Godless (30 page)

Mrs. Mayhew
appeared distraught. “Where have you been?” she asked while nervously fidgeting with one earring.

“What's wrong?” Alex asked while closing the front office door.

“Did you lose your phone?” she asked urgently.

He felt his pocket. “Nope. Right here. Why?”

“I've been calling and messaging for nearly an hour.”

He glanced at the screen. “Oh,” he said with surprise, “I'm sorry. I must have forgotten to turn it back on this morning. I had kind of a rough night.”

She glowered at the oversight. “Well you certainly had me worried.”

Alex could only think of one thing that would have put Mrs. Mayhew so on edge. “Phil Crawford?”

A puzzled look. “What about him?”

“Does he want to speak to me?”

“How on earth should I know?”

“Isn't that what has you so upset?”

“I didn't say I was upset,” she insisted. “I said I was
worried
.”

“Worried about what?”

“About what that young man might do.”

“What young man?” asked Alex.

“The one who came before.” She raised a hand to one side of her mouth and began to whisper. “And if you ask me, he looks even more disturbed than he did the last time. ”

“You mean he's here? Now?”

“He's waiting in your office.”

“When did he get here?” Alex glanced at the time.

“He was standing outside the office door when I arrived, waiting for someone to let him in.” She whispered again. “I've been a nervous wreck. You never know what a man like that might do to a helpless woman who can't track down the pastor. I told him you would arrive no later than eight thirty. That was fifteen minutes ago.”

Alex placed his hand gently on her shoulder. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Mayhew.”

Her arms crossed and her brow furrowed like an angry child's.

Forgiveness would need to wait.

He found the man bowing his head in prayer, or perhaps despair. Alex reached into his memory to recall a name. “Frank?”

His guest shot up from the chair and lifted his eyes. “Um, yes, that's right.” He turned to face the pastor self-consciously. “I hope you don't mind. I really need to talk.”

“Please, sit,” Alex insisted, waving the troubled soul back toward the sofa. “Can I get you something? A bottled water perhaps?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

That's when Alex noticed an inflamed welt on the man's left ear and a large stream of what looked like blood on his sleeve. “Good heavens, are you injured?”

Frank glanced down at the stain, then shook his head. “I'm fine. It's nothing.”

Alex recalled their last visit. Frank had run out of the room when pressed. He decided not to push for details about the blood. “OK,” he said while taking the seat across from his anxious guest, “I'm listening.”

“When I came before you said everything I say would be kept confidential.”

“Within limits, that's true.”

“What limits?”

“Well, I would alert the authorities if I knew you had molested a child, as one example.”

“I would never do that!” Frank said crossly.

“I'm glad to hear it,” said Alex. “How about telling me what's on your mind?”

The man closed his eyes while massaging forehead and temples. He appeared to be weighing the risk of talking against the torture of silence. “OK,” he finally said. “But I'm going to speak hypothetically.”

Alex considered the idea. “Fine,” he said.

The man inhaled deeply. “If a person did something illegal because someone else tricked him, would he be guilty of the crime?”

“You'll need to be more specific. What kind of crime?”

Frank looked like a man scanning a mental map to find an indirect route to his intended destination. “Well, not a crime, actually.”

“Then what?”

“A medical procedure. Something perfectly legal in one instance but potentially criminal in another.”

“I don't follow,” said Alex, staring at the blood on his guest's sleeve. “Are you saying you've carried out an unlawful medical procedure?”

The man's head dropped again. “Not exactly. And sort of.”

Alex sensed the man needed a nudge toward courage. “Listen to me, Frank. I can't offer any advice if you don't tell me why you came. You said you needed to talk. So talk.”

A brief silence.

“All right. But I need you to promise you won't repeat it to anyone.”

“Does it involve child abuse or murder?”

He hesitated as if weighing his answer. “No, it doesn't.”

“Then what you say will remain between the two of us.”

