Three Times a Lady

Chapter 34

Still half-drunk from this morning’s ill-advised four-pack at the Smokin’ Oyster Bar, Dana jogged past the line of palm trees swaying in the breeze along Spellman Avenue, doing her best to let the rhythmic pounding of her feet against pavement do its job.

Some people did their best thinking while out for a run, but it had always been the opposite case for Dana. More than anything else, running provided an escape for her. An all-too-brief block of her day where she could erase the jumbled chalkboard of her mind and just be.

And the sad fact of the matter was that the jumbled chalkboard of Dana’s mind was just too much to bear these days. Not only had she literally run away from an open case back home in Cleveland, just ten minutes earlier she’d received the sickening news that an Internet video starring little Bradley had gone viral on YouTube. In the video – a disgusting horror show that had already received more than two million hits on the World Wide Web – the seemingly upstanding judge who’d adopted the little boy was pictured whipping Bradley so violently across his bare backside with a thick leather strap that huge red welts had piled up one on top of the other before finally splitting wide open and leaking torrents of bright red blood.

Upon first seeing this jarring spectacle, Dana had immediately vomited up all four beers she’d drunk earlier that morning onto the hardwood floor of her rented vacation residence on Indian Bayou Avenue.

Dana gritted her teeth and fought back the intense swell of anger in her chest as she continued to run. The irony of her actions wasn’t lost on her. After all, why in should she stop running now? She’d already run away from her career – the job that had kept her going for so many years. She’d run away from all her responsibilities – including Oreo, who’d she’d returned to the capable hands of Maggie Carter with the vague promise of returning to pick him up again one day. And she’d run away from the woman dressed in black, practically screaming in terror.

Even more pathetically, Dana had run away from poor little Bradley, had left him all alone in the world to fend for himself. And just look how that had turned out.

Tears streamed down Dana’s face, blurring her vision. She’d run away from everything and everybody in her life who’d ever meant anything to her and had let everyone down. Again. People she could never look in the eye again. Bill Krugman. Gary Templeton. Bradley. Herself.

More than anything else, she needed redemption.

But how?

Dana’s heart ached in her chest for poor little Bradley. The boy with the silken blonde hair and enormous blue eyes so similar to her own. The sweet, precious little boy who’d promised to marry her one day, who’d promised her that after they’d gotten married they could live in a castle and ride horses and pick flowers all day long and go swimming whenever they wanted to. He’d needed her to stand up for him and she hadn’t been there. Could he ever forgive her?

Didn’t seem likely.

Besides, Dana knew for a fact that before she could even dream of taking care of Bradley, she’d first need to learn how to take care of herself again. Anything less that would be unfair to him. The little boy had already been through enough in his short life as it was.

Dana sniffled. With each passing, day the thought of lifting her Glock to her temple and pulling the trigger seemed less and less ridiculous. The previous night, she’d actually given it a dry run with no magazine in the gun. She’d been surprised at just how easy it had been to pull the trigger.

Shaking her head to chase away all the thoughts swirling around there, Dana ran even faster, fast enough to dry the tears on her face. She knew that she needed professional help, of course, but she didn’t know how to go about asking for it. Broken as she was, she had serious doubts anyone could ever fix her.

The heavy smell of sea salt stung her nostrils as Dana turned the corner onto Estero Boulevard and picked up her pace even more, the pounding surf across the two-lane street echoing loudly in her ears and the wind whipping through her short blonde hair. Hitting a good stride, she willed her legs to move faster, and then even faster still, until she broke out into a dead sprint. Her muscles screamed out in agony as tried desperately to outrun all the demons chasing her.

No good. The demons wouldn’t let up. Her thighs burned from the overload of lactic acid coursing through her system but Dana ignored the pain and pushed on.

Five hundred yards later, she finally came to a panting stop with her lungs on fire. Leaning over, she pressed her palms hard into her trembling thighs for support. Dizziness clouded her brain as the runner’s high flooded hot through her bloodstream. A faint, high-pitched ringing sounded in her ears.

Finally catching most of her breath, Dana looked up to see that she’d made it to just outside the sprawling, gated compound of Ascension Catholic Church. Twenty feet away, an elderly landscaper was tending to a large stand of bushes near the ornate, marble archway. The man smiled at her when he noticed Dana watching him and leaned his wooden-handled rake against an intricate hedge.

He mopped at his heavily sweating brow with one thin forearm. ‘Mass every morning at eight a.m. if you’re interested, young lady. The pastor’s an awful bore – a bit long-winded in his sermons and something of a doddering old drunk – but some say we have the best choir in all of Lee County. Even better than the Baptists, if you can believe that.’

Dana forced a smile, but even she could feel just how fake the smile must have looked on her lips. Still, she couldn’t pretend any more that she was happy when her soul had become a black hole of misery that completely sucked away whatever energy she’d once possessed. Besides, despite having lived with three different Catholic foster families when she’d been a kid, Dana hadn’t stepped foot inside a place of worship in more than ten years now. Why should she when there was still a God in charge up there who thought it perfectly reasonable to let innocent people die horrible deaths? Her parents. Crawford Bell. Eric Carlton. ‘Just looking,’ Dana said.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she immediately felt foolish, like she’d just been caught window-shopping by a salesman who knew she had no intention of buying. She wished she could reach out and snatch the words right out of the air, but the damage had already been done.

Thankfully, the old man just smiled at her and retrieved his rake from its resting place. Nodding thoughtfully, he jerked his thumb over his right shoulder toward the church. ‘Well, if it’s answers you’re looking for, you can always find them in there. I know they’re not always easy to find, but they’re definitely in there, that much I promise you.’

Dana let out a deep breath; grateful that the man wasn’t holding her feet to the fire for her stupid words. Working the muscles around her mouth into the semblance of a real smile, she said, ‘Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.’

With that, Dana shook the stiffness out of her legs and turned back in the direction of her rented vacation house, already looking forward to the long afternoon of drinking that lay in front of her. A chance to drown all thoughts swirling around in her brain that so desperately needed drowning.

As she jogged away, Dana shivered despite the intense Florida heat, unable to shake the eerie sensation that the old man’s watery blue eyes were burning a hole into the back of her skull.

Finally turning the corner back onto Spellman Avenue and jogging out of his sight, Dana shivered again, even harder this time. No chance in hell of shaking off that weird encounter. Still, maybe a few Rum Runners over at the Lanai Kai would turn the trick.

Only one way to find out.

The rundown seaside bar was infamous on the island for the daily fistfights that occurred there, but Dana didn’t think she’d mind seeing someone punched in the face right about now. After all, she’d been getting punched in the face her entire life. Why not let someone else experience that oh-so-charming sensation for a change?

No reason that she could think of straight off the top of her head.

Nope, no reason she could think of, at all.