Part 7 (1/2)

”He's really rocking out.” Warren had to raise his voice to be heard over Richie's silky tenor belting out, Is it me you're looking for?

They entered the kitchen, where they were welcomed by a barrage of licks from a jubilant Kipper. Lindsay threw her jacket over the back of a chair, and she and Warren walked into the living room. What greeted them there was a vision that instantly and indelibly burned itself into her brain.

Jonah lay on the sofa with a woman. Kissing. In fact, it was more than kissing. This was full-on, junior high-style making out. Even without seeing the woman's face, Lindsay immediately recognized the unmistakable Day-Glo orange bob. There could be no doubt that her father was lying on the couch, making out with Teresa Satterwhite, Warren's widowed mother. Jonah had one hand up the back of Teresa's s.h.i.+rt and the other planted squarely on her rear end.

”Dad?!” Lindsay screeched.

”What in the d.a.m.n world?” Warren said slowly. He bowed his head and raised his hand to his brow, as if trying to s.h.i.+eld his eyes from the glare of oncoming headlights.

At the sound of their voices, Teresa sprang up into a sitting position, catapulting Jonah onto the floor.

Jonah hit the carpet with a thud and let out a yelp of pain. ”Ah!” He arched sideways, clutching his lower back.

They all rushed over to the spot on the floor where Jonah lay writhing in pain. Jonah had suffered from chronic lower back problems ever since he overexerted himself a few years previously on a school-building mission trip to Guatemala. When his herniated disc flared up, he was usually out of commission for days at a time.

”I'm so sorry, sugar! Are you all right?” Teresa knelt down next to him. ”Is it your back again?”

”No, it's okay,” Jonah said through clenched teeth. He rolled over and revealed the source of his agony-he'd landed smack on one of Kipper's ma.s.sive rawhide bones. He pulled himself into a sitting position.

Teresa rose to her feet; her long, lithe movements made it appear as if she were rising out of a yoga pose. Even in her slightly disheveled state, her well-tailored clothes and perfectly-matched jewelry lent her an air of refinement.

”Well, I know this is just terribly embarra.s.sing for all of us,” Teresa said, patting her hair back into place. Lindsay felt an almost overwhelming urge to claw at the woman's face. She glanced at Warren, but his gaze seemed cemented to couch, as if he were still trying to process the events that had just occurred there.

”I suppose we owe you an explanation,” Jonah said, blus.h.i.+ng deeply.

”You think?” Lindsay said. She crossed her arms. ”Actually, I don't want an explanation. It's your life. Do what you want.”

She walked quickly down the hall into her bedroom, closed the door, and locked it. Now that the brief moment of concern for Jonah's back had washed over, the next emotion that rolled in was blind fury. She knew she should be happy for her father. He'd spent years faithfully married to Sarabelle, pining after her even as she repeatedly cheated on him and left for months, and even years, at a stretch. It was Lindsay herself who'd finally convinced him to give up on Sarabelle, file for divorce, and move on. And at last, he'd moved on...right on top of Warren's mother.

Lindsay flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. During her rebellious teenage years, drama-queen displays of door slamming and locking had been an almost-daily ritual. Even though she'd managed to keep from shouting and slamming the door this time, she felt no different than she had all those years before.

She heard the murmur of voices, followed by a gentle knocking on the door.

”Linds?” Warren said.

She rolled toward the wall and pulled a pillow over her head. She didn't want to talk. She wanted to scream. While she was potentially being stalked by a psychopath, freaking out about her engagement, preparing to move back into her house with Simmy, and having her ring sawed off her bloated, scaly finger, her father had had his hands on Warren's mother's backside. Of all the women in Mount Moriah, why Warren's mother? A woman whose effortless perfection as a homemaker always made Lindsay feel grossly inadequate? Whose ”Bless your heart” and ”Well, aren't you a dear?” signaled that she'd never quite measure up?

She heard Warren try the doork.n.o.b. ”Come on, Linds.”

”Leave me alone.”

He tried a few more times to talk her into coming out, his voice growing more frustrated with each entreaty. ”You can't keep going into your sh.e.l.l like this, Lindsay. You're not the only person involved here. This isn't fair.”

She wanted to speak to him, to find out what he was feeling. The man she loved, who'd stood by her over the last terrible months and helped her pull through, was on the other side of the door, and she couldn't bring herself to say even a single word to him. What was wrong with her? The huge weight of her emotions seemed to have squeezed all the air from her lungs and robbed her of the ability to move. She pressed the pillow down further over her face, almost wis.h.i.+ng it would just finish the job and suffocate her. Why couldn't she get a grip? She was a minister, a spiritual guide for desperate people, an intelligent woman with a fiance.

