Текст книги "Water Walker"

Автор книги: Ted Dekker

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“Thank you, Jesus.” She held me tight, with one hand behind my head, pressing me into her shoulder. “Thank you. Mommy has missed you so much.” She was speaking through tears, overwhelmed. “You’re here. You’re really here.”

Bobby walked up beside her, staring in wonder. Quiet.

Kathryn eased me back arm’s length and studied my face, my hair. She brushed a gentle thumb across my cheek as if to wipe away a tear. “You’re more beautiful than I could have imagined. My precious lamb.” She sniffed. “So beautiful. All will be made right. All will be made right.”

Then she leaned forward and placed a light kiss on my forehead.

“Welcome home, Eden.”

I was too flat-footed to react. A strange mix of fear and comfort ran in circles through my mind, like a fox chasing a rabbit.

Wyatt had climbed out, rounded the car, and now rested his hand on Bobby’s shoulder, smiling.

“Eden, this is your brother, Bobby.” He looked at the boy. “Say hi, Bobby.”

Bobby’s face flushed red and he offered me a toothless grin. “Hi.” He was pressing the tip of his forefinger against his thumb down by his side as he spoke—a nervous tic. Eyes peering up at me because he was a foot shorter. “You’re my sister?”

I had to answer. I had to because I immediately liked Bobby. But I wasn’t sure if I should say ‘yes, I am your sister’ unless I knew for certain.

I glanced up at Kathryn who was smiling warmly.

“It’s okay, sweetie. You can tell him.”

So I looked at Bobby. “I think so.”

He was smiling wide enough for me to see his gums. Then he did something I couldn’t have anticipated. He stepped up to me and took my left hand in his.

“Bobby’s been waiting for you for a long time,” Kathryn said. “We all have. Haven’t we, Bobby?”

“I’m your brother,” he said, looking up at me.

“I’m so sorry we had to get you like that, sweetie,” Kathryn said. “If there was any other way, we would have taken it. But . . .” She looked like she might break down. “I’m sorry if you were frightened.”

“Are you going to stay with me?” Bobby asked, still on his own track.

I was unnerved, but I felt sorry for these people, you see? Especially Bobby. And now as I thought about it, I could see parts of my reflection on Kathryn’s face. She had my nose, and my mouth, I thought.

She really must be my mother. Which meant that Bobby really was my brother. They were simply acting a bit strange because they had no more experience at reuniting with a long-lost daughter and sister than I had with finding my mother and brother.

“Of course she’s going to stay with us, Bobby,” Kathryn said when I didn’t respond. “She’s just in a little bit of shock. This is all new to her, that’s all.”

I still wasn’t sure how to reassure Bobby, but I didn’t have to because Wyatt shifted our focus.

“Zeke’s here,” he said, looking back down the road.

I followed his gaze and saw that a black truck, much newer than any I’d seen on the property, was headed our way up the driveway. Zeke, the man who’d helped them find me.

Bobby removed his hand from mine and pointed a stubby finger. “That’s Zeke,” Bobby said. “He’s the apostle.”

“Hush, Bobby,” Kathryn said, turning to face the truck.

We all watched as a man with dirty blond hair and a short beard, dressed in black slacks, jacket, and boots, stepped out of the truck. For a few moments, he just stood there, staring at me, as if trying to decide if I measured up.

He walked up to us, smiling gently now, a good sign, I suppose. But like everything else, I didn’t know how to feel about this man. His eyes were dark, but his face was kind, I thought.

Zeke nodded at Wyatt. “Saw you coming in. I’m assuming you got here clean or you wouldn’t be here.”

“He’s clean,” Kathryn insisted adamantly.

Zeke looked at her, brow raised. Somehow that simple expression shifted her demeanor, because she immediately softened.

“No one saw them,” she said quietly. “It was just like you said it would be.”

He studied her a moment longer, then turned his eyes to me.

“So you must be Eden,” he said, then waited for me to respond. And I felt compelled.

“I . . . Yes, I think so.”

He grinned. “But of course you are. I’m sure this must be a bit of shock to your system. But I can assure you—one look at both of you and a person would have to be a fool not to see mother and daughter, side by side. Alice has become Eden; the prodigal has finally been brought home.” He hesitated. “Did you have a comfortable trip?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “Wyatt was very good to me.”

“Of course he was. You’ll find nothing but goodness here. But it’s not every day the hand of God works in such a mysterious way. I’m sure all of this has been a little confusing.”

“A little.”

“More than just a little, I’m sure,” he said.

What could I say?

“I . . . I just don’t know what to think.”

