Chapter 39

Exhausted, Joshua fell asleep on the sofa in the family room, Coco nestled on his lap, his cell phone and the gun resting on an end table.

He dreamed about the beach again. The glorious sun, the pristine white sand. Rachel’s heart-rending smile. His son warm and alive on his hip, small finger pointing out to the sea and the ferry that plied the tranquil blue waters. The beach house ahead, and Rachel’s seductive wink as she led the way inside . . .

When Joshua bounced out of the dream, emotion gripping his chest like cold pincers, his cell phone was ringing.

A glance at the wall clock above the fireplace confirmed the time: five past one o’clock in the morning. Caller ID identified the call as originating from the St. Louis area code, from somewhere named Missouri Baptist Medical Center. A hospital?

He grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

Silence for a couple seconds. Then: “Joshua?”

It was a man with a brittle voice, and after he spoke Joshua’s name, he began to breathe laboriously, as if the effort of saying one word had fatigued him.

“This is Joshua. Is this Thad?”

“Yes . . . got . . . your message. Sorry . . . calling . . . so late . . . I’m in . . . hospital. My . . . sister checked . . . voice mail . . . said you called . . . I’ve been asleep for . . . awhile. Pain medication.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Joshua said. “Since you’re in the hospital, you can call me some other time, really. It’s no problem.”

“No,” Thad said, and his voice, for the moment, had steel in it. Then he breathed heavily for several seconds, gathering his strength. “You . . . need to know. About . . . him.”

“Dexter Bates?”

“He killed . . . my partner. Stabbed me . . .”

“Jesus.” Ice particles swam through Joshua’s blood. “I’m so sorry.”

“No . . . I’m sorry . . . I . . . told him . . . Joy was in . . . Atlanta . . .”

“Joy?”

“Rachel’s her . . . middle . . . name . . .”

“I never knew that,” Joshua said. “I’ve always known her as Rachel.”

“Changed . . . her name . . . to . . . hide.”

“She must’ve figured out that he would find her here, because she’s gone in hiding, for real this time,” Joshua said. “I have no idea where she’s gone. Do you?”

“No . . . Joy . . . kept her secrets, even . . . from good . . . friends.”

Thad had answered one of Joshua’s questions: the nature of his relationship to Rachel. But many more questions lingered.

“Why did Bates come to you, Thad?”

“Found out . . . I was sending money to Joy’s aunt Betty . . . on her behalf. He tracked . . . me down. Joy called me . . . warned me . . . but it . . . didn’t matter.” Thad choked back what sounded like a sob.

Joshua had no idea Rachel’s first name was really Joy, and had no idea that she had an aunt to whom she’d been secretly sending money. It was as though Thad was telling him about someone else. He was drowning in questions.

But there was only one that he absolutely needed to have the answer to.

“Thad, please tell me. What was her relationship to Dexter?”

“She was . . . his wife.”

A decade ago, when Joshua was attending art school, he’d been in a car accident. It had been a rainy afternoon, with poor traffic conditions on the highway, and a pick-up truck on his left had slewed into his lane, smashing against his SUV. Joshua’s vehicle spun off the road and flipped over three times, and as the SUV tumbled over the earth, end over end, his life had quite literally flashed before his eyes. Fortunately, he’d survived and sustained only minor injuries.

When Thad announced that Rachel was the wife of Dexter Bates, the life Joshua had created with her flashed before his eyes.

Bumping into Rachel while perusing an art exhibit at a local museum. Going out on their first date, coffee at a local cafe. Holding her hand. Kissing her, for the first time. The incredible anticipation and eventual joy of making love to her. Declaring their love for each other. Purchasing the engagement ring. Proposing on bended knee. Getting married at his family church, and the hotel reception. Buying a house together, moving in, intermingling their lives, nurturing their love.

But all of it had been built on ground seeded with lies.

So, have you ever been married? he’d asked her on their first date.

She’d dipped her gaze into her coffee for a beat, and then met his eyes. No. Have you?

Deep down, he’d always known that Rachel had been hiding a secret such as this from him. But he hadn’t wanted to push her for it, hadn’t wanted to probe too deep and discover the painful truth. It had been easier to lead a superficial life of blissful denial.

“She . . . never . . . told you?” Thad asked, his whispery voice reeling Joshua back into the present.

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” Thad said. “Maybe she never told you . . . ‘cause she . . . divorced him—”

“She divorced him? When?”

“Right after he . . . went to prison . . .”

Joshua went to the kitchen table and snatched up the inmate record. Bates had been incarcerated over four years ago, which meant Rachel had been divorced from him for nearly as long.

It was one bright spot in the whole mess. At least his marriage to Rachel was valid, and she hadn’t insulted him by marrying him while she was still legally wed to Bates.

But why had she lied to him about her past? Why?

“Gotta . . . go . . . now,” Thad said. “Tired. When you . . . find Joy . . . tell her . . . I tried . . .”

“I will,” Joshua said. “Thank you so much for the information—you’ve helped a lot. I’m sure you’ll pull through this. I’ll pray for you, man. I mean that.”

“Thanks . . . brother,” Thad said.

And then he added a comment that Joshua would not understand until later.

“Be . . . careful . . . we didn’t see Dexter . . . until it was too late.”