Mean Woman Blues

and started sweeping again. When he’d swept the requisite number of strokes, he called Terri again and then his next-door neighbor, Pamela, his best friend in the world. “You haven’t seen Terri, have you?”
    “No, why?”
    “Pamela, I think I’m going crazy.”
    “Oh, really?” she sighed. “So who’d notice, here in the Bywater?” She paused, and Isaac knew he was supposed to laugh, but he couldn’t force even a chuckle.
    “Okay, okay. I’ll dig out my grandmother’s secret recipe for sanity-inducing tea— she was a witch, you know. I’m putting on the kettle now. Meet you at the door in thirty.”
    Good old Pamela! He knew she meant seconds, not minutes, and that was so typical of her, always there for him in situations a neighbor should never have to go through. And those situations had occurred at a time he’d never even spoken to her! It was during the period of his famous vow of silence, which hadn’t fazed her even slightly. She wasn’t kidding about sanity standards in the neighborhood.
    Sighing, he put his newly charged cell phone in his pocket (in case Terri called) and picked up a tissue to open the door. When his OCD was in full flower, he couldn’t touch doorknobs.
    Stepping onto his porch, he glanced toward Pamela’s, saw that she was on her porch, waved briefly, and started down his steps.
    * * *
    The young doctor slipped out of the room, probably to find some equipment to torture him with.
    He said to Lovelace, “I went to Dallas because Terri disappeared on me. I thought my father might… oh! You don’t know.”
    His niece looked sad for some reason, as if he’d said something that reminded her of a tragedy.
    “What’s wrong? You told me Terri was okay.”
    Lovelace sat down on the bed. “Isaac. Terri’s fine. It’s you that got shot in the head.”
    He didn’t see what she was getting at. By the time he’d put it together, the resident was back with another doctor. “I am brain-damaged,” he said, just as they walked in.
    They didn’t have all the answers he needed, but they did have one: He’d only been out about a day. Not too bad, considering. He made a stab at more info: “Hey, do you guys know who my father is?”
    The resident, the young woman, pursed her lips. “Look, you’re going to get the best care we can give you whether your daddy’s the governor or the garbageman.”
    Isaac was mortified. But it must mean his father hadn’t been arrested.
    When he was alone with Lovelace again, he said, “My father tried to kill me, right?”
    She looked at something out the window, then turned back to him before she spoke. “If he didn’t, it’s a hell of a coincidence. Here’s all I know: Skip Langdon was supposed to pick me up at the airport last night, but she ended up sending Terri because she had to take a sudden trip.”
    “To Dallas?” Isaac whispered.
    Lovelace shrugged in frustration. “Terri thinks so. Skip asked her if Mr. Right could be your father…”
    “Terri knows about my father?”
    “Isaac, for Christ’s sake! That’s the least of your worries now. Terri gave Skip a tape of the show, and then Skip suddenly had to go somewhere. Terri and I watched the tape last night.”
    “It’s him, isn’t it?”
    Lovelace hesitated. “I don’t know; I just don’t know. I don’t know him well enough to say.”
    “It’s him, Lovelace.”
    “Okay, let’s say it is. So here’s what we think happened. He catches on that Terri’s your girlfriend because of what she told him, and he knows you’ll be watching the show. And if you see the show, you’ll know it’s him.”
    “Which I did. So then what?”
    “Then he gets someone to try to kill you.”
    “Who?”
    She shrugged, as if she answered the question every day.
    “Terri and I think it has to be someone from the past. From the church.”
    “If there’s anyone left. Maybe he hired someone.” He adjusted the bed so he could sit up.
    Lovelace put a hand on his. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to face something, Uncle dear.”
    “You mean that my own father tried to kill me? It could have been a lot worse. It could have been your father.”
    His brother Daniel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    By the time Shellmire caught up with Skip in Dallas, their prey was gone. Getting there ahead of him had only meant waiting for him in a hotel room, but in a way, that was good. She used the time to calm down, and, given the personality of Paul Hargett, the special agent in