“No, of course you don’t, darling.” He walked up to me, touched my hair, then lifted my chin in his large, warm hand. “Poor thing must be terrified. But I can promise you that will all change.” He released me and smiled kindly. “You’re a very fortunate girl, Eden. I’ve never known a mother as resolved as yours. She’s moved the hand of God to bring you home and now here you are, a vision of heaven itself.”

At this Kathryn moved next to me and placed her arm around my shoulders, facing him, as if to lay claim to me. Or maybe just to offer me assurance.

“She’s yours Kathryn,” Zeke said. “Your inheritance. The daughter God promised you. Be sure to raise her as appointed. She’s one of God’s children now.”

“I will.”

“Without wavering.”

“Without wavering,” she said.

I had no idea what they meant and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. So I let it go. After all, everything about his place was strange to me, including all of the God talk.

Wyatt stepped up to Zeke, withdrew his hand from his pocket, and handed him a piece of folded paper. I immediately recognized the note I’d left under the mattress.

“Here’s the note she wrote,” Wyatt said.

Zeke palmed it and slipped into his pocket. “Thank you, Wyatt.”

And that was that. My note had been discovered . . . Of course it had. They didn’t want to be found. Zeke was no idiot.

I felt slightly nauseous.

Zeke wagged his head toward the outbuildings. “I need two barrels. Give me a hand.” Exchanging a nod with Kathryn, he headed back to the truck, followed quickly by Wyatt.

“You want to see my room?”

I glanced down at Bobby who as staring up expectantly. “Okay.”

Without waiting, he turned and headed toward the house, wobbling a little with each hurried step.

When I turned back to Kathryn, she was watching me as if I were her greatest prize. I know everyone wants to be wanted, but I couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong. That she more than just wanted me. That a mother who’d gone to such lengths to find me would go to even greater lengths to keep me.

She lifted my hand and kissed it. Not once, but three times.

“You’re spotless,” she said. “A treasure from our loving heavenly Father to take away all the sorrow and grief I have ever known.”

The swamp was alive with the unnerving shrieks of insects as dusk settled in. Trees loomed all around us, so thick and tangled that they might as well have been a solid wall.

Kathryn put her arm around me again, and guided me forward, walking carefully, not too rushed, as if leading a wounded soldier from a war.

“You must be starving. I have a casserole ready. Fresh corn on the cob. I’m going to take care of you, sweetheart. No one’s going to hurt a hair on your head ever again.” She glanced down my body. “We have to get you out of those filthy clothes and bathe you immediately. I’ll trim your nails and scrub your feet. Fix your hair. Would you like that? Hmm?”

Not really. But I didn’t say anything.

“Of course you would. You’re going to be perfect.” She gave me a little squeeze. “Mommy loves you, Eden. My name means pure, did you know that? But I’m not pure. Not without you. It’s you who make me pure.” She twisted her head down and kissed the top of my head. “I am dead without you.”

A shiver raked my spine. I don’t know what it was about her words that scared me so much, maybe it was the tone she used. But it was then that I first decided that I was going to leave. And the moment I thought about leaving, I also knew that Kathryn wouldn’t let me.

So I had to go on my own, without her knowing.

And I had to go that night.

8

Day Six 5:54 pm

OLIVIA SAT alone at the close of the sixth long day since Alice’s abduction, exhausted, staring blankly at the dozens of photos, notes, and leads pinned to the wall in the conference room that she’d temporarily made her office. They would all be packed up tonight and moved to Columbia in the morning. She would continue working the case from the FBI headquarters. Assuming there was any more to work.

The hum of a vacuum moving down the outer hallway had an air of finality. Time to wrap it up. Not just the day, the entire case.

Most of the staff had already gone home to their families and some basic normalcy. Normalcy at least for the night, enjoying the illusion that life was safe, predictable, and manageable within four walls, however untrue that was.

In reality, the world wasn’t safe at all—the terrible things that only happened to “other people” eventually found their way to everyone. It was simply the way of a cruel and unfair universe that seemed unimpressed with either the good or the evil that filled it.

She glanced at the digital clock mounted over the door. 5:55. The front doors would be locked at six.

Her head throbbed and the onset of a migraine ached behind her eyes. She’d spent the last two hours digging through the case files one last time before they were packed up for Columbia. Considering every angle, looking at every report again. But all she saw now were snapshots in time where they’d been one step behind, one hour too late, one good idea away from finding Alice.

If only they’d discovered the cell phone sooner.

If only John had come home an hour earlier.

If only the DNA had pointed to someone and given the man a face and a name.

If only the truck had shown up in one of the scores of traffic and gas-station security cameras they’d secured footage from within a hundred-mile radius.

If only they’d found the truck a day earlier.

