Rooms: A Novel (9 page)

CHAPTER 14

Micah stepped inside and strode over to the coat closet door. He yanked it open and pulled the stack down from the closet shelf. Yes! Answers. Right here. Right now.

A faded business card stuck out from under the first envelope—Archie’s. He pulled it out. A handwritten note was on the back.

Dear Micah,

Congratulations on finding the letters. Of course if Chris followed my instructions, it shouldn’t have been too difficult. There is only one guideline. Read them in order and only read one letter per week. Only one.

Your great-uncle,

Archie

Micah shook his head and smiled. The guy never failed to fascinate. The envelopes were numbered from 1 to 19 in the lower right-hand corner, almost too small to read. He trotted over to his overstuffed chair that faced the picture windows, settled in, and opened the first letter.

October 20, 1990

Dear Micah,

Our first letter together in the house has filled me with joy and anticipation. Some of my correspondence will be lengthy; at other times the letters will be much shorter. I dare hope all will contain encouragement for your journey now begun.

As I mentioned in my introductory letter, you will have to make a choice to face your past or not. And facing your past means more than just dealing with the memory of your mother’s passing. There is more to deal with surrounding her death. Much more.

More? No, he wouldn’t go there again. Ever. Hadn’t he finished that? But he couldn’t stop shards of the memory from bursting into his mind—his dad standing over him, screaming over and over,
“What have you done to her, Micah? What have you done?”

Micah slammed the memory back into its dark corner. Get a
grip!
He pounded his leg with his fist. “C’mon, Archie I need something with a little more hope than that.”

I expect by this point you have begun to understand what the home is. If not, then I am afraid I will be spilling a bit of the proverbial beans.

The structure is far more than a home and will make a significant impact on your future if you allow it to. The home is a part of you, and you are part of it to a greater degree than you can imagine. I designed it this way with help from a close friend. His singular ability and assistance makes this home extraordinary.

Along with the healing of your heart and the trials that will entail, I pray you find rest as well. The Cannon Beach section of the Oregon Coast has always been a place of peace. I trust it still is. I counsel you to soak in the music of the ocean and the accents of the seagulls crying, and the hope of finding a sand dollar still whole.

Your great-uncle,

Archie

P.S. Remember, Micah, one letter per week. I look forward to being together again in seven days.

Micah set the letter on the armrest, tilted his head back, and let out a small groan. Answers? Archie raised more questions than he’d answered. The house is part of him? What’s that supposed to mean? Face more than just reliving his mom’s death? What, the memory room wasn’t enough?

Maybe the second letter would help. He smacked its edge into the palm of his hand three times in a quick cadence. One a week? Sorry. He wasn’t waiting another seven days for the next cryptic letter about the mansion and its secrets.

He slipped his forefinger under the top flap of the second envelope and stopped. Instantly he was seven years old again, sneaking out and opening his presents on Christmas Eve while the rest of his family was snug in bed. Shrugging off the feeling of guilt, he ripped open the envelope. He wasn’t a kid anymore.

He sucked in a quick breath, held it, and yanked out the letter. The paper scraping free sounded like firecrackers. He looked around the room and assured himself it was okay.

October 24, 1990

Micah,

I am in a bit of a quandary with regard to how I should start this next letter or what type of forewarning I should attempt to impress upon you before you read the following words. For no matter how complete my effort may be, you will likely be a mite traumatized at the message it contains.

Before I reach the portion of the letter I believe will elicit this reaction, let me assure you I am just an ordinary man; by the time you read these letters, I will likely have been with my Lord Jesus for many years.

Micah put down the letter. He wasn’t in the mood to be shocked. He’d had enough surprises since coming to Cannon Beach to last a year. But how could he stop reading?

I know you are reading this letter before I’ve intended you to. Please do not do this. Stay true to the schedule I instructed of one letter per week. I realize this might be difficult to adhere to. You will want to race ahead and receive answers to your questions right now. It is a strength God has given to you—to strive forward strongly in all that you do—but in this case, it is a weakness and a hindrance to truth.

Please allow the process of being in this home to take the time it needs, that you need.

Archie

Micah’s heart jackhammered. He thought little could surprise him after what he’d been through already, but this was over the top. How could a man back in 1990 know he would disregard his request and open the second letter early? There was no logical explanation. A chill swept through the room, and the ticking of the grandfather clock at the top of the spiral staircase sounded like gunshots.

He looked down at envelope number three. It mocked him—dared him—to open it.

It slid out smoothly till a corner of the envelope caught on the twine that held the bundle of letters together. He wrenched it free and ripped it open.

October 25, 1990

Dear Micah,

Stick with the order.

