Текст книги "Water Walker"

Автор книги: Ted Dekker

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Water Walker

The Full Story | Episodes 1-4

Ted Dekker

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Ted Dekker

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Outlaw Studios, 5141 Virginia Way, Suite 320, Brentwood, TN 37027

www.TedDekker.com

EPISODE ONE

Prologue

My name is Eden and this is my story. I know that on the surface it may seem different from your own, and on one level that’s true. After all, you may not be a blond-haired girl like me and I doubt very many people have faced or will ever face the particular trials that I have.

And yet when you get right down to it, we’re all the same—rich, poor, old, young, fat, skinny, white, brown, or purple—pick your costume, none of it really matters too much. What does matter is whether or not we take offense when we think we’ve been wronged, regardless of who we think we are or what costume we’re wearing.

That’s what I learned. The way I learned it might shock you a bit. You might laugh at some of it or cry at times . . . it all depends on who you think you are, which may not be the real you at all. You can only learn who you really are by getting to the end of who you think you are; I learned that too.

So don’t feel sorry for me, or cry too much because it was the only way for me. And the same goes for you.

My story began the night I discovered that I wasn’t me.

1

Day One 7:34 pm

“YOU CAN’T wait any longer.” Wyatt heard Kathryn take a deep, controlled breath on the other end of the line. He imagined her standing in their small kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, hand trembling by her side. “You’ve been watching the house for two days—they’re bound to see you if they haven’t already. You go in there and you get my daughter, you hear me?”

“I hear you, sugar.” He stared through the truck’s window at the brick house. “But I can’t just walk in and take her without—”

“Yes you can! And you won’t have to take her. She’ll come. You tell her who you are and she’ll come. Tell her that she doesn’t need to live in a foster home one more day because her mother’s been looking for her for thirteen years and she’ll come.”

“What if she doesn’t remember right away?”

“I’m her mother, Wyatt! Her mother! Blood doesn’t forget blood. And you’re her father, don’t you forget that. Maybe not by blood, but she’ll know the moment she sees you. There’s nobody in the world that loves that child the way we do. One look in your eyes and she’ll see that.”

“She’s not alone in there. The mother’s home and the father will be home soon.”

“Which is why you have to go in there and get her alone!” Kathryn snapped. “And don’t use that word—that woman in there’s an imposter, not a mother. Don’t you dare use that word.”

“I know, sugar.” He felt her anxiety work through his own bones. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

“How it’s supposed to go is for you to rescue my daughter and bring her home to me. We always knew she wouldn’t just walk out and get in the truck with you—the poor girl’s been subjected to only God knows what.”

“I was supposed to get her alone and talk to her first.”

“And that’s exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to walk up to that front door and tell whoever answers that you have an important message for Alice—remember to call her Alice because she won’t know her real name. And you make sure no one else hears what you tell her. No one can know that her birth mother came to save her.”

Kathryn sniffed.

“I don’t care what it takes, Wyatt.” She was on the verge of tears, voice strained and weak. “We talked about this. If those snakes find you out, we may never get another chance. You have to get her before the man gets home. Now, Wyatt. Go tell her that her mother’s waiting. She’ll come.”

She’d been obsessed with finding her daughter for years, and that need had risen to a fever pitch a month earlier when they’d discovered that Eden was alive and living in South Carolina with foster parents. She’d been taken against Kathryn’s will by the legal system, so recovering her had proven to be a matter of careful planning, and it all rested squarely on his shoulders now. Problem was getting her out of that house without causing a fuss.

And the problem with getting her out without causing a fuss was that Eden wouldn’t come without some convincing, no matter what Kathryn said. In her desperation, she wasn’t thinking clearly now. Not that he blamed her—he was nearly as eager as she was, if only to make things right for all of them, most of all Kathryn.

He’d spent the last two days looking for any opportunity to catch Eden alone without any success. Kathryn had a point—sooner or later the neighbors would call in the blue pickup truck with a camper shell. He’d been careful to duck down behind the steering wheel when cars approached and he’d spent a good amount of time in the back among all the blankets he’d brought, so he was sure he hadn’t been seen. But there was no way to hide the truck, not if he wanted to be close enough to intercept her if she ever left the house alone. Which she hadn’t.

