Текст книги "Water Walker"

Автор книги: Ted Dekker

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

My mind spun. A lump formed in my throat.

“It’s fantastic . . .”

“Fantastic.” He winked at me.

“Far better than the watery grave my mother baptizes me into each week!”

He nodded. “So then, take care not to forget just how good this news is when your eyes open in your mother’s house.”

And with that, Outlaw unfolded his arms, clapped his hands together, and vanished.

But then so did I. So did everything.

I snapped my eyes wide.

It was dark.

I was lying in my bed.

And every inch of my body was soaked.

27

IT WAS DARK and every inch of my body was wet and I thought, Dear God, was that real?

I didn’t necessarily mean it as a prayer, but that’s how it came out, and immediately I knew the answer, as if a voice deep in my soul had answered.

Yes, Eden. More real than anything you have ever experienced.

I closed my eyes, and a gentle portion of the staggering truth I’d just observed washed through me. My body began to shake, from my head to my feet, and my breathing came in deep, heavy pulls.

I didn’t dare move because I was smothered by a knowing of good news so profound that I could barely grasp it, and at the same time so outlandishly contrary to the beliefs my mother had drilled into me that I was afraid I might forget the goodness of that news.

In reality, I was invulnerable, and nothing—no power on earth or in heaven or under the earth or under the heavens—could separate me from the infinite love that held me secure, right then, as I lay trembling in bed.

Not Kathryn; no, she was only a lost soul trying to find her own way.

Not Zeke; no, he was only a spoiled child who did what he thought to be right in his own eyes.

Not the loss of my childhood; no, that was only a story of the past.

Not my captivity, nor my broken leg, nor anything that happened to this body because Eden was only my costume.

I was lying on my back in the darkness, I knew that, but it seemed like I was also above my body, watching what wasn’t myself at all. The form below me was only a shell in which I temporarily resided. A sled on which to slide down the snowy hill. A car on a roller coaster in which to take the ride.

A boat on the stormy seas of life, to be stepped out of because I was a water walker, unaffected by the storm unless I clung to that boat.

There are no words to express how I felt in that moment as the truth raced through me, not on rails of reason, but on rails of a far deeper, infinite knowingness flowing with a bottomless peace that passed any understanding I had ever sought, much less embraced.

I think the awareness of that truth affected me more profoundly as I lay awake than it had in my dream. Every cell in my body vibrated with certainty, all in perfect symmetry and union. I had never felt so whole and complete as I felt at that moment in that house, which was also just a temporary holding place, like my body, like the roller-coaster car, like the boat I’d clung to with all of my strength.

I was free. I never had been a captive. I was whole! Nothing could hurt me. All of the threats had been of my own making because I’d mistaken my body for the real me, and my place as Kathryn’s suffering daughter for far more than it was—just a temporary role.

All of this came to me in the space of one breath and I couldn’t contain the gratitude that welled up in me. Tears began to flow from my eyes, and once they started, there was no stopping them.

Great sobs silently wracked my quivering body. I was gripped in the embrace of peace and love, a drug so powerful that even a hint of disappointment or an ounce of grievance could not be known in its presence. And without the slightest disappointment or grievance, only intoxicating love remained.

I could feel slight, throbbing pain my right leg, gently reminding me that it was broken, but I didn’t care, you see? I wasn’t disappointed by the condition of that right appendage down there. What could it possibly matter? In fact, I was so lost in gratitude and peace that I couldn’t remember why a broken leg had ever mattered more than a broken blade of grass underfoot. Both would soon heal. Or not.

I don’t know how long I lay awake because each moment felt like an eternity to me. Time didn’t seem to exist in that place of being. It was ticking away, naturally, but I would only notice this in retrospect without being able to quantify those ticks with labels, like seconds or minutes or hours.

So I don’t know how long it was before I heard the whisper from my dreams, reminding me of my purpose. Outlaw had said it on the lake, but now I heard it come from me, spoken by a gentle, prodding, female voice.

You have been given the power to forgive sin . . .

Yes.

And how staggering is that power.

“Yes,” I said aloud, eyes still closed. Then again, weeping with it. “Yes . . .”

True vision is his gift, allowing you to see beyond all blame.

“Yes . . .”

Forgiveness is your only true function in this life.

“Yes . . . yes.”

Seventy times seven, always, leaving the old self in a watery grave and rising to find no fault.

