A Shred of Truth (14 page)

And in the passenger seat: my mother.

Go. Before he … takes her
.

No
. This was an illusion, a heartless prank. I didn’t believe in ghosts. Yet there was no denying the black silky hair framing that feminine face, wisps of gray—but that would be expected after all these years—and those round, dark eyes seeking mine with the direct attention of a bloodhound tracking a scent that’d nearly gone cold.

Nearly. But not quite.

No!
It wasn’t possible!

It could not be real, could not be her. This was a fake, another attempt at fooling me into submission. Some clever makeup and a professional wig.

The van continued, seemingly in slow motion. The woman’s gaze locked on to mine. She was struggling, her elbows moving. Were those ropes tied about her chest and arms?

Like a person being buried alive, she lifted her mouth toward a gap in the window and screamed again. One word forming and bursting forth in an unmistakable tone.

“Aramis!”

The weight of more than two decades shifted.

The Dodge hurtled my direction on a collision course. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Twelve. Bridging the gap of twenty-plus years. Smells of gasoline and radiator fluid coiled from the onrushing beast.

My knees buckled.

The woman heaved herself at the driver, bound hands clutching the wheel and wrenching it toward her. The man jabbed his elbow and connected with her head. But she held on. The van jerked from its course, squealing, throwing the rear end to the left so that it sideswiped the parked panel truck. A shrieking wall of metal, it plowed toward me once again.

I remained kneeling on the asphalt, motionless.

Mom?

With another elbow jab, the driver snapped the woman’s head beneath a veil of disheveled hair. Her eyes widened in terror, but also concern. She wrenched the wheel again with her iron grip, willing the van to veer away.

The driver roared, this time cocking his arm back and smashing it into her face. Her body flew into the passenger door.

The ice in my limbs turned to fire.

My legs exploded from my rooted position, tendons twanging down my
neck and shoulders. The Dodge skidded toward me until its tires started to catch on the pavement and guide it away.

She had fought for me.

She was
alive
. She was
in there!

“Ahh-
rrrhh!
”

In one sweeping motion, I gripped the tricycle and ran full speed toward the driver’s door. My feet pounded over the rough road, and I tripped, nearly face planted, and regained my balance. With every ounce of sinew and muscle in me, I crushed the red trike into his window. Fringed handlebars stabbed at the glass, shattering it into fragments, but the van continued. Behind it, the tricycle clanged to the street in a twisted heap.

On the van’s dented license tag were the words Georgia … on My Mind.

I raced toward the cemetery wall. My hands clutched the stone, and I lifted, got a knee on the summit, and vaulted into the territory of the dead.

I paused, trying to calculate the trajectory and distance of Felicia’s toss. With my search narrowed, I trampled between grave markers and mausoleums. Scrambled over grass and gravel. Combed fingers through weeds and bunched flowers.

The deceased here along the hem of St. Cloud Hill were governors, mayors, generals, and Confederate soldiers by the thousands. Nearly two centuries of fathers, brothers, mothers.

Please, God. Help me here!

My hand brushed over a cool, dark clump, and a jingle verified my find.

I grabbed the keys, dropped them, grabbed them, hurdled a tombstone, raced toward the wall on Oak Street. Up and over. Hands scraped, bloodied. I landed on the sidewalk, felt my ankle twist. I hobbled across the road, threw myself into the Honda, and fired it up. A squealing U-turn brought me back to Fourth Avenue South, where I turned right and slammed the accelerator down so hard I thought it might punch through the rusty spots in the firewall.

The engine was screaming, nearly hysterical.

“C’mon! Where are you? Where
are you
?”

My throat turned scratchy. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I prowled the streets, up and down, back and forth, desperate to locate the woman who’d been taken from me, who’d fallen from a riverbank, who’d managed somehow to find her way back.

She cheated the grave …

At a private graveside service, Johnny Ray and I had watched a casket lower her into the earth—a symbolic ceremony since boats and divers had never found her body.

But somebody
had
found her. How? How could that be?

Someone had to be playing a cruel joke on me, and I was taking the bait, swallowing it whole. The hook was set. Reeling me in. For what purpose? So that some gold-grabbing fool could squeeze me for info about the family cache?

That one word, ringing in my ears:
“Aramis!”

It was her. I couldn’t
not
believe it. Years of an alternate history argued against it, yet we’d locked eyes. Connected. Somehow—miraculously, unbelievably—that was Mom. How could I turn away from that possibility if there was even one iota of hope that it was true? She was in that van, trapped with that sad, sorry excuse for a human being who had struck her full force in the face.

Finding her would be worth any danger, any risk.

Dianne Lewis Black.

Mom’s alive! That was her. That was her …

I pounded the words into my mind, nailing them down so that nothing could shake them loose.

Her voice. Calling my name …

I weighed a late-night call to Metro Police, even started to dial Meade’s
number. But the detective would expect answers, explanations, proof of some sort.

Defying all reason, the driver of the van had paraded my aged, beautiful mother before my eyes. In the course of twenty-four hours, this freak had managed to flip my entire paradigm, handing me a new game with a new set of rules. Unless I played it his way, he’d make certain I never saw her again.