“Zeke went to a lot of trouble to set this up, Wyatt. All you have to do is get to her. I lost my daughter once, I’m not about to lose her again.”

“Okay, sugar. I’ll go.”

“Tell her that her mother’s waiting.”

“I will.”

“Make sure no one hears you.”

“I will.”

“Hurry before the man returns. Do it now and call me the minute you’re back in the truck.”

“Of course.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise, sugar.”

Wyatt waited for the line to click off before removing it from his ear. He gave the cab a once-over. The old Ford had a black vinyl-covered bench seat, worn shiny and cracked in a couple places. At Kathryn’s direction he’d cleaned the interior when he’d collected the truck and taken care not to leave any junk on the floor.

He turned the rearview mirror for a look at his face . . . two day’s growth—not too shabby. Ran his fingers through his hair. Wavy blond, maybe could use a wash. Blue eyes. A kind face, Kathryn said—the kind any girl would find comforting. The thought of Eden seeing him for the first time was a bit unsettling, only because she would see a stranger when in reality he was her father.

He slipped the keys into the front pocket of his tan work pants—cleaned proper. Blue shirt tucked in neat.

Had to get this right. Had to or Kathryn would likely die of grief. And Zeke wouldn’t approve.

With a quick look up and down the quiet street, he stepped out of the truck and eased the door shut. The man of the house had come home between seven thirty and eight both nights . . . it was seven thirty-five now.

He crossed the street, angled up the sidewalk, and headed for the front door, heart thumping like a fist in his chest. He’d seen Eden six times in the last two days. Twice through binoculars when she’d had the curtains to her room on the second floor pulled open. Thin, with pale skin and straight blonde hair that fell past her shoulders. A spitting image of Kathryn at that age, he imagined. And when he’d described Eden to her, his wife had wept for joy over the phone.

Had to get this right.

Never mind how crazy rescuing Eden like this felt . . . right was right, and God made it so.

Wyatt dried the palms of his hands on his pants as he stepped up to the concrete landing, took one last look down the street, drew a deep breath to calm his nerves, and lifted his finger to the doorbell, aware that he wasn’t as steady as he could be. And there was a thin line of dirt under his nail.

He thought about cleaning it, but now his jitters were getting worse and he knew he was stalling. If he didn’t do this now, it might not happen. So he pressed the button and stepped back when he heard the chime inside.

Had to get this right and now he had. It was now out of his hands. It all came down to—

The door swung in and Wyatt found himself facing a girl with long blond hair, dressed in a light-blue hoodie and a pair of jeans.

Eden.

“Can I help you?”

He was so surprised at seeing her—and only her—right there in front of him, that he didn’t know what to say.

She stared up at him with brown eyes, as innocent as a dove, one hand on the doorknob, at a loss.

Tell her, Wyatt. Just tell her.

He glanced over her head to be sure the woman wasn’t close by, then said it.

“Your mother wants to see you. She wants you to come. She loves you. No one can know that I’m here.”

Not smooth enough. His voice was too raspy. He quickly cleared his throat.

“I’m your father. Please, you have to come with me. Your mother has been looking for you for thirteen years.” Then, “Your real name is Eden.”

“Alice?” The call came from down the hall.

He quickly reached out a hand so that she could take it and they could run before it was too late. “Please . . .”

The foster parent, a woman in her forties or fifties with short, curled blond hair stepped out into the hall with a dishtowel, drying her hands.

“Who is it, dear?”

Wyatt froze, eyes locked on the woman’s. He should be thinking fast on his feet and saying something, but he wasn’t always good in that way and at the moment his mind was blank.

The woman started down the hall toward them. All Wyatt could think to do was grab Eden and run, but he couldn’t just grab her without her knowing what was going on—the poor girl would be frightened. Maybe scream. Might even get hurt.

“How can we help you?” the woman asked.

“I . . .”

But he didn’t know what to say. And before he could figure anything out, Eden moved to her left out of sight and vanished into the house, leaving him alone with the woman down the hall. The foster parent took one look in the direction Eden had gone and must have seen something that frightened her, because when she looked back at him, her jaw was set.

