Free Listen to the Shadows by Joan Hall Hovey

for Christ’s sake. He’d wanted to lose himself in the green pools of her eyes. Despite the confusion he’d seen there, even the fear, her eyes were alive, filled with spirit. They challenged him. Maybe he’d hoped some of her passion would rub off on him, for he was, without doubt, feeling more dead and empty in his soul than he had ever felt in his life.
    Correct that. Since he was twelve years old.
    Since his mother.
    Sagging deeper in his chair, Jonathan rubbed a hand over his unshaven face.
    Dead and empty. Like Jodie. Jodie lay under the ground now. He hadn’t attended her funeral. He knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t. It was not easy to face one’s failures. Obviously impossible for him.
    Thrusting the girl’s memory from him, he let his gaze wander to the photo on his desk, which he’d left until last to pack. His mother smiled wistfully out at him, her raven hair falling softly to her shoulders, framing her small, oval face. She looked so young in the photo. Her eyes seemed almost too large for her face. They were gentle eyes, never accusing, yet he felt their accusation deep inside him like a heavy stone in his heart.
    “I couldn’t even help you, could I, Momma?” he whispered.
    Only the soft ticking of the wall clock answered him.
    ***
    Jeannie looked up from her typewriter as Dr. Shea strode past her desk, bursting through the swinging double doors and out into the corridor heading straight for the elevator. The door swung shut and he was gone from her vision.
    She turned the diamond ring round on her finger. Jeffrey had given it to her on Saturday night. She’d been dying to tell Dr. Shea her exciting news, but the time didn’t seem right. She’d hoped he might notice the ring, even thought it wasn’t very big, but she guessed he just had too much on his mind.
    The doors swung open and Constance Sewell was suddenly standing at her desk. “Is Jonathan in his office, Jeannie?”
    Jeannie cringed at the familiar, demanding voice, at the sight of the woman in a royal blue cape, her hair piled on her head like a flaming bush, looking as if she’d just stepped out of Vogue.
    “He just went out, Miss Sewell,” Jeannie said pleasantly. “You missed him. Would you like some coffee? He should be back any…”
    “Page him!”
    Jeannie’s face warmed. “Miss Sewell, I don’t think…”
    The woman let out a long-suffering sigh. “Please don’t aggravate me, Jeannie. I’m not in the mood. Please do as I ask. Please.” She favored Jeannie with a cool smile.
    “Very well.” Without another word, Jeannie obeyed, knowing Dr. Shea wouldn’t be too thrilled. But she didn’t think he would be mad at her. He hadn’t taken his coat, so she knew he was still in the building. As she paged him, Constance Sewell, cape flaring out behind her like a mad bull-fighter’s, flounced into Dr. Shea’s office as though she owned it, and shut the door behind her.
    ***
    Several miles away, the man stood alongside his blue, badly rusting half-ton, leaning on his shovel, his eyes raised to the swollen purple clouds moving swiftly across the gray sky out of the west. A storm was brewing. Damn! He hoped to hell that didn’t mean snow. Snow would make his work a lot harder. It would leave tracks, too.
    Naw, he argued with himself, too early for snow. More rain, probably. At the sound of childish giggling, he turned to see two kids coming up the path toward him. Tossing the shovel onto the back of the truck where it thumped and rocked to silence, he straightened his shoulders in the faded army jacket, and waited.
    As they came closer, their steps suddenly faltered, and the man grinned to himself. They sensed he was a man to be reckoned with. He liked that. You couldn’t too often fool kids—although there’d been a couple who hadn’t been too sharp, and they’d paid the price. He thought of the boys’ home they’d stuck him in after his mother died, and then the foster homes he’d been in and out of like