Shaking Off the Dust (23 page)

Enrique was quiet and solemn. He had been since he came in that morning. I wondered what he did.

Something in his careful eyes made me think he was the man in charge and I convinced myself I was on to something. I gave him a kiss on the cheek, because I shared his secret. Obviously, I was delusional.

They left and oddly enough I’d grown fond of them. I looked around the hotel room at the three and made a decision.

“We should move to another location. Someplace that newspaper people don’t know about. Takeshi and I need to be in a separate hotel and not bunking with FBI agents.” I waited for someone to refute my statement, but no one spoke.

“They are going to snoop around. They’re already watching everyone involved in this investigation and if Mateo, Hector and Enrique return tomorrow, it will be a feeding frenzy.” I paced in front of the couch.

“Please tell me I’m wrong.”

Bill put the braid in his pocket. “Let me make some phone calls. Pack your bags while I figure out where we go next.”

Takeshi and I went to our bedroom to pack. I got as far as the bed and collapsed in the pillows.

Takeshi came to sit next to me. “It’s been an exhausting day.” His hand captured mine, splaying my fingers, putting his between mine. He lay back so that our heads were touching. “I’ll be glad to get somewhere other than this hotel. Then we can eat dinner and rest for a while, but tonight we must meet with Bill and Bethann.” He stood, bent over and kissed my forehead.

Takeshi came back about fifteen minutes later with a plate of crackers and two cups of soup. He also had Bethann’s braid of hair. “I told Bill about Sharon and what we were trying to do. He let me take

this.”

As he sat down, he pulled out his wallet and brought out two long golden hairs that were Sharon’s and handed them to me. I took them and the braid of Bethann’s hair at the same time.

I was prepared to call their names to bring them to me, but a woman with long dark hair and startling gray eyes sat in a chair across from the bed with Sharon in her lap. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

The famous picture of Madonna and child came to mind.

“Hello. Hannah, isn’t it?” the woman asked in a soft musical voice. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Bethann Kapin and you know Sharon.”

I nodded my head.

“Sharon and I have had a couple of days to get to know each other. We’ve been talking about things.

Perhaps Dr. Shimodo would wish to write them down, because Sharon has told me a very interesting story about what happened to her. Bill and his coworkers need to know. Sharon wishes to leave with me when the time comes.”

“Yes, that is what we hoped for her and you.”

I gestured to Takeshi, who watched me intently. “We need a tape recorder.”

He left the room in a bound.

“You’re lucky to have found each other.” She cradled Sharon in her arms.

“The baby is still with you?” I asked in a whisper.

“No. They are too young to use free will. She disappeared into the light.”

“You know we will tell Bill anything you want.”

“It’s strange. All this time I thought I couldn’t go into the light because of Bill. I had to make him forgive himself for being late that night. When you brought Sharon to me, I realized I was wrong. I’m still here for her. To make sure her story’s told and then we will walk into the light together.” Bethann hugged Sharon.

“But you see, she must make one last journey alone. She has to help the others, like her, who can still be reunited with their families. She understands this.”

I started to become afraid for Sharon. There was real terror in her eyes. Bethann stroked her hair. “No one can hurt her again, but it is frightening to go somewhere alone, even for few minutes.”

Takeshi came back into the room with Bill, who carried a small tape recorder. He turned it on as he moved to lean against the wall next to the closet. Takeshi sat on the bed, near me again, waiting.

Bethann put Sharon up on her lap so she faced me. “Sharon, now you must tell Miss Hannah everything.”

“My mommy left me home a lot,” she began and I repeated each sentence as she told it. “I always locked the door, but the last time she left it was for a very long time, so long that I ate all the crackers and peanut butter. All the cereal and milk and there was nothing left. So I knocked on Sherry’s door.

She’s my mommy’s friend. I asked her where my mommy was, but she didn’t know either. She gave me five whole dollars and told me to go to the store and buy more crackers and peanut butter.” Sharon stopped and peeked at Bethann for comfort. “I got lost though. I walked a long time, but I couldn’t find the store or my way back home. I sat on the bench on the street and I cried for a long time. A lady picked me up. She had to pick up some other kids at a shelter, and then she said she’d help me find my way back home. She had a big long car and she put me and four other girls in the back. But she didn’t take me home.