The promise loosened Frank's tongue. “I need to confess.”

“Like I said before, I'm not a priest, but—”

“Not that kind of confession. I'm not after forgiveness for sin. I want protection from danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

“Someone framed me for a murder I didn't commit. Then he tricked me into doing something that looks really bad. But I didn't break any laws.”

“Why not alert the authorities?”

“No police!” the man snapped. “Like I said, I haven't done anything illegal. But the person framing me has. I want him exposed.”

“If you've done nothing illegal why not go to the police?”

“Because they won't believe me,” said Frank.

“What makes you say that?”

“I just know, OK?”

Alex met the man's eyes. “Does this have anything to do with your nightmares, Frank?”

The question seemed to surprise, and alarm.

“You told me you were destroying icons in your dreams. Still?”

He nodded. “Yes, but they've gotten worse.”

“The dreams?”

A slow, tormented sigh. “If they are dreams.”

Alex waited.

“Do you remember what you said last time?” asked Frank. “About Ivan?”

“In
The Brothers Karamazov
?”

“That's right. The atheist.”

Alex reached for the memory. “I believe I said Ivan went mad.”

“You said he went mad
after
a conversation with the devil.”

“Have you had conversations with the devil, Frank?” Alex wondered what he would say if the answer was yes.

Frank's eyes darted back and forth as if scanning for an intruder. “I don't know about the devil,” he confessed, “but I've seen some pretty scary stuff.”

Alex felt a sudden chill. Perhaps Mrs. Mayhew's alarm had been justified after all. Something, he sensed, had been tormenting his guest that could not be perceived with mortal eyes.

An apparition? Possibly.

Madness? Perhaps.

Both manifestations of the same age-old disorder.

“Listen to me, Frank,” Alex began. “Regardless of what you've seen or heard, there is only one way to escape what's behind the dread I see in your eyes.”

The man fixed his gaze on the pastor as he continued.

“Like I told you before, the devil is a liar. That's what makes him even more dangerous than whoever you think is trying to frame you.”

“I
know
someone's trying to frame me!”

“Fine. Someone
is
trying to frame you, then. It doesn't change the fact that the enemy of your soul is the greater threat. The first can get you thrown in jail. But the second can make you lose both your mind and your soul.”

The man's body tensed.

“I have no idea what you've done, Frank. But no matter what it is, it's never too late to repent.”

“I told you before,” said Frank crossly, “I don't believe in sin.”

“Yes, you told me that. But you also said you don't believe in God or the devil. Yet here you are, scared to death that one or both of them is on your heels.”

“I never said that!”

“No, but it's why you came, isn't it, Frank? You're trying to decide which is worse: submitting to a holy God or falling prey to a ravenous devil. Trust me, Frank, you don't want the second. Admit your sin. Accept God's grace. Embrace sanity rather than madness!”

“I'm not going mad!” Frank shouted as if drowning out the possibility. “And I haven't committed any sin.”

“All have sinned, Frank. Every single one of us is infected with a disease that drives us away from goodness, health, love, and joy. But Jesus Christ dealt a death blow to evil so that we could find freedom from sin's bondage.”

“Stop using that word!” Frank pressed his hands over his ears like a child frightened by the sound of thunder. “I haven't done anything wrong,” he shouted as if trying to convince himself. “I serve the greater good! I end suffering. I free people from decay!”

The room fell silent. Frank uncovered his ears. He looked embarrassed. “I have to go.”

“Please,” said Alex, “don't. Let me help.”

He remained in the room. A good sign, thought Alex.

“Tell me who you freed, Frank. Whose suffering did you end? Someone you loved?”

No response.

“Please, tell me what's going on.”

“I will,” he said. “But I need to take care of something first. Can we talk again?”

“Of course,” said Alex. “When?”

“I'll let you know. But I need your promise. Complete confidentiality, like confessing to a priest.”

Alex thought for a moment. What choice did he have? “OK. Complete confidentiality.”

