The Best of Times: A Dicken's Inn Novel (27 page)

The remainder of the weekend was everything Chas had been hoping for. They had a wonderful time, and being together helped fill the reservoir of loneliness for both of them. But saying good-bye at the airport was excruciating. She was aware of him lingering while she went through security, then once she was past the metal detectors, she waved and blew a kiss. He returned the gesture, and she had to turn and walk away in order to keep from sobbing in public.

On returning home, Chas was glad to see the inn and to be back within its secure walls. She and Jackson quickly settled into their old routine of exchanging phone calls and cards. She began to wonder if she was being stubborn about her resistance to leave the inn, and she made it a matter of serious prayer, along with the question of whether she should continue to remain invested in her relationship with Jackson. If he wasn’t the right man for her, then this was just torture for both of them. With time she got her answers very clearly. She
did
need to remain at the inn, and she needed to be patient with Jackson. But her convictions had deepened. She knew her place in Jackson’s life, and she could only hope that he could come to the same conclusion.

Weeks later, while she was struggling to hold on to the answers she’d received, Chas felt impressed to read her patriarchal blessing. She hadn’t done this for a long time, probably a year or more. In actuality, she’d probably only read it a handful of times in the years since she’d received the blessing. It had always left her feeling like something wasn’t right in her life, like maybe the promised blessings were not meant to be hers at all. She’d never been able to read it without missing Martin and feeling that he had been her one chance at having certain things in her life. She was surprised now to have her mind filled with an entirely different perspective, and the warmth in her heart verified that these promises were not related to Martin, but to Jackson. She read the phrases through five or six times, asking herself if she was putting Jackson into it simply because she wanted him there. But deep inside, she knew it was him. The answers she had received before were reaffirmed now. They were meant to be together, and she knew it.

With that conviction fresh in her heart, she read the specified sentences again, overcome with joy and peace. There it was in black and white, that in this mortal life she would kneel at a temple altar with the man of her choosing, and together they would bring children into the world and do much good with their arms linked in living the gospel.

While the feelings were still strong, Chas wrote them down in her journal. She’d hardly touched her journal since Jackson had come into her life, and then she’d lost her grandmother. Now she started spending some time with it every day until she was able to fully record the events that were close to her heart; some wonderful, some sad, all a part of the woman she was becoming.

Months passed with nothing changing in either of their lives, but Chas kept reminding herself to be patient with Jackson, and to accept that she couldn’t possibly comprehend the grand scheme of life from God’s perspective. She simply had to trust in Him.

Jackson came to the inn for a weekend late in the summer. It was so wonderful to have him there that Chas was almost delirious. They settled immediately into a comfortable routine, although Chas left most of the work to Polly and Jen so that she could enjoy Jackson’s company. His stay was way too brief, but Chas tried to focus on how grateful she was to see him at all. She didn’t know if it was a curse or a blessing to have his presence at the inn renew her deep desire to have him there permanently. She’d been praying for an opportunity to bring it up, and as the time drew near for him to leave, she knew she couldn’t put it off. During a quiet moment, she took his hand and said, “I don’t want to keep living like this, Jackson. If this is going to be a permanent long-distance relationship, I . . .”

“You what?”

“I want more. I think you want more as well.”

He sighed. “I do, Chas. I just . . . need time.”

“Time to what? Become more settled into your work? Time to get yourself into a dangerous situation and never come back to me at all?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded frustrated. “I just . . . feel like something is undone, like there’s something I need to do.”

“You can’t track those drug dealers down single-handedly.”

“No, but I know more about them than anyone else.”

“Then teach someone else what you know.”

“It’s not that simple. My gut tells me I need to stay . . . at least for now. And even if I were ready to retire and leave it all behind, how do I know that you’re going to pray and get the answer that it’s all right to marry a man like me?”

Chas looked at him firmly. She wanted him to know the conviction she felt. “I already have. I’ve known for months.”

Jackson couldn’t respond to that. The silence became loud while he pondered the implication in light of everything he knew about her.

“Does that make a difference?” she asked.

