assertiveness. “Why, Bronwyn?”
“I need to look into his eyes and see what’s there,” she said. “I want to know if the Dwayne I remember ever existed for real, or was just something I made up in my head.” I did love him once, didn’t I? she asked herself.
“He’s just another hillbilly fuckup. Being Tufa doesn’t change that.”
She shrugged out of his grip. “Don’t pretend you know what I’m thinking, Terry-Joe. The only thing you can do is help me, and if you can’t do that, you’d best wait in the car. Which is it?”
He felt his own anger rise, then quickly subside. Wearily he said, “You know which it is.”
“Then let’s get going.”
Dwayne’s truck blocked a wide path that followed the land’s contours. Their eyes had adjusted enough they could see by the patches of intermittent moonlight. Ahead, a dim glow grew stronger as they approached.
They topped a ridge and immediately knew they were in the right place: Nickelback blared out at them from the darkness. “My God,” Bronwyn muttered, “that’s the same shit he was listening to when I left for the army.”
She descended into the gully, no longer needing Terry-Joe’s help. The light from a battery-powered lantern guided her into the clearing, where marijuana plants nearly five feet tall grew packed together in the half acre of open space. The trees around them provided ideal cover, hiding them both from the ground and from overhead, yet still allowing enough sunlight for them to flourish. Within his limited area of expertise, Dwayne was a gardening genius.
He sat in a canvas camp chair, smoking a joint amid a scatter of beer cans. His old CD boom box rested beside his feet. Mosquitoes and midges drawn to the lantern swirled around it. With the light blinding him, he did not notice his visitors until Terry-Joe shut off the music and Bronwyn kicked his boot to break through his daze.