And then I couldn’t speak because in that moment I knew the course before me with such clarity that it robbed me of breath. So I said it with all of my mind and all of my heart.

Yes! Yes, I will! I will, I will, I will . . . I lay in bed with tears streaming down my face, repeating the same words over and over in my mind, embracing them, loving them.

I will, I will, I will, I will . . .

“What’s wrong?”

The voice came from the door and it confused me, because nothing was wrong.

“Eden?”

I let my eyes flutter open and I saw that morning was coming.

“Why are you all wet?”

I slowly turned my head and looked at the door. There, dressed in a pale-blue, flowered nightgown, stood my mother, arms at her sides, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.

This was Kathryn, my birth mother, who’d subjected Eden to countless challenges to her self-worth. There stood the woman who had drowned the me I used to know in the waters of condemnation and guilt every week, every month, every year, determined to purge me of my endless failure. There was the one who’d attempted to break my leg and then blessed the man who had.

But that’s not what I saw.

I saw a woman who was blinded in her own suffering.

I saw a mother confused by a role that she’d tried desperately to fulfill.

I saw an innocent child who felt abandoned by love and worth because she didn’t understand either.

I saw an astoundingly noble being, loved without blame by her Father and not knowing it, and therefore utterly lost.

I saw . . . I saw myself.

I saw all these things and an aching knot coiled in my throat. I knew—even as my mouth parted in a soft groan of compassion, even as tears gushed from my eyes—that she wouldn’t be able to comprehend what she was seeing. But I couldn’t seem to contain the emotions bubbling out of me.

She might interpret the sight of me crying on the bed as a sign of trouble, but there was more in that room than just a mother and her broken daughter. There was a connection between us that I can’t possibly begin to describe.

I was looking at her, you see, and I was feeling nothing but endless love for her. No, not just feeling . . . Offering. Giving. And I think this, more than my crying, confused her.

“What’s wrong?” She glanced about the room, searching for any sign of trouble, maybe half expecting to see Zeke sitting in the corner. But there was only me. And her.

She walked in slowly, dumbstruck, the stopped a few feet from the bed and looked at my body.

“What happened? You’re wet . . .”

I tried to speak, but only raspy breath came out, and, judging by the wrinkling of her brow, this confused Kathryn even more. Alarmed, she sat on the bed and quickly placed her palm on my forehead.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? You’re frightening me! What happened?”

I took the hand on my forehead in my own and tenderly pressed it against my cheek.

Immediately tears sprang to her eyes. It was then that I realized we were already communicating. Our hearts had somehow found each other’s.

I stared into her eyes and I offered her only love with all of my heart. I couldn’t remember anything but her innocence, and in that place I saw her as a precious and perfect child who could not possibly disappoint me, much less her Father.

My only problem was that the more I offered her love, the more I cried. And the more she received my love and saw my tears, the more she cried. At first perhaps misunderstanding the reason for my demonstration of love, maybe thinking I had finally come to my senses and was once again on the correct path. But she’d never seen this kind of outpouring from me, and I could see the question in her eyes.

Tell her, Eden. Speak to her.

“I forgive you, Mother.” The words came out strained. I kissed her hand and said it again. “I forgive you.”

She blinked, struck by these simple words. Then meaning fell into her mind, and her face knotted in anguish.

“I love you,” I said.

And she could take it no longer. She closed her eyes and began to sob, then lowered her head to my belly and wept into my already wet pajamas. She didn’t offer any words, only those tears of remorse and guilt.

But I didn’t want her to feel any guilt because that wasn’t my intention or business. I only wanted to love her and find her blameless, and as she began to come apart, I found that my own strength returned and my own crying began to settle.

You would think that it would take more than a few words to shatter my mother’s hardened shell after living so many years under her burden of guilt, and you would be right. Far more than a few words. Something with far more power than mere words.

A true expression of love born of the heart, not the mouth. In the space of that love, no words are required. My mother was being deeply impacted by something I could hardly understand myself and still, I gave it with all of my heart.

I saw myself as a tree, administering healing over a wounded spirit who had come to me for love. She was my mother and I was only too willing to stroke her head and give her as much love as she could possibly drink in. And to offer her a few words as well.

“I love you, Mother. It’s all going to be okay.”

“I’m sorry.” She sobbed into my pajama top. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Mother . . .”