“Some of the girls were older. Molly’s ten and she said that the lady was very bad. She kicked the back of the car and screamed and told us to do the same. But the lady yelled if we screamed or kicked that she would not give us anything to eat. I was very hungry. She gave us pudding. When I woke up we were at a big house, somewhere I didn’t know. There were a lot of old people there and they said it was a church and we were their new members. That we must learn to be dicycles.”

“Disciples,” Bethann corrected gently.

“Yes, dicycles. They put us in a little room. I learned everybody’s name. Bethann told me that was a very good thing and very important. She said I should tell you everyone’s name.”

Bethann nodded her head and Sharon started naming names. “I have a very good rememory. My mommy said I was special.”

“Do you remember where you were, Sharon? Did they ever mention a town or city to you?” Bethann asked.

“I don’t think so. I would have remembered,” she said confidently.

“Sharon tell them what happened to you,” Bethann coaxed.

“They showed us how to be dicycles and made us go to different people’s rooms. There were six of us to a room. The man was mean, he yelled a lot. He would hit us if we didn’t do what he said. I tried to run away and he found me and hit me. Then there was a light and I could go to different places, but no one could see me or would talk to me.”

Bethann hugged her and kissed her forehead. “Now it’s time for you to check on your friends there.

And to listen in case they say where they are or the name of a town, state or the church.”

“You’ll be here when I come back?” Sharon wrapped Bethann’s long hair around one small fist until it covered her hand and rubbed it to her cheek in a gesture of agitation.

“Of course I’ll be here. I told you we are going into the light tomorrow. You and me together, it will be exciting. I would come with you if I could, Sharon, but this is for you to do for all the others they are keeping from their families. You want to help, yes?” Bethann helped her unwind her fist and kissed the palm. “I will be waiting, I promise.”

Sharon’s eyes got very big, but her face was determined. She disappeared in a blink.

I could not have made Sharon do what Bethann asked of her. “Shall I turn off the recorder? Would you like to talk to Bill now or are there things you’d like to talk about with me or Takeshi first?”

“I’d like to talk to Bill, I think,” she said. “Before Sharon comes back. I gave her a list of things to

accomplish.”

Takeshi left at a signal from me.

Bill stood quietly in front of the bed. I turned off the recorder.

“Leave it on,” Bill said. “I want to always have what she tells me.”

Bethann stood and came to Bill. She touched his cheek and sort of walked around, him, touching him as she moved. “I’ve loved you from the instant I met you in college.”

I repeated each word. I spoke in a whisper, trying to mimic the tone of her voice.

“I was happy that day, content with my world. I had everything a woman could want, a husband I adored with a baby on the way. I wasn’t paying attention on the stairs and tripped. There was no pain.

There was nothing. I watched myself lying there and then I looked down at my abdomen and the baby disappeared in a flash of light. Then a light appeared beside me. I knew I should walk into the light to leave this world, but I felt like I could not do that yet.”

Bill moved to the only chair in the room, sitting next to the small table. He put his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Bethann.”

“I sorrowed for you daily. Had you been there, it would not have made any difference, except perhaps you would have realized that. So I prayed that somehow I could tell you to let me go, to release you from your guilt, from your grief. Then I could join the light and you could give yourself back to this world. Find your purpose and happiness here.”

Bill looked up at me and I looked at Bethann. “What changed?”

“While you were ill, Hannah, I talked a long time with Tom. He told me about your accident and surgery then your ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Ask Bill what the date November tenth means to him.”

I asked him.

“It’s the day Bethann died, two years ago.” Bill said it as if I should know that.

“Now tell him what that date means to you,” Bethann said.

“It’s the day of my accident, it’s the day I died for a minute or two.” My words came out slowly as I tried to figure what this meant.

