Jase swung to the side of the bed and Marguerite looked over at him. “I think you’d better go now, Jase. I’ll take care of this.”
He’d stumbled out of bed, grabbed his jeans and jerked them on, Mr. Nyquist glaring at him the whole time. His shirt and shoes were somewhere around the room, and there was no telling what had happened to his underwear and socks. He’d pushed his feet into his sneakers without tying them and poked his arms through the sleeves of his T-shirt as he headed out the back door, feeling like a kid who’d been kicked out of the house once the adults came home.
To top it off, his fucking truck wouldn’t start. Some jerkface had stolen his distributor cap, and he’d had to leave the pickup in the alley and hike home in the dark.
Chapter Twenty
Laurel watched the familiar scenery roll by. They’d passed the San Marcos outlet malls already. Next would come Wonder World, then on to New Braunfels—Schlitterbahn and Landa Park, where she and her college friends would go tubing during spring break.
Soon the gravel pits lined up against the Balcones Escarpment were in sight. Not much longer.
Jase glanced at her in his rearview mirror. “Laurel, you okay back there?”
“Just fine.” Not really. When she was a child, the drive to Alamo City seemed interminable. Today it was taking no time at all. Of course, back then, the zoo was their goal—lions and tigers and bears. This time, there was no telling what awaited them at the end of the line. Marguerite could lash out at Lolly again, and Jase’s reunion with her wasn’t going to be any picnic either.
Jase swerved off the highway toward Broadway Street, then turned onto a residential street south of Brackenridge Park, near the old stable at the west gate of Fort Sam Houston.
Lolly played nervously with a loose curl. “Dad, do you know how to get there? Do you know the address?”
“Nyquist gave me directions.”
Laurel looked around as he turned onto a cross street. As long as she remembered, this neighborhood had been a mixture of grand old homes interspersed with more modest ones, but the last time she’d visited San Antonio, most of the mansions had been cut up into apartments, and the smaller houses were going downhill. Now the area seemed to be on an upward trajectory. Several of the larger homes had been refitted as single-family homes and were sporting fresh paint, new roofs, and well-tended lawns.
Jase turned again, and Lolly pointed to a small stucco house with a browned-out lawn centered by a dead palm tree. “That’s it.”
Laurel’s eyebrows went up. She would have expected the glamorous Marguerite Shelton to have ended up in one of the mansions. This house, with its railed porch, reminded her of Jase’s house from sixteen years ago. A rusty old glider sat to the left of the door, and a dead plant in a black plastic nursery pot was on the right. No dog, though.
The car eased to a stop. After a moment’s awkwardness while the three of them got their land legs under them, Lolly glared at the house, took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and marched up the buckling, broken sidewalk. Laurel caught up with her, and Jase fell in behind. They walked up the steps onto the porch. Venetian blinds were drawn tight against the summer sun, and a dingy hand-lettered sign instructed visitors to knock rather than ring.
Jase took the lead and rapped lightly on the sagging screen door, waited a minute, then knocked so hard that the door reverberated against its frame.
Maybe Nyquist had taken Marguerite to the hospital for her last hours. No—someone was working the lock. A bald, sallow-faced man Jase would never have recognized as Bert Nyquist in a thousand years held the screen open for them. The man must be in his sixties, but he looked more like eighty. The Bert Nyquist he remembered had been a typical ex-coach—big and beefy. This Bert Nyquist seemed to have lost several inches in height and about fifty pounds in muscle.
“Come in, Jason. Do come in. I didn’t realize you would get here so soon. Come in, come in.” His pale eyes darted back and forth as if he was having trouble counting his visitors. “It’s so good of all of you to come.” He smiled nervously at Lolly. “And Miss Redlander—thank you for returning. Marguerite wants to see you again so much, so very much.”
Laurel extended her hand. “I’m Laurel Harlow, Mr. Nyquist. Lolly asked me to accompany her.”
“Yes, yes. Laurel Harlow. Such a nice girl. I recognized you immediately. You look just the same.”
Jase studied his former principal as he shook Laurel’s hand. Somewhere along the line, Bert Nyquist had lost his belligerent edge. Life with Marguerite Shelton must have been pure hell. Why had he stayed?
“Margo’s awake,” Nyquist cautioned, “but she’s very weak, very weak. She may not be able to open her eyes, and she probably won’t say anything, but she’ll know you’re here.”