“I didn’t know what to do. I’m so confused. I’m so sorry.”

I had always wondered something about the crucifixion scene—the part where Jesus says, ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do.’

It had confused me because I’d thought, Well of course they know what they are doing. They’re treating him with cruelty. They’re pounding nails into him and hanging him up on a cross. Every cruel person always knows that they’re being cruel.

But in that moment with my mother begging on my belly, I understood perfectly. She, like those who’d crucified Jesus, had justified what she’d done and made it permissible in her own mind. And so goes the whole human race.

They should have known better, and there was plenty of cause for blame, and yet blamelessness had been offered. That was grace and that was me, ministering forgiveness to my mother by offering her no blame.

I drew a deep breath and I said what was in my spirit to say.

“I forgive you, Mother. You’ve done nothing wrong to me.”

The moment I said it, a tingling spread over my scalp.

Mother’s crying eased and her body stilled.

“Nothing, Mother,” I said. As if following specifically routed electric circuits, the tingling sensation rode down my arms and spine. “You did nothing wrong to me.”

She sat up and stared at me with red eyes. “How can you say that?” she cried. “How can you even say that!?”

I’m sure there are ways I could have psychoanalyzed her angry response, but my mind wasn’t interested. It was captivated by the power flowing through my body, from head to foot. The current buzzed through my bones for a moment, and then it was gone, out the bottom of my feet.

Overcome by her own failures as a mother, Kathryn covered her face with both hands and wept. And I let her, silent now, still captivated by the lingering balm of that energy that had swept through my body. For a long while, we remained like that, me prone on my back, her sitting, basking in a power greater than both of us.

Something had happened to me, hadn’t it? Something about me had changed.

“What did you do to me, Mother?” I asked.

She shook her head in shame.

“Tell me what you did to me,” I said.

“You don’t understand, Eden. I had to. I can’t disobey. I just can’t go against him. I can’t . . .”

“Tell me, Mother. Tell me what you did to me.”

“I hurt you!” she blurted, pulling her hands from her face. “I took my little daughter and I . . .” She looked away, choked up by terrible guilt.

“You forced me under the water and made me stay in my closet and starved me?” I asked.

“Yes!” she sobbed. “Yes!”

“And tell me how Zeke hurt me.”

“He broke your leg!” she screamed, standing. “He commanded me to break it and when I didn’t he broke it!”

“He hurt your daughter,” I said.

“Yes! Yes, he hurt my daughter!” She was livid.

I let a beat pass.

“But don’t you see, Mother . . . I’m not hurt.” I sat up in bed and stared at her. “I don’t feel any of the wounds that were in my heart only yesterday.” I leaned over and began to unravel the bandages on my right leg. “I’m a water walker, Mother. Water walkers don’t assign blame. Only their costumes can be hurt, and costumes come and go.”

I continued to unwrap my leg.

“What are you doing?”

Zeke had opted not to put a cast on my leg so that walking was out of the question. But he’d never broken a water walker’s leg before, had he?

“I’m showing you how unhurt I am,” I said, and pulled the last of the bandage free.

My mother took a step back, eyes fixed on my right leg, which was smooth and white and showed not a single bruise, much less swelling, from any break.

“Sweet Jesus,” Mother breathed. “Oh dear, sweet baby Jesus.”

I swung my legs off the bed and pushed myself to my feet, still weak from the exhausting emotional journey I’d taken through the night. Then I walked to the window, parted the curtain so that I could see out, and stared in the direction of the lake.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” my mother said yet again. “You . . . What happened?”

I turned back to face her. “Forgiveness happened,” I said. “Just the way it’s supposed to happen.”

“You . . . Your leg isn’t broken.”

I looked down at my body. “No, it’s not.”

“But how?”

“I went for a walk on the lake last night,” I said.

“The lake? That’s why you’re wet? How . . . I . . . I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to, Mother. I’m not sure I do either.” I approached her slowly, heart bursting with compassion. “There’s only one thing you need to know right now.”

Her eyes searched mine, stricken with apprehension. This was new territory for both of us.

“I’m your daughter,” I said, reaching for her hand. “You’re my mother and I love you with all of my heart. And if I love you that way, your Father loves you far more, just the way you are. You can’t possibly impress him or upset him, he’s not that small. Everything you’ve done, you’ve only done because you were lost, but today you are found by your daughter and your Father.”

