A Shelter of Hope (29 page)

“But, Simone, you’re wanted by the law,” Jeffery replied. “There’s obviously an all-out search for you. If I learned of this so easily, no doubt others will remember you, too. Mrs. Taylor, for one. She’ll no doubt see the posters. After all, they’re posted at most every street corner in a wide radius of the Chicago train station.”

“I think it would be best if I get my things collected,” Simone said, starting to get up from the chair. “I should leave here before they come looking for me.”

“No!” Jeffery declared, coming around the desk. He took hold of her and gently pushed her back into the chair, then squatted down beside her. “You must give me time to think this out.” Simone appeared surprised by his reaction but said nothing. “I can’t just let them take you away.”

“I’m wanted by the law,” Simone replied very frankly, “for a murder I committed. I can’t keep running from it. Obviously the only thing to be done is to accept my punishment and deal with the matter. They can only put me to death, and believe me, Jeffery,” she said softly, almost sympathetically, “there are worse things than death.”

“And well I know it, which is why I won’t turn you over to rot in some vile prison cell.”

“But I’m already in prison,” Simone countered. She appeared to be so greatly relieved by her confession of guilt that she almost seemed to radiate peace. “I’ve been in prison for most of my life. My father is a hideous monster of a man who thinks nothing of striking down those who dare to question him. Had I refused to stay with Mr. Davis, my father would simply have taken matters into his hands and beat me until I would have been unable to run away.”

“Is that how you came by the scars on your back?” Jeffery asked softly.

Simone looked surprised for only a moment. “So Rachel told you about that? Well, I suppose it couldn’t be helped. Yes, my father is the one who gave me those scars. He was a harsh and cruel taskmaster.”

“Obviously so, if he would give you to a complete stranger.” Jeffery reached up to touch Simone’s face. She flinched but didn’t refuse the touch. “I can’t let them take you away. I won’t let them. You have come to be much too important to me. Can’t you see that my feelings for you are sincere? I have only the very best of intentions toward you.”

Where the fright of being faced with confessing Garvey Davis’s death had not caused Simone to flee, the declaration of Jeffery’s obvious desire for her brought sheer panic. Simone jumped up from the chair, nearly sending Jeffery backward.

“Wait!” he called out as Simone headed for the door. “Please hear me out.”

Simone turned, her face pale. “I can’t be important to you, Jeffery. If you can’t see that now, then there’s nothing else I can say to convince you. You would always have this hanging over your head, just as I do now. I can’t do that to anyone. It’s better that I turn myself in and be done with it.”

“Just listen to what I have to say.” He took a few hesitant steps toward Simone and held out his arms as if to show himself to be harmless. “I just want to help. Let me figure a way out of this for you.”

“I can’t put you and Rachel under that kind of pressure. You would no doubt be in all manner of trouble for keeping me from the law.”

“Just give me a few days … please.”

She looked at him with such a sad expression that Jeffery longed only to hold her close. He couldn’t bear that she was alone in this, and mindless of what she might think, he crossed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. Tightening his hold on her as she strained against him, Jeffery hushed her. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please believe me. I would never treat you like your father did or force myself upon you like Mr. Davis.”

Simone settled against him. “There are other ways to hurt a person,” she whispered.

“Such as?”

“Such as caring too much about having them in your life, only to watch them walk away.”

Jeffery loosened his hold with one arm and reached up to lift her face to meet his. “And someone hurt you that way?” he asked gently.

She nodded. “My mother. She took my brother and left to find help and never came back.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “But you can’t judge all people based on the actions of one.”

“No, but neither do you have to set yourself up to be hurt that way again. If I don’t feel anything for anyone, then I don’t have to experience that kind of loss.”

“But, my dear, neither do you experience the joy and happiness that can come from such unions.”

Simone closed her eyes, as if the matter was too painful to even consider. “It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

“Well, I’m not willing to let you,” Jeffery replied, gently touching his lips to hers. He kissed her only for a moment, afraid to linger for fear of scaring her off for good. But when he pulled away, there was evidence of a single tear that had escaped her tightly closed eyes. “Don’t tell me I mean nothing to you,” he said, tracing the wetness on her cheek.

Simone’s body relaxed in his arms. “I don’t want you to mean anything to me. Can’t you understand the difference?”

Jeffery smiled. “It’s much too late for that. I think if you search your heart, you’ll find me there.”

Simone pulled away and opened the door to leave. “My heart is dead, Jeffery. No one can live there.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Simone. Maybe one of these days you’ll finally believe it,” Jeffery called after her.

He stared at her retreating figure until she’d passed into the dining room and out of sight. Closing the door, he gazed at the empty office and felt a sudden pang of loneliness. Jeffery felt at a loss—he didn’t know what to do or how to handle the situation.