“Then I'll talk to you soon,” Frank said before rushing out the door.

Julia felt
the man's hand pulling her up out of the water. She noticed his feet, then her own. Both of them were walking on the surface toward a white, sandy beach basking in the warmth of a rising sun. The abrupt sense of security mixed with anticipation dispelled what she had been feeling moments before.

The ache of grief, not for herself but for those sinking into the shadowy depths below.

The horror of sacrilege as she witnessed stunning beauty thrashed beyond recognition, majestic icons horribly disfigured.

And the helplessness of watching other victims shake angry fists at the man's outstretched hand.

Like her, they could have been lifted toward the tender grace of light rather than sinking into a bleak cruelty. Their lungs, like hers, could have filled with the fresh air of hope instead of the dark water of despair. And their faces, like hers, could have beamed at the smiling acceptance of a father rather than recoiling from the profane caress of a killer.

She woke at the chilly exposure of a vanishing blanket and the urgent sound of Amanda's voice. “Hurry up, Mom!”

“What time is it?” she asked as a spear of panic forced her head from the pillow.

“Ten past nine,” came her daughter's urgent reply. “I'm gonna be late for tryouts!”

That's when Julia remembered. Despite Troy's resistance to the idea, Amanda had signed up to become a cheerleader thanks to Julia's willingness to second the motion.

Three minutes later the two raced away from the driveway toward Littleton Middle School. Julia had thrown on a pair of ugly sweats before running out the door. Amanda had managed to find a clean pair of shorts and slip into her most flattering yellow T-shirt.

“Great!” she groaned in horror while inspecting the visor mirror. “I
would
get a zit on the day of tryouts!”

Julia smiled sympathetically. “Don't worry about it, sweetheart,” she said. “You look fine.”

Something felt off.

“No,” she corrected. “You look beautiful.”

Amanda extended her hand toward Julia's disheveled hair, the same hair Amanda had admired since the day they met. “Thanks, Mom,” she said. “So do you.”

Julia glanced at her makeup-deprived face in the rearview mirror, then accepted the embellished compliment with a peck on Amanda's hand.

“What was that for?” Amanda asked while cradling the echo of a kiss.

“For accepting me as your mom,” said Julia.

Amanda grinned.

They pulled onto the campus parking lot before Julia thought of Troy. “Wait,” she said, “I thought your father said he would drive you to tryouts on his way to work.”

“He left before I got up,” Amanda explained.

It wasn't like Troy to forget a commitment, especially one that involved Amanda.

“He left a note,” Amanda continued. “Didn't you see it?”

“What did it say?”

Amanda shrugged. “Something about an emergency and that he had to run off to the hospital.”

“The hospital!”

But Amanda was already out the door, rushing toward a horde of adolescent girls in search of sideline glory.

“Troy?” she said after tapping his smiling image on her phone. “What's going on?”

“Hi, babe. I didn't want to wake you. Did you get my note?”

“Amanda read it. What emergency?”

“Kevin called this morning. His parents are at University Hospital and he wanted me to keep an eye on them until his plane arrives.”

“What happened?”

Troy explained. Julia became more and more furious with each detail of the story.

“Someone accidentally scheduled them for an at-home transition?”

“It's more likely someone was targeting them.”

“Why would anyone want to kill Jim and Gayle? And why make it look like a transition?”

“Think about it, babe. Kevin is about to offer alternatives to the Youth Initiative. I can think of a lot of people who would like to stop that from happening.”

It hadn't been that long since Julia had aided such an effort herself. In pursuit of journalistic prestige she had nearly ruined Kevin's reputation and destroyed his happy home. It wasn't hard to imagine someone with far more to gain going to much greater lengths. She suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to pray.

For Mr. and Mrs. Tolbert.

For Kevin and Angie.

And, as before, for someone else.

“Are the kids all right?” she asked.

“Fine, as far as I know.”

“Baby Leah?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I just…I had another dream.”

