Last One Home Read online

  Last One Home is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Debbie Macomber

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Macomber, Debbie.

  Last one home : a novel / Debbie Macomber.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-0-553-39188-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-0-553-39189-3 (ebook)

  1. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.A2364L37 2015

  813’.54—dc23

  2014045852

  Jacket design by Belina Huey

  Jacket illustration by Stephen Youll

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  A Note from the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Dear Friends,

  I’m so delighted to share with you my new novel, Last One Home. Like that of the sisters in this book, one of my fondest memories from childhood is playing hide-and-seek in the park with my neighborhood friends. And, like Cassie, our main character, I often would squeeze through the thick branches of a huge bush so as not to be seen. We always played until dusk, waiting for the porch light to be turned on, our parents’ signal that it was time to come in. Then we’d all race for home.

  In the novel, my character Cassie has, as an adult, become estranged from her family. When the book opens, she hasn’t seen them in thirteen years. The idea of “coming home” seems almost impossible to her, but it is what she longs for most, a feeling I think we all can understand. While I didn’t have a sister growing up, I had lots of cousins who I was very close to, and I can’t imagine losing touch with any of them.

  Now please turn the page and meet one of the strongest heroines I feel I’ve ever written. Cassie is eager to tell her story, and I hope you are just as eager to read it.

  Warmest regards,

  P.S. Hearing from my readers is one of the many pleasures I have as an author. You can reach me through my website at DebbieMacomber.com or on Facebook, or if you would rather write a letter, my mailing address is P.O. Box 1458, Port Orchard, WA 98366.

  Prologue

  Summer had always been ten-year-old Cassie’s favorite time of year. Larson Park, just down the street from her house, was the neighborhood play yard where her sisters and kids from the block gathered in the cool of the evening. The most popular after-dinner game was hide-and-seek, and the huge chestnut tree in the center of the park was their home base.

  “Olly olly oxen free,” twelve-year-old Karen called out. Cassie’s older sister was it, and she was good.

  Cassie struggled to hide her giggles. She’d gotten good at hiding—no one knew of her secret place inside a huge bush that grew low to the ground. The day had been blistering hot, but a cool breeze set the leaves to whispering. When she closed her eyes, Cassie could hear the trees singing to one another.

  Cassie was just small enough to squeeze in between the thick branches of the bush and hunker down out of sight. She held perfectly still as crickets chirped in the background. The scent of the freshly mowed lawn nearly caused her to sneeze, which would have ruined everything. The best part about her hiding spot was that she was able to peer out between the greenery and watch when Karen left the chestnut tree.

  Fun and games with her two sisters and friends was a perfect ending to what was probably the best day of Cassie’s entire life. Earlier that afternoon a big truck had parked outside their house with a delivery. It was the piano Cassie had dreamed about ever since she started taking lessons two years earlier. Recently Mrs. Schneider, her teacher, had encouraged her parents to invest in a piano.

  According to the teacher, Cassie had musical talent. She loved to sit at the piano, fascinated by the sound each key made and what happened in her head when she heard a song on the radio. Mrs. Schneider claimed Cassie had been born with a musical ear. Cassie wasn’t quite sure what that meant and thought it might be her ability to hear a song and then find the keys to play it all on her own without looking at sheet music.

  Unfortunately, the only place she’d had to practice was at the old upright in the school gymnasium. The piano was available after school and at no other time. Mrs. Schneider was certain Cassie would excel if she had access to a piano of her own. But pianos were expensive and her mother had sadly explained that the family couldn’t afford to take on that big of an expense.

  Her dad, however, had overruled her mother. He insisted that they would find a way to pay for a piano, and he had. He’d found a rent-to-own program and vowed to squeeze the twenty-five dollars a month out of their already tight budget.

  When the delivery men rolled the piano into the house, Cassie could barely contain her joy. She’d sat and played until it was dinnertime and her mother made her quit because it was her turn to set the table.

  It was hard to tear herself away from the piano for their nightly games, but the house was hot and the cool night air beckoned her. Cassie’s parents sat in the center of the gazebo her father had built, drinking coffee and keeping an eye on the park.

  Their nightly game of hide-and-seek involved nearly the entire neighborhood. They could play until it was dark and the porch light went on at the house. That was their signal it was time to come home and get ready for bed.

  Cassie squirmed, certain she was about to sneeze. A loud clap of thunder shook the sky. Heat lightning wasn’t uncommon this time of year.

  “Olly olly oxen free,” Karen cried out again.

  Cassie saw several of her neighborhood friends dash for the tree. Seeing that the coast was clear, Cassie left her secret spot and was on her feet and running. Right away Karen spied her and was after her, chasing her with a determination that nearly caused Cassie to stumble. If she made it to the chestnut tree before Karen could tag her, she’d be safe.

