Wally suddenly spun back. Shad tensed in the split second it took Wally to drive his elbow into Shad’s stomach.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin couches at the door; Its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.

--Genesis 4:7

Wally sprinted toward the back of the cab. Some of the wind was knocked out of Shad, but his instinctive tensing left him with enough breath to drop both bags and charge after Wally.

The older man galloped past the rear of the taxi and into the nearby parking lot. Shad, focused so intently on Wally that his awareness of their surroundings had vanished, pursued him and was gaining. He could hear Wally’s gasps as the man hurtled toward a black, mid-size sedan.

Wally had to swerve around the rear of the car to dart toward the driver’s side door. He practically slammed into the vehicle’s side as Wally grabbed the door handle and yanked open the door.

Shad almost clipped the rear bumper of the car as Wally dove inside and Shad leaped toward him. The interior side of the door struck Shad’s hip as Wally tried to slam it shut.

Shad grabbed the front of Wally’s shirt with both hands. With his rage in full force he wrestled Wally out of the sedan in a matter of seconds and shoved him against the rear door of the car.

“Dulsie could have died because of you!” Shad snarled as he hammered Wally repeatedly against the window. “What lies are you gonna tell me now? That it was Dulsie’s own fault? That trying to have me killed is completely normal? That society is too uptight about murder?”

Wally sputtered and tried to grasp at Shad’s wrists.

Shad growled, “You black hearted, dickless coward, you’d better pray for the police to get here before –”

He was ready to try to ram Wally right through the window. Wally looked up as he finally clasped Shad’s wrists. Immediately his mouth twisted into a distorted gape and an odd, strangled moan escaped. His eyes were wide, and Shad realized without a doubt they shone with abject terror.

For a split second his demon rejoiced and poised for satisfaction.

Shad froze as he realized Wally was looking at that demon. Its face had broken through Shad’s own visage, and its darkness was so complete it threatened to smother any flicker of light.

“The only thing that gave you away was your eyes. I swear they got darker.”

Dulsie’s voice emerged from a memory that seemed to come from a lifetime ago. His rage surged again. This cretin deserved to be pounded to a bloody pulp for what he did to Dulsie.

But Dulsie wouldn’t want this. She believed that the man she’d married had a fire in his belly but the fortitude to keep his cool. Shad had already thrown her a curve ball with his affliction and now he was about to make himself even more of a stranger to her. Dulsie couldn’t be won back by a stranger.

Thisisn’tme.

With considerable effort to push back down the raging demon, Shad drew a deep breath as he slowly straightened but kept a tight grip on Wally’s shirt. His focus began to spread again, and Shad became aware that a small crowd of people from the hotel were gathered around the taxi. With another deep breath Shad tried to both steady his hands, which had begun to shake, and remove the hoarseness from his voice.

He looked at the crowd and shouted, “Call the police!”

Shad fully expected to be detained by the police until he was “extradited” back to Osage County. By the time a squad car arrived he was back in complete self-control and calmly and rationally told the officer everything about his run-in with Wally. Shad then practically volunteered to go to the police station where the pertinent paperwork was filed. To his surprise they basically wound up releasing him on recognizance. Apparently the St. Louis police had a chat with the Osage County sheriff, who in turn had probably chatted with Shad’s parents.

That left him with about three hours until time to catch the afternoon train back to Jeff City.

The cab dropped him off at the train station and Shad found a nearby bench to sit at with his satchel and laptop case. His stomach was sore but Shad also realized he was getting hungry. There were plenty of shops in this neighborhood for him to get something to eat, but now that he had some privacy Shad wanted to get back to his call to Eliot. True to his usual luck he got Eliot’s voice mail again, so Shad decided to try calling Monica’s phone.

His luck remained consistent. Shad heard four rings and then the messaging service picked up. So he decided to try Eliot’s home phone.

Shad got the same response.

This was starting to buffalo him. Shad stared at his cell phone for a while, and then decided somebody would surely try to call him back while he was on the phone with anybody else. The people he most wanted to talk with, besides Dulsie, were Mam and Pap.

Incredible. Nobody answered at home, either.

Shad glanced around at the other patrons milling around the stores that lined the streets and half wondered if he’d missed out on the rapture. All right, he decided to try Karl’s cell phone.

Shad finally got a break. Karl answered the phone and immediately sounded quite cheerful.

“We got to bring Dulsie home today.”

Shad’s stomach fluttered, which also reminded him of its other issues. “That’s great. She’s doing fine, then?”

It turned out Mam and Pap were at the Wekenheiser home as well, so Karl loaned his phone to Pap. Shad was brief about his escapade to St. Louis and confirmed he’d be home that evening. But the matter with Charissa nagged at him, so Shad cut the conversation shorter than he preferred.

Well, that trick didn’t work. Nobody tried to interrupt his dialogue with the family. Shad decided to try Monica’s phone number again.

Answering service. Shad stared at the phone for a minute, and then on impulse decided to try her a third time.

After the third ring, just as he was certain of getting the answering service again, Shad heard the line pick up and Monica’s voice seemed a bit groggy.

“Hello?”

“Monica? It’s Shad Delaney.”

“Oh, yes. What did you need?” Monica still sounded only vaguely coherent.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long, but I need to talk to you about Vic. We won’t go into it over the phone, but are you going to be free this evening?”

“Vic?” Monica was apparently still trying to process only the first half of what Shad had said. “He should be around here somewhere.”

A chill flashed through Shad that actually competed with the humid summer air. “Say that again?”

“Vic should be here. I’m surprised he didn’t answer the phone.”

“Monica....” Shad’s heart began to hammer. “Vic wasn’t supposed to be there today. Didn’t Tess call you?”

“Oh yeah, that. Vic came later, said there’d been a change in plans. He would still watch Charissa until after I’d slept.”

The tone in Shad’s voice dropped. “Where’s Charissa?”

“She should be around here, too.” Shad heard the soft crackling of the receiver being muffled while Monica called, “Charissa?” Then her voice became sharp and clear again, and Monica seemed a little more alert. “Just a minute.”

Shad heard the thump of the receiver set down. For what seemed an eternity he listened to silence. A couple of times Shad thought he could hear a voice in the distance. It seemed like a lifetime passed before Monica returned to the phone.

“I can’t find him.” There was tenseness in her voice. “And I can’t find Charissa either.”