Part One

Dead leaves skittered across the darkened parking lot as Jasper Reynolds trudged back to his car. He’d parked in the far corner somewhere and in his current, distracted state of mind, couldn’t quite remember where.

“You put a foot out of place, boy, and you’ll feel the wrong end of my belt,” a man’s voice said, from somewhere out of view. “You understand?”

Jasper stopped short.

“I’ll do what my mother tells me to do,” another voice answered.

“You’ll do what I say, or I’ll beat you black and blue,” the first voice countered. “No one’s going to believe a kid like you, over a respectable citizen like me.”

“My mother–”

A harsh laugh cut him off. “Your mother can’t afford to walk away from me, kid. Who do you think has been paying your rent the last six months? The money she earns in this crappy diner isn’t enough to put food on the table. I’ve been real generous – unlike you. You’re just a burden to her.”

“I do a lot to help!”

The laughter repeated. Jasper caught a whiff of cigarette smoke as it wafted around the corner of the building. All of a sudden, he thought he knew who was talking. He’d noticed the stoop-shouldered man inside. He had walked in and gone right up to the waitress. They had exchanged a few words, and then the man had gestured to a boy of eleven or twelve, who had been sitting quietly, doing his homework. The man and boy had walked out together, only a minute or two before Jasper left.

“Get in the car, boy,” the man ordered. “That’s enough of your talk.”

Jasper retreated half a dozen paces, then turned to pretend he had only just exited the diner. He heard two car doors close and the rumble of an engine. The car pulled out just as he reached the corner of the building. The light mounted there caught the boy’s red hair as the car passed it and Jasper knew his identification of the pair had been correct.

A cigarette, tossed out the driver’s window, bounced across the asphalt, showering sparks among the dry leaves. Jasper walked across and stamped it out. For several moments, he stood there, in the middle of the lot, thinking. Ten minutes earlier, he had written out a plan for the rest of his life – an amount of time which he had decided to limit to roughly three weeks. But now, another purpose had presented itself. That boy needed someone to save him.

He pulled out the piece of paper on which he had written his plan. After staring at it for a moment or two, he crumpled it into a ball and shoved it back into his pocket. The new plan beginning to form in his mind was better. It didn’t change the fact that he didn’t deserve to continue existing, but it might go a little way towards putting things right.

His mind made up, Jasper went and found his car. He had things he needed to do.

Three weeks later…

Jasper raised a hand to Katie as he entered the diner.

“The usual?” she called, and he nodded.

He took a seat in the place he now often chose, set the small box he carried down next to himself, and settled down to check out the other patrons. Katie came by the table with his coffee.

“How’s the cleaning coming along?” she asked.

Jasper grimaced. “It feels like it will never be finished. But I want the house on the market by this time next week, so I suppose it will have to be.”

She smiled and drifted away to answer the whining voice of another regular two tables over. He took a sip of the coffee – not to his usual standard, but not so bad that he couldn’t drink it – and continued his survey of the room. He didn’t know the couple in the corner booth, but he’d seen all of the others before, at one point or another. A glance at his watch told him that Katie’s son would probably be along soon, after his basketball training session.

Katie dropped the meal at his table, interrupting his thoughts.

“I’ve got another pile of trinkets for you to take your pick from,” he told her, as she slid the plate in front of him. “I don’t suppose you want most of these ones, but they’re yours if you want them.”

She smiled. “You’re far too generous, Jasper. But thank you.”

He waved it off. “I’ve got more stuff to deal with than I know what to do with. I’d rather give them to someone who appreciates them than spend an hour trying to sell them. The amount I’d get isn’t worth the time.”

Two tables over, the same whiny regular raised her voice in complaint and Katie left him to his meal with another smile.

A minute later, the door opened and Katie’s son came in. Jasper watched him pause in the doorway and scan the room. His shoulders relaxed by a fraction, then a brief twinge crossed his face. Jasper set down his fork to watch more closely.