“I think you should leave.”

She stepped up to the door and pushed it closed. The lock snapped into place.

Wyatt stood unmoving, staring at the door, stunned. Just like that?

This wasn’t good. An image of Kathryn’s face, sagging with dread, strung through his mind. And with it, the sickening awareness of his failure.

And then the realization that standing on the landing looking dumbstruck might be seen by either someone in the house or a neighbor as creepy. Which he wasn’t.

So he turned and headed back to the truck, walking on feet that felt like lead. Mind blank. A knot in his throat. But he knew what he would do. What he always did. She would know . . . She always did.

Kathryn answered his call on the first ring.

“Do you have her?”

He took a deep breath. “The mother was there . . . Not at first but as soon as—”

“What do you mean ‘not at first’?” she interrupted. “Did you talk to her?”

“No. Not to the mother—”

“To Eden! Did you do what I told you to do? Please tell me you didn’t mess this up!”

“No, sugar, I swear.” He told her what had happened in short order, exactly as it had, because she would insist and he had long learned it was better that way. Integrity was important if you wanted any peace of mind.

The phone remained silent for a few seconds after he finished. She was reeling and he didn’t blame her.

“Kathryn?”

“We’re running out of time.”

“I know. But I—”

“You go back in there, Wyatt.” Her voice was lower now, unnervingly intense but calm at the same time. “I don’t care how you do it but you get me my daughter and you get her now. Break the door down if you have to. Take her. She may not understand now but she will when she learns the whole story.”

“Break the door down?” His mind spun with what that might mean. “What if she won’t come?”

“Then take her!” The receiver went silent for a few seconds. Kathryn continued with unmistakable clarity. “You don’t harm a hair on her body, but you make her come with you. You understand what I’m saying, Wyatt?”

He hesitated only a second.

“Yes, sugar.”

The phone went dead.

He returned it to his pocket with a trembling hand, mind gone on fear. He honestly didn’t see how he could do what she insisted, not without raising an alarm. Not without risking injury to one or both of them. Not without getting caught and blowing any further chances of ever getting Eden back home.

Then again, he’d probably already blown any further chances. Eden would tell the woman that her birth mother was trying to get to her and the authorities would seal her up tight. God had provided a way for them to find Eden, hadn’t he? Then God would also now make a way for her to come with him, and this was the only way Kathryn could see it. She had faith—it was now only a matter of his own faith. Eden had to be rescued—sometimes doing good required taking risks.

Wyatt thought about Eden’s plight all of these years, having been thrown away into an orphanage as an infant against her mother’s will. And about the hole in Kathryn’s soul since that day, searching in vain for her lost daughter.

And with those thoughts drumming through his mind, he got out of the pickup truck, walked calmly to the back of the camper shell, opened the lift gate, withdrew his gloves, the hammer, and the duct tape, and headed across the street.

2

Day One 7:42 pm

WHY? I suppose that’s a question the runs through every thirteen-year-old’s mind, but judging by the way most other kids talked, I doubt the question was as prevalent in their minds as it was in mine.

Why? Why me? Why am I so different? Why can’t I quite figure out where I belong? Why do I speak differently than most people my age? Why does everyone keep saying that I’m so smart when I feel mostly clueless? Why is my IQ so high and my learning so advanced and my knowledge so low? Why do people look at me strangely?

But for me there were even more questions, most of which I kept hidden because I didn’t know anyone I felt comfortable asking. Like who? Who am I, really? Who made me this way? Who are all these other people? Who is my mother, who is my father?

And what? What am I? What am I supposed to do now? What am I supposed to even think now?

The counselor I see once a week, Amy Treadwell, tells me that all of the testing they’ve done on me shows that parts of my mind work much more like an adult than a thirteen-year-old, like the parts that absorb new information and the way I speak.

On the other hand, she says that I’m quite naïve. Too trusting.

Evidently something terrible happened to me when I was younger. I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember, and either no one knows, or no one wants to tell me. In fact, all I do know is what I’ve learned during the last six months of my life. Everything before that is gone from my mind.