Overwhelmed in ways that I couldn’t possibly fully grasp, Mother sank to her knees, took me into her arms, and wept. I held her and stroked her hair, feeling beautiful and whole and overflowing with gratefulness.

I had finally found my mother and I found her only by finding myself.

For a long time we held each other. I didn’t know what effect this might have on my mother, or her strict religious code, and honestly, I didn’t care. I felt utterly loved and invulnerable, both in my mother’s arms and apart from them.

Honestly, I felt as though I might be able to walk up to a bathtub and make the water float in the air if I wanted to, because in my mind’s eyes, the very water that had once been my grave was now life.

When the tears had subsided and Kathryn had run out of ways to express her remorse, she stood and paced, but even then new tears came. She couldn’t keep from looking at my leg.

“I don’t understand, Eden.” She sniffed and wiped the tears seeping from her eyes. “I just don’t know what to think.”

“There’s nothing to think, Mother. What’s done is done and there’s no harm.”

“You keep saying that, but all I can see is harm.” Guilt seemed to have a strangle hold on her, but that was her journey to take. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart. You have to believe me.”

“You can’t hurt me.”

“Of course I can! I did!” She stared at me with red eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before . . . I . . .”

“It’s okay, neither did I. But we see now, right?”

She stared at my leg. “I see it but it’s still hard to believe. How could your leg just . . . heal?”

“I don’t know how, really. I just let go. My old beliefs about how the world worked had to die. I had to see that the troubled sea posed no threat to me.”

Her face wrinkled with sorrow again.

“That’s what I’ve put you in, isn’t it? A troubled sea.”

“No, Mother. It was and is my choice to see or not see trouble in the sea. It’s all so plain now. I had to confront my troubles to learn they were only of my own making. I had to take that journey. It’s like walking through the valley of death to learn that death is only a shadow, even there. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”

“I will fear no evil,” she said, finishing one of her favorite psalms.

But she was still gripped by worry. Not the same kind of fear that had held her captive for so long, but anxiety nonetheless.

It was Zeke, I thought. She had to figure out what to do about Zeke.

“Now what?” she said.

“Now we are free, Mother,” I said. “If you want to be.”

“Free from what? I can’t just . . .”

She was getting hung up. And no wonder—she had four decades of bad thinking habits to unlearn and she hadn’t had the benefit of growing up in a monastery as I had. Nor had she met an Outlaw yet.

Well, there was me. I guess I was an Outlaw too now.

“Free from whatever you think keeps you safe,” I said. “You get to step out of your own boat.” Not having been on the lake, she might not fully grasp that analogy so I used more familiar language. “It’s up to you to walk into the valley of death and find only a shadow.”

She stopped her pacing and looked at me for a long time. Then looked down at my leg. When she lifted her head, I knew she’d made a decision—I had learned to read my mother’s resolve from a hundred paces.

“What are we going to do about Zeke?” she asked.

“I’m not going to do anything about Zeke,” I said.

She set her jaw and gave a curt nod.

“Well, I am,” she said.

28

KATHRYN HAD spent two hours swinging wildly from states of great peace to places of terribly anxiety. The battle in her mind refused to give her any final emotional resolution. It was amazing how moments of complete clarity could so quickly fog into moments of confusion and fear.

But Eden’s leg isn’t broken. How’s that possible?

And then she’d remember.

She paced, and she tried to make herself busy around the house without truly knowing what she was doing, and she listened to Eden telling Bobby how beautiful he was while she played blocks with him in his room, seemingly oblivious to the war raging in her mother’s mind.

But surely Eden knew as well as she did what had to be done. Kathryn had to undo everything she’d done, of course.

The problem was, she kept teetering on the brink of exactly what did have to be done. Was undoing everything really the wisest thing?

Yes, of course it was. She’d subjected her own daughter to a life of expectations she herself couldn’t possibly satisfy. And she’d been courting that realization for days now without realizing it. For months, even. Maybe even since the first time she’d baptized Eden.

Once having taken that step years earlier, she’d silenced all her reservations and refused to look back for fear that doing so was only a demonstration of weakness in her own flesh.

How she’d come to see her guilt so clearly in Eden’s room, she wasn’t sure. But the moment Eden had suggested she’d done nothing wrong, the floodgates had opened and Kathryn had seen just how much she had done wrong.

