The Chair (14 page)

An ocean of questions was forming and Corin was drowning in them. He needed someone with skills to navigate the uncharted waters he now swam. He needed a boat.

But where could he find one?

A name popped into his mind.

Yes. Why hadn’t he thought of Travis days ago?

He trudged back up the basement stairs, across the living room to his laptop. After three minutes he hit Send, slinging off an e-mail to Travis. If anyone could provide a few answers it would be him. Not religious speculation but rock-hard, scientific answers.

Which meant tomorrow he would reluctantly do a bit of necessary surgery on the chair.

PASTOR MARK JEFFERIES jammed his finger into his cell phone’s End button. He didn’t like hanging up on people, but when they pushed the right buttons his reaction was automatic. And having women in his church challenge his authority was the hottest button in his brain.

He stood and paced in front of his corner windows, gazing out on the trees littered with gold and red leaves about to fall and clutter the street with their failure to stay on the tree.

A few minutes later he picked up the phone and hit redial.

“Hello?”

Mark clenched the phone. “Eric, it’s Mark again. Listen, I lost my temper. It shouldn’t have happened.” He sucked in a quick breath. “But you need to keep your wife in line. It isn’t her place to challenge me.” Mark paused. “Or any man in the church.”

“All she was doing was expressing her opinion. She wasn’t saying you were wrong, just saying how she felt.”

“That’s fine. Everyone is entitled to his or her feelings. But it has to be done in the right context. And a woman expressing her feelings to the senior pastor of the church during a small-group gathering with almost seventy people in attendance is not the place or the time. Are we clear on that?”

The phone went silent.

“Are we clear on that, Eric?”

“Listen, Mark. You’re a man of God and you’ve helped both of us a tremendous amount, but we’re done. Best to you.”

Mark rubbed his forehead and with his other hand mashed his Bluetooth deeper into his left ear. “You’re leaving the church? Over this?”

“A lot of things, but this straw probably weighs the most.”

“What other things?”

“Good-bye, Mark. Thanks for all you’ve done.”

Click.

Mark waited a moment, then yanked his Bluetooth out of his ear. People leaving the church: his second hottest button. He should have kicked them out before they could quit.

He lurched back his windows, clenched his arms across his chest, and seethed, staring at nothing.

A knock on his door broke him out of his daze. “What!”

The door opened a few inches and Ben poked his head into Mark’s office. Mark motioned him in with his head.

“Bad time?”

“No. Perfect.” Mark didn’t speak again for over a minute. “You know, Ben. I hate it when I’m the quintessential example of Balaam’s donkey.”

“You’ve been prophesying?”

“No, I was referring to the species as representative of my behavior.”

“Excuse me? I’m still not tracking.”

“Forget it. Sit. Just in a bad mood today, which makes me do things I regret soon after. Happens to everyone, right?”

“Everyone.”

“Coffee?” Mark motioned toward his espresso maker, which sat on the counter that lined the wall to his left.

“No, thank you.”

Mark strolled toward the counter and stuck his half full vanilla latte in the microwave next to the coffee machine and punched in forty-five seconds. “Talk to me. What did you find out about this antiques store owner?”

“He’s not stupid.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s not begging for our assistance.”

“Pity.” Mark paced in front of the microwave. “Is he a Christian?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Does he believe in God?”

“I don’t know.”

“We need to know.” Mark drilled Ben with his eyes. “You should have asked.”

“I’ll find out.” Ben shuffled his feet. “Sorry.”

The microwave dinged and Mark marched back to snag his drink. “Does he know what he has?”

“If he does he’s not letting on.”

“Do you think the chair is genuine?” Mark settled back in his leather chair and took a sip of his coffee.

“You mean do I think the chair sitting in an antiques store eight hundred miles away is the one you’ve been searching for most of your adult life?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. He didn’t let me see it.”

Mark downed another slug of his coffee and wiped his mouth. “I want you to keep a watch on this guy. You know what I mean, right?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Corin Roscoe.”

“I want to know where Corin goes, who he hangs out with, who he talks to, everything. Understand?”

“It’s done.” Ben cocked his head. “Do you mind me asking what you’re going to do with his chair if it does turn out to be the one?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Yes, you did.” Mark took another drink of his coffee. “But it’s okay. I admire your ambition. I’d want to know the same thing if I were in your shoes. Well done.”

Mark opened the top right-hand drawer of his desk, pulled out a full-sized notepad, and began jotting down what he’d learned from Ben. After few moments he glanced up at Ben. “Yes? Is there something else?”

“No, I, uh.” Ben shifted his notebook from one hand to the other. “I thought you were going to tell me why the chair was so important to you.”

“You thought incorrectly.” Mark leaned back in his chair and glared at him.

Ben narrowed his eyes. “If you want me to help you with this little side project, don’t you think I should know a mite more than you’re telling me?”

“Excellent. Well done, well done.” Mark stood and clapped. “That is assertion and courage in the face of opposition. The kingdom of heaven is violent and violent men take it by force.”

“Thank you.” Ben gave Mark a thin-lipped smile. “So are you going to tell me?”

Part of him longed to tell someone. About the darkness inside that stabbed at him with daggers made from anger and ego that melted into mist when he tried to destroy them. The longing that welled up in him to know he was truly forgiven for his sins and accepted no matter what. The craving to be the man he pretended to be. About the hope of what the chair could do.