“Maybe. Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I was trying to be patient and give you the time that you need. I’m not feeling very patient. I’m feeling more like . . . if something doesn’t change for us soon . . .”

“What?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just paranoid. I feel like something bad is going to happen to you. Or there’s the old fear that you’re just going to realize you don’t want to marry me after all and you’ll just stop calling.”

“I would never do that.”

“I know, Jackson. This is fear talking, and I should learn not to be so paranoid . . . but I just can’t shake this feeling.”

Again there was silence until he said, “I just need a little more time. Let me think it through, and . . . I don’t know. I’ll make a decision.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

It didn’t come up again before he left, but when they embraced as he was leaving, Chas felt a horrible sense that she might not ever see him again. She told him twice to be careful, and he insisted that he would. But she still couldn’t shake that feeling.

CHAPTER 16

Jackson rose from the chair behind his desk when one of his superiors entered the room with an unmistakable air of determination and purpose. He was wearing an expression that Jackson knew well. Something had upset him, and something needed to be done about it. He started out by bringing up a particular group of drug dealers that Jackson had been tracking for years, using a number of unfavorable words as adjectives. Jackson knew well the people he was referring to; they were responsible for the deaths that still haunted him—and everyone else in this office. Jackson was then informed that they had obtained an incredible lead about something going down in a third-world country with these people, and Jackson was the only one who knew them well enough to go undercover and be the spearhead for a plan to bring them down. His Marine experience was crucial to the plan that had apparently been formulated by his superiors in the last ten minutes. Hearing that made him nervous.

“Okay,” Jackson said, “what do you need me to do?” His heart was pounding while his mind swirled with a combination of thoughts. Maybe this was what he’d been waiting for. And now it could all be over and he could retire in peace and get married.

“We’re leaving now,” he was told.

“Now?”

“This minute.”

Jackson felt a little panicked. “Okay, I just need to make one call and—”

“No calls.” The director took his phone, turned it off, and threw it into a desk drawer. “No one can know where you are or that you were even planning to leave. We have to go now. If everything goes as planned, you’ll be back in a few days.”

What could Jackson do but follow him out the door and down the hall? His lifetime allegiance to duty and his deep desire to see these undesirables go down fueled his determination to follow orders. He could only pray that Chas would forgive him. He couldn’t even imagine what she might think if he didn’t call. He hoped it would be over quickly.

* * * * *

Chas only waited about ten minutes past the time that Jackson usually called before she tried to call him. She only got voice mail, both at home and on his cell phone. She left messages, then waited. An hour passed; then two. She prayed and told herself there could be all kinds of reasons why someone in the FBI wasn’t reachable by phone. But when she was still awake hours later and he hadn’t called, her mind had gone wild with imagining things that might have happened to him. She dozed on and off throughout the night, but never got any good sleep. All through the following day she kept trying to call, and felt more frantic every hour. She wondered more than once if this was his way of letting her know that it was over, but he’d told her he would never do that to her, and she believed him. Something was wrong and she knew it. By evening she had worked herself into such a frenzy that Polly and Charlotte had to talk a long time to get her to calm down. They convinced her that no phone call didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong; maybe it just meant that he had gone undercover or something. She liked that idea. But she wasn’t sure what to think when Polly said, “If he had died, the FBI would surely check the numbers on his cell phone, or something, and call you. They would surely call his mother.”

Chas nearly called Melva, but didn’t want to worry her. Jackson only called his mother once a week. Until that time came, she thought it best to keep the concern to herself. But that night she had to take something to help her sleep. She couldn’t function without sleep, and she couldn’t sleep wondering what was happening. Her recent feelings of paranoia on his behalf didn’t help any. In her heart, she wondered if she would ever see him again.

* * * * *

During the long flight on a cargo plane, the plan was discussed in detail, and Jackson stepped off with a new temporary identity. He knew where to go and what to do, taking into consideration several possibilities of how it might go down. But he was prepared to do whatever it took.

