Shooting Starr

Chapter 9

“‘A new set of dreams…’” She whispered it, staring into nothingness. The bleakness in her face hit him like a body blow.

Turning so he couldn’t see her face, she leaned her back against the same tree trunk that was propping him up and said in a not-quite-steady voice, “That’s ridiculous. You could still have had your dream of going to the University of Georgia if you’d wanted to. If you’d worked at it. Even playing football-you might have gotten there by a different path-”

He shrugged, then sucked in air as their shoulders touched. It shocked him to realize how much he wanted to hold her. More than he wanted his next breath. His voice wasn’t steady, either, as he retorted, “Yeah, well, maybe that was a dream that wasn’t meant to happen. Maybe I wouldn’t have been good enough to play college ball. How do I know? Like I said, things had always been easy for me. I’d never been tested, I guess you could say. And except for football, I didn’t have the first idea what I wanted to do with my life. Without that, who knows, I might have squandered a whole college education and graduated still not knowing. Maybe dropping out of school at that point was the best thing I could have done.”

He heard a soft laugh and leaned over so he could see her face. A smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Providence,” she murmured, angling her head toward him slightly.

“‘Providence’?” The word tugged at his memory and he frowned, trying to place it. But the top of Caitlyn’s head was right there, just below his nose…those waving tufts of golden hair would tickle his lips if he leaned over just a little bit.

She tilted her face upward, and he caught and held his breath. Couldn’t let it go-she’d know how close he was. Her lips quivered with her smile. “Something my dad used to say.”

The memory snapped into focus, and he flattened himself back against the tree trunk and let out a shaken breath. “Ah-your aunt, right?”

Surprised eyes reached upward toward his face as she turned fully toward him, her smile a hairsbreadth from where his lips had been. “My dad’s great-aunt, actually-she lived to be over a hundred. How did you know?”

His heart pounded; he fought to keep his voice even. “Your dad told me-back there in the hospital. Said something about getting hurt and as a result of that, being where he needed to be to save your mother’s life. And that your-his-aunt said it was Providence.”

“My dad told you that?” The watermark frown had appeared in the center of her forehead, and her eyes flickered as if they were trying to search his face in the darkness.

“Yeah, he did. Is it true?”

“Oh, yes.” She relaxed, sagging back against the tree. “The way it happened… Dad was a marine. He was stationed in Bosnia, and he’d stayed on there even after he left the corps, helping out with one of those humanitarian groups, driving a truck-” a startled look flashed across her face for an instant “-um, bringing in food and medical supplies. He was injured when his convoy was shelled. Broke both his legs. So they sent him home for rehab. Mom was his physical therapist, and it just so happened that at the time she was being stalked by her ex-husband. He’d have killed her if Dad hadn’t been there-or maybe she’d have killed him, I don’t know. Either way, Dad saved her life, and he was in a wheelchair at the time.”

“Amazing story,” C.J. murmured, and there was a swelling warmth inside his chest he recognized as envy. “Your dad’s a real hero.”

“Yes, he is.” She pushed restlessly away from the tree, then halted…trapped, it occurred to him, on her own private island. “Mom was one of the lucky ones.” There was anger now in her voice, and he didn’t know whether it was because of what they were talking about or her frustration at her own limitations. “That’s how I-”

He’d moved up beside her, to give her a point of reference, maybe, or walk with her if that was what she wanted. And she turned and reached out to him impulsively, the way she’d done that night in the abandoned gas station. That night her hands had landed on his folded-up arms with a touch light as leaves falling. Now since his arms weren’t folded, it was his chest she touched. He looked down into her eyes, and for the first time in a long time saw that breathtaking flash of silver.

“C.J.,” she said, earnest and intent, “do you know what I do? I mean…have you guessed, or figured it out?”

“I think I’ve ’bout got it figured out, yeah. But why don’t you explain it to me.” His voice was harsher than he’d intended. Whether it was that or she’d felt the way his heart was knocking against her fingers, but she took her hands away from his chest. Regret swept through him, intense as a shiver.

“Well, that’s what started it for me-my parents’ story.” She was looking away from him now…far, far away. “Mom and Dad were always open with me about what had happened to her. She’d been abused by her father when she was just a child, and finally the only way she could find to escape him was to get married, when she was barely sixteen. That was just as bad. Her husband was a violent, controlling man, and when she left him he tracked her down and, as I said, would have killed her if it hadn’t been for Dad. I used to think about that. What about the ones who aren’t lucky enough to have someone like my dad? Things are a lot better now than they used to be. At least there’s more awareness of the problem of domestic violence…laws are tougher. But there are still so many cases where-” She paused, shaking her head, and the look she threw at him was one of cold, bitter fury. Then, though he had nothing to say to her, she held up a hand as if to stop him-or was it herself?-and went quietly on.