Archie

Heat flooded Micah’s body. He picked up letter number four and tore at it in sheer defiance. But his hands trembled, and it took thirty seconds before he read it. When his eyes dropped to the page his fear was confirmed.

October 26, 1990

Dear Micah,

One per week. Trust me.

Archie

Micah closed his eyes and took deep breaths. In. Out. This was beyond strange. First the shrine room, then the painting room, then the memory room, now this. How? The man’s been dead for twelve years!

Sweat squiggled down his forehead. He glanced at his watch. One in the morning. Too late to call Rick.

He was out of control again.

Once more Archie showed his penchant for the strange twist—not only with the house but now with the letters.

He rubbed his temples hard. What was the point of living in one of Rod Serling’s nightmares? Archie’s letters were the straw, he was the camel, and he didn’t need any crushed vertebrae. He should sell the place and get back to reality.

||||||||

A week later Micah strode toward his deck with letter number five grasped in his left hand. His right held his cedar letter opener like a sword, and his heart pounded.

He wanted to read the letter outside. For all he knew, reading it would suck him into another psychotic room. This way he could at least process the letter before facing any new, unwanted expedition. He knew God could not be put into the tidy box Micah had tried to squeeze Him into these past six or seven years. And this house certainly seemed to be the field of battle where that truth would be played out. So it was with expectation of the extraordinary that he opened the letter.

He was disappointed.

December 3, 1990

Dear Micah,

I pick up my pen again. It is indeed a strange sensation knowing if and when you read these letters it will be a long time into the future. Forgive me. I am rambling and promised myself I would avoid that.

Your heart is a sacred and magical thing, Micah. From it flows the wellspring of life. It’s why the wisest man who ever lived said we must guard it above all else. You won’t reach it by your intellect. The pathway to the heart is always by the Spirit, and the pathway to the Spirit is by the heart.

Are you wealthy, Micah? To acquire a significant amount of money at a young age, elements of life must be neglected. Often the heart. This is what I meant in my introductory letter when I said if you are not yet thirty-five, your heart has not been suitably guarded.

No matter your current age, I imagine you have already experienced a number of extraordinary things in this home—some potentially frightening—and yet if you’re reading this letter, you’ve made the choice to press onward in your journey. This indicates your heart is coming alive again.

Now I finally arrive at the lesson of this letter. It is impossible for man to serve both mammon and God.

With great affection,

Archie

Micah set down the letter and shook his head. Some lesson. He’d heard it since he first became a Christian. The love of money is the root of all evil and all that stuff. What did it have to do with him? So he’d made some money. That meant he was serving it? No way. He’d made it too young? In Archie’s day he doubted IPOs could make a young company owner a multi-multimillionaire overnight the way it could today.

He sighed and walked back inside. Might as well pack for the trip back to Seattle even though he didn’t have to leave till the next afternoon. It had been fifteen days since he’d started working from the beach, and he was scheduled to show up for a day full of meetings on Friday.

Traffic on I-5 was light on Thursday evening, and he clipped off the miles back to Seattle at seventy miles per hour without having to change lanes. By the time he reached Tacoma, the music on his CDs had grown stale, and he was tired of the late-night radio talk-show hosts who all droned on about the same tired political issues.

His thoughts turned to Archie’s letter.

Guarding his heart? What did that mean? Against what? Ninety-nine percent of the world wanted the fame and fortune he had, so he must already be guarding his heart on a Secret Service level.

“The pathway to the heart is always by the Spirit, and the pathway to the Spirit is by the heart.”
Archie’s line sounded like something Rick would say.

Micah rolled his eyes, pushed a button on his steering wheel, and let the sounds of classic rock drown out the questions that played big-time wrestling in his mind.

“God? I’m open to learning what I’m supposed to learn here. Wouldn’t want to give me some answers, would You?”

A thought lit up his mind like a flash of lightning.

Get ready.

CHAPTER 15

Well, well, well, Mr. Taylor, welcome to RimSoft,” Shannon said to Micah as he walked past her antique Georgian walnut desk on Friday morning. “So nice to have you come visit our little company during the month of June.”

“Hah.” Micah stopped and sat in the burgundy leather chair next to Shannon’s desk and fumbled for the right words. If God had really talked to him and made the “Get ready” comment, it had to be about RimSoft. And if anyone knew about strange events inside the company, it would be Shannon.

“Anything unusual been going on around here? Rumors I should know about?”

“No, why?”

Micah shrugged. “No reason.”

Shannon turned back to her computer and squinted at the screen. But her right ear slowly rose a quarter inch, telling Micah she wasn’t seeing anything.

“You want to know the reason.”

“Only if you want to tell me, boss.”