“Take a seat, Jim. I’ll be with you in a minute,” Katie called to him.

The boy crossed to the table near the kitchen door and sat down. Even from this distance, Jasper could see something off about his movements. As his mother turned to him, Jim forced a natural expression onto his face. Jasper frowned, trying to decide just what course of action to take.

“Everything okay?” Katie asked, a couple of minutes later. She glanced at his barely-touched plate.

“With the food? Fine,” he replied, then took a breath. “I don’t mean to pry, but I can’t help noticing…” He shook his head and started again. “I’m guessing your son took a tumble at practice today and doesn’t want you to know. I’m not suggesting you embarrass him in public, but maybe when you get home, you might ask him if he’s hurt.”

Her eyes darted over to Jim, who sat staring at his homework. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

He nodded and let her go. Picking up his fork, he resumed his meal. He wasn’t sure it was enough, but maybe this was a step in the right direction.

Jasper arrived at the diner a little earlier the next day, having reached the extent of his will-power earlier than usual. He didn’t care that it was too early to eat; he just wanted to be out of that house and away from the bitter memories it evoked.

The owner of the diner, an older lady called Betty, poured him a coffee and took his order. He took a sip and closed his eyes, wanting to block out everything that might remind him of where he was.

“Mom wants to talk to you, but she’s not here right now.”

Looking up sharply, he found himself addressed by Katie’s son. The boy had arrived so silently that Jasper hadn’t noticed his approach.

“Okay,” he answered. “Will she be here this evening?”

The boy nodded.

“I’ll wait for her,” Jasper promised. “Thanks for telling me.”

Jim nodded again, and retreated to his table by the kitchen door.

From then until his food arrived, Jasper contemplated what this might mean. There had been something closed about the boy’s expression. Had he resented Jasper’s intervention the night before? Did he even know that Jasper had been the one to tip off his mother? He would have to wait and see when Katie returned.

Betty came back and dropped a plate in front of him, bidding him to “Enjoy.”

He nodded his thanks and started to eat. Halfway through the meal, a box entered his field of vision – the same box he had given Katie the day before.

“May I sit down a minute?” she asked, her expression grim.

“Of course.” He waved her to sit opposite.

“There are two things I need to talk to you about,” she told him. “First, I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

She pushed the box across the table to him. He lifted the flap and gazed at the neatly assorted items inside. When he’s given it to her, it had been a tangled mess of costume jewellery, pretty trinkets and other odds and ends.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he explained. “And I hope you understood that I didn’t mean this to have any… overtones, I suppose you’d call them. I just need all this stuff out of the house so I can sell it and be out of here, and I’m running out of patience with the job.”

“But you could sell these things for a lot of money,” she argued.

Jasper shrugged, wondering how to express the thing he wanted to say. “I have more than enough money to live on. Money isn’t important to me. And anyway, you’ve been kind to me and I’ve appreciated it. I swore I’d never set foot in Rochester again, when I left it when I was seventeen. And until I inherited my father’s house and had to decide what to do about it, I kept that word. You don’t know how much you’ve helped me. This place has a lot of bad memories.”

She nodded, but still looked uncertain.

“Please. Just take the box,” he urged. “Like I told you before, it doesn’t matter to me in the slightest if you sell the stuff, or give it away, or keep it for yourself.”

“But–”

“I’m pretty sure you deserve the money a lot more than I do, and that you could use it for something good,” he told her. “You said there were two things you wanted to talk about?”

Katie wrung her hands together. “My son…”

“What is it?” he asked, gently.

She drew a breath. “I don’t think it was a fall at practice. He won’t tell me where he got them, but he’s got bruises right down his back – new ones and old ones – and it looks more like someone’s been thrashing him with the buckle end of a belt.”

Jasper’s eyes widened. “Is he okay, do you think, or does he need medical attention?”

“I think he’s okay,” she answered. “But I don’t know what to do. He won’t say who hit him, or how long it’s been going on.”