“I went into social work, first, thinking that was the way to help. It didn’t take me long to realize that Social Services can only do so much. Social service agencies have to operate within the confines of law. And the law-okay, the law means well, but sometimes it seems like it protects the wrong people. Then there are some people who don’t know about the law and others who don’t care. And some-” her voice and her eyes hardened “-who believe they are a law unto themselves.”

“Like Vasily…” He said it on an exhaled breath and it sounded like a hiss. Even the name seems evil, he thought.

She gazed at him for a long moment without speaking, and the healing bruises around her eyes seemed to shimmer. Then she said softly, “I’m not going to tell you how I found the group I work-” her mouth twisted “-worked for. It’s too important that the work they do be allowed to go on.” Her lips relaxed and quivered into a half smile. “Dad says it’s like the Underground Railroad-you know, like during slavery?-but actually it’s probably more like a witness protection program, only not sanctioned by any government agency. We get people who are in imminent danger to safety, then help them…disappear.”

“Is that what happened to Emma Vasily? She just…disappeared?” His voice was gruff. He didn’t mean to be judgmental, but he was thinking about the little girl with the big black refugee eyes, the way she’d leaned against him, wanting so badly to trust somebody. He wondered if she was happier now, living among strangers.

“C.J…” It sounded like a sigh of regret.

“I guess I can’t blame you for not trusting me,” he said. And he couldn’t, but that didn’t keep him from feeling hurt in some strange, illogical way.

She looked sideways at him. They’d begun walking again, swishing their feet through the leaves on his mother’s lawn. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said, still wearing that little half smile. “The funny thing is, you know, I do. I trust you to behave exactly as you have been, with honor and integrity…” C.J. snorted. Why didn’t he feel complimented? “The problem is, you and I are on opposite sides of the fence, C.J.”

“I don’t think that’s true-” The denial was automatic and held no conviction at all.

She shook her head. “You still plan on being a lawyer?”

“Yes, I sure do.”

“Well, then? As a lawyer, you are bound as an officer of the court to uphold the law. And there’s no getting around the fact that I-” her smile wavered “-for the best of all possible reasons, am often, shall we say, forced to circumvent it.” She shrugged as if to say, That’s the way it is-what can you do?

What could he do? What could he say? The answer to that was: not a damn thing.

“I think I’d like to go in now,” Caitlyn said softly, and she gave a shiver that was only perceptible because his arm happened to be touching hers.

“Getting cold?” he asked, and she shrugged.

It did seem cooler there in the shaded yard, or maybe it was just the chill he felt deep down in his insides…of loneliness, maybe? Of regret?

All he knew was that a few moments ago he’d felt so close to her it had seemed to him one good puff of wind could have brought her into his arms. Now she was a million miles away. On opposite sides of the fence, she’d said, and he couldn’t think of any way to tell her she was wrong. And if she wasn’t, he wondered how in the world he was supposed to help her, whether that meant make things right for her, be a hero to her, save her life or just be there if she needed comforting. How was he supposed to do any of those things with that fence between them?

“Hey, hon’, how’re you doin’ out here?” The screen door creaked, then banged shut. Jess’s footsteps scuffed on the planks of the front porch floor.

It was late afternoon, coming to the end of Caitlyn’s third day in the Starr household. She was becoming more comfortable there and less fearful, gaining confidence as she learned her way around. Her days were already developing a routine: in the mornings, breakfast; then, while Jess went off to her shift at the hospital in town and Betty to her shopping or volunteer work for the church day-care center, long, leisurely walks with C.J. and the dogs. During those walks, C.J. tried, rather touchingly, she thought, to describe everything for her in great detail, while she tried very hard to keep from him the fact that she was counting footsteps and memorizing the locations of trees and fences.

Later, after C.J. had gone home to study for his bar exams, she would help Betty with the housework or in the garden. She was learning how to water by hand with the garden hose during the autumn dry spell, and to tell the difference between crabgrass and vegetable plants by feel.

The hardest times were the quiet times, like now-what could she do if she was too restless to nap? Reading and watching TV were definitely out. She wasn’t accustomed to being idle, but so far, sitting on the front porch listening to the cassette tapes Betty had found for her was the only activity she’d been able to come up with to combat the loneliness of those empty hours.

“You got a minute?”