Rule number one: no cops.
For the sake of your loved ones …

I closed my cell.

Already doubts were prying at my hopes, popping them loose quicker than I could hammer them down.

Where had she been for over twenty years? How had she gone undetected? Obviously, I was falling for an elaborate deception, just as Johnny Ray had been tested by a few shots of Jack, a red wig, and some soft kisses.

He’d failed. He’d been cut.

And my bleeding cheek proved I was no different.

So I’d seen a dark-haired woman in the shadows of a van, heard my name called, watched her fight to protect me. What did that prove, except the lengths to which this guy would go to fool me?

I’d almost bought into it. Almost believed. I’d been fooled before, but this time the stakes were even higher.

I headed back to Oak Street, wondering when I would ever learn.

“Some people never learn,” Professor Newmann had lectured the class in his reedy voice. “When a secular mind-set pervades a culture, fact and falsehood become interchangeable. For most people, seeing is believing. News channels parade wholesale misinformation as unbiased fact, and the average viewer suspects nothing. The Internet is equally pernicious.” In a habitual tic, he
hitched the lapels of his tweed jacket. “Anytime such deceit pollutes one’s mind, it weakens his intellectual and spiritual fortitude. And such weakness is inevitably punished.”

I remember raising my hand.

“Do you have a question for the entire class, Mr. Black?”

“Not to be rude, but our previous instructor already touched on this subject.” Heads bobbed in agreement. “In fact, we turned in reports a few weeks back.”

“Two-page reports, if I’m not mistaken. I found them hardly comprehensive.” Twiddling his glasses, Newmann mulled an idea. “Why don’t you give us a brief recap of yours? Perhaps your summary will persuade me to move on to other topics.”

“Okay. I wrote about an investigation of subliminal messages conducted in the fifties. Maybe you remember hearing about it?”

“Not likely. I was born in the early sixties.”

“My bad. Thing is, this study showed what happened when the word
popcorn
was flashed between images on a movie screen. Even though it happened faster than audiences could recognize consciously, concessions sales went through the roof.”

“Snap,” said Diesel. “That must be what happened to me last Friday.”

The professor ignored a smattering of giggles. “Fascinating. And the sources you cited? Newspapers? Scientific journals?”

“Basically.”

“Did you include the comprehensive findings of the USPA?”

“Uh. You mean, the United States Psychology Association,” I improvised.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I’m sure I did.”

“No, you did not.” Newmann rushed forward and hovered over my seat, thin, vulturelike. “There were no such findings, nothing substantiated by
reputable publications. This study and its results were fabrications of a mind no more active than your own.”

“But I read—”

“Commendable. A skill for all students to master. And in your reading, you may want to check into the history of the USPA.”

“Extra credit?”

“Not unless they offer social psych at the U.S. Parachutist Association.”

Snickers flitted about the hall, the fallout of my own lackadaisical research. As one who prides himself on critical thinking, I’d been duped by an erroneous article and beaten by a stinkin’ sub. Once again, my failures last year to distinguish deception from reality came rushing back.

That evening in the lecture hall, I vowed I would not be made a fool of again.

Felicia was real, of that much I was certain. Minutes ago I’d left her sliced and trembling while I chased after a phantom. It seemed like ages.

Navigating the one-way streets, I returned to City Cemetery. I parked at the corner of Oak Street and Fourth and spotted my homeless friend pacing in mismatched shoes and a tattered jacket. I climbed from the car.

“Freddy C.”

“Artemis.”

From the start, Freddy’s mistaken my name, and I’ve given up correcting it. “Thanks for coming down here. Guess you recognized me at the corner.”

“Saw you bleeding.”

“Did you call Metro?”

“No phone. Too late now anyway.”

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing you could’ve done. C’mon, I need to check on my friend.”

I started across the street, but his glazed eyes slowed my steps. He shook his head.

“Freddy, you look scared.”

“I letcha down.” A pungent odor wafted from him, a mix of salt and onions.

“Not at all. Look. I’m fine.”

I continued across, and Freddy trudged after me.

“Who did that to her?”

“Did what?” I asked over my shoulder. “The cuts?”

He pressed a fist to his temple, then pointed at my cheek. “They cut you too.”

“Yeah.”

“Least you got away.”

“If only I could’ve gotten my hands on that guy—”

“I wanted to help,” Freddy blurted. “You believe me, don’tcha?”

“Of course I do. You’re a good man, a crime-fighter.”

“She was scared of me.”

“Not surprising. Alone, on a dark street. I’ll let her know you’re harmless.” I slipped around the parked panel truck, to the place I’d left her. “Felicia?”

“No.” He stopped in his tracks. “I told you.”

“Told me what?”

“Too late. It’s my fault.”

“What’re you talking about?” I hurried toward Felicia, her legs curled on the sidewalk. “Come over and give me a hand.”

“No use. No use.”

“We can get her to a hospital.”

“She’s dead,” he barked. “Dead! Don’tcha get it?”

S
tudies over the years have indicated that psychology students are those with the highest levels of childhood trauma and abuse, damaged souls looking for comfort, for explanations, for a cure.

I don’t doubt it.

While I believe this lends credibility to the motives of professional counselors, it may also challenge their level of objectivity.