Think of my mind like a perfectly tuned, powerful computer. When I awoke from whatever happened to me six months ago, my operating system was still there, humming along, so I had good command of language and I could process information perfectly, but the hard drive that held all of my memory had been wiped clean.

So I had to learn everything from scratch. And having the kind of circuits that I had, I learned quickly. Many things came to me automatically, like survival reflexes—knowing to step out of the way of a speeding car to avoid being crushed, for example. But I had to learn most things by being fed information, not unlike downloading data onto a computer.

My intuition, however, was much less advanced. My way of being in the world. The complexities of relationships and proper etiquette. Things like trusting and not trusting, believing and not believing, judging and not judging. In this way, they said I was like a young child. While I saw the world as full of wonder, most people had developed strange reactions to it. Anger, worry, and fear were strange things to me at first. Naturally, I eventually began to learn them, but slowly, like a naïve child.

Or so they said. Made sense.

One of the intuitive leanings I learned very quickly was a simple longing to know my real mother and father. For several months, I felt certain that being with them would somehow offer a kind of wholeness that I couldn’t otherwise find. But when it became clear that I never would meet them, much less know them, I began to set this idea aside and embrace the prospect of being perfectly happy with John and Louise Clark, the generous and loving foster parents who’d taken me in four months earlier.

So when I answered the door that night and stared up into the blue eyes of a strange man who claimed to be my father, my world suddenly felt flipped on its end. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to think.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Louise said.

I sat next to her on the sofa with my hands in my lap as the man’s words whispered through my mind like ghosts.

Your mother wants to see you. She wants you to come. She loves you. Your mother has been looking for you for thirteen years.

Louise put her hand on my knee. “It’s important that I know what happened. This world is full of predators and if there’s anything, anything at all, that might present a threat, I need to know. Please, Alice, you have to tell me. What did he say?”

Your real name is Eden.

My mind was still spinning. I didn’t want to open up a can of worms for Louise—she was a sensitive woman and had taken a great liking to me, as had John. What would it mean for her to learn that my real mother wanted me back, assuming that was true?

No one can know that I’m here.

Was I afraid? Yes and no. Yes, because I got the distinct impression that the man who claimed to be my father was afraid of being found out. Why was that? And he didn’t appear to be the put together father I had imagined. His blue shirt had a few smudges on it and his hair looked like it could use a wash. But his eyes were kind, weren’t they?

So, no, I wasn’t afraid. More like confused. What if the man really was my father? What if they really had been looking for me for thirteen years? What if I belonged with my real mother instead of with John and Louise?

“Sweetheart, you have to talk to me.”

A loud crash of glass from the back of the house cut my thoughts short. Louise twisted and stared at the hall, which ran to the kitchen. For a moment neither of us moved, me frozen by curiosity, she by fear—I could see it on her face.

The sound of the back door closing made me wonder if John had come in through the back, but that didn’t explain the shattering of glass.

Louise gasped and instinctively grabbed my arm.

The padding of heavy feet sounded down the hall.

Louise spun to me, frantic. “Get behind the couch!” she whispered. “Hurry! Hide.”

But it was too late to hide. He was there again. The man who claimed to be my father. Standing at the entrance to the living room, dressed in the same blue shirt tucked into light-brown slacks, this time wearing leather work gloves. He had a hammer in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other and he stared at us as if he was as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

For a few long seconds, none of us moved. I could feel Louise’s hand trembling as she gripped my arm, and her fear spread to me. The thought that my father had come to get me was chased away by the notion that he planned on doing it using a hammer and duct tape.

But then there was the way he looked at us, almost apologetically, and I couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t want to harm us.

The man half-lifted his right arm. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He saw that Louise was staring at the hammer, so he lowered it to the carpet and lifted an open, nonthreatening hand.

“I promise, I’m not here to hurt anyone. But I have to take her with me.”

Louise still didn’t seem able to speak.

“I have to take her and I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

Louise came off the couch like a spring. “Get out!” She shoved her finger at the door. “Get out of this house right now.”

“No, no, no . . . I can’t do that.” He stepped forward, hand still raised to calm us, face red, but not with anger. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m not going to hurt you but I have to take her. And I can’t let you call the cops yet.”