Caitlyn had nothing but minutes, but thought it would be self-pitying to say so. She stilled the rocking chair, felt for the Off button on the portable tape player in her lap and pulled off the headphones, then turned toward the voice with a welcoming smile. “I was just listening to these ‘Lake Woebegon’ tapes your mom gave me.”

“Garrison Keillor? Oh, I remember those.” The rocker next to hers gave a groan and Jess’s voice came from a new level. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard them, though.”

“My parents always put them on in the car during long trips.” She leaned over to put the tape player on the floor, and her foot nudged a large furry body that twitched and emitted a patient sigh. “Sorry, Bubba,” she murmured.

“He sure has adopted you,” Jess said.

“Yeah, I know.” Caitlyn settled back in the rocker with a short laugh. “It’s funny…it’s almost as if he knows.”

“Dogs have a sense about ’em. The intelligent ones do.” There was a pause and then a laugh-a dry, soft stirring, like the rustling of leaves. “The day I found out my husband had been shot down, ol’ Bubba, there, wouldn’t leave my side. Came right in the house and would not be put out…and Bubba is not a house dog. That night and for a long time after that he slept on the rug beside my bed.”

“Shot down?” Caitlyn sat forward, frowning. She had a vague memory of C.J. telling her something about that, but she rather thought she’d dreamed it. It had occurred to her to wonder why Jess and her daughter were living with Jess’s mother, and what had become of the husband and father, but she would never in a million years have been so rude as to ask. “You mean…”

“Yeah…as in killed.” It was a gentle exhalation. “Didn’t C.J. tell you? Tristan’s officially listed as KIA, although they never did find his remains-and how they could know anything, considering he went down in Iraq…”

“I’m so sorry.” Such a loss seemed beyond imagining.

Jess let out another of those careful breaths. “That’s okay. It was a long time ago-God, eight years. Sometimes I can’t even believe it. But I have accepted it.”

“But you haven’t remarried, or…”

“Or…?” The rocking chair’s creak seemed to accent the question mark. “No, but it’s not because I didn’t-that I wouldn’t have, if-” The chair creaked again, more like a protest this time.

“I’m sorry,” Caitlyn said quickly. “It’s none of my-”

“No, no, it’s okay-it’s just that I haven’t thought about it in a while, is all. It’s not that I wouldn’t have, if I’d found anybody I wanted.” She hesitated, then, “Problem is, Tris is a pretty darn hard act to follow.”

As she nodded her understanding, in her mind’s eye Caitlyn pictured a smile, poignant and sad. Jess’s, she wondered, or her own? She could imagine…had grown up in the shelter of such a love…could readily understand why someone who had known that kind of love would never settle for anything less. She couldn’t imagine, for instance, either of her parents remarrying, should anything-God forbid!-happen to the other. She could understand…but would she ever know? Looking ahead at her own prospects for finding love like that, she saw only a vast and hopeless emptiness.

“But,” Jess said briskly, to the accompaniment of a loud creak from her rocking chair, “that’s not what I came out here to talk to you about. I’ve been looking on the Internet at work-” there was a papery rustle “-and I found all sorts of stuff I think might be really helpful for you. You know-programs, services, gadgets. Technology is amazing, isn’t it? Like, they have this little thingy you put in your coffee cup, so when you pour, it beeps to tell you you’re close to the top. Cool, huh?”

Cool. Caitlyn’s smile had frozen on her face. If she moved, if she uttered a word, it would shatter into a million pieces. She would.

“You wouldn’t believe the stuff they have to help blind people be more independent-gadgets, but more important, they teach you how to do for yourself. There are schools, counseling programs-you know, to help you cope… They even have people who come and help you get set up, organize your clothes, teach you how to use everyday things like the stove, money, how to use a cane. There are Seeing Eye dog- Hon’, where y’goin’? You okay?”

She wasn’t okay, and she didn’t know where she was going. Nowhere. Nowhere. She was standing up, driven to her feet by the desperate need to flee, to escape from the kind voice and well-meaning words, from the intolerable, unthinkable pictures they painted of the future…her future.

I’m not blind. I can’t be blind. Not forever. My vision’s going to come back. It has to come back. It has to.

Fear gripped her; fear such as she’d never known in her life. She felt cold to the center of her soul. She was shaking.

“Caitlyn, honey, what’s wrong? Did you want to go inside?”

“What? Oh. No-I just…” She shook her head and put out a groping hand. Where could she go? Nowhere. She was trapped-trapped in a box of nothingness.

“I’m sorry, hon’, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Jess’s hand was on her arm, guiding her back to the rocking chair, and Bubba’s nose nudged a question against her knee. Absently she gave his ears a reassuring fondle.

