No Greater Love Read online

  No Greater Love

  Drifters Series, Book Three

  Susan Rodgers

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 by Susan Rodgers

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  Find out more about Susan Rodgers on Facebook under Susan A. Rodgers, Writer

  [email protected]

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  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may no be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

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  Cover art (copyright) by Alanna Munro.

  All rights reserved.

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  Edited by Sarah Elizabeth Murphy.

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  For Spot Bob, who passed away two days before I started writing this book.

  Thanks for believing in me, Bob. You rock.

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  “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

  King James Bible (John 15:12-13)

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  Prologue

  November, 14 months after Jessie’s disappearance

  A hard thing to stomach about Vancouver this autumn is the seemingly endless rain. Precipitation has been falling in heaps from the dreary grey sky above for days on end. Temperaments are growing short as city dwellers mourn the warmth and grace of sunny days; people are becoming despondent. A handful is falling prey to the flood. Others are choosing to carry heavy burdens a little further along weary well-worn paths towards hope and optimism. Like the followers of Moses, they are pushing through walls of water on nothing more than courage built on faith and trust.

  Since September of this year the hardy folks of the drowning Canadian west coast city have enjoyed five days of sunshine. It’s now November. Ever hopeful, they’ve tirelessly removed iPhones from their pockets day after day and tapped on the weather App, praying to spot the little sunshine icon peeking out from behind a cloud. Then they replaced the phones deep in their pockets in despair. Most know one day the sun will rise again, and so they are continuing their intrepid battle. By putting one small step in front of the other each day every day, they’re fighting their wars, and hoping that by the grace of God they will emerge victorious.

  It’s cold enough in parts of Canada – like Red Deer and Grande Prairie – for snow to have lain on the ground for weeks already, for moms to warn their kids not to push shopping carts without gloves for fear of skin freezing to the handles. It’s cold enough for cars to need block heaters that can be plugged into poles in parking lots so they’ll have enough juice to fire up.

  On the east coast, in Prince Edward Island, delighted children are pressing small noses to living room windows – the first snowfall is capturing their imaginations. The flakes are falling lightly, gracefully, settling atop neglected musty crimson autumn leaves. Although the lacey slivers mark the passage of time – yet the birth of another frigid, snowy winter – they are engendering excitement and enthusiasm. For who cannot muster a modicum of eagerness over the first snowfall of the season when they spot the wonder in a child’s eyes?

  Yet in Vancouver there are people living outdoors, where the snow falls less and where busy drivers don’t even bother going through with the hassle of installing winter tires. The outdoor persons are the downtrodden - the homeless, the edge-dwellers. The forgotten people. Men and women, young and old, collectively they dream of warmer days to light their way. This day there is no snow, but there is the interminable rain. They may not freeze tonight, but they will cough and sputter and hunger. They’re sitting like statues underneath dirty torn red awnings crowned with faded elegance, or under gazebos in the parks, where rooftop shingles have been not so subtly removed to provide fuel for fires. Alone together they’re watching sodden rain drip onto the soiled earth as they huddle and observe and speculate with bewilderment and surprise on how they ended up here.

  There is comfort in Vancouver on this cold wet day. It comes in the form of a white cube truck in the downtrodden East Hastings neighborhood. Slowly it’s drifting along like the longed-for snow the East Coast children covet, an angel of mercy on a war torn street. People, like bugs - effervescent and determined – are walking alongside the slow moving vehicle, which is stopping here and there. From the white truck’s belly they’re removing sleeping bags, fruit, granola bars, hot drinks and water. The people are volunteers and as they parcel out faith and optimism they find themselves pondering the hopelessness of others. They want to help. These caring folks have chosen to make the demons haunting their consciences matter.

  One man is fairly new to the mixed-bag company of angels. He is tall and mostly wears his dark hair close-cropped, although he changes its color and length when a film role demands it. Athletically built, with a chiseled chin and blue eyes flecked with a sadness born of humor, he is moving with purpose as he distributes warmth and nourishment to a people for whom he once cared little.

  This is Charlie, a man who didn’t know love until he gave it away. Fourteen and a half months ago, he lost a friend. To death? To a life of her own choosing? He doesn’t know. He comes to the Downtown Eastside because it’s a place where he can huddle up next to her again by virtue of helping the people she loved, the folks amongst whom she once lived. It’s where they met, in an acting class sponsored by his father, actor Jack Deacon.

  It’s where he feels her heart beat again, like the steady rhythm in one of her Indie-pop songs. When he is in the Downtown Eastside, Charlie manages to convince himself that his friend – Jessie Wheeler - lives.

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  Chapter One

  Almost a year earlier

  Besides the intolerable agony of missing her girl and the endless deliberating over what may have happened to her, the hardest part for Deirdre Keating was deciding what to do with Jessie’s things, including the penthouse condo in downtown Vancouver. Eventually she and Charles decided to keep it almost as Jessie left it. They would never give up hope that she might return, and Dee often went to the condo herself just to surround herself with Jessie’s essence. Most times she simply curled up in a big Shaker rocking chair pointed towards the large window-wall, talking to Jessie, willing her to come home, telling her about the new shelters their foundation was building. Dee spent hours filling Jessie in on the life she left behind, as if by Dee’s desire alone the singer herself could hear.