He frowned, thinking. “In that case, you should definitely take the box. Sell the hideous, old jewellery and make yourself an escape fund and a plan. Just in case. Then watch and see if it continues, or if you can find out who hit him.”

“Escape? But where would I go? My job is here…”

They both looked around them.

“There are other jobs,” he pointed out, in a low voice. “And if it’s your son’s welfare that’s at stake…”

She nodded and took the box. “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

Jasper didn’t see Katie or her son for the next couple of days. He visited the diner daily, as he had been ever since the night he made his plan, but she wasn’t working when he was there. Meanwhile, he pressed on at cleaning out the house and began to see the end of the task in sight.

He almost breathed a sigh of relief to see Katie there when he reached the diner the next day, but then he saw her face. Always pale, her complexion could now best be described as ashen. In short, she looked haunted.

“Something’s happened?” he whispered to her, as she poured his coffee.

She nodded. “I know who it is, now, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Surely…”

She shook her head. “It’s my fiancé.” Before he could do more than gasp, she hurried on. “I owe him a lot of money. And he… knows things. Things about my late husband, that I don’t want Jim to know. If I try to break things off…”

Jasper’s expression hardened. “That’s blackmail.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Do you want to do something about it?” he asked. “If you could leave him, without bad consequences, would you do it?”

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded once.

He picked up a menu and pretended to contemplate something different to eat. “There’s always something that can be done. This debt, is it in writing?”

“Well, no, but–”

“How much, if you don’t mind my asking?”

She whispered, “About five thousand dollars.”

He nodded, thinking. “Have you confronted him?”

She shook her head.

“Do you have family anywhere?”

Again, she shook her head. “My parents died in a car crash. I have a sister somewhere, but we argued and I haven’t heard from her in over fifteen years— and I have no idea where she lives. Other than that, there’s no one.” She paused. “Except, Jim has a relative. A great uncle. But we haven’t heard from him since his wife died when Jim was not much more than a baby.”

“Where does he live?”

She thought for a moment. “I can’t remember the name of the town. It’s in Westchester County, New York.”

“How about friends?”

Her shoulders slumped. “No one close. Not any more.”

“Okay.” He pointed to a menu item, almost at random. “I’ll have this. And while I’m here, I’ll try to make a plan for you.”

“You don’t have to…”

He smiled. “Of course I don’t. But I want to.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, and then she was gone.

Jasper pulled a notebook out of his pocket and turned to a new page. He was good at making plans. For this task, he was going to need to be.

The next night, Jasper timed his visit to the diner for near the end of Katie’s shift. He noticed her reddened eyes when she served him, but did not comment. Instead, he ate his meal in silence and lingered over a second cup of coffee while she tidied up and took off her apron.

“Take a seat,” he offered, when she emerged from the back room. “Do you have the answers to my questions?”

She nodded and handed him a folded sheet of paper, as she sat opposite him. “But I don’t understand what you mean to do with them.”

Jasper considered telling her the whole truth, but then decided he didn’t want an argument about it. “I’m going to settle your debt, to stop him coming after you,” he explained. “And I’m going to help you disappear, so that he won’t know where to look, even if he wants to.”

Katie’s eyes widened. “You can’t–”

“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” he told her. “I’m not keeping a cent from my father’s estate. You just happen to be the first beneficiary, but there will be plenty more after you.”

Her brow creased, but she did not seem able to formulate the question she obviously wanted to ask.

“I didn’t tell you my surname, did I?” Jasper continued. “And I know I didn’t tell you enough to identify the house I’m clearing out.” He shook his head. “For all I know, my father or grandfather might have had dealings with your family, if you’ve been in the area long enough.” He saw the incomprehension in her face. “My father was Clem Reynolds, the dirtiest businessman Rochester has ever seen, with the possible exception of his own father.”

She flinched and he knew, in that moment, that somewhere in her past she had fallen on the wrong side of one of his despised relatives.

“Call it repayment for whatever wrong he did you, or someone you knew,” he continued.