“I think in the same moment I fell down those stairs, Hannah died on an operating table and that set in motion this course of events. Hannah lived and was given the gift of being able to see those of us who could not enter the light. We still have purpose here. You see, I believe my love for you kept me from stepping beyond, so that I would be here for Sharon. We have all been brought together to complete our purpose.”

There was silence for several minutes. Bill looked at me and I shrugged. “It makes some strange kind of sense.”

“Sharon will return soon from the place I sent her, in the hopes of finding new information that will help us discover where all those children were taken. You will find those people who hurt Sharon.”

Bill opened his mouth and tried to form words.

“You don’t need to tell me anything. I’ve always known your heart. Tonight I’ll be with you then you need to let go forever.”

Bill’s cell phone went off and I jumped. Mumbling a curse, he looked down as if he wouldn’t answer it, but he did. For a moment he just listened, then put his hand over the receiver. “I’m sorry but I need to take this call. I have to get you moved into new housing tonight. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He walked out of the room.

Waiting patiently for Bill, Bethann sat there like she’d been doing it her entire life, and for the last two years she had.

The bedroom door opened and shut as Takeshi returned. Sitting next to me, he touched my face, which was wet from tears. I’d managed not to begin the sobbing that was trying to crawl out of my throat.

“He loves you. You know this,” Bethann said.

I didn’t say anything. Takeshi gathered me into his arms, smoothing my hair, wiping tears with his fingertips.

“Why won’t you let him love you, Hannah? Love him back. You should know better than most how fragile life is.”

“No one’s spoken those words,” I whispered.

She laughed. “The tattoo he wrote on your ankle, it says ‘my love’. He says it often to you, but in Japanese. He knows you’ve been burned by love and so he doesn’t say meaningless words to scare you off. He shows you nothing but his love. It’s your turn now.”

“I’m not like you. I want to, but it doesn’t come easy for me.”

“Tell him you love him.”

“I do. I just can’t say those words. They are too important, they can’t be taken back.”

Takeshi spoke in Japanese, his soothing words that he used when I was upset.

“He’s telling you he loves you, that he’ll always love you and be here holding you,” Bethann translated.

“Doesn’t he deserve to know that his love is returned?”

“Go to Bill now,” I said and she vanished.

I leaned into him, until my mouth was at his ear. “I do love you, so much it makes me catch my breath.

I’m afraid to love you so completely. I’m afraid to love anyone like this.”

He leaned back, searching my face, questioning. I tried to put everything I felt for him into my eyes.

He came in for a kiss, his mouth barely touching mine. “I love you, Hannah Campbell. I hoped you’d realize you loved me too.” Then he kissed me, long and sweet.

We were disturbed by a knock at the door. He lifted his face from mine and cursed in a low voice.

“We have to get moving soon and you need to know what the plan is. Come out as soon as you can,”

Jack yelled through the door.

“We are endlessly interrupted,” Takeshi growled. “We need to talk, to be together.” He pushed off the bed.

I laughed at him. I felt light, like a weight had lifted off my heart. I was going to pretend Bethann was right. I wondered if I’d turn into light. I was shining with what I felt for him.

We walked out a few minutes later. Sharon had returned and was with Bethann. I smiled at both of them.

“You told him. I’m glad, Hannah. Several things are going on. First off, Sharon needs to tell us what she discovered. Then, Bill arranged for a safe house in the city, we’ll all be going there.” Bethann winked at Sharon and me.

“Sharon needs to tell us what she found out,” I announced.

Bill nodded and pulled out the tape recorder.

“There are some new kids there, three girls and a boy. The boy is older, fourteen. His father is a real pastor at a church and he said that this is no church. They locked him in a small closet and he keeps yelling these things out. His name is Peter Linden and he’s from New Mexico and he really wants to go home.” Sharon’s face puckered up like she was mad too.

Like usual, I repeated each word she said. She’d learned to pause as she spoke.

“Mr. Aaron is there. He is the leader of all the churches and he’s visiting to give his blessing to his dicycles. He drove a big white van and I saw the license number. Miss Bethann said that was something you might really like to have. She told me that Bill likes that kind of information.”