Within twenty-four hours, he was acclimated to the country and culture enough to feel fairly confident that this was going to work. He found himself praying and knew he had Chas to thank for that. He prayed for Chas as much as for himself—that she wouldn’t be worrying, that she would forgive him, and that whatever the outcome of this, she would be all right. He found it ironic that he was concerned for his own safety more than he’d been in years. The thought of being able to go home to a woman who loved him had given his life more value and meaning. Knowing that his mother and sister would miss him added to that feeling, and he prayed that all would go well and he could be home and retired before the end of the week.

When the time came to complete the deal, Jackson went into the situation in place of a drug dealer who was now in FBI custody. Their target had never met the man before, but many weeks of communication over the pending deal had been taking place between them. An arrest had been made, information had been confiscated, and communication intercepted. Now Jackson only had to hope that no one was on to him, and he could be in and out in a hurry, giving the local police all they needed to bring this guy down for good. With the grief this drug lord had given
both
countries, they were in this together, which made everything a whole lot easier.

Jackson was amazed at how easily it came together. Years of watching and waiting paid off, and it was over in minutes. With his mission accomplished, Jackson went to bed in a dirty motel, anticipating being on his way home early in the morning. He would be especially glad to call Chas, to hear her voice, and to reassure her that he’d had no choice in being unable to call her. He drifted into sleep, while thoughts of her soothed him like a lullaby.

Jackson was yanked out of his sleep so abruptly that he was consumed with terror. He knew there were at least three men dragging him out of his bed by the way he was being held too tightly to do anything about it. A dark sack was put over his head, assaulting him with images of terrorist executions. He’d encountered fear countless times in his career, but he had
never
been so afraid in his life. He’d never felt so helpless as he was bound, dragged, and shoved into a vehicle where he endured a long and painful ride in some kind of confined space. He realized he must have fallen asleep when the vehicle came to a jolting stop and he was startled back to the awareness that this was really happening.

After being dragged into some kind of foul-smelling structure with hollow-sounding passages, he was thrown onto a concrete floor, and the sack was pulled off of his head. But he couldn’t see his captors due to the bright light in his face. He’d encountered many moments in his life that had felt like some sick twist on a bad movie, but this definitely topped the list. While he was wondering what exactly this was about, and if there was any possible hope of escape, the questions and accusations started flying. He was grateful for his fluent Spanish, which made it possible for him to understand and answer. He was certain they would have beaten the language into him had he not already known it. But as his understanding of the language made the situation alarmingly clear, he began to doubt that he would ever get out of here alive. The identity he’d taken on to get rid of a drug lord was apparently someone these people had good cause to be angry with. They wanted information that Jackson couldn’t give them, and he knew these kinds of people well enough to know that there was only one possible response to not getting what they wanted.

* * * * *

Every hour that Chas didn’t hear from Jackson was torturous. She knew something was wrong; she just
knew
it. She desperately wanted to talk to his mother and sister, knowing their grief and concerns would be the same. But she held off, knowing that when Melva missed her son’s call, Chas would hear from her.

When Melva
did
call, Chas could only try to reassure her, but she knew she didn’t sound very convincing. Melva got her daughter on the other extension, and the three of them discussed the possibilities and all they were feeling. By the end of the conversation they were all crying. But at least she had someone to cry with, Chas concluded. The following day Melva called her again. And the day after that. By the time Chas had not heard from Jackson for a week, she had become dependent on over-the-counter sleeping pills to get any rest, and her days were spent aimlessly going through the motions of her work and her life. She prayed constantly, and did a twenty-four-hour fast every few days. It didn’t feel like much of a sacrifice when she could hardly bring herself to eat.

On the day that she was supposed to go to the temple, she almost didn’t. Then she realized there was no better place for her to go when she so desperately needed God’s help in giving her hope that Jackson would be all right. She came home feeling more calm, but she feared that the peace had more to do with her acceptance of Jackson’s death than with his being alive and well. And the worst of it was the not knowing, the helplessness, the wondering. She missed him so much! She ached for his company. Even across the miles, he had become her best friend, and she had grown to rely on his companionship every day. She loved him! She needed him! But all she could do was pray.