In truth, she’d been a monster deserving of her own drowning. The fact that Eden didn’t see it that way only filled her with more guilt, and following that guilt, a terrible need to right all she’d done wrong, even if Eden didn’t think of it as wrong.

Eden, whose leg was no longer broken.

So she had to undo what she’d done, and that meant freeing them from Zeke’s control.

But was that really the wisest thing to do?

She couldn’t just confront him. What if he lost his mind and killed them all? She couldn’t just run to the police, could she? Zeke would never be so careless to allow it. He no longer trusted her. He’d already taken the cell and cut all the telephone lines. He would undoubtedly have a guard in place, or the road blocked.

Even if she did get past him and made it to the authorities, what then? She would go to prison and leave Eden without a mother to care for her. Was that fair?

She could hold back and look for an opportunity, but it was only a matter of time, maybe today, before Zeke discovered that Eden’s leg was no longer broken. Then what?

It doesn’t matter, Kathryn. She threw the dishtowel she’d been dragging around for no particular reason onto the table and set her jaw.

It doesn’t matter what then. Eden’s right. Only your own fear is keeping you from facing the truth.

There was only one way to step into the valley of death, and that was to step into that valley. There was no skirting it or finding a better way around or running away from it.

She had to do this, as much for herself as for Eden.

And she had to do it now, on her own, before she lost the courage.

Kathryn walked to the door, snatched the keys off the nail on the wall, turned the handle, and stepped out into the sunlight.

The sound of the insects in the swamp stopped her cold, there in the doorway. For a moment she became Eden. A young girl who’d awakened five years ago to the same sounds. This was the sound of her prison, reminding her in every waking moment that she was trapped in swampland with no way out.

Kathryn swallowed hard. It was her prison too, wasn’t it? It always had been.

She had to undo what she’d done. Yes, she had to.

Walk, Kathryn. Just walk.

She closed the door behind her, stepped down from the porch, and headed to the truck, refusing to lift her eyes to scan the perimeter. Was there a guard there? She didn’t care. She just had to walk.

Walk, Kathryn.

Problem was, she did care. She cared enough to be terrified because she knew that Zeke owned her and was waiting.

Yea though I walk into the valley of the shadow of death, I will slay that vile beast and make the path right . . .

No. No, that wasn’t right. I will fear no evil. I will walk and I will fear no evil. Just like Eden. Just like my daughter.

So she walked. But she still felt fear.

She felt fear when she opened the truck’s door and climbed inside and she sat there for a full minute, rehearsing what might or might not happen.

She felt fear when she started the truck, put it into gear, and started down the driveway because now she was moving, and moving meant closing the distance between her and Zeke.

She felt mind-swooning fear as she guided the truck down the long gravel road, driving far too slow because fast meant sooner, and she wasn’t that brave yet.

She felt a chilling spike of fear when she saw Claude’s white truck parked on the side of the road past Zeke’s house. She was right; Zeke wasn’t taking any chances. The only way in or out was through him.

By the time she made the turn and pulled into Zeke’s driveway, her fear was so acute that her vision blurred. She brought the truck to a stop, turned off the motor, and tried her best to gather herself.

Yea though I walk, yea though I walk, yea though I walk . . .

She whispered the mantra, hoping to gain strength, but barely heard the words much less found any power in them.

I will fear no evil, I will fear no evil, I will fear no evil . . .

But she did. So much that she considered turning back to rethink a better plan because the one she had in mind was doomed to fail.

At any moment, Zeke would come out, wondering why she’d come and even more, why she was sitting in his driveway like a dead duck. She had to get to his phone and she had to do it now. Just get to the phone in his office, which was the only one she knew of, and make the call to the authorities, and that was all. Just that.

Taking a deep breath, Kathryn opened the door and stepped out. See, now it was too late to turn back. And, surprisingly, that simple thought gave her a moment’s courage.

She smoothed her dress, cleared her throat, and headed to the steps. Then climbed them, one at a time. Then she was there, facing the door.

Then knocking on it, thinking, Yea though I walk, yea though I walk, over and over despite the fact that she drew no encouragement from the thought.

It’s not supposed to feel good, Kathryn. You’re only reaping what you sowed. It’s supposed to feel like death because . . .

The opening door cut her thought short and she found herself face to face with Zeke, in the flesh, wearing dark pants and a white button-up shirt with a starched collar.

