The Truth Within (Pelican Bay 3)

And I’d been one of the lucky ones.

Not like Theo…

“Did you miss me, you striped menace?” I heard Maddox say. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to me anymore, but the sanctuary’s resident troublemaker, Jerry. The zebra, who lived with the horses and other livestock, was walking alongside his enclosure’s fence. I almost smiled when Jerry stopped and curled up his top lip. I figured that was zebra code for “bite me” or something similar.

When I’d first started helping out around the place, I’d learned for myself that Jerry didn’t mind making tasks a little more difficult for whoever was working in his enclosure for the day, but he wasn’t a dangerous animal. I hadn’t ended up in the trough like Nolan on his first day, but I had slipped in a pile of fresh droppings that had conveniently been left right behind the spot I’d been working in. Between the slippery ice and the mushy poop, I hadn’t had a chance of staying upright. Luckily, there hadn’t been anyone around to see my humiliation – or smell it for the rest of the day – but I’d had to throw my pants out when I’d gotten home since I hadn’t been willing to risk even a speck of zebra poop getting anywhere in my mother’s house. Nowadays, I kept a spare set of clothes at my studio and changed there before going home.

“We heard about Walter,” Maddox said to me just before we reached the building where I’d been cleaning just a few days ago. “Glad to hear he’s going to have the surgery on his knee.”

“Do you know Walter?” I asked.

“I know of him,” Maddox said. “I met him a few times before I left for West Point, but he wasn’t exactly a fan of my family.”

“How come?” I asked. I knew that Maddox had left for the elite military academy when he’d graduated high school and had only come back after his parents and Dallas had been in a car accident. He hadn’t returned again until recently when his own days in the military had come to an end.

Maddox and Dallas’s family had been extremely well known in our community. Their father had been a famed televangelist before moving to Pelican Bay and their mother had worked as an actress in Hollywood. My mother had idolized Jeremiah and Julia Kent as pillars of the community. She still refused to accept that the late couple had been flawed in any kind of way.

“I don’t think he agreed with a lot of the stuff they preached. I remember my dad trying to talk to him once about God having looked out for him after he’d been held as a prisoner of war for those six months.”

“Walter was a POW?” I asked.

Why had he never told me that?

“He was,” Maddox said. “He helped several of the men in his unit escape after they were ambushed. Some didn’t make it. Walter was eventually released. Anyway, he told my dad that the God he preached about was bullshit and my dad wouldn’t know the God who’d been watching over Walter and his platoon even if He came down from Heaven and bitch-slapped some sense into him.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. That sounded a lot like something Walter would say. It was no secret that he didn’t appreciate my mother’s holier-than-thou speeches, but he’d never talked disrespectfully about her in front of me. I had, however, heard of some of the things he’d said to some of the other people in the community who thought he should be a more active participant in the church.

“If he needs anything, let us know, okay? Cam told us about the damage to his house so we’re going to go take a look at it tomorrow, assuming Walter doesn’t have an issue with that.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “You… you’re going to see if you can help fix his house?”

“Yeah, well, Dallas and I aren’t skilled carpenters or anything, but Cam’s been making some calls and it turns out there’s no one locally who has time to do the work. Dallas and I know our way around a circular saw and Cam said he’s got some electrical knowledge so between us, hopefully we can get Walter back home sooner rather than later.”

I was completely flabbergasted.

Walter hadn’t said anything about Cam doing that and I’d just assumed the insurance company would handle everything.

“So here’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Maddox began once we entered the building. I forced myself to focus as he explained that he wanted to add some color to the long wall of the building where there was currently nothing but blank space. It was to be a surprise for his brother’s birthday the following month. Excitement started running through my head as I thought about all the things I could do with the large white space and I had to harshly remind myself that Maddox wasn’t asking me to do it; he was just looking for my opinion on what his options were.