Elementary, My Dear Watkins (22 page)

Holding her breath, Alexa got up, stepped inside and pulled the door quietly shut behind her. With the big glass window that separated the office from the rest of the room, she couldn’t exactly hide. On the other hand, at least there was enough light spilling through the glass that she didn’t need to turn any lights on. She simply sat at the desk and went to work, flipping through drawers, looking at files, and trying to find some clue about the others, the medical marvels like her.

Jo’s last stop before leaving town was to get Chewie, who had spent the night at the home of Chief Cooper’s father, Harvey Sr. During Jo’s hospitalization and the week following that she’d spent at Danny’s parents’ house, Chewie had remained happily ensconced with his new best friend, the man everyone called Harv. Harv had lovingly cared for Jo’s dog until she was well enough to take him back herself, though he refused any sort of remuneration for his trouble other than a gift certificate from his favorite restaurant, the local pizza parlor.

Jo stopped off now to buy another one and then called Harv to tell him they were coming. When they pulled up in front of his house, he was sitting on the front stoop, petting Chewie and holding tightly to his collar. He let it go as soon as the limo came to a stop and Jo climbed out. She simply got down on her knees right there on the grass, awkward though it was with the cast on, and held open her arms as the dog ran to her.

Jo closed her eyes and embraced her big baby, knowing how foolishly dramatic their reunion must look, considering they’d only been apart for one day and night. She didn’t care. Jo was as happy to see Chewie as he was to see her, and she cooed and rubbed and cuddled him as he yapped and nudged her and furiously wagged his tail. They were together again.

Jo thanked Harv and slipped him the pizza certificate, which he accepted with a laugh and tucked into his shirt pocket, thanking her.

“Chewie here has a thing for spiders. Did you know that?”

“You mean how he likes to torment them?”

“Apparently, he likes to eat ’em too. Sort of.” He went on to explain how he had swatted a spider down from the ceiling with the broom, and the insect ended up sailing right into Chewie’s open mouth. The man laughed just thinking of it. “That dog got the weirdest expression on his face, kind of crossed his eyes like he was trying to look down his own throat, swallowed a couple of times, and walked away. Funniest thing I ever saw.”

“Chewie will keep you entertained, that’s for sure.”

Back in the car with Chewie this time, they set off toward the highway, Jo saying a prayer of thanks that the Lord had put so many kind people in her life.

Chewie sniffed furiously at her cast, stepped on every inch of seat and floor while exploring the entire back of the limo, and finally settled down next to her, so close that she could feel his chest expand and contract against her leg with every happy, excited breath he took.

Jo scratched him behind the ears and thought about Harv and Chief Cooper and Jean White and her friends Marie and Anna and Danny’s family and everybody at church and all the ladies in her Bible study group and the teenagers at the high school and on and on until she felt a huge swell of gratefulness for all that God had blessed her with in Mulberry Glen.

Somehow, He had given back to her, as an adult, the connections she’d never been able to make as a child. Being moved from place to place for many years had left Jo feeling rootless, essentially friendless, and empty. But as she had put down roots in this little town and slowly allowed them to deepen, something had changed in her heart. She realized now that despite her recent problems, those roots had finally begun to allow her to blossom and grow in a way she never could have imagined before.

Jo realized, with startling clarity, that she felt complete now, as if that gnawing need for connection that had eaten away at her for most of her life had finally been filled. Just seven and a half months ago, when Jo had been ready to marry Bradford, that need had been at its greatest, its most frenzied. That must have been what had made her so ready to jump into such a shallow and speedy relationship—because at least then she might be able to fill the void and silence the pain of her isolation.

It wasn’t until the wedding fell apart and she was left to face the hurt and loneliness by herself that she had finally begun to deal with the void for real. Wanting to honor God and fix what was broken inside of her, Jo spent the next six months immersing herself in introspection, Bible reading, prayer, and sharing, even joining a Bible study group for single women, led by Danny’s sister, that often felt more like a group therapy session than a mere lesson. Jo had known that true healing could only come through her relationship with God, but what she hadn’t expected was the different ways God would heal and grow her, not just through His Word, but also through the loving ministrations of His people. Jo had literally been led into wholeness not just by her King but by His kingdom here on earth. Those six months had been a time of serious personal growth on many levels. In the end, the most important step for Jo had been to let go of the notion that a mere man—any man other than Jesus—could make her whole. Once she did that, everything else seemed to fall into place.

After that, when her best friend Danny told Jo that he loved her, she had done even more soul-searching, finally coming to understand that real love—true, gut-level, forever-kind-of-love between a man and a woman—was about trust and vulnerability and real sharing and bonding, not just the pale imitation that she had found with Bradford. With God’s help, Jo understood that she could now give her heart fully because it was already whole on its own. Finally telling Danny that she loved him too had been the easiest, most natural words she’d ever had the opportunity to say, even if she had been flat on her back in the hospital at the time.