If only . . . but they hadn’t.

CSI had turned the cabin inside out and found nothing particularly useful they didn’t already have or know. The bag of trash in a plastic bin behind the cabin contained mostly a mixture of candy-bar wrappers, eggshells, bacon packaging, empty milk jugs, and an assortment of other garbage. Upon further analysis of the milk’s fermentation rate and the decay rates on several half-eaten pieces of fruit, forensics had determined that the last meal consumed at the cabin had been the night before they’d gone in. They’d missed them by twelve hours. Maybe eighteen, no more.

The truck and cabin had turned up plenty of fingerprint and DNA evidence, but still no match. Whoever had taken Alice didn’t have a record.

The K-9 dogs had tracked their scent three-quarters of a mile southwest to a small stony clearing in the middle of the woods. The scent had ended there, presumably where another vehicle had been waiting. A useless collection of multiple tire tracks disappeared down a narrow Jeep trail.

Alice was gone. They had no leads on the vehicle they’d left in. The case was completely stalled. Until or unless they uncovered new evidence, they were dead in the water. That new evidence would likely come only at the hands of whoever had taken Alice. A mistake, carelessness which would lead to a sighting, committing a different crime that resulted in the abductor’s fingerprint or DNA being entered into the system and matched to the fingerprints they now had on file.

But whoever had taken Alice, however awkward they might have appeared to Louise during the abduction itself, had enough planning in place to get out clean.

For all practical purposes, the case was dead in the water.

A thick knot of emotion cinched tight in her throat. She’d always invested herself completely in her cases, always taken a personal stake in them. But Alice . . .

Alice was different. There was something about the girl that mattered in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was because Alice was the age Michelle would be if she were still alive. Or maybe she’d just been at this too long and become so mired in her own guilt that she wanted Alice to be different. Maybe it was the private conversation she’d had with Andrew, the enigmatic caretaker who insisted that Alice was singularly unique and perhaps gifted. Dangerous even.

Maybe it was all of those things, or none of them. Either way, the chances of finding Alice alive were now statistically less than one in ten.

She slowly pushed herself back from the table and was about to stand when a soft knock interrupted her.

“Come in.”

The door slowly swung open. A stranger stood in the doorframe, staring at her with blue eyes and gentle smile. Not just any stranger, she thought. The man before her was immediately arresting, not in his appearance, but in the way he carried himself, in the surety of his stare, in the fluidity of his walk as he stepped through her door.

Peering around him from behind, Susan, the receptionist, looked flustered.

“I’m sorry, Agent Strauss. I asked him to wait . . .”

“It’s okay, Susan.” Olivia leaned back in her chair.

The receptionist glanced between them, then nodded and backed out, offering a final apology.

“Can you shut the door, Susan?”

“Of course. Sorry.”

She reached in, pulled the door closed, and was gone, leaving Olivia alone with the stranger, who was walking toward the window, staring out at the skyline. He spoke in a gentle voice without turning.

“Quite a view from up here. Amazing how the world looks so different from a new perspective.”

“And you are?”

The man turned and faced her, unhurried and at ease, as if it was she who had come to see him and not the other way around.

Shocks of dark hair framed his chiseled face, which had the deep sun patina of someone who rarely spent time indoors. He wore jeans and white T-shirt beneath a black leather jacket. A round medallion hung in the center of his chest, attached to a black leather strap. His boots too were black leather with thick soles, like a biker might wear.

“A friend,” he said. “Father Andrew directed me to you. He sends his regards.”

“Father Andrew? Andrew DeVoss?”

He slowly dipped his head. “The same.”

Her attention was now fully fixed. Over the years, she’d developed the ability to size people up quickly. Intuit their motivations. Read them not just by what they said, but by how they were. A person’s presence always spoke more than their words.

But she’d never encountered the kind of presence carried by this man. And looking at him, she knew he was a friend. And one somehow connected to the man who knew of Alice’s whitewashed past.

She stood and crossed the office, extending her hand.

“I’m Special Agent Strauss.”

“Yes, I know,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He took her hand, firmly but tenderly, and then laid his left hand on top. “Olivia. It’s a beautiful name.”

His eyes were deep blue flecked with gray, and a strange sense of calm washed through Olivia as she held his gaze.

“And your name is?”

“Call me Stephen.”

She withdrew her hand.

“Stephen . . .”

“Just Stephen. Names are like costumes, don’t you think? We just make them up. Yours, for instance, symbolizes the olive branch of peace. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“And yet it doesn’t describe how you are right now, does it?”

He said it with a soothing tone that seemed to reach into her. So he too was a good judge of a person’s disposition. Of course she wasn’t at peace, but who was these days?