“This place down in Cannon Beach is making changes in me. Maybe good ones.” Micah shifted in his seat and smoothed out his pants. “But I can’t lose any control of my world up here. And, uh, I think . . . I mean I had a feeling there might be some different things going on. Just need to make sure we’re smooth up here. Understand?”

Shannon tapped the watch on Micah’s wrist. “A Corum doesn’t run any smoother.”

“Thanks.” Micah stood and winked at her before heading into his office.

||||||||

At noon Micah’s laptop chimed twice. Time to check and see if RimSoft was playing nice with all the other kids on the NASDAQ. He pushed the Federal Trade Commission papers needing his signature to the side. Get big and a company gets targeted whether anything illegal was done or not. Maybe RimSoft had skirted the edge of ethical but not so badly they deserved this current hassle.

Micah checked RimSoft’s stock price three times a day—at eight in the morning, noon, and at the market close. He told himself it was just a game, that it didn’t matter if he was up or down, and at first it had been true.

When RimSoft first went public, he checked twice a week—once on Tuesdays and at the close on Friday. But after the stock streaked heavenward faster than a bottle rocket—and his net worth went along for the ride—he started checking daily.

It became an obsession.

Micah punched up the stock on his computer.
What?

He felt the blood drain from his face. He shook his head, as if he’d just woken from a dream. Or a nightmare. He slammed a button on his phone.

“Yes?”

“What is going on with the stock, Roger!”

“Hi, Micah. I heard you’re back for a few—”

“What in the name of all that is holy is going on with my stock!” Micah stood and paced behind his desk but didn’t take his eyes off the speakerphone.

“I’m not sure what you mean. We’re up a full point over last week and the volume’s been good. And long-term options on the stock indicate a—”

“Up a point from where? Thursday afternoon we closed at 83¼ and this morning we’re at 62¾? Did someone not tell me about a three-for-one split?”

Roger sighed on the other end of the line.

“Do I get an answer?”

“I don’t know what you’re after here, but—”

“What am I after?” Micah snatched the phone out of its cradle and growled into the phone. “I want to know why my net worth just dropped by almost fifteen million dollars! I want to know how it’s possible for the stock to drop 20 points between Thursday at 1:30 p.m. and Friday at 11:45 a.m. I want answers from my CFO on why millions of dollars have just covered themselves with magical invisibility powder and—
poof!
—disappeared!”

“I’m going to act for a moment like you’re serious.”

“
O . . . kay . . .
” Micah drew the word out as his knuckles turned white from his grip on the phone. “Humor me.”

“The stock has never traded for more than 74¼. Ever. Heck, we’re only off our three-year high by five points. And it looks—”

Micah hung up and clicked his mouse. A graph popped up on his screen showing him RimSoft’s three-year high was 72⅜; the low was 14.

He grabbed his temples and pressed hard. He tried taking three deep breaths but didn’t succeed. He buzzed Shannon. “I need the hard copies of our monthly statements on the stock price for the past six months. I’d appreciate if you could do it quickly.”

“They’re all in the compu—”

“The hard copies, Shannon. Right now!” He slammed the phone into its cradle. Fifteen million dollars. Gone.

Something smacked onto Micah’s desk thirty seconds later. By the time he looked up, Shannon had turned and was walking back to her desk without comment.

He dug through the reports knowing what he’d find. But he ripped through them anyway and finished by sweeping the pile off the edge of his desk. Terror hammered at his mind as they fluttered to the floor.

Micah picked up the phone. It slipped from his fingers and rattled on his desk. He picked it up again and hit six on his speed dial.

“Hello to you. Rick’s Gas & Garage.”

“Devin, it’s Micah. I have to talk to Rick.”

“Hey, Micah, good to hear from ya. What’s going on? How are—?”

“I gotta talk to him
now,
Devin!”

“Oh, sorry, he ran up to Seaside to pick up parts we need right away, you know, so, well, you’re gonna have to wait or talk to me, I guess.”

“Have him call me on my cell the instant he gets back, okay?”

“Sure.”

Micah rubbed his hands back and forth on his thighs as he stared at the ticker symbols that streamed across the bottom of his computer screen. Normal volume. Nothing unusual about the Dow or the S&P. RimSoft’s stock was steady, riding little waves up and down.

Micah pulled two Wall Street analysts’ predictions for the stock. All said RimSoft’s stock was a good bet even though it traded near its all-time high. Nothing indicated it ever traded as high as 83.

What was happening? He begged God to talk to him.

A bead of sweat meandered down his right temple. He wiped it away and stared at the moisture on his fingertips. After the third trickle of perspiration, he tried Rick again to no avail.

Micah grabbed his coat and walked out the door. “Shannon, I gotta go. I’m going back down to the beach.”