Nowadays, she was simply waiting for him to come back to her so that they could move on toward the next phase of their lives, together. It was hard to wait, but just as God had used the pain of the failed wedding to help her grow, Jo had no doubt that He was also making use of this time apart from Danny as well. Her biggest prayer was to understand what lessons God was still trying to teach her. In her best moments, Jo had to admit that she wanted to keep learning, to continue to become the person He truly wanted her to be. When she wasn’t feeling quite so pious, she was more likely to stomp her feet and demand to know why God was keeping them apart.

Either way, she missed her true love more than she’d ever thought possible. Perhaps, she realized now, what God most wanted her to get from this situation was empathy. For the first time in her life, Jo finally understood how Danny must have felt all those years when she was traveling around the world with her parents and he remained back in Mulberry Glenn, just waiting for her to return. The waiting was pure torture. More than anything, she wanted Danny to come home, so they could go on with their lives and get married and live happily ever after.

Correction
, she thought.
I’d like to live happily ever after…if only I could figure out who’s trying to kill me
.

Alexa’s search seemed fruitless. As the clock ticked on the wall across the room, her efforts grew more and more frantic. There were some files and notes in here, and a lot of computer printouts, but it was all just numbers and codes and scientific-type stuff. She couldn’t make sense of any of it, and there wasn’t a name or address to be had in the whole bunch.

She was about to give up completely when she found one thing that was promising, a single sheet of pink Phone Message paper that had been shoved up in the corner of a drawer and forgotten, hand written from some secretary for Dr. Stebbins. There was a name and a callback number, and the message filled up almost the entire bottom of the tiny page: “Mrs. Finch called about the scan on Emma. Call her at above number to discuss. Ethan doing great, wants to know how much longer before he can go horseback riding.” The message was dated from last summer, which made the timing about right.

Alexa wasn’t sure, but she thought this might be exactly what she needed. It was worth a try anyway. She slipped the note into her pocket and tucked away everything else. Then she reached for the door and quietly swung it open. As she took a step out, she heard the surprised voice, deep and distinct, of Dr. Stebbins, only a few feet away.

“Alexa?” he demanded. “What were you doing in my office?”

On the way back to New York, Jo had Fernando make a detour through Gilbertsville, so that she could go to her favorite pet store and pick up some supplies for Chewie. Once there, Jo wished that she had time to stroll the aisles and shop for a while. But with a very ostentatious limo sitting in the parking lot under the “Zimmers’ Pets” sign, a hovering bodyguard who was making her nervous, and an agitated Chewie at her side desperate to play with all of the puppies that were for sale, Jo needed to hurry.

Moving quickly through the family-owned-and-operated store, she was able to find everything she needed except the smoked bones, a treat that helped prevent the buildup of tartar on Chewie’s teeth. She asked a polite young man, one of the Zimmers’ sons, where they were keeping the bones now. As he led her there, she noticed the familiar bright, neon green socks peeking out at his ankles. She had spotted the socks on other employees and family members on previous visits to the store, and now she wondered if Alexa might like a pair. It seemed like something a teenager might wear.

“Hey, Kevin,” Jo said to the owner as she approached the cash register and put down her items. “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“As usual, everyone in here seems to be wearing neon green socks. Is that part of the store uniform, or just a teen fad?”

The man grinned and held up his own leg, tugging up his pants to reveal yet another flash of neon green at the ankle.

“Not a fad or a uniform,” he said, “and not just for the kids. It’s the Zimmers’ family trademark.”

He rang up her items as Jo dug out a credit card from her purse.

“Why neon green?”

“Well, to give the short story of the long story,” he said as he took her card and slid it through the machine, “it all started on a nighttime scouting hike.” He went on to explain how one of the other leaders just happened to be wearing a pair of neon green ski socks, which had made the man’s legs and ankles completely visible even after dark. “For our next night hike, I brought the same kind of socks for everybody to keep track of all the boys. Really worked like a charm.”

He tore off the charge slip and slid it across the counter to Jo with a pen.

“It sort of evolved from there,” he continued. “I bought a whole bunch and started wearing ’em every day. Told my kids to wear them too. They love ’em, and even my wife is happy, because she never has to match or fold socks any more.”

He gestured toward a woman who was perched on top of a ladder, looking through boxes on a high shelf.

“I wasn’t crazy about it at first,” Mrs. Zimmer said with a smile as she looked down on them, “but when the whole family wears only one color and one kind of sock, they
all
match. Saves a lot of time. Believe it or not, Kevin even wears his to formal events.”