Chapter Twenty-Four

There is mother’s heart in the heart of God.

-- Hebridean proverb

If Shad were a swearing man he could have made the nearby pedestrians scatter with their hands over their ears. He told Monica to call the sheriff and that he would do the same. Shad knew he had the information the enforcement agency would need, and the rather long conversation he had with a deputy involved Shad doing a lot of explaining.

The battery of his phone quite low after all that use, Shad dropped it into his pocket and had that sensation again of needing to crawl out of his own skin. He sat on the bench for a few minutes with his arms propped on his knees and head held in his hands.

Why was this happening? How was this happening? Apparently Tess did call Vic, but the man decided to show up at Monica’s anyway and hang around until Monica needed to lie down and take a nap. So why would he, today of all days, decide to take off with Charissa? Why wouldn’t Vic have tried harder to cover his tracks?

Perhaps Shad should start with what he did know. Vic was the one who got the recommendation about Shad as an attorney for Monica. As part of the family and with his medical training and work hours, Vic was selected to help out with Monica and Charissa. Vic was familiar with the activist website. Vic was the go-between for Wally and the hired gunman.

Vic was already an accessory to attempted murder. Why add kidnapping to his rap sheet?

Kidnapping ... children abducted by relatives were at high risk for both abuse and murder.

Shad had to get to his feet upon that thought. He snatched up his satchel and laptop, and simply started walking because he felt compelled to move.

If Vic was associated with somebody who was willing to kill for hire, Vic was also very dangerous – birds of a feather. But if he was a situational offender who had been violating oblivious patients or anybody who couldn’t report his activities, why kidnap Charissa when everybody would know it was him?

Did Vic know the jig was up? When Tess called him this morning, what did she say that might have tipped him off? Shad had told Tess so little. Unless.... Shad hesitated and stared down the street.

Did Vic know that Shad had been Wally’s target? But that didn’t make sense. Why kill off the lawyer that was practically providing new victims for him? Shad felt a little sick to his stomach and knew it had nothing to do with injury or hunger. Then again, Vic might not have known the identity of the hit until ... until Dulsie’s attacker showed up with a gunshot wound he needed medical attention for.

The thought spurred Shad back into striding down the sidewalk.

Even if that were the case, why wouldn’t Vic just make a run for it and try to start a new life elsewhere? Then again, why should Shad assume that anybody who hung out with killers and could easily be a killer himself would think like a person who valued life? There were too many unknowns for Shad to get a solid grip on Vic’s motivation.

And about motivation ... Shad noticed that he didn’t know or care where he was going, but he was making good time. Shad was also headed away from the train station, but that didn’t matter much because it was well over two hours before the train would arrive. Here he was, stuck in St. Louis, trying to puzzle out why Vic would snatch Charissa and where he would take her.

Where? If Shad could only answer that question, he could send the authorities swooping down upon Vic and they would whisk Charissa to safety. But Vic could be anywhere. Shad didn’t know enough to even begin guessing where Vic would hide out. And Vic probably had at least a good thirty-minute head start before Shad roused Monica from sleep.

Shad proceeded to mentally thrash himself for not doing things differently this morning. If only he could have talked to Eliot or Monica, Shad might have been able to keep Charissa out of danger. After a few minutes of this Shad realized it wasn’t getting him anywhere. But what could he possibly come up with here in St. Louis that would be of any help to Charissa?

Shad hesitated, drew a deep breath to try to reorganize his thoughts, and then noticed he had stopped in front of a car rental agency.

He could rent a car and leave St. Louis now instead of later.

Now why on earth would Shad want to do that? Not only was he practically phobic of St. Louis traffic, getting back to the Jeff City area wasn’t going to help Charissa. If he did come up with any brilliant ideas a phone call was much faster than a road trip.

But he really wanted to leave St. Louis. Now.

This didn’t make sense. Shad wasn’t going to discover anything about Charissa’s abduction by heading home any sooner. Was he?

Shad stared at the rental company and felt an odd sensation that his need to keep moving hadn’t been random. Of all the directions he could have headed, Shad had managed to wind up here.

But that was ridiculous. He was uncomfortable in crowds and mortified of vehicular congestion. Under those circumstances it was even crazier of him to consider driving.

But if there was any chance at all Charissa might be saved if he headed toward home now, Shad should do it. This was insane. He couldn’t do it.

In the depths of his memory Shad heard Charissa’s trembling voice. “And if I don’t make you stop the divorce, something bad will happen to me, too.”

This had to be the right action to take precisely because it was so hard to do. Hoping against hope that the variety of madness Shad was experiencing was truly divine, he drew another deep breath to steady his nerves.

Don’tbeacoward Shad told himself, and he walked into the establishment.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I would agree with St. Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”

-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Luckily the interstate access was only a few blocks from the rental agency, but it was many miles later when Shad was able to exit onto a two-lane highway that led to Jeff City. Only then was he able to go off high alert and begin to ponder again about matters other than traffic.

Shad’s first thought was that Dulsie was going to tan his hide in the literal sense and sell it to the highest bidder in order to recoup from his recent spending spree. The medical bills they would be facing soon wouldn’t help, but at least they had good insurance so they shouldn’t wind up in the same straights Mam and Pap did when Pap had the tumor.

Pap’s tumor. That one event changed the course of Shad’s career. No, it wasn’t just the tumor. If anything, the final blow for Shad’s intentions of going into computer science was Jill’s revelation of what his parents had sacrificed for him. Opinionated, outspoken, wonderful Jill. There were several ways Dulsie was like her.

Shad’s discovery that Jill had unwittingly referred to his hidden affliction one day emerging again made Shad more appreciative of Jill’s intuition. But even with the gift of insight that ran deeply in the women descended from Margaret Leeds, none of them had guessed why Shad was brought among them. Erin was the first to sense he shouldn’t go into state custody, and Mam followed through. They didn’t know why it was important, they simply obeyed. Shad hoped they would never find out, at least not before the day they stood before God.

He could have been born with his affliction, but the darker demon had been nurtured through Shad’s suffering. Without serious intervention the two would have combined to make Shad into a predator of dreadful stature – of this he was certain. Mam and Pap had no idea the meek child they brought into their lives harbored a pestilence that grew as Shad grew older. It wanted Shad to accept his affliction because through it the demon would prosper.