“You didn’t upset me,” she said, and her voice was calm and even. “It was kind of you to go to so much trouble, but… It’s just that…well, I can’t very well do any of those things as long as I’m in…” In what? In hiding…in limbo?

“In FBI custody?” Jess finished it for her in a wry tone, and Caitlyn gave a shaky laugh.

“Yeah, something like that. Nobody’s supposed to know where I am. So I can’t very well go to classes or see a counselor…”

“No, guess not.” There was a small sigh, lost in creaks and rustlings. “Well, okay, I’m gonna hang on to these-might come in handy later on. I just thought, you know…it might make you feel better to know there’s help out there. That you’re not alone.” A hand squeezed Caitlyn’s shoulder, and Jess added in a soft-gruff voice that sounded a lot like her brother’s, “You gonna be okay out here? You sure you don’t want to go in?”

Caitlyn wanted to scream at her. No, I’m not okay! I’m blind, you idiot! I can’t see! I’m blind and I’m trapped and I’m terrified, can’t you see that? She wanted to scream and swear and punch and kick something. She wanted to crawl into someone’s lap and cry.

“No, that’s okay, I’m fine,” she said softly. “I think I’ll just sit out here a little while longer.” Her hand moved in the warm silkiness of Bubba’s fur.

“Sun’s going down-you want me to bring you out a sweater?”

“No-I’m fine.”

“Okay, hon’, if you’re sure you’re okay.” After a moment’s hesitation the screen door creaked, then banged shut.

The sun’s going down. I wonder where? I can’t feel it here. I must be facing the wrong way. Or maybe it’s the trees. I wonder if it’s a beautiful sunset…

Caitlyn sat and listened to the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair and the rustlings and scufflings of squirrels in the leaves on the lawn. As she rocked, her hand stroked gently over Bubba’s head. And she shivered…and shivered…and shivered.

C.J. could see her as he came up the lane, sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch with Bubba alert and on guard beside her. Funny-he remembered he’d thought her being in his mother’s house was like finding a fairy perched on a front porch rocker, and here she was. But right then what she looked like more than anything was a statue, lovely and graceful, yes, but lifeless and stone cold.

He slowed to a walk as he turned onto the grass, but didn’t look at his watch to check his time. He knew it had to be one of his best, but the truth was he’d forgotten to set the stopwatch when he’d taken off out of the house after Jess’s phone call. If his sister was worried enough to tell him to “get your butt over here,” well…

He knew Caitlyn had to have heard him coming, but she didn’t call out to him or give any sign she knew he was there. So he called out, “Hey, how’y’doin’? Ready to go for a walk?” Careful not to let any sign of his concern show in his voice.

Not that he fooled her for a minute.

“I suppose Jess called you,” she snapped at him as he came up the steps, chin jutting. Her eyes, thundercloud gray, sparked a warning, and her hand moved restlessly in Bubba’s neck fur.

“Yeah, she did.” He smiled gamely at her, panting a little. “But I was comin’ over, anyway.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about me, I’m a grown woman, not a child. I don’t need a baby-sitter. And I’m not a dog, either. I don’t need to be walked twice a day.”

Her grumpiness amused him. Maybe because Jess had warned him, or he was getting used to her, but where her frosty tone might have intimidated him a few days ago, now he only thought how cute she looked with her hair lying on her forehead and cheekbones like petals of a pale yellow flower. She’d gotten the last of her bandages off this morning, after a consultation set up by Jake between Jess and the doctor, and his mother had trimmed her hair and shampooed it for her. It covered up most of what was left of her bruises and scalp wound so that she looked not so much like a convalescent, now, as a little child woken up from a nap too soon.

“I like your hair,” he said. “Looks good.”

Her hand flew up to touch it, a jerky, involuntary motion that reminded him of a drunken butterfly landing on a flower. Warring emotions flitted across her face: a uniquely feminine pleasure at odds with the darkness of her thoughts. Finally she made a throat-clearing sound and grudgingly muttered, “Thanks.”

He took her hand and drew her up and out of the rocking chair, but let go of it when she tugged, and let her find the railing and feel her own way down the steps. After a moment Bubba hauled himself up and lumbered after her, and C.J. followed, fighting the useless feeling that came over him so often when he was with her.

He moved up beside her as they walked across the leaf-littered grass. He could smell strawberries. He wondered if it was the shampoo his mother had used on her hair. “So, where do you want to go? Wanna go down to the creek? Probably just got time enough before it gets too dark.”

She gave a sharp, bitter laugh at that, and for a moment or two didn’t answer. Then she lifted her head and paused, as if listening to a distant sound. “I want to run,” she said, and her voice was breathless and suspenseful, as if she were already in the starting blocks.

