One Door Away From Heaven

Chapter 52

The sun burned a bright hole in the western sky, still a few hours above the quenching sea, and the breeze that swept through the trailer park seemed to blow down out of that hole, hot and dry and seasoned with a scent of scorched metal.

Friday afternoon, only five hours after Micky met with Noah Farrel, she loaded a single suitcase in the trunk of her Camaro.

She’d sprung for an oil change, new filters, new fan belts, a lubrication, and four new tires. Counting the money that she had advanced to the detective, more than half her bankroll was gone.

She dared not fail to connect with Leilani in Nun’s Lake, Idaho. Even if she discovered where Maddoc intended to go from there, she probably wouldn’t have enough cash left to chase him down and then get all the way back to California with the girl.

When Micky returned to the house, Aunt Gen was in the kitchen, fitting two Ziploc bags full of ice into a picnic cooler already packed with sandwiches, cookies, apples, and cans of Diet Coke. With these provisions, Micky wouldn’t have to waste time stopping for meals through lunch tomorrow, and she would save money, as well.

“Don’t you try to drive all night,” Aunt Gen cautioned.

“Not to worry.”

“They don’t even have a full day’s head start, so you’ll catch up with them easy enough.”

“I should make Sacramento by midnight. I’ll get a motel there, zonk out for six hours, and try to reach Seattle by tomorrow evening. Then Nun’s Lake, Idaho, late Sunday.”

“Things can happen to women alone on the road,” Geneva worried.

“True. But things can happen to women alone in their own homes.”

Putting the lid on the insulated picnic cooler, Geneva said, “Honey, if the motel clerk looks like Anthony Perkins or if some guy at a service station looks like Anthony Hopkins, or if you meet a man anywhere and he looks like Alec Baldwin, you kick him in the crotch before he has a chance to say two words, and you run.”

“I thought you shot Alec Baldwin in New Orleans.”

“You know, that man’s been pushed off a tall building, drowned, stabbed, mauled by a bear, shot — but he just keeps coming back.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for him,” Micky promised, lifting the picnic cooler off the table. “As for Anthony Hopkins — Hannibal Lecter or not, he looks like a Huggy Bear.”

“Maybe I should go along with you, dear, ride shotgun,” Geneva said, following Micky to the front door.

“Maybe that would be a good idea if we had a shotgun.” Outside, she squinted into the hard sunlight that flared off the white Camaro. “Anyway, you’ve got to stay here to take Noah Farrel’s call.”

“What if he never calls?”

At the car, Micky opened the passenger’s door. “He will.”

“What if he can’t find the proof you need?”

“He will,” Micky said, setting the cooler on the passenger’s seat. “Listen, what’s happened to my aunt Sunshine all of a sudden?”

“Maybe we should call the police.”

Micky closed the car door. “Which police would we call? Here in Santa Ana? Maddoc’s not in their jurisdiction anymore. Call the cops in whatever town he might be passing through in California or Oregon, or Nevada, depending on the route he’s taken? Hitler could be passing through, and as long as he kept moving, they wouldn’t care. Call the FBI? Me an ex-con, and them busy chasing drug lords?”

“Maybe by the time you get to Idaho, this Mr. Farrel will have your proof, and you can go to the police up there.”

“Maybe. But it’s a different world from the one you see in those old black-and-white movies, Aunt Gen. Cops cared more in those days. People cared more. Something happened. Everything changed. The whole world feels… broken. More and more, we’re on our own.”

“And you think I’ve lost my sunshine,” said Geneva.

Micky smiled. “Well, I’ve never been exactly jolly. But you know, even with this damn hard thing to get done, I feel better than I’ve felt in … maybe better than I’ve ever felt.”

A shadow seemed to pass through Gen’s green eyes, between the lens and an inner light, darkening her stare. “I’m scared.”

“Me too. But I’d be more scared if I wasn’t doing this.”

Geneva nodded. “I packed a little jar of sweet pickles.”

“I like sweet pickles.”

“And a little jar of green olives.”

“You’re the best.”

“I didn’t have any pepperoncini.”

“Oh. Well, then, I guess the trip is off.”

They hugged each other. For a while, Micky thought Gen wasn’t going to release her, and then she herself couldn’t let go.

Gen’s words came as hushed as a prayer: “Bring her back.”

“I will,” Micky whispered, half convinced that making the pledge in a louder voice would seem like bragging and would tempt fate.

After Micky got in the car and started the engine, Gen kept one hand on the sill of the open window. “I packed three bags of M&M’s.”

“After this trip, I’ll be on a strict lettuce diet.”

“And, dear, there’s a special treat in a small green jar. Be sure you try it with your dinner tonight.”

“I love you, Aunt Gen.”

Blotting her eyes with a Kleenex, Geneva let go of the door and stepped back from the Camaro.

Then, as Micky pulled away, Geneva hurried after her, waving the tear-dampened tissue.

Micky braked to a full stop, and Gen leaned down to the window again. “Little mouse, do you remember a riddle that I used to puzzle you with when you were just a girl?”

Micky shook her head. “Riddle?”

“What will you find behind the door—“

“—that is one door away from heaven,” Micky completed.

“You do remember. And can you remember how you gave me answer after answer, so many answers, and none of them the right one?”

Micky nodded to avoid speaking.

The shadowed green of Geneva’s eyes shimmered beneath brimming emotion. “I should have known from your answers that something was so wrong in your life.”

Micky managed to say, “I’m okay, Gen. None of that is dragging me down anymore.”

“What will you find behind the door that is one door away from Heaven? Do you remember the right answer?”

“Yes.”

“And do you believe it’s true?”

“You told me the right answer when I couldn’t get it, so it must be true, Aunt Gen. You told me the right answer… and you never lie.”

In the afternoon sun, Geneva’s shadow lay longer than she was, thinner than she was, blacker than the blacktop on which it reclined, and the gentle breeze stirred her gold-and-silver hair into a lazily shifting nimbus, with the result that a supernatural quality settled upon her. “Honey, remember the lesson of that riddle. This is a great good thing you’re doing, a crazy-reckless good thing, but if maybe it doesn’t work out, there’s always that door and what’s beyond it.”

“It’s going to work out, Aunt Gen.”

“You come home.”

“Where else am I gonna get free rent and such good cookin’?”

“You come home,” Geneva insisted with an edge of desperation.

“I will.”

Geneva radiant in the sunshine, as though she were as much a source of light as the sun itself. Geneva reaching through the open window to touch Micky’s cheek. Reluctantly withdrawing her hand. No cheerful movie memory softened the anguish of the moment. Then Geneva in the rearview mirror, waving goodbye. Geneva dwindling, shining in the sun, waving, waving. A corner turned, Geneva gone. Micky alone and Nun’s Lake over sixteen hundred miles away.