“My husband,” she whispered. “We lost everything…”

Jasper nodded once. “Then I’m glad I can help you now.”

She started shaking her head.

“You don’t know the things I found out about him, after he died.” He looked away. “I didn’t want anything to do with him, or his money, during his lifetime. Once I knew everything… well, let’s just say that the sooner the spoils of his family’s questionable deeds are disposed of, the better I’ll like it.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

He smiled. “Just follow the plan. Seeing you and your son safe will be my full repayment. You talked to Betty?”

She nodded. “She’s not going to say anything. The sign that says ‘We’re hiring’ is always in the window anyway. Betty always said it wasn’t worth the bother taking it down because there’s almost always someone leaving.”

“Okay.” He thought for a moment. “You just need to act natural for the next couple of weeks. Have you thought about where you’d like to go?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have the slightest idea.” A moment later, her expression changed. “Actually, I do have an idea. I want somewhere out in the country, where Jim can have plenty of room to move. But not anywhere near Albany, because that’s where my fiancé lives – outside Albany, I mean.”

“And you haven’t remembered the name of the town where your husband’s uncle lives?”

She shook her head once more. “I think the house is called Ten Acres, but that’s all I’ve got. I can’t find the address anywhere. I even looked on a map, but that didn’t help.”

He considered that for a moment. “Well, I don’t suppose it matters. I’ll do a bit of research and see what I can come up with.”

“Oh, but–”

He smiled. “The house is nearly ready. It’s going to be listed for sale in two days’ time. After that, I’m a free agent. I’ll need something to do, and this is as good as anything.”

She thanked him, with tears brimming in her eyes.

Two weeks later…

Jasper tapped on the apartment door. It flew open after only a moment.

“You’re here,” Katie breathed. “I almost didn’t believe it.”

“I’m here,” he confirmed, “and the truck I hired is parked outside. So, let’s get packing.”

“I hardly know where to start.” She turned a full circle. “I seem to be making a terrible mess, more than anything else.”

Closing the door behind himself, he set down the pile of packing boxes he carried and began assembling the first one. He noticed Jim in a nearby doorway, looking wary.

“Jim, you remember Mr. Reynolds, don’t you?”

She sounded nervous to Jasper’s ear.

“Good morning, Mr. Reynolds,” Jim greeted, in a low voice.

He smiled. “Good morning, Jim.” He turned to Katie. “I’d like to aim to be on the road by half-past one. That gives us about four hours to pack. I think it’s probably achievable, but it’s going to be hard work.”

She glanced around the room. “I thought I didn’t own very much, until I thought about carrying it all down the stairs.”

“We’ll manage,” he promised her. “So, is all this furniture yours, or does some of it belong to the landlord?”

She took him for a walk around the small, grim apartment and Jasper mentally planned how to pack the truck. Carting some of the furniture downstairs was going to be a bit of a challenge when his helpers were only a slightly-built woman and her eleven-year-old son, but the rest should be easy enough.

“Jim, how about if you and I see if we can carry this sofa downstairs?” he asked when he’d seen the lot. “I’d like it to go in first, and I think it’s going to be the most difficult, so we should get it out of the way.”

The boy nodded, but still looked uncertain. Jasper dropped the droopy throw cushions onto the floor and tested to see if the sofa cushions were attached before he picked up an end. Relief surged through him when he found the piece wasn’t as heavy as he’d feared. Two minutes later, he and Jim were negotiating the sofa around the corner of the stairs.

“Not a problem,” Jasper called up to Katie.

She smiled and retreated to the apartment.

“Why are you really doing this?” Jim asked, almost as soon as she was gone.

Jasper waited until they had fully rounded the corner before he replied.

“Did you ever see some injustice and want to put it right?”

Jim nodded. “But lots of things are unfair, and you can’t fix all of them. Sometimes, you can’t fix any of them.”

“Well, this is an injustice that I can help to fix, and that’s what I want to do,” Jasper answered. “I don’t like being part of the problem. I want to make the world a better place.”

