And Paul fell in love all over again.
Seventeen
The first of October brought a very hectic schedule of events for the Virgin River Presbyterian Church, beginning with the delivery of the kitchen appliances. Next came Noah’s personal shipment, which was stored in the newly finished basement. In that shipment, the piano arrived and as soon as it was tuned, Ellie couldn’t wait to try it out. Her out-of-practice attempts, accompanied by the occasional muffled curse, could be heard all over the church, causing Noah to laugh to himself.
Timing was on their side; Paul was finishing up in the sanctuary just as the pews were delivered for installation. New desks, a conference table and chairs, bookcases and filing cabinets for the upstairs offices were delivered, which meant a lot of sorting, organizing and file building. Ellie loved organizing. This work would barely be finished in time for the MacIntyre-Riordan wedding less than a week later.
Needless to say, both Noah and Ellie were extremely busy and, in the midst of this, Brie reported that the end of that first week of October, after almost exactly ninety days since her children were removed from her care, Ellie would finally get her court date. “I need a brief meeting with you, Ellie,” Brie said. “My office, tomorrow sometime. Call when you’re on your way.”
“Sure. Everything okay?”
“I’m going to brief you on the hearing and some other details.”
When Ellie told Noah, he said, “It’s almost over, Ellie. This can only go one way for you.”
Ellie had quite a few questions for the man who was creeping into her bed night after night, questions she was not planning to ask. What should we do about us? was first on her list. When he said he loved her forever, that he loved her with his whole heart, that her children were his priority, too, was that a suggestion that they marry? There was no way she’d ask him. And waiting to see what Noah would do next was almost as hard as waiting for her children to be legally returned to her.
Noah was managing to keep up with everything despite the increased activity in the church. He had a couple of counseling sessions with Vanni and Paul while they waited for their adoption paperwork to be filed and found them to be coping better all the time. Ellie was still giving Vanni a hand a couple of mornings a week, for which Vanni was enormously grateful. He’d meet with Shelby and Luke and Father Demetrius from Arcata to discuss the particulars of their wedding service. Noah managed to get over to visit his friends in the woods. As well, he was kept busy with a couple of elderly women in town who appreciated being looked in on now and then.
Ellie sat in a chair facing Brie’s desk, listening to her lawyer’s briefing on the hearing that would take place.
“All set with a conservative outfit to wear to court?” Brie asked.
“Uh-huh. Vanni hooked me up.”
“I believe the judge will decide to make this whole thing go away before he comes under public criticism for the corners he cut with his last decision. An attorney ad litem has been assigned to the children, protecting their interests, and I don’t expect your ex-husband to make an appearance. Based on his ‘incident’ with locking the children in the house, I suspect he’s done with this particular mischief.”
“Really? You think?” Ellie asked hopefully.
“There have been a few developments, Ellie. I phoned Dr. Arnold Gunterson of the University of Maine. The poor man was understandably upset and confused by anyone’s desire to use his name and credentials, but when I explained the circumstances of the custody situation, the locking of the children in the house, it jogged his memory. It seems a former student from almost twenty years back had some real issues in that same area. He was a very troubled young man. As he was growing up, his parents disciplined him by locking him in the cellar or the closet. A cellar during a Maine winter, Dr. Gunterson explained, can be brutal.”
“Oh, God,” Ellie said. She scooted forward in her chair. “The basement,” she said, remembering. “Once, only a few days into our marriage, Arnie said something at dinnertime…He said that bad children were locked in the basement. I really freaked out at that comment. I pitched a fit. I unloaded on him, told him that if he ever tried anything like that on my children, I’d have him behind bars. And if he ever said anything like that again, we’d be gone. It was one of the only times he ever backed down without a fight. He said it was just talk—he’d never do anything like that. I’d almost forgotten…”
“The student Dr. Gunterson remembers is named Robert Beck,” Brie said. “Dr. Gunterson imagines he was studying psychology to see if he could get a handle on what damage had been done to him, growing up. He was obsessed with Dr. Gunterson, a kind of hero worship that ended just shy of stalking. Beck taught young children for a short time in Maine, but was terminated for treating the kids too harshly. He got in trouble for locking one child in the closet in his classroom. He spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, and that was the last Dr. Gunterson heard about him. A little further checking turned up some minor scrapes with the law. Our sheriff’s department will arrest him for fraud and identity theft, but whether there’s any extradition remains to be seen.
“I have no idea how long he’s been using a second identity as Arnold Gunterson,” Brie went on. “I don’t know if it’s been months or years. He was hard to trace because he got his driver’s license and vehicle registration in his legal name, rented his house and took his job using his false identity. Frankly, Dr. Gunterson would like to have sole use of his identity, but he’s not anxious to see Beck again.”
“After we got married I realized he was weird,” Ellie said. She swallowed. “Turns out he was once a frightened child. An abused, frightened child.” She shook her head sadly.
“Treating people the way he’d been treated. I can’t tell you how often that’s the case,” Brie said.