“You can’t do this!” Louise was panicking.

“Yes, I have to. I have to.”

My heart was crashing through my chest. I knew that I should be running for the door or something, but I couldn’t move. And a small part of me was wondering if this really was my father. He didn’t look like he had done this sort of thing before. In fact, he looked as uncomfortable as we were.

Why?

His eyes switched to me. “Stay on the couch, darling. Please don’t move. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have to do this. It’s the only way. Please don’t . . .”

Louise bolted toward the dining room then, but she only got three running steps before the large man leaped in front of her, grabbed her waist with one arm, and lifted her from her feet, screaming and pounding at his back.

“Sh, sh, sh . . . .” He tried to hush her, but she wasn’t listening. So he grunted in frustration, dropped her to her back like a sack of grain, and shoved a gloved hand over her mouth.

“Be quiet! I told you I don’t have a choice and I don’t want to hurt you. But you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep putting up a fight.”

His eyes lifted to meet mine. “I’m so sorry, darling. I didn’t want to do it this way. Stay on the couch okay? I’m not going to hurt you. Promise. Just stay right where you are.”

By now I was truly afraid, but I saw no reason to make a run for it. He would only tackle me. And there was still that small voice that told me he was a good man and maybe my father. So I pulled my legs up onto the couch, hugged my knees, and stayed.

The fall seemed to have knocked the wind out of Louise, because she’d gone silent.

“Roll over.”

When she hesitated, he pulled her over onto her stomach and held her down with a knee on her back.

Hands now free, he quickly pull off a long strip of tape, pulled her arms behind her, and strapped her wrists together tight.

“You can’t do this.” She was crying now. “Please . . . Please, she’s just a little girl.”

“I’m not going to hurt her, I already told you that!” He sounded as if he’d been insulted. “I would never hurt her. She’s a very special girl.”

“Please . . .”

But that was as far as she got before he twisted her head around and strapped tape to her mouth.

He jumped down to her ankles, gripped them together with a large hand and bound them so she couldn’t walk.

Then he stood and stared down at her for a second, breathing hard from exertion. He looked around at the room, at the front door, then at me.

“I can’t let her make a fuss after we’re gone. So I’m going to put her in the closet, but she won’t be hurt. Okay?”

He seemed to want my permission. I was still in too much shock to talk.

“Will you promise to stay put while I do that?” He eyed me sympathetically, unsure. Then walked up to me and sat down on the couch.

“Maybe it’s best if I put some tape on your legs and wrists so that you don’t try to run. I don’t want to, you understand, but I know this might all be a bit frightening and you might try to run. If you do, I’ll have to catch you and you might trip or something. I can’t let you get hurt, you understand. I just can’t do that.”

He stared at me again as if looking for my approval.

“Can you hold your arms out?”

He tore off a strip of tape.

Now at a crossroads, I saw no alternative but to follow his lead. Even if I did have a scrapping bone in body, I didn’t stand a chance of either outrunning or overpowering such a strong man.

So I slowly lowered my feet to the carpet and held out both arms. They were pale and they were thin and I had no doubt that he could snap them like twigs if he wanted to.

Instead he put the tape on as if securing something delicate, like crystal tubes. After another moment’s hesitation, he tore off another strip and placed it gently over my mouth.

“I’m sorry, darling. I really am. I don’t want you to scream when we leave, you understand?”

I don’t know why I nodded, but I did. Maybe because I knew then that I was going with him and nothing short of John coming home a few minutes early was going to change that.

“Thank you.” He stroked my head with his hand, then crossed to Louise who had her head lifted as far as she could and was glaring at him, enraged.

Scooping her up in his arms, he dragged her to the small closet under the staircase, pulled the door wide, and carefully set her on the floor inside. She objected vehemently behind the tape, but she didn’t struggle—she knew it was no use.

With one last apology—“Sorry”—he shut her inside. Less than thirty seconds later he had the closet door wedged shut with a chair from the dining room.

Then the large man in the blue shirt who said he was my father led me from the house on my own two feet, walked me to a blue pickup truck across the street, helped me into the front seat, and drove away into the night.