She felt like a schoolgirl caught red-handed, and she hated herself for feeling like that.

“Good morning, Zeke.”

In answer he cocked his brow—that condescending look that said, What now, Kathryn?

“Nothing,” she said, as if answering his unspoken question. “I just . . . Do you mind if I come in?”

“Nothing?”

“No . . . Not really . . . I just . . .”

She stopped herself there, struck by her own words. Nothing? Was her experience with her daughter earlier nothing? Was the well-being of her daughter nothing? Was the privilege to be Eden’s mother nothing?

Was Eden nothing?

Something deep inside of her seemed to flip over, and a surge of anger replaced the fear sucking at her life. Not just anger . . . rage. In fact, for the briefest moment she imagined tearing into the monster before her and ripping his tongue out. Now tell us what to do!

But she immediately recognized the danger of showing any emotion similar to rage. If she failed, Zeke might go to the furthest extremes to protect himself.

“Actually, it is something,” she said. “May I come in?”

He gave her a shallow grin and swept his hand into the house. “Be my guest.”

“Thank you.” She stepped past him and scanned the room. “Is your wife here?”

He closed the door and walked past her without answering. This was his way, always keeping her off balance. She’d known it all these years, but had never thought of his manipulation as anything more than a shepherd’s steady rod.

“Spit it out, Kathryn. I don’t have all day.”

“No . . . no, I suppose you don’t.”

He slipped his hands into his pockets and faced her. “No need to suppose. Just know. Know that I have little patience left for your ineptitude and failures. Know that you’re lucky I didn’t break your leg. Know that I’m still considering it.”

She felt her heart pound. Anger felt far better than fear, but she had to let him think it was fear. Easy enough, because at least half of it was.

“Yes, Zeke. Of course. You won’t need to do that. I swear you—”

“Don’t tell me what I won’t need to do. Just tell me why you’re here so early in the day.”

“It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“Now you think I’m too stupid to read a clock?”

“No, Zeke. I’m sorry.”

“For what? Hmmm? Sorry for what? For mocking me? I give you one simple task, easily accomplished by anyone half your strength using a few basic tools and you can’t even do that for me, the one you owe your very life to? Is that it, Kathryn?”

She stared at him, stunned by his coldness.

“Or is there something else you’re sorry about now?”

Had he always been this way and she not able to see it?

“I’m sorry . . . I was just sorry for suggesting that you were too stupid to—”

“Do you know how deeply I hate you every time you use those words, Kathryn? I’m sorry only reminds me of your failure. You come in here and tell me about your sin, and I’m not above God. I too hate sin. So don’t tell me I’m sorry and, for the love of God, stop doing whatever it is you’re sorry for. Both he and I could use a break, wouldn’t you agree?”

Her head was spinning.

“Yes.”

“Good. So be a good woman and just lay what you have on the table. Trust me.”

She had to remember her purpose. She had to distract him and get to the phone in his office. The only way to distract him was to first earn a measure of his trust—he was far too cagey to let his guard down unless she proved herself.

“I’m concerned about Eden.”

“Is that so? I broke her leg, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“She can’t stand on it, much less walk, right?”

“That’s right.”

“There’s no telephone, no boat, no way to swim through a lake infested with alligators, no wings to fly out on . . . That about covers all of our bases, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But that’s not my concern. I’m worried about her.”

“What’s there to worry about? I told you we’d put a cast on soon enough. So she walks with a limp the rest of her life—every Garden of Eden has its rotten fruit.”

His indifference was bone deep.

“What if she dies?” Kathryn said.

That put a dent in his armor, she thought, as he hesitated.

“Well, that depends on when she dies,” he said, stepping over to the kitchen center island to his right. He reached for a cup of coffee next to a frying pan. By all appearances, she’d interrupted his breakfast preparation. Which meant that his wife wasn’t around or she likely would’ve made it for him earlier. “If she dies after the money’s transferred we have nothing to worry about.”

He took a sip from his cup and set it back down.

“If she dies in the next twenty days, we’d have a problem. The thirty-day cure requires she accept the money when it’s transferred. So, technically anyway, she needs to be alive. What makes you think this is a concern?”

She knew most of what he said, but she hadn’t realized just how little regard he had for Eden’s life. A hum went off somewhere in her head; the room seemed to narrow.