Locked (The Heaven's Gate Trilogy) (9 page)

She was moving too fast
for me and I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. 

“You go to church?”

She drew herself up in
her seat, staring coldly at me.  “Don’t you judge me by how I look, little
miss.  I happen to be a PK.”

“PK?” I was bewildered.

“Preacher’s kid,” she
said smugly.  “We’re expected to rebel,” she pronounced, gesturing elaborately
around her clothes and face.  “But in the end, we all come around.  Or so I’ve
been told,” she smirked.  “And I’m no dummy, either. I’m making a 4.0.  You
could do a lot worse than to have me as your research partner.”  She crossed
her arms, dark tattoos peeking out from under her cuffs, and wiggled her foot
impatiently. 

I nibbled the eraser on
the tip of my pencil, reappraising the situation.

“What about this topic,”
I said lamely, pointing to
Recycling
.  “Or this one?”

She snorted again. 
“Really? You want to write about video games and Facebook?”  She started
gathering up her things.  “You and everyone else in here, probably.  If you
want to make a difference in something real, research these kids.  It’s my one
condition for being your partner.”

She was standing now,
looming over me with one hand on her hip.  I had the sinking feeling of being
bulldozed.  Somewhere deep inside me something was shifting.  Old fears – fears
I didn’t even know I had – were coming to the surface.  Could I face my own
history and all these feelings that I might not be able to keep locked away?

You’ll regret it
, a little voice said.

“I don’t think I have any
choice,” I muttered, looking up from my chair feeling all the world like a
child being browbeaten by a baby sitter.

She beamed at me.  “I
knew you’d do it.  Why don’t we meet after school to work out our research
plan?”

*****

Tabitha turned out to be
right – the topic was fascinating, and Atlanta really did have a problem.  I
tried to block out my unease by focusing on the facts.

“Look at this,” I said,
pointing out the results of my latest web search.  “This article says the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation has started making more human trafficking raids
than raids on marijuana or cocaine shipments.”

“Hmmm,” she mumbled,
reading over my shoulder.  In the quiet of the Media Center she had slipped on
a pair of thick cat’s eye glasses, giving her an odd, middle-aged-lady look. 
“Only thing outpacing it is meth lab raids.”

She shoved a piece of
paper at me.  “Here’s the list of organizations I was able to find.  They’re
all downtown.  Do you think your parents will let you go?”

“To do what?” I said,
swiveling in my chair to face her, unsure of where the conversation was headed.

“To meet some of the
girls,” she said, never skipping a beat.  “We’ll be sure to get an ‘A’ if we do
original research and not just regurgitate all this stuff on the Internet.”

I paused.  I was sure my
mother wouldn’t care, would probably in fact encourage me to go.  But I wasn’t
sure I could do it.  Even though I couldn’t remember it, my own abduction had
shaped my life so much.  The idea of talking to someone who had experienced it
too – and so recently – made me think twice.

Tabitha’s eyebrow arched
above the rim of her glasses – a skeptical look I was beginning to recognize.

“You can’t possibly be
scared of going to talk to them,” she demanded, hands on hips.

“No!” I protested,
perhaps a little too strongly.

“Then it’s settled,” she
said smugly.  “I’ll call around and see what we can set up.”  She stared down
at her boots, reaching down to rub out an imaginary scuff while she tried to hide
her self-satisfied smile.  “You just clear it with your parents, I’ll take care
of the rest.”

“Do you always get your
way?”  I asked, somewhat in awe.

“Only when I’m right,”
she smiled with a wink, sweeping up her books and heading out the door.

I looked at the books and
papers strewn about our study carrel and sighed.  It seemed I might have to get
used to being the one to clean up after Tabitha’s big ideas – and the mess that
followed.  I began tidying up, separating the books and magazines into piles
for reshelving. 