  Zigzagging across the lawn, Cassie twisted and turned in an effort to avoid her sister’s outstretched arm. By the time she was close to the tree she was breathless. From the corner of her eye, Cassie saw her youngest sister, Nichole, emerge from her own hiding place behind a bench and run for the tree as well. She tried to hurry and reach it first.

  Cassie nearly made it, but Karen was too quick for her. Just before she lunged forward to
touch the tree, Karen slapped her shoulder. Cassie had been caught.

  The three sisters sprawled onto the grass, gazing up at the darkening sky. Holding on to their stomachs, they panted and laughed. Up and down the streets porch lights were coming on one by one. Soon their neighborhood friends headed off into the dusk until only Karen, Nichole, and Cassie were left under the big chestnut tree.

  Cassie’s heart swelled with happiness in the glow of her one perfect day. It spilled out into a huge grin as she stretched out her arms to either side of her and touched her sisters, wanting to share this joy with them.

  Their father stood in the gazebo and called, and all three girls leaped up. Karen shouted, “Last one home is it.” Both Karen and Nichole got a head start, but Cassie was right behind.

  Chapter 1

  The impossibly thin woman sitting next to Cassie Carter in the King County Courthouse in Seattle trembled like an oak leaf in a storm. When the judge entered the courtroom and they were asked to rise, Maureen could barely manage to get to her feet. Cassie wrapped her arm around the other woman’s waist and helped her to stand upright. Maureen was skin and bone, so thin Cassie could feel her ribs. She’d been that thin once herself. Like Maureen, she had been beaten down, battered, and emotionally broken.

  “You’re doing great,” Cassie whispered. She understood all too well what courage it took for Maureen to testify against her husband. Cassie had sat in a similar courtroom in Florida, only she’d sat alone. Duke, her husband, had glared at her as she’d slowly walked toward the witness stand, his dark eyes filled with hatred. Eyes that said he would kill her if he got the chance.

  He nearly had.

  They’d been married only a few months when Duke hit her the first time. He’d had a few beers with friends and come home and found Cassie didn’t yet have dinner ready. To show her how displeased he was, he’d slapped her. Cassie had been stunned. Her father had never laid a hand on her mother or her, nor her two sisters. Horrified, she’d pressed her hand to her cheek, hardly knowing what to think.

  That was the first of many such slaps. Afterward he was sorry. He felt horrible that he could do anything to hurt the woman he loved beyond life itself. He’d cover his face and weep, begging her forgiveness. The irony of it was that she, the one who’d been hurt, would rationalize his anger and comfort him. Shocking, really, when she thought about it. Duke hit her and she was the one who apologized.

  As the years progressed, the slaps turned to slugs and the slugs into beatings. During the last beating she’d seen that very look in his eyes, the same one he gave her the day she stood in a Florida courtroom.

  The look that said her days were numbered. She would pay for what she’d done.

  That final time, as Duke’s fists pounded down on her, Cassie had been terrified by the cold hate in her husband’s eyes. Duke would not stop until he killed her. It was as clear as the writing on a highway billboard. In that breathless moment, Cassie knew beyond a doubt that she was about to die. She lost consciousness briefly, and when she came to again she heard him rifling through the kitchen drawers. She knew he was searching for a knife.

  Carried by adrenaline, numb with fear, she managed to escape into her daughter’s bedroom and blocked the door by tilting a chair beneath the knob. She grabbed seven-year-old Amiee and fled out the window.

  She didn’t take her purse or her identification or any money. And she had no friends, no resources. Just her daughter and the clothes on her back.

  Cassie hadn’t needed anything else. The one precious thing that had come out of her marriage had been her daughter. Fleeing to a women’s shelter, Cassie was given housing and assistance. Duke was arrested and sentenced to a six-month jail term.

  Cassie had taken those months to put her life together. And to try to make her way back to the good life she’d left behind. The hardest part hadn’t even been leaving Duke after all—it was that she didn’t have her family’s support. She was on her own, without her parents, without her sisters. She had to do it alone, and so she had.

  “What if the judge doesn’t believe me?” Maureen whispered, her voice trembling to the point that her words were barely discernible.

  “He has the police report,” Cassie assured her.

  “I … I don’t know that I can do this.” Maureen started to shake again, even worse than before. “Lonny doesn’t mean to hurt me … he can’t help himself. He has a temper, you see, and it gets away from him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He can’t help himself.”

  “Maureen, we’ve been through this. It isn’t your fault that your husband hits you. You’ve done nothing wrong.” Cassie recognized the thought process: If only she’d been a better wife, a better housekeeper, a better mother, then Duke wouldn’t be upset. It was her failings that brought on the abuse. Only later, with counseling and patience, did she accept that the blame wasn’t hers. She had done nothing to deserve the beatings Duke gave her.