They reached the truck and had to put the sofa down so that Jasper could open the doors.

“Did your family teach you that?” Jim asked, after a long pause.

Jasper stopped and turned to face him. “No. Nothing like it. My family stood for greed, and selfishness, and seeing how much they could get away with. This is my choice.”

Jim nodded once, and went back to helping with the sofa. And Jasper had no idea of the thoughts going around in that red head. Jim’s face gave nothing away.

They missed the half-past one goal, but only by about twenty minutes. Katie took one final look around the bare rooms, but found nothing that had been missed. She heaved a weary sigh.

“Ready?” Jasper asked.

“I think so.”

“Let’s put about fifteen minutes between us and Rochester, then we’ll stop for a late lunch,” he suggested. He fished out his car keys and handed them over. “Do you want to lead, or follow?”

Jim’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Mr. Reynolds has kindly lent me his car,” Katie explained. “You and I will travel in it, and he’ll drive the truck for us.”

Jasper could see that Jim wasn’t convinced that this was a good idea, but his natural politeness caused him to refrain from commenting.

“If you’d be willing to lead, I’d appreciate that,” she continued, to Jasper. “It’s a long time since I’ve been further than Albany. I don’t know my way very well.”

He nodded. “Okay. Let’s hit the road.”

Late in the afternoon, they arrived at their final destination, an old farmhouse outside Peekskill, one of the many towns that straggled along the Hudson. What had once been fields now had been filled with scattered houses on big blocks. The town was not too far away, but there were still the open spaces that Katie had asked for.

They’d made the stop for lunch, and another very brief stop at Katie’s fiancé’s – or rather, former fiancé’s – farm, for her to drop off the money owed and to return the engagement ring. She had planned that carefully, so that she would not see him, instead writing him a note. Jasper could see that she felt bad about not breaking the news in person, but she bravely went through with it, for her son’s sake.

“And now we have to unpack everything again,” Katie noted, her shoulders drooping.

“The good news there,” Jasper told her, “is that I’ve lined up some people to help. They should be here soon. In fact, this might be them now.”

A beat-up, old car crawled up the long driveway and stopped next to the truck. Out piled three teenage boys.

“Mr. Reynolds?” one of them asked.

“That’s me,” Jasper answered. “I guess one of you must be Evan.”

“That’s me,” the young man who’d spoke first admitted. “This is my brother Bryce and our cousin Tom.”

“Thanks for coming,” Jasper told them and, after completing the introductions, led the way to the back of the truck. “I’ll just get the house open and then we can get started.”

The three young men had the truck unloaded far quicker than it had been loaded. They arranged the furniture wherever Katie wanted it, carted boxes from room to room until all of them were in the right place, and even unpacked the kitchen for them. When that task was nearly finished, Evan entered the room carrying a couple of bags of groceries.

“What’s all this?” Katie wondered, following him into the room. “And why…” She trailed off, turning to look into the oven at the casserole heating there, which she could smell.

“Mom sent it,” Bryce explained. “She’ll be over to introduce herself tomorrow, I think. We’re in the yellow house on the other side of the road. You passed it when you arrived.”

“Speaking of Mom, we’d better go,” Evan added, as he closed the refrigerator door.

Jasper pulled out a roll of cash and paid each of them.

Tom shook his head. “This is more than you said you’d give us.”

“You did more work than I asked you to,” Jasper pointed out, while shooing them out of the kitchen. “Now, don’t make your mother and aunt mad at me by being late home.”

They chorused their thanks for his generosity, returned to their car and drove away.

“And now I’d better be off, too,” Jasper added.

“Stay and eat with us,” Katie urged. “You’ve done such a lot of work today. I wouldn’t want you going away hungry.”

He glanced at his watch and agreed. “I think I’ve got time. But I do need to get that truck back to Rochester.”

“You’re going?” Jim asked.

Jasper nodded. “I’ll be back in a few days to pick up my car, but yes.”