I looked at the clock.  I
still had time to kill before I could catch the extra-curricular bus home.  Idly,
I typed my homepage into the browser and scanned the news.  Celebrity gossip,
another big company merger – nothing of interest until at the bottom of the
page, I spied a link labeled “Miracle in Africa.”  I clicked through and read
how some Ethiopian refugees were claiming that some miraculous light from
Heaven had suddenly appeared and rescued them from the middle of a firefight between
two warlords.  The locals said it was the 7
^th
or 8
^th
time
they’d seen the light.

As I was reading, the
slow prickle of someone’s eyes on me worked its way up the back of my neck.  I
turned, half hoping it was Michael coming to see me, and my heart fell.   There
in the stacks stood Lucas, eyeing me speculatively.  I flushed, and he grinned,
one eyebrow arching as if he knew exactly what I had been thinking.  Hurriedly,
I grabbed my things and abandoned the carrel, my fingers drifting up to touch
my Mark and ward off his gaze.

*****

After a week of work,
we’d learned it wasn’t going to be as easy as we’d thought to set up the
interviews with the human trafficking victims.  Tabitha was persistent, but
every place she called protested in the name of client privacy.  We sat around
my kitchen table, staring at the big red circle Tabitha had made on our
research plan.
“We’re already behind,” she moaned.  “If we can’t get any one to talk to us, I
don’t know what we’ll do.”

Mom muted her phone.  She
had an uncanny ability to follow a conference call and keep up with our
conversation.   Without turning from the presentation up on her computer
screen, she interjected, “I have a client on the Board of ‘Street Grace.’  Do
you want me to call her and ask her for help?”

Tabitha squealed with
delight, clapping her hands like a child.  “Oh, Mrs. Carmichael, could you?
That would be so awesome.”

“I’d be happy to,
Tabitha.  It sounds like a good cause, at any rate,” she said, carefully eyeing
me.

Tabitha didn’t notice the
look as she bounded across the kitchen to give me a hug.  “Your Mom is the
best.  I’m going to make you dinner as a thank you, Mrs. C.  Is that okay?”

Mom looked surprised. 
“Sure, Tabitha, as long as you clear it with your parents.  And don’t forget
about the technology risk; it is the biggest challenge facing this venture.”

Now it was Tabitha’s turn
to look confused.

“Conference call,” I
mouthed to her, pointing at the phone as I headed into the pantry.  Tabitha
followed behind me and began rummaging through the shelves.

“Your mom seems pretty
cool,” she said, turning packages this way and that.  “What about your dad?”

“He’s not here.  They’ve
been apart for a long time,” I said, paying an inordinate amount of attention
to the nutrition label on a box of spaghetti.

She plucked some olives
and capers from a corner and blew the dust off the jars.  “This will do.  You
ever cook?” she asked me, pulling the spaghetti out of my hands.

“I’m more of the take-out
type,” I shrugged.

She flipped her long
bangs – today, streaked neon green -- back as she turned and left the pantry. 
“My father taught me to cook when I was little.  I do dinner for the whole
family every Friday.  You should come over this Friday.  We can go out after. 
A bunch of us were talking about going to Stone Mountain after dark.  It’ll be
fun.  And you can sleep over.”

“Isn’t Stone Mountain
closed at night?” The doubt in my voice hung in the air but Tabitha ploughed
right through it.

“Live a little,” she
said.  “Besides, don’t you want to meet the people responsible for this?” She
laughed, twirling around the kitchen with her arms full of the dinner
groceries, and I had to smile.

****

All Friday my stomach was
in knots.  Sneaking into Stone Mountain Park, in and of itself, would have been
enough to put me on edge.  Tabitha had met all my queries about who was going
and what we would do with a vague, “You’ll see.”  And now, I found myself
seated at the Franklin family dinner table at the start of my first ever
sleep-over.

I made a mental note not
to call it “sleep-over” – it sounded so babyish – and refocused my attention on
the five pairs of eager brown eyes staring at me.