“You’re leaving? You just got here. What about this afternoon’s meetings?”

He was four steps toward the elevator when her question registered in his fog-filled mind. “What?” He turned and took a half step to the side to keep from stumbling.

“Are you okay, Micah?”

He swallowed and resisted the panic that pressed in. “No. I mean, yes, I’m fine.”

She pursed her lips as though she were about to whistle and squinted at him.

“I’m okay, really. I’ll be back up in a week, and we’ll do the meetings then. I’ll give you a buzz Monday. I just need to deal with something right now.” There had to be a reason for the stock drop. He would find it.

“The answer to your panic is at the beach?”

“It was after I read something down there that things got weird.”

Shannon frowned. “What’s been getting weird?”

“I’ll talk to you Monday.” He jogged toward the elevator, then reached for the button. He didn’t push it. Instead he walked back to Shannon. “Sorry for yelling when I asked for the stock reports. I’m . . . it’s just that . . .” Micah stopped his gaze from flitting around her desk and settled on her. “No excuses. I was a jerk. And I’m really, really sorry.”

He walked out of his building and looked to the left, then the right. Where should he go? Who could he talk to? Julie? No way. Not with the current tension between them. Besides, what if her response was the same as Roger’s? She’d accuse the beach of sucking away his sanity and want to get the board involved.

Talk to his dad? Uh, yeah, right. His dad would be convinced Archie’s house was making him dance on the tightrope of psychosis, and since he might be right, Micah didn’t want to hand his father additional ammo to knock him off the wire.

Other friends came to mind, but there were none he could truly open up to. How could he tell his basketball buddies he just lost more than fifteen million dollars with no tangible evidence to back it up?

He fired up his car and screeched out of RimSoft’s parking lot. As his BMW eased onto I-5, he reflected on how depressing it was that the only person he trusted was a man he’d met just eight weeks earlier.

When a person’s on top of the world, he doesn’t need anyone. But now Micah was sliding down the mountain and running out of rope.

Rick’s number lit up the caller ID on Micah’s cell phone just before he reached Longview. He threw his Bluetooth over his ear. “Finally! We gotta talk.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m heading down I-5 back to Cannon Beach and down the path of lunacy at the same time. Wishing I wasn’t taking the trip solo,” Micah said.

“Tell me.”

“When I checked our stock price yesterday, it was 83¼. This morning it’s at 62¾. And everyone at RimSoft thinks that’s perfectly normal.”

“No chance you’re wrong about yesterday?”

“No way.” Micah pulled into the left lane and kicked his BMW up to seventy-five.

“Hard copies?”

“They changed.”

“Changed? How could they change?”

“Exactly. I have no clue.” Micah veered right to pass a sluggish RV hogging the left-hand lane. “But I
know
the stock was in the low 80s yesterday and today it isn’t. I’ve lost almost fifteen million dollars in less than twenty-four hours.”

“That’s some serious coin.”

Something in Rick’s tone caught Micah’s ear. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?”

Rick stayed silent so Micah asked again.

Silence.

“C’mon, Rick! If you know something, talk to me. What is going on? I’m not crazy. But this isn’t the first—” Micah paused and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“The first what?”

“Weird things have been happening, quirky things.”

“Like?”

“Like my car gaining an instant sixteen thousand miles, which you say we’ll talk about someday. Like a couple months back my racquetball partner completely forgets a match we played—claims it never happened. Like calling a guy I met at a party to talk business and he forgets meeting me. We talked for fifteen minutes at that party. I’m not that forgettable.”

“No, you’re not.” Rick chuckled.

“Two different guys forgetting being with me is odd. My car gaining mystery miles is bizarre. But seeing my company’s stock drop twenty points in one day and no one knows it but me is not odd. It’s
The Twilight Zone
and
The X-Files
in a double pack, up front in living color.”

“Here’s what I know for certain,” Rick said. “God is sovereign. That’s an intellectual way of saying He’s in control and knows what He’s doing.”

“Not the answer I’m looking for.”

“I know. You’re used to having complete control and all the answers to your life in an instant. This time the answers will flit just beyond your fingertips. It will take time to catch them.”

“That’s it? I need more than that, Rick.”

“One more thing that’s pretty obvious. The Lord is a better choice to talk to than me.”

“Yeah.”

Their talk helped. Not near enough, but enough. The rest of the drive he alternated between trying to pray and keeping a lid on his imagination. On one hand he believed God was in control. On another, if his net worth changed that quickly, what else could be turned on its side over a weekend? And would God be the cause of it, or just allow it?

He had to get control of this. Had to keep eyes of an eagle on that stock. The coming week would be a monotonous marathon of tension.