Jim clearly did not know how to respond. His mother changed the subject.

“Go and wash your hands, Jim. It’s time to eat.”

He did as directed, and Jasper followed him to do the same.

“That isn’t what I expected,” Jim admitted, when they’d both left the room. “I thought you were going to hang around.”

Jasper shook his head. “I have things I need to deal with. You and your mother will be okay. Evan and Bryce’s mother is going to introduce you around and help you get settled.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Jim muttered, almost under his breath.

For a moment, Jasper paused, wondering how much to tell the boy. “It’s like this,” he explained, at last. “I saw that you and your mother needed help and I stopped what I was doing to be that helper. Now, I need to finish what I went to Rochester to do.”

Jim nodded and returned to the kitchen.

Watching him go, Jasper felt another qualm. Could he abandon them yet? The worst of the danger had passed, but Katie and her son were not established, yet. Once more, Jasper changed his plans. He still had things to do here.

A few days later…

Jasper tapped on the front door of the old farmhouse, noting with pleasure the small touches that had changed since he was last there. Bright curtains hung in the front windows and a wreath decorated the door. It opened a moment later to reveal Katie, her eyes bright with happiness.

“Come in,” she urged him. “It’s good to see you.”

Inside the house, the transformation was more marked. In the space of a few days, Katie had turned an empty house into a cosy home for herself and her son.

“This is looking wonderful,” he told her. “I can hardly believe the difference.”

But Katie waved the complement away. “This sort of house just looks good, no matter what you do to it. And most of the things in here are the Delanoys’ cast-offs. Heather Delanoy has been so helpful.”

He nodded. “I think I forgot to mention that she’s kind of a friend of a friend, and a mutual friend with the man who’s renting you this house.”

Katie nodded. “She mentioned something about that.” Her expression changed. “She also mentioned the name of the town where her nephew lives – the boy who helped here the other day.”

“Oh?”

“He’s from Sleepyside, a little further down-river. And when she said the name, I remembered. That’s where my husband’s uncle lives.”

Jasper thought about that for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

She shrugged. “Heather’s asking her brother-in-law if he knows the man, or can find the address. If I can get that, I might send him a letter and see whether he answers it.”

“It’s not far from here,” he mused. “We could drive down and look for ourselves some time.”

But Katie shook her head. “I don’t want to barge in on him. I know he was devoted to his wife and he didn’t want anything much to do with outsiders after she passed. And anyway, there was some kind of falling-out between him and my husband and neither of them would ever say exactly what it was about. I don’t want to offend him in any way.”

“In that case, perhaps, it’s best to tread carefully,” he agreed. Then he smiled. “I’m glad you remembered. I’d like to think there’s someone else in the world you can turn to.”

She nodded, absently. “I guess. But now I’m wondering whether the person I should really be looking for is my sister.”

“Where would you start looking?”

“That’s the problem: I don’t know.” She breathed a sigh and her shoulders slumped. “The last time I saw her, she’d just married a guy from Holland. They were talking about moving to his home town, but I don’t know if they did. And of course, I don’t know if she’s still married to him, or not.”

“Tricky,” he commented. “Do you remember her husband’s name?”

Katie shrugged. “Kind of. I think it was Bill Marsden, but I’m not sure if that’s the American version of a Dutch name. Her first name is Betje, but she’s mostly known as Betty. Our maiden name is Vanderheiden.”

“Do you know her date of birth?”

She shook her head. “She’s a lot older than me… eleven years? Twelve years? Something like that. But I don’t know when her birthday is.” She made a helpless gesture. “We weren’t ever close. And our grandmother, who raised us, was very strict, so Betty left when I was still very young.”

“I’ll write down the details you have,” he offered, “and see what I can find.”

She smiled. “Thank you. You’ve already done so much for me, for us.”

“You’re most welcome,” he answered, and he meant it. In that moment, he was acutely aware that the act of helping her was the one thing that kept him going.

Continue to part two.

---

Back to Janice’s Alternates Page.