With the exception of
Tabitha, the Franklins were exceptionally clean-cut.  Mrs. Franklin sat at the
foot of the table in a starched white shirt and pearls, her straightened hair
done in a flip that seemed right out of the sixties.  Dr. Franklin, at the head
of the table, wore a green polo shirt and looked freshly shaved.  The dark
brown skin on both of their faces was smooth and unmarked by worry.  They both
looked impossibly young to have four children.

“Stop gawking at Hope,”
Tabitha scolded as she placed a platter full of crab cakes on the table with a
flourish that made the leather and chain bracelets on her wrist jingle.  The flouncy
gingham apron she sported looked ridiculous against her hot pink pants and
black t-shirt.  Her three younger brothers, carbon copies of their father,
giggled and squirmed in their seats.

“It looks wonderful,
Tabitha, thank you,” her father beamed as she took her seat next to me.  “Shall
we say grace?” Everyone’s heads immediately snapped down, eyes closed, hands
clasped.  “Matthew 7:13.”

Tabitha’s youngest
brother, Sam, intoned in his tiny voice, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for
wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be which to in thereat.”

“Amen,” everyone added
gravely.

When I looked up from my
folded hands, Tabitha was scowling at her father, who had a smug look on his
face.  “Romans 3:23,” she said, her chin lifting defiantly.

“Colossians, chapter 3,
verse twenty,” Dr. Franklin retorted, peering down the table at us over his
glasses.

“Nice, Dad,” Tabitha
said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she reached across the table for a
corn muffin.

Dr. Franklin laughed. 
“Just my little Friday night reminder, before you two go out to join the
festivities.”  Plates and platters began to pass around as everyone filled
their plates.

“How much trouble can we
get into at a Youth Group social, Daddy?” Tabitha sweetly replied, kicking me
under the table, when I started to correct her.

“Besides, Tabby looks
scary,” Tabitha’s brother David said, grinning wickedly.  “No boys are going to
talk to her.”

“David,” warned Mrs.
Franklin, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.  “Tabitha is just
expressing herself.”

“And I will be more than
happy if no boys talk to her,” added Dr. Franklin.  “Now, Hope, we are counting
on you to be a good influence and keep Tabby out of trouble.”  He looked at me
over a forkful of salad.

“Sir?” I said, with a
grin.  “I don’t think there is much risk of Bible-quoting teenagers going
astray.  First Corinthians, Chapter ten…”

“Verse 13,” Tabitha added
triumphantly, finishing for me with a flourish of her napkin, then smiling at
me gratefully.

Not a good idea to
start sparring with a biblical scholar
, the voice in my head reprimanded me so clearly that I
looked around, thinking surely someone else must have heard it.

The Franklins’ forks
hovered mid-air.  The boys eyed the scene with delight, shoveling in their food
and watching the Biblical repartee as if it were a heated tennis match.

“Well, then,” Mrs.
Franklin said after a long pause, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she set
down her fork and tried to repress a grin.  “I believe Hope has a point, dear.”

“How did you come to know
the Holy Book so well, Hope?”  Dr. Franklin pinned me with a curious stare
while Tabitha smiled to herself, taking in a bite of macaroni and cheese. “It’s
very unusual these days.  Unless you come from a family of clergy, that is.”

“Uh,” I said, squirming
uncomfortably, regretting that I’d spoken up.  “I went to Catholic school
before I moved back to Dunwoody.  And my Dad is kind of religious.”

He looked at me, full of
speculation.  “Interesting.  But I take it you’re not?”

I looked at Tabitha for
help, but she just shrugged.

“Um.  I’d say I have more
of an academic interest.”  My face burned with embarrassment.  I didn’t want to
get into my belief – or lack thereof – with a minister.  I certainly couldn’t
explain the heightened sense of antagonism I felt toward religion without
getting into my entire, confusing past with my father.

“I see,” Dr. Franklin
mused.  “But let’s take this piece of scripture.  If we take the full context
of Corinthians…”

“Daddy,” Tabitha moaned,
rolling her eyes.