Mr. Alphonse continued outlining his position, but it was all horrible. They were going to have to fall on the mercy of the court with nothing but a single sentence from the Bill of Rights to shield him. If they failed, he was looking at five to seven years of imprisonment. Could Marianne wait that long? Could he? He’d never been tested like this and didn’t know if he’d survive it. This had been harder than he expected.
A rattle at the door surprised him. The bolt slid free, and Superintendent Castor stepped inside.
“On your feet, Mr. Delacroix. Officer Galloway is going to unlock those shackles you’re wearing.”
Luke stood and held out his hands, not even bothering to ask why. It would feel good to have the irons off his wrists and be capable of walking more than a few inches at a time.
His lawyer was more curious. “What’s all this, then?”
“Change of plans,” the superintendent said. “The word just came down. It’s all over. Congress is backing down, and you are free to go.”
Luke blinked. If this had happened in Cuba, he’d suspect it was a cruel jest, but Superintendent Castor had always been a decent man who wouldn’t taunt like that.
Luke still couldn’t quite hope. “Are you sure?”
Castor gave his lawyer a slip of paper, and Mr. Alphonse read quickly.
“You’re a free man,” his lawyer finally pronounced in amazement, but Luke still stared, unable to process this abrupt turnabout.
He could leave? Walk out the door and be a free man again? He swiveled to gape at Superintendent Castor, praying this wasn’t a dream.
“All I ask is that you leave out the back door,” Mr. Castor said. “Reporters are gathering on the front step, and it’s a bit of a mess out there. Your brother is waiting for you out back.”
Luke blinked faster. Tears threatened because Gray was here and this wasn’t a joke and in a few minutes this hideous nightmare might all be over. “Whatever you want,” he choked out.
He wouldn’t even return to his cell. There was nothing there he wanted. He just needed to get out of this windowless dungeon and into the clean air.
The moment his leg-irons were off, he followed Superintendent Castor down the hallway. The sensation of striding freely without the oppressive shackles was a marvel. His heart pounded so hard it was probably echoing off these concrete blocks, but he was smiling too wide to pay attention.
Mr. Alphonse held the door for him, and it was bright outside. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust, but then Gray was striding toward him, laughing and tugging him into a mighty bear hug.
“Welcome back,” Gray said.
Princeton was there. So were Nicolo and St. Louis and the Rollins brothers. They surrounded him and clapped him on the back, hooting and congratulating him.
Caroline and Nathaniel were there too, and Luke gave his brother-in-law a back-pounding hug. “When are you going to quit getting arrested?” Nathaniel teased.
Luke managed a laugh but stared into the cloudless blue sky, thanking God for his liberation. Thank you. A thousand times, thank you, God! He was grateful not only for his freedom, but the blessing of good friends and family.
There was only one thing that would make this morning utterly perfect.
He looked at Gray. “Marianne?”
Gray’s face dimmed a little. “I haven’t seen her. She’s been lying low.”
Luke nodded. He’d known ever since Clyde’s nasty visit two weeks earlier that their meetings had been discovered and Marianne was probably paying a penalty for it. He’d go searching for her as soon as he bathed and changed into a fresh set of clothes.
But something about Gray’s expression warned him there was more bad news coming.
“She’s been caught up in a scandal involving her father,” Gray said. “Something about an opera singer.”
Luke closed his eyes. Marianne was going to hate this, and he needed to provide whatever comfort he could. “I’d better go find her. She was always terrified of that getting out.”
“She knew?”
“She knew,” he affirmed. “Have any other salacious stories about Clyde come out? Perhaps involving a boy named Tommy?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
That was a relief.
Strange. Six months ago Luke would have gloated had Clyde’s dirty laundry received a public airing. Now he understood that he couldn’t hurt Clyde without the people in his orbit getting sucked into the downfall as well. He loved Marianne more than he hated Clyde, and that meant he’d do anything to protect her from the consequences of her father’s misbehavior. It meant that instead of nurturing his resentment, Luke had to learn to become a positive force where the Magruders were involved.
Maybe sending Marianne into his life was God’s way of compelling Luke to reexamine his own cocksure arrogance in looking at the world. Stranger things had happened, and he was up to the challenge.
Thirty-Two
It felt strange, traveling across the country with a numb spirit but curious eyes. Marianne was heartsick over leaving Luke behind, but her artist’s eye hungrily devoured the changing landscape speeding past the train window as she headed west. By the end of her first day, she was in the rolling green hills of Appalachia. They soon gave way to fields of corn in Ohio and Indiana. Then the land changed to the boundless flatlands of Kansas and Nebraska.
Was she running away from something or toward something? The fate of Aunt Stella had always been a mystery. Seeking her out gave Marianne’s lost soul a sense of direction. Could a woman be expelled from a family and still be happy? Had Stella’s Lenape husband made her happy? Was she even still alive?
The train stopped every few hours at railway depots in small, dusty towns. Passengers got on and off, but Marianne always went in search of a newspaper. Places like Mapleton, Utah, didn’t have a lot of news to report other than their failing iron ore mines, but thanks to the Associated Press, national news from all over the country was telegraphed even to small towns like these.
Three days after setting off on her journey, she saw the story she had been looking for. On the second page of the Mapleton Register was a story reporting the activities of the Poison Squad. The most important passage was in the second paragraph:
Luke Delacroix, an inaugural member of the Poison Squad, was briefly imprisoned in the DC Jail for premature exposure of laboratory studies commissioned by Congress on the safety of chemical preservatives. Mr. Delacroix was released on Tuesday when Congress withdrew charges in reaction to negative publicity surrounding his arrest.
A crushing weight lifted off her chest. Luke was free. Her father had kept his word.
She gazed out past the feedstore and the post office to the fields beyond. Thank you Lord! Please let him be happy now.
Beneath this huge western sky it felt easier to be closer to God. Maybe it was because she’d been stripped away from her family, friends, and every familiar guidepost in her life. Without those crutches, perhaps it was only natural to look up. She was putting her faith in God to find Aunt Stella and perhaps a direction for her future.
She boarded the train and continued traveling west, but she saw the world through new and hopeful eyes. Her sacrifice had worked. Luke was free, and in an odd way, she was too. She was without family or encumbrances. She could make her own way in the world. She had a camera, a sound head on her shoulders, and the desire to do something good. If there were any other requirements for success, she hadn’t heard of them.