  “But …”

  “I was married to a man who beat me,” Cassie reminded her. “I thought it was my fault, too. If only I hadn’t put mustard instead of mayo on his ham sandwich he wouldn’t have hit me. I should have remembered. How could I have been so stupid? Maureen, think about it. Would you pound your fist into your daughter’s face for something like that?”

  “No, never … I’d never hit one of my children.”

  “I didn’t deserve it, either, and neither did you.”

  Maureen stared up at her with wide, blank eyes. At one time Cassie’s eyes had had that same hollowed, hopeless look.

  “I’ll be right here,” she promised the other woman. “I’m not going to leave you. Once we’re finished I’ll take you back to the shelter.”

  Maureen gripped her hands together in a hold so tight her fingers went white. “I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can,” Cassie assured her and gave her thin body a gentle squeeze. “Think of your children.”

  Maureen briefly closed her eyes and nodded.

  “Lonny is going to jail, if there is any justice,” Cassie assured her.

  “But what will I do then?”

  “The shelter will help you get a job and find housing.” Cassie had already been through this with Maureen a number of times, but the fragile soul needed to hear it again.

  “The paperwork …”

  “I’ll help you fill out the forms, Maureen.”

  Cassie understood the other woman’s fears. As easy as it might sound to others, little things like obtaining a driver’s license or completing a job application seemed overwhelming. Duke had refused to allow Cassie to drive. It became a control issue with him. If she had access to a car she might leave him. When they’d married she’d had a license, but it had long since expired and was from a different state. Moving her away from family and friends had been one of the first things he’d done, taking her from Spokane all the way to Florida, where there were supposed to be good jobs. The job had never materialized, but he’d succeeded in getting her far from family, friends, and all that was familiar.

  To anyone who hadn’t been the victim of domestic violence, the hesitation to testify, to put the aggressor behind bars, was incomprehensible. Only those who’d walked through this madness understood what courage it took, what fortitude and pure nerve were required to stand up in court and admit what they had endured.

  When Maureen was called to the witness stand, Cassie held her breath. She slid to the very edge of the hard wooden seat as the young mother reluctantly stood.

  “Don’t look at Lonny,” Cassie advised, giving the other woman’s hand a gentle squeeze as she scooted past. “If you need to, focus on me instead.”

  Maureen was deathly pale and her nod was barely noticeable. Her walk from the back of the courtroom all the way to the witness stand seemed to take thirty minutes. Thankfully, she followed Cassie’s advice and kept her gaze lowered, refusing to look in the vicinity of her husband.

  Twice the judge had to ask Maureen to speak up in order for h
er to be heard.

  Cassie wanted to cheer when Maureen squared her shoulders as resolve came to her. She looked directly at the judge and said clearly, “Please don’t let him hurt me again.” With that, she stood and started to leave the witness stand.

  Lonny roared to his feet and started toward her. Maureen screamed and two deputies rushed forward, restraining Maureen’s husband while he blurted out profanities and threats.

  The judge’s gavel pounded like shotgun blasts through the courtroom, the sounds sharp and discordant. “Order,” he demanded. “Order in the court.”

  Maureen fled to where Cassie waited. Cassie immediately wrapped her arms around the other woman and led her out of the courtroom. She’d testified and nothing more was required of her. Cassie was certain Lonny’s outburst hadn’t done him any favors in the judge’s eyes. The prosecuting attorney would touch base with Cassie later in the day after he’d spoken to Maureen. The case was rock-solid and there was no reason to believe Lonny would escape jail time.

  Part of Cassie’s work as a victim advocate was to provide transportation for Maureen to the courthouse and back to the women’s shelter where Maureen and her two children were currently housed. She helped the shaking Maureen across the parking lot.

  At this point all Cassie’s work was on a volunteer basis. She’d taken the formal training, and one day, God willing, she’d have the chance to go to college for a degree in social work with a minor in criminal law. That, for now, was a pipe dream.

  Maureen didn’t speak until they were in Cassie’s car. Once her seat belt was in place, she released a stuttering sigh as if only now was she able to breathe.

  “You did it,” Cassie said, praising her.

  “Yes. The worst is over.”

  Cassie didn’t have the heart to tell her that this was only the beginning. When someone had been beaten down for years, making even the simplest decision seemed paralyzing. Maureen and her children would need counseling and hand-holding. Fortunately, Maureen was already in a support group. In an effort to lend encouragement and guidance, Cassie had sat with her for a couple sessions. Maureen had listened without speaking, although she’d nodded a couple times. Lacey Wilson, who facilitated the group, did an excellent job of steering the conversation. The women who attended were at different stages of the healing process.