  One day three months after Jessie’s disappearance, Dee and Carlotta weaved their way through traffic over the Lions Gate Bridge and then through the lush greenery of Stanley Park. Dee cruised along, eventually parking her white BMW in the underbelly of the downtown condo. Once upstairs they reluctantly gathered Jessie’s clothing and personal items. The women boxed T-shirts and jeans, dresses and dance gear in blue Rubbermaid containers with removable lids, and then left the containers in closets so they wouldn’t have to look at them.

  A month earlier, Matt had swept Jessie’s home for the second time. As ex RCMP, he had the wherewithal to do a thorough search in partnership with a friend from the Vancouver City Police. The first time they went through her space, just after Jessie was hurt, they found nothing of consequence. Her aggressor was smart enough to wipe his way clean before leaving, as Jessie lay unconscious nearby.

  Matt was angry at himself for not putting two and two together earlier in the vicious game, but he had checked McCall out thoroughly prior to the beating. McCall’s fury had l
eft its mark on Jessie’s body and in her spirit, but nobody was seriously looking for him at the time. They had all for the most part dismissed him as a suspect, despite the fact that his name tottered around Matt’s mind now and again. It wasn’t until just after Jessie left that fingers were once again seriously pointed at McCall instead of at Josh, or at some deranged fan. By then Deuce McCall was hiding underground, as missing as Jessie herself, which was worrisome for all kinds of horrid reasons.

  Before Dee and Carlotta built up the courage to box Jessie’s clothes, Matt’s team completed their more thorough search. It was Big Dan who pulled the singer’s bed apart and found a leather journal with a flattened matchbook inside squished between the box spring and mattress. Dan opened only a few pages before taking it reverently out to Matt in the living room. Immediately Matt sensed something sinister, judging by the pained look on the big blonde man’s chiseled face. Apprehensive, Matt, the man responsible for Jessie’s safety, grasped the journal. Immediately he dropped onto the couch and placed his head between his knees to keep it from spinning. In his hands was Jessie’s diary of the stalking and terror she had endured - alone - from June until she was so badly hurt in late August.

  She had recorded each occurrence with diligence, care and an uncanny, unnerving attention to detail. She used the name Deuce interspersed occasionally with McCall’s birth name, Booth, which she stated he legally changed as a young man. Jessie wrote about all of her meetings with Deuce. She included the Agassiz photograph and the sheer horror of spotting him in it, a knife’s thrust away from Josh. She wrote about the day Josh’s tires were slashed with a dagger she knew belonged to Deuce “because I’ve seen it before, caked in blood,” about meeting Deuce that day at a dirt road in North Van – “he’d either followed me or had some GPS unit on the bumper of my car, which I expect may have been the case”; about wine they drank before he forced her to have sex with him; about getting to know the hurts behind the sadistic man “who thinks he loves me, who thinks I belong to him”.

  Matt sent Dan back into the bedroom to continue searching, seeking, while he read the journal from cover to cover. There were references as well to Josh and how it killed her to see him so badly hurt by their break-up; she also included prayers and pleadings to God to help her “end this thing” so she could go back to Josh before it was too late.

  What surprised Matt the most, though, were her references to meeting someone on the Downtown Eastside in order to procure a gun which she later described as a Guardian pistol, an ankle gun that Grace Hanadarko wore in the television series Saving Grace. She wrote about taking a few basic shooting lessons from him at a discreet rifle range. However, Jessie was careful not to print the man’s name. Her friend on the Downtown Eastside remained anonymous.

  Barely a few entries into the journal, Matt was sobbing wholeheartedly. By the end, he had cried himself dry. In the bedroom, Dan sat on the edge of Jessie’s big comfy bed in the midst of a pink cherry blossom snowfall – her pretty duvet - and hung his head. Listening to a grown man empty his soul that way was a rare and special thing, a time to sit and ponder the mysteries of the universe. At any rate, Dan’s boss was not to be disturbed. This was a time of utter and total undoing.

  The thing was, Matt had done what he could to try to protect Jessie. From the bottom of his heart, he tried his best. He wouldn’t be surprised now if Charles Keating fired him. In fact, the thought had occurred to him more than once even prior to the journal’s discovery. Jessie was his responsibility. It was up to him to keep her safe, and she was gone – perhaps dead, either by her own hand or by McCall’s sinister doing. If this was Jessie’s own decision, to escape – well then, so be it. It was still his problem. He shouldn’t have let it come this far. The leather journal Matt held between his trembling fingers was a detailed account of the despicable terror the singer had endured. Matt failed her and he had failed the Keatings, too, utterly and completely. Sure, Jessie was a free spirit with her own reasons for making the choices she made, which they now understood thanks to Charlie’s quick thinking to record her on the beach the day she left. But Matt shouldn’t have bowed to her. They all knew something was terribly wrong that summer, but they also blamed Josh almost the entire time.