”Linds?” Warren called again. When he was once again met with silence, he said quietly, ”How come you always have to push people away?” She heard him sigh. ”I'm gonna drive Mama home. You can call me when you're ready to talk about this like adults.”

She heard the m.u.f.fled sounds of their departure and saw the flash of headlights as Warren backed his car out of the driveway. A few minutes pa.s.sed, and the house fell silent. She wondered if Jonah had gone out with them. Then she heard Kipper scratching at her door. He was what she needed right now-a sympathetic friend who, blessedly, lacked the power of speech. When she opened the door to let him in, however, her father was standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall. She rushed to close the door again, but he stuck his foot in to block her.

”We need to talk about this,” Jonah said.

”I'm really not sure we do,” Lindsay countered.

Jonah pushed the door further open. ”We didn't want you to find out this way.”

Lindsay remained standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, blocking him from coming into the room. ”And how did you want us to find out? Maybe when we got invitations to your wedding in the mail?'”

”You're being unreasonable. Teresa is a good, Christian woman. We're happy. You should be happy for us.”

”Please don't tell me how to feel right now,” Lindsay said. ”I get to feel shocked and betrayed and angry and, frankly, really grossed out. How long has this been going on, exactly?”

”Not long. A few months.” Jonah rubbed his temples. ”Teresa started attending my church with a friend of hers on and off last fall. Then she volunteered to chair the committee to organize the tent revival, so we started spending more time together. We didn't want to say anything until we knew whether or not it was serious. We were planning to tell you soon. I tried to tell you, but the time just didn't seem right.”

”Well, you really have some sense of timing. This is just the c.r.a.ppy cherry on top of my c.r.a.p sundae,” Lindsay replied. When she eased him out of the doorway, he didn't resist. Having shut him out, she closed the door in his face and clicked the b.u.t.ton to lock it.

Chapter 11.

During the four days that had pa.s.sed since Lindsay walked in on her father and Teresa Satterwhite, Lindsay hadn't spoken a single word to anyone. She'd realized almost immediately that she wasn't really angry about her father and Teresa's relations.h.i.+p. Freaked out, maybe, but not angry. Her real resentment stemmed from her feeling of utter hopelessness. She felt as if there was no chance that she'd ever be able to live a normal life. Seeing her father and Teresa together seemed to prove that while everyone else was happily getting on with their lives, her own life was forever tainted. She was tainted.

Since the discovery, she'd only left her room when she was sure her father had gone out. She hadn't been able to face him, or anyone else. She'd gotten other chaplains to pick up her s.h.i.+fts, and she filled her days with long naps and extended forays into the land of self-pity. She couldn't even bring herself to engage in her usual method of self-medication-long distance running. All she could do was stare at the walls and ask herself the same questions over and over-Why was she being targeted again? Was there something about her that marked her as easy prey? Other people got over traumatic experiences. Why couldn't she? She knew that her loved ones, especially Warren and her father, wanted desperately to protect her, but it seemed that neither earthly nor heavenly law could keep her safe from Leander Swoopes and the fear he had instilled in her.

For days, she overheard her father telling Simmy that she was still sick in bed and would call as soon as she felt better. Warren, too, had called and texted, but she couldn't bring herself to reach out to him.

Lindsay waited until the sound of Jonah's car faded out of her hearing and the house fell silent. She unlocked her door and padded down the hall into the kitchen, where a note from her father lay on the table: Warren stopped by while you were sleeping.

There's some chicken pot pie in the fridge.

She removed the covered ca.s.serole dish from the refrigerator and plunked it down on the counter. A sudden, hard rap on the back door jolted her to attention. Through the gla.s.s door panes and sheer, gauzy curtains, she recognized the trim outline of her friend Rob. For a moment, she debated retreating to her bedroom to hide, but decided that a move like that would probably be too pathetic and childish, even in her current state. Still, she hesitated to open the door.

”Lindsay Harding, I see you in there,” Rob snapped in his distinctive Taiwanese-inflected Southern accent.

She sighed, her limited defenses defeated, and opened the door.

Rob walked past her, took a seat at the kitchen table, and gestured for her to do the same.

”I didn't hear you pull up,” Lindsay said.

”That's because I parked down the street and waited for your father to leave. I knew you'd have to come out to eat or use the bathroom at some point,” Rob said.

”So you've been staking out the house?”

”Anna did a s.h.i.+ft this morning, but she didn't manage to catch you out. You know there's a cop car out there, too?”

”Yeah, I noticed it when I took Kipper out.”

”Good to know that you're not spending all your time lying around the house, watching reruns, and eating cold chicken pot pie,” Rob said, gesturing to the dish.