* * * * *

Jackson came awake to the horror that he was still in the same place. Nothing had changed. The stench of his surroundings was still there. The growling pain of hunger hadn’t left him. The floor where he slept was still hard and cold. And the slightest movement brought to mind the repeated torture he’d endured. These people didn’t know who he was, but the man they believed him to be apparently was a great threat to them. The problem was that he couldn’t give them information he didn’t have, and they were too sadistic to just kill him and get it over with. And with every waking moment, he felt continual heartache while he wondered what Chas was thinking. And his mother and sister. The internal torment was equal to his physical suffering.

He felt sure that being in hell itself with Satan as his warden could not be worse than this. There was the tiniest bit of satisfaction in knowing that before he had ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, he
had
been instrumental in bringing down the evil scum he had been hunting for years. These thoughts gave him some tiny degree of sanity. Arrests had been made, and he had felt vindication on behalf of Dave and everyone else affected by what had happened. That gratification had quickly disintegrated, however, during daily sessions of tortured questioning, and the rations he was being given couldn’t sustain a cat. What little food and water there was tasted bad and was making him sick. He could only pray that it would end soon.

* * * * *

Chas was flipping through channels and paused when she saw the letters FBI. She watched for a minute as men with those letters printed boldly on bullet-proof vests entered a building with guns poised. Then the shooting began, and she changed the channel. After a few minutes on the Food Network and a brief look at
Little House on the Prairie,
she cruised through channels again until she stopped on the scene of a drama taking place in a busy office, with a couple of nice-looking guys wearing guns in shoulder holsters. Not as nice-looking as Jackson, she concluded. The next channel was news from Iraq, then she ended up back at the same movie where the FBI swat team was now arresting the bad guys and putting one of their own into a body bag. Chas flipped off the TV. No wonder Jackson hated watching it. She actually screamed as she threw the remote at the wall, grateful to know that she was alone in the house. Then she sobbed uncontrollably before crawling into bed, even though it was only nine o’clock.

A little before nine-thirty the phone rang. The caller ID told her it was either Melva or Melinda. She sighed, wondering how she could give these women hope when she felt none at all. Melinda had barely said hello before Chas could tell that something was wrong.

“What’s happened?” she demanded.

“The FBI called.”

“Is he dead?” She had to know.

“They don’t know,” Melinda cried. “Mama’s so upset; we both are.” Chas couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She felt like she was going to throw up even before she got any more information. “Ironically, they called because Jackson had Mama down as next of kin in his file when he was first hired. She’s living with me, so she’s not at the number he put down, but they found her through her Social Security checks. They
are
the FBI. If we hadn’t seen him in December, it would have been the first we’d heard of him in all those years.”

Chas appreciated the irony, but she was more concerned with the present. “What did they tell you? What’s happened?”

“They would hardly tell us anything. They said he had to go out of the country on very short notice and he couldn’t let anyone know he was going. But he disappeared in the middle of whatever they were doing, and they can’t find him. They’re looking, they told us. But they wouldn’t tell us which country, or anything else. Now you know everything I know, Chas. I just don’t know what to think.”

Melinda started to cry so hard she couldn’t speak, but Chas was crying too. They cried together on the phone for a few more minutes until they realized it was pointless, and Melinda promised to let her know when they heard anything, no matter what time of day or night. Chas threw the phone at the wall and it landed near the remote. A deep, unfathomable pain rose from within her, and she howled with anguish before she curled around her pillow and cried so hard that she ended up having to dash into the bathroom to throw up. The possibilities of where he might be if he was still alive were as nauseating as the possibilities of how he might have died.

Chas was curled up on the bathroom floor, still sobbing uncontrollably, when Polly found her there. “What’s happened?” she demanded. “Tell me, Chas. Calm down and tell me.” Chas tried but couldn’t speak. Polly sat on the floor beside her and wrapped her in a sisterly embrace. Chas continued to cry, but Polly just held her. When she calmed down enough to speak, Chas muttered, “They don’t know if he’s alive or dead. The FBI doesn’t know where he is, or what happened to him. They won’t even tell his mother what country he’s in. We only know it’s not this one.”