“Yes, Noah said as much. He said that mistreating my kids wouldn’t bring Arnie relief, it would make his life more miserable, but that probably wouldn’t matter. Oh, Brie, thank God my kids weren’t hurt any worse than they were!”
Brie was writing something down on a piece of paper. “I’m sure they’re getting along fine, now that they’re reassured you’re near and they’re safe. Just the same, make an appointment with this counselor. Get them evaluated. No point in borrowing trouble. And I’ll see you in court at nine o’clock Friday morning.”
Ellie stood. “Are you sure he won’t give me any more trouble about custody? Because no matter what a judge says, I can’t let my kids be alone with him. Not ever.”
“He’s going to be arrested before court on Friday, Ellie. He might make bail, but he’s not taking on custodianship of any minor children. I can almost guarantee that.”
“Thank you,” Ellie said softly. “Really, thank you isn’t enough, but…It may take me a while, but I’ll make sure you’re paid for your work.”
“Sure. Whenever,” Brie said. “Thing is, I have a daughter. Before long I’m going to be looking for a good school. Right after this custody case is finished, I’m going hunting. I want to know why none of the teachers or directors at that private school were fingerprinted. Then I’m going to find out if all the employees of the rest of our county’s schools have had the required background checks. For that, Ellie, we owe you. And the price you could have paid is way too high.”
When she got back to town, Ellie checked at the Fitch house, but no one was home. It wasn’t quite time for Nick to be home after work and Jo often ran errands after collecting Danielle from school. She walked down the street and saw the carpenters who’d been tasked with installing pews loading up their trucks, finished for the day, and Noah’s old truck was gone. But unless Noah said otherwise, he would be home in time to be sure Lucy had her dinner. Ellie went in the side door and up the stairs to the sanctuary.
Ah, it was looking good. Just a little spit and polish, the accoutrements like kneeler, pulpit and baptistery in place and it would be absolutely beautiful for Saturday’s wedding. Ellie had offered to join Vanni, Shelby and some other women in decorating the pews with flowers. A florist from Grace Valley would bring a truckful and, while the women concentrated on the pews, she would adorn the front of the church. The church would be barely done and Noah would have his debut. Ellie sat in the front pew and imagined it. Her eyes were drawn to the stained-glass window. The peace in his eyes comforted her. Calmed her.
There was a voice from the back of the church. A deep, familiar voice. “You have to give me a chance.” A man she’d known only as Arnie spoke.
She stood and turned toward him. He was standing at the back of the church, a big, homely, unhappy man. “Robert? Or is it Bob?” she asked.
“I never hurt them,” he said. “I took good care of them, Ellie,” he said.
“You locked them in your house! And you scared me that night you followed me in your big SUV!” She wrinkled her brow. “Where’d you park that big thing? I didn’t see it outside.”
“Ellie, if you’ll just cooperate for once, I can make this right. All I ever wanted my whole life was to do a good job with a family. Do it right. Be respected. Maybe I shouldn’t have followed you, but—”
“Maybe?”
“You were with him. You weren’t supposed to be with him. You’re mine.”
“We’re divorced! We’ve been divorced over a year!”
“I never accepted that. Marriage is forever,” he said with a shrug. “That wasn’t part of the plan, wasn’t what we agreed. I let myself get mad about the way things went. You know me—I don’t often get mad.”
“You get mad all the time!” she said hotly. “You get mad, you threaten, you harass and badger! You punish!”
“No, no, no,” he said. “I just try to keep things on track, that’s all. You know.”
He took a step toward her and she said loudly, “What’s your name? Is it Robert? Is it Bob? What?”
He stopped in the aisle. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I haven’t been Robert in a long time and I’ve been better off for it. Listen, just listen to me for once, if I apologize to the professor, all this will be over. We can pick up where we—”
“Pick up what? We were never even really married! Why in the world do you want me at all? We never even…You know what we never did! And you know you can’t be around children! You hate children!”
“I don’t,” he said, shaking his head, taking another step. “I wasn’t mean to them, Ellie,” he said, taking another step toward her. “I was strict and I didn’t mollycoddle ’em, but I didn’t mistreat them. I mean, that business with the house locks—really, I did that so no one could get in and hurt them.”
“They cried every night, you wouldn’t let them talk to me on the phone, they were scared and lonely—” She backed away a step. “Arnie, you need to see someone. You need help and I can’t give it to you. And even if I could, I wouldn’t take the job.”
“You don’t understand about the help,” he said, appearing frustrated. “The help doesn’t work. I take medicine for depression, but it’s not good. As long as things are calm, I’m just fine.”
“I’ve got news for you, Arnie—things can’t always be calm.”
“They can,” he insisted. “Look, you’re just upset, that’s all. Mad about what I said in that bar. That won’t matter, Ellie. We’ll just start over. You’ll see. We’ll apologize to everyone, you’ll just say it was a misunderstanding and we’ll just—”