“I see. Was Baby Leah one of the faces?”

“No. But I can't shake the feeling she's in danger.”

“Should I call Angie?”

Julia thought for a moment. “No, don't do that.”

“But you just said—”

“I see no use in getting her worked up over a feeling I can't decipher, let alone explain.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes. I'm sure.”

Troy promised to keep her informed before ending the call.

Julia drove back to the house, where she showered and got dressed for the day. Then she retrieved the blanket Amanda had yanked onto the floor and covered her naked bed before sitting on the edge to think. She realized that no to-do list demanded obedience: she had no deadlines to hit, memos to write, or meetings to attend. She had, thankfully, resigned from Daugherty and Associates after obtaining the needed information about the ad campaign.

She glanced at a small notepad resting on the nightstand. It was the same notepad that had been her midnight companion back when she lived in an apartment with her sister Maria and nephew Jared. The same notepad onto which she had captured countless middle-of-the-night sparks of brilliance that might become another Pulitzer-winning feature. And the same notepad that contained her frantic notes from scenes that had once terrorized her restless sleep. She flipped open the pad to read the familiar words.

An hour earlier she had been shaken out of the same progressing dream. Years before it had prompted panic as she felt the downward summons of sadistic laughter. A few days earlier it had frightened her with the vile destruction of iconic beauty in faces she didn't recognize and, perhaps, would never know. But now, sitting in the quiet of a home she shared with a once-lonely man and a once-orphaned girl, Julia sensed a greater meaning to the nocturnal tale.

She slid a small pencil from the notepad and positioned it over the page to receive whatever ideas might present themselves. But she wasn't prepared to receive what actually came. Despite an overwhelming urge to use the power of the pen, her greatest strength, to engage the enemy, she felt an overwhelming impulse toward a different kind of action. It was as if someone was assigning a task that, unlike writing, she felt ill equipped to perform. And so, setting aside her journalistic prowess, Julia engaged a very different front of the battle.

She turned around, bent her knees, and bowed at the side of the bed.

“Dear God,” she whispered, “I sense you want me to pray. You know I'm not very good at this. But here I am, asking you to protect my friends, the Tolbert family. Especially Baby Leah.”

The words broke as emotion overtook Julia's voice. She felt as if she had been given a tiny fragment of a sorrow that no mortal could possibly bear, the sorrow of one who had created a masterpiece beyond words only to see it thrown onto a trash heap of discarded human dignity.

“Father in heaven,” she continued, “I don't know what to do. Someone hates what the Tolbert family represents. What
every
family represents.”

A memory flooded Julia's mind. One of the first sermons she and Troy had ever heard by Pastor Ware described God creating man and woman and inviting them to become fruitful and fill the earth. The union of man and woman, the pastor had said, reflected the very image of a God who is, himself, a communion of persons.

“Father,” she continued, “someone clearly hates what Kevin and Troy are doing. The same someone who, in my dreams, is pulling men, women, and children into darkness.”

She paused.

“You gave me this dream for a reason, I know it. Please, God, tell me what you want me to do.”

She waited in silence. But for what? A voice? A clap of thunder? Surely something that would tell her what to do next. Nothing came, so she said the prayer again, clasping her hands more tightly than before. Still no answer.

Unfamiliar with the protocol of fervent prayer, Julia remained on her knees for several more minutes. A sharp pain in her left leg finally compelled her to open one eye, then the other. She stood and walked toward the kitchen to fix herself some breakfast. Surely a bowl of cereal wouldn't stand in the way should God finally decide to say something.

She heard a single ping come from a tablet that was sitting on the kitchen table, where, she surmised, Troy had been reading the morning headlines before receiving Kevin's urgent call.

Julia tapped the bouncing icon to open a message. Anonymous.

An annoying bit of spam, Julia wondered, or the answer to her prayer? She decided to find out.

A reply came just as fast.

Julia considered the offer.

She waited.