  Matt hung his head sorrowfully. Damn it, he had failed Josh too. This whole thing was killing him.

  He heard the elevator rumble to a stop outside, and then the door opened and Charles Keating walked in. One look at Matt and the indomitable man almost collapsed on the floor. He barely made it to the buttery yellow leather chair across from his head of security. After he was seated, Matt handed him the journal.

  Then Matt pulled himself upright, shoulders sinking, and called out to Dan. They would leave Charles alone with the journal for he, too, would be unable to contain the heady, powerful emotions it would engender.

  Matt placed a gentle hand on his boss’ shoulder. “Call me later,” was all he could manage and then, accompanied by the burly blonde giant, he left Jessie’s space to a man and a book and the exquisite, aching, unequalled truth of the written word.

  Afterwards, Charles went home to Dee with the journal tucked under his arm. One reason their thirty-eight–year-old marriage had survived was because they generally did not keep secrets from each other. They climbed into bed and read the truth together. And because Jessie’s leaving was still fresh and her destiny unknown, they stayed in bed for three days, worrying Carlotta, their friends, and Matt. Yet Matt was the calming force. He talked the others through it, explaining that a journal Jessie kept had been discovered, referencing her dreadful summer, and the powerful Keatings just needed some time alone to process what was written inside the leather notebook.

  He hoped that when his bosses emerged he would still have a job, for Matt deeply cherished his friendship with the Keatings. He told himself he had done the best he could, given the circumstances, and given Jessie’s refusal to involve anyone else in her private terror.

  In the end, Charles emerged from the bedroom sanctuary first. He signaled to Matt to join him around the kitchen island, where they eyed each other carefully. They were men, expected to remain strong and unemotional in any crisis. But they were shaken.

  Because he could no longer stand the silence, Matt spoke first.

  “Charles, I understand if you want to let me go. I – I missed a lot. With Jessie.”

  His eyes were pained, his usually tidy hair not gelled, his shirt unkempt. He was a mess. But Charles saw before him a man of honor and integrity. A man who did his utter best to protect the girl they all deeply loved.

  “Matt. None of us knew. We took a wrong turn because we were too quick and willing to believe Josh was responsible for hurting Jessie. We checked out McCall and he was clean. If anyone is to blame here, it’s – well, it’s Jessie. She should have told someone what was happening. But given her past – most of which, let’s face it, we can only guess at - it’s understandable that she didn’t. She was scared.”

  Grateful, his strong shoulders lifting a little, Matt responded. “I can’t find out a thing about Charleston. All we know is someone died there. She mentions the blood on the knife…” his voice faded.

  “We know her friends Sandy and Rachel died there. We know Rachel succumbed to a drug overdose, similar to Terri - here. With Sandy – well, we don’t know...”

  “I expect we can put two and two together now.”

  “Given her fear of this ass McCall along with the dagger, yes, I expect we can put two and two together now.” Charles looked up. “I also expect we’ll want to keep this journal top secret. Between us.”

  “Yes.” They didn’t need the police to know about this. The officer working with Matt and Dan had been called away to another job just before the journal was retrieved. And under no circumstances could the media find out. They might tell Charlie – perhaps. But no. Maybe not. Jessie’s good friend would be destroyed by this. He wasn’t holding up well. None of them were. Josh? Not even a consideration. He woul
d lose his mind. The frank bare facts written in Jessie’s journal would hurl Josh right over the edge.

  Sighing, Charles hung his head between his arms, which rested squarely on the kitchen island countertop. “I think what disturbs me the most is how we all treated Josh last summer. That must have killed her. Not much wonder she was so angry at us at the end.”

  Matt didn’t throw in mostly at Dee, because he didn’t need to. So the words remained unspoken, but they hung heavy in the still air between the two men. No surprise Mrs. Keating was still confined to bed after reading the journal.

  “Do you think she’ll come back?” Charles asked Matt. Trusting him. Begging him.

  It was a long time before Matt could bring himself to answer. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. He thought Jessie might be dead, as did they all, although most of Jessie’s intimate friends refused to truly believe that.

  Outside, sitting on the grand stairway beyond the kitchen, Deirdre, who had gotten out of bed for a pee, heard every word. Soundlessly, tiptoeing for fear of revealing her presence on the stairs, she turned and went back upstairs to bed, where she remained for exactly one more week before Charles pulled her, crying, into the shower, entreating her to come back to life.

  Finally, Dee and Carlotta had forced themselves to clean and tidy the condo, tucking Jessie’s things carefully away. That day, Dee called Josh. At that early juncture a few months after Jessie’s disappearance, he was back working on the set of Drifters. Dee caught him at lunch just after talking to Josh’s producer, her good friend Jonathon, first. Jonathon told her Josh kept his phone on and with him at all times when he wasn’t on set, because – well, because. They all did. What if Jessie called, and she needed help?