She was more interested in what he could tell her about the case.

“Please, have a seat.” She directed him toward a chair in front of her desk and sat down.

“Thank you.”

He slid into the chair, withdrew a toothpick from his pocket and slowly twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’ve come to help you, Olivia. And maybe you can help me as well.”

“Fair enough. What do you know?”

“That no one is ever who they pretend to be. That nothing is as it first appears. Which is what Alice learned in the monastery before she lost her memory.”

He was speaking in riddles. But oddly, she wasn’t put off by him.

“I don’t see how that helps. I have a missing girl on my hands and the trail has gone cold. Please tell me that you can help me find her.”

“If Alice could be found right now, I would have already found her. I haven’t, which means neither will you. Not until she’s ready to be found.”

“And with that attitude, she may never be found alive.”

“Did I say alive?”

Olivia stared at him, caught off guard.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I don’t know where or when we will find Alice, nor that she will be alive if or when we do. I do know that she’s not what she seems to any who’ve met her. Her eyes were opened once, they will be opened again if she’s willing.”

“It’s only been six days. She’s a thirteen-year-old child who was abducted, not an adult who’s fully responsible.” She said it, thinking she should be protesting his apparent nonchalance. But he was the kind who didn’t offer offense and she wasn’t taking any. “She knows nothing about fatalism and frankly, I reject the idea that we are powerless to help her.”

“I didn’t say we were powerless,” he said, tilting his head slightly down. “Locating her would be a great help to me. My reason for finding her is surely as motivated as yours. But Alice’s journey is her own, not yours or mine. Do your best to find her, but don’t let your search keep you in misery.”

His words cut into her soul like a hot knife. She wasn’t sure why.

“Is there anything you can tell me about her that will help? What about the other children?”

“I can tell you that you shouldn’t worry about them. And that you shouldn’t endanger them by speaking to anyone about them. I can also tell you that Alice was almost surely taken by her mother.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because I do. No one else would have a reason to take her. Unfortunately, her mother seems to have vanished under the auspices of death. So you see, until Alice makes a way to be found, she won’t be. If and when she does make a way to be found, we must be there to find her. Therefore, be diligent, but try not to worry.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. The words coming out of Stephen’s mouth seemed like nonsense, little more than the philosophical platitudes of a man who’d spent too much time alone. And yet there was something about his voice, the way he carried himself and spoke, that resonated deeply with her. Spoke to her. Made her want to believe what he was saying, however naïve it seemed.

“You came here to tell me not to worry?”

“Yes. And to assure you that if I do find her, you will be the first to know.” He paused, eyes fixed on hers. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “But mostly, I came with a message for you. And for the memories you have of Michelle.”

His words stopped her cold.

Stephen placed a large hand on the desk, palm flat on the wood surface, ringed fingers spread wide.

“I see your pain, Olivia. That feeling that you’re cut off from life, and that you’ll never find your way back to the happiness you knew before you lost your way.”

Tears began pooling in her eyes as he continued speaking in a low voice. She wanted to stand up, back away, but she couldn’t move. A hurricane of emotion, terrible and wild, began to swirl deep within her.

“I’ve come to tell you that it’s not your fault,” he said. “Michelle’s beyond suffering, and yet you suffer, trapped in this hell of your own making. Set yourself free, Olivia. Free to love your daughter as she is, not as you wish she could be. In this you will find more peace than you can possibly imagine.”

She wanted to scream. Wanted to tell him that he didn’t know what he was talking about. That he had no right to say what he was saying. He had no right. He had no idea what she’d suffered, what pain she lived with, how alone she was.

But his words moved through her like a warm breath, assuring her of their truth. How did he know? How could he know?

She closed her eyes and swallowed, aware that her pulse was pounding and that her breathing had quickened.

“You are loved, Olivia.” His voice came like honey, softer now. “More than you can possibly comprehend. Forgive yourself for anything you thought you might have done or not done. Forgive the world. Let it all go. Be free now and always.”

Olivia felt her emotion rise, unchecked. Felt her control begin to slip as the world blurred behind the hot tears that flowed freely from her eyes.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said.

The room was still, and the air thick, but with those words, a strange, comforting peace settled over her. Time seemed to stretch in the silence.

Then she heard the soft click of the door closing.

When she opened her eyes . . . he was gone. Only a black card inscribed with the word Outlaw remained where he’d been seated. But he’d left far more, hadn’t he?

Michelle was forever gone.

Alice was now lost.

And yet Olivia couldn’t help but to think that she had just found a missing part of herself.

She lowered her head to the desk, let out a long, trembling breath, and began to sob.

I’m so sorry, Alice.