Running a hand through his hair, Jeffery glanced over to his suitcase. He went immediately to it and opened the lid, searching as he did for what he knew would help. Finding his Bible, he took it to the desk and sat back down.

“Father, you know I’m new to this. At least as far as looking up answers for myself instead of waiting for a Sunday morning service. I don’t know how to help Simone, Lord. I don’t know what to do next. You know I care about her. You know I care a great deal.”

He paused, looking at the Bible and thinking of his last visit home. He had mentioned Simone to his mother—not by name, but by occupation. She had been livid that he would even dare to suggest that such a woman interested him as a wife. She fell immediately into a vaporous faint, complaining that her children would no doubt be the death of her, before recovering to rant and rave at him throughout his remaining time in Chicago.

Her comments were unending. She knew better than he did who would make a good wife. She had the perfect woman already chosen for him, and Jeffery, she said, was a complete and utter fool to consider anyone else.

“Maybe I am a fool,” he thought aloud. “It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I had erred in judgment. But, Lord,” he resumed his prayer, “I want to be wise. I want to do the right thing—be the man you would have me be.”

He leafed through the pages of the Bible, hoping and praying that something might present itself as a help in his confusion. But the pages looked foreign and the messages unclear. How could he possibly hope to gain knowledge from the Bible when he knew so little about truly seeking God? Just then he stopped and looked down at the page, a feeling of complete inadequacy washing over him.

“But rather seek ye the kingdom of God,”
he read silently,
“and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Jeffery pondered the verse for several moments.
But I am seeking God. I see the need and understand my failings
. He closed the Bible, still contemplating the Scripture. Simone said her heart was dead and that no one could live there. Did that include God? Perhaps that was the answer to the problem. If Simone sought God and opened her heart to Him …

Oh, how Jeffery wished he better understood spiritual matters. How could a man spend his entire life going to church on Sunday and still not understand what he’d heard?

“Show me, Father,” he prayed. “Show me what to do and how to do it. Show me how to help Simone so that she might willingly give her heart to both of us.”

TWENTY-THREE

CHICAGO HAD NOT TREATED Louis Dumas kindly. Although he’d managed to keep his head above water by financing his lifestyle through back-street games of poker and blackjack, little else had come to benefit him. He’d seen nothing of Simone. He’d made it a regular habit to visit the Dearborn Station daily, just in case she might magically appear, but day after day it was the same. Simone had simply vanished, and Louis was rapidly losing patience.

“It’s been nearly two weeks,” he muttered to himself. Two weeks and he’d not had a single clue as to where Simone had gone.

She could be anywhere
, he reasoned, the thought driving him crazy.
She should be with me. We should be on our way to Colorado. I could have struck it rich by now
. These thoughts were a constant mockery as they continually coursed through his brain.

He walked past several eating establishments before settling on a shop he’d come to know. The woman who owned the place was overly generous to Louis, heaping big portions of food on his plate and always encouraging him to stay past closing time.

“Ah, I wondered if I’d see you today, Mr. Lewis,” a plump blonde called from the counter where she was tending to other customers.

Louis smiled. He’d assumed the name of Mr. Lewis from the first moment he’d laid eyes on the Wanted poster. It suited him well enough, he thought. Sounds important enough without being pretentious. “Rosie, I see your cooking has brought them in again,” Louis laughed, waving an arm past the crowded dining room.

The buxom woman laughed and pushed a stray curl behind her ear. “Nonsense. They come because the prices are cheap and the food doesn’t kill them. Can’t say the same for all eating establishments in this town.” She poured Louis a cup of coffee without even asking if that was his interest. He took a seat on a stool at the counter while Rosie continued her chatter. “I heard down at Ferguson’s the fish spoiled and it kilt a man.” This brought a strange kind of laughter from the other men at her counter.

“I heard the man was hit over the head with the fish and that’s what kilt him, Rosie darlin’,” one of the diners called out.

“Yeah, well, it was still Ferguson’s fish what kilt him.” They all laughed at this, and even Louis enjoyed the chummy camaraderie.

“How about one of those fine beefsteaks you fix up?” Louis asked.

“Sure,” Rosie replied, batting her blond lashes seductively. “It’ll take a bit of time to fix it up right.”

“Take your time,” Louis countered, used to the way this woman did business. “I’m in no hurry.”

Zack Matthews had just about reached the end of his patience in his search for Simone and Louis Dumas. He had known all along it would be a long shot coming to Chicago, and now, with not one but three wires from his father—all encouraging him to come home and forget the case—Zack felt completely defeated. But he couldn’t just walk away from this search. He had to prove to his father that he could finish the job and attain the justice he sought to uphold.