What the hell, he thought. Why not? “Okay,” he said, and was rewarded by her look of surprise.

He took her down to the hayfield, which the farmer had finally cleared of bales the day before. It hadn’t rained in a while and the ground was hard and dry, the grass gone dormant until spring. It was quiet and empty out there, away from the stirrings of trees and the rustle of falling leaves. A little breeze lifted the feathers of her hair as he stood behind her in the lavender dusk, carrying the sweet strawberry scent of it to his nostrils. With his hands gentle on her arms he turned her to face the open field.

“Okay,” he murmured, “nothing in front of you but grass. Go for it. I’ll be right beside-”

She was off before he’d finished, jogging tentatively at first while he stayed where he was and watched her, his soul lifting with purest pleasure at the sight. Then Bubba whined; he looked down and saw the big dog gazing up at him with reproach.

“Wha…at?” he said, grinning. “What’s she gonna run into? She’s got the whole-” Bubba gave a sharp yip and took off. C.J. looked up, and what he saw was Caitlyn running as if the hounds of hell were after her.

“Holy sm-” He took off after her, swearing under his breath.

She was faster than he’d expected, a whole lot faster than anybody who’d almost been shot to death a short time ago had any business being. Plus, the field had a downward slope-not too steep-but way down at the bottom of it, what he’d mistakenly considered to be a safe distance away, far beyond her reach, was the pond. And the direction she’d picked, she was headed right for it, with Bubba loping along at her heels.

C.J. yelled at her to stop, but that only made her run faster, damn her, and ol’ Bubba wasn’t doing anything to stop her, either. Come to think of it, why would he? Bubba was a water dog-a dip in the pond probably seemed like a great idea to him.

C.J. hadn’t ever been much of a sprinter, but adrenaline gave him the push he needed, and he caught up with her a yard or two from the edge of the pond. She was gasping, her breath coming in sobs, while Bubba sat on his haunches and watched her with his tongue hanging out. C.J. had hold of her arm-he was well ticked off at her and prepared to bawl her out good for scaring him like that-but she whirled and struck out at him, catching him in the chest with her fist.

Even with twilight coming on he could see she was crying.

“Leave…me…alone,” she yelled, and her voice was a terrible, raspy sound, like cloth tearing. “Can’t you just leave me alone? I said I wanted to run, damn you. You said- Why can’t you-”

“Dammit, I’m trying.”

“Don’t try! Don’t help me. I just want you to let me go!”

Well, damn. He couldn’t let her go, because if he did she was going to wind up in the pond for sure. And he couldn’t get her to listen to him even long enough to tell her that; he had his hands full just trying to keep her flailing arms and hammering fists from doing either one of them damage.

Truth was, she was starting to scare him. Having grown up with sisters, he was no stranger to feminine tears and histrionics, but this was clearly beyond his experience. If she kept on like this, he thought, she was liable to hurt herself.

“Come on, calm down, dammit!” he yelled at her. “Can’t you see I’m tryin’ to help-”

“Don’t…help.” She bit off the words like a snapping turtle, spitting fury.

And tears! He’d never seen tears like that in his life. It was eerie, seeing all those tears pouring out of sightless eyes, seeing the emotions-silvery flare of passion and darkness of pain-knowing the windows of her soul were only one-way glass. It was almost too much for him. Dammit, it was too much. He could feel his eyes burning, his own emotions heavy in his chest.

“Don’t help me. You can’t help me,” she choked out, “don’t you get it? You can’t fix this-” she jabbed a finger toward her streaming eyes “-can you? You can’t make me see! What are you going to do, lead me around like a puppy on a leash for the rest of my life? You want to help me? Well, I’ll tell you something-it’s too late. It’s too late. I asked you for help and you wouldn’t give it to me. And now Mary Kelly’s dead and I’m blind and you…can’t…fix it.” The thumping of her fists against his chest grew weaker. She sagged against him. “You can’t fix it! Damn you…”

He didn’t blame her for saying that. How could he, when he’d said the same thing to himself so many times over?

When he went to put his arms around her, he was meaning only to give her comfort. That was his honest intention. He had no idea what happened next. He sure as hell never saw it coming. Just, one minute he was reaching out for her, his heart warm and aching with sympathy-and all of a sudden he felt a completely different kind of pain in his midsection, and where his next breath should have been there was…nothing.

He was looking desperately for it, doubled over and clutching his belly, when the next thing he knew he was flying through the air, and the cold, murky waters of the farm pond were rising up and hitting him in the face.