But he couldn’t tell this kid. He couldn’t tell anyone.

As soon as Ben left, Mark spun in his chair and slid back a bookcase behind which sat a safe. He spun the combination and opened the door a crack, spun to make sure the door shut completely behind Ben, then opened the safe door the rest of the way.

He pulled out a notebook and flipped toward the middle and turned pages back and forth till he found the page he wanted. If the true chair had surfaced, then the lady had to be close by.

He needed to meet her.

And he needed to meet Corin Roscoe and use considerable powers of persuasion to get the guy to give him the chair. After a few minutes of contemplation, Mark smiled. He knew the perfect instrument of influence to use on Corin.

T
he next morning before heading to the store, Corin descended into his basement and twirled the combination padlock on the door at the back of the room, his hands shaking. Why? Because of what he was about to do? Or because he felt like he was sliding into quicksand and this would only speed up his descent?

The door squealed open and he stood at the entrance and stared at the chair.

Move.
He needed to do this. It was one of the best ways to know if he was dealing with a legend come to life or a hoax out of this Nicole woman’s fertile imagination.

He strode up to the chair and circled it counterclockwise, hands on his hips. “I somewhat loathe to do this, but I have to find out more about you. Starting with your age.”

He stopped, turned, and continued circling, now clockwise. “Which means I’ll need to take a small sample to send to the lab. A friend of mine will discover myriad facts about you through the process. I hope you can understand.”

What was wrong with him? He was talking to the chair like it was alive, like it was a golden retriever he was about to do a biopsy on. It was a hunk of wood. Maybe old. Maybe beautiful. But probably nothing more than finely turned pieces of wood from centuries ago.

Or maybe only decades ago.

Or maybe it was the greatest archaeological find of the century.

He stopped walking, pulled a small blade from his pocket, and knelt in front of the chair. As he touched the inner left leg—where taking a sample from would be the most hidden—the air in the room seemed to grow warm, then back to its normal temperature a moment later.

Mind games. He wouldn’t let his brain start playing tricks on him again.

With wood this old he needed to be careful. If the blade bit too deep, he’d end up taking off more than he wanted to. Corin ran his finger over the section he was about to cut into.

The wood was hard; he’d have to apply more than the usual pressure to remove a piece.

He pressed the edge of his knife into the tip of his left forefinger. Sharp. Should he sharpen it more just to make sure? No. It was an excuse to keep him from marring the chair. But he didn’t really have a choice.

He set the blade into the wood at a twenty-degree angle. All he needed was a sliver. To his amazement the blade slipped under the surface of the wood like he was carving on a cube of butter. No resistance. After a quarter of an inch, he pulled up on the blade and watched a thin slice tumble into his palm.

He stared at the spot on the chair where he’d taken the sample and pressed the edge of his blade gently into the cut. It was rigid. He pressed harder. Where before the wood had been softer than Play-Doh, now it was like pressing into stainless steel.

Corin fell back on his heels and focused on the chair.

Weird was getting weirder.

Was there a faint glow around it now, or was the light playing tricks? He got to his feet and shut off the lights to see if the glow remained.

Nothing. Complete darkness.

He pulled a glass vial from his pocket, slid the sliver in and capped it. After shutting and padlocking the door, climbing the stairs, and locking the door to the basement with a keyed dead bolt, he poured himself his eighth cup of black coffee and picked up his cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Travis, it’s Corin. Did you get my e-mail last night?”

“I got it.”

“I just took a sample. Can I drop it off this afternoon even though it’s Sunday?”

“Of course.”

Corin stared at the door to his basement. He eased over to it and checked the dead bolt again. Still locked. He laughed at himself, wandered back past his espresso maker, and grabbed his car keys off the kitchen table. “How soon can you have the results back?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?” Corin shut his front door and strode toward his car.

“Do you want the full workup or just its age?”

“For now just how old.” Corin fired up his truck and started down the road in front of his house toward I-25.

“You think you have a fake antique on your hands?”

“Something like that.”

“What year is it supposedly from?”

“Can’t tell you yet.”

“Me?” Travis laughed. “You can’t or you won’t?”

“Both.”

“Now I’m really curious.”

“I will, just not yet.” Corin veered to the left on Mesa Road to pass a slow-moving yellow Slug Bug.

“At least tell me what the piece is from.”

Corin paused. He’d known Travis for six years. They weren’t friends, but he’d easily have a beer with the guy if they bumped into each other on the street. And he was trustworthy.

“It’s from a chair someone gave me the other day. Probably Middle Eastern. If I’m right, it’s old. Very old. And it has me curious enough to want to get some details about it.”

“Disappointing. I was hoping it was something from King Arthur’s armor.”

“Now that would be worth keeping secret.” Corin pulled up to a stoplight and glanced at the wannabe cowboy in the Nissan truck next to him. Had the guy just been looking at him? Corin put on his sunglasses.

“You’re bringing it in now?”

“I have a few stops first, so I should be there in about an hour.”

Ten minutes later he pulled into Hardline Hardware to pick up a few home-surveillance cameras for the store and for his house. He’d been meaning to do it for a while, and now that Ben Raney and Nicole had heightened his senses regarding people potentially after the chair, it was time to get cameras installed.

Corin shut off his engine but didn’t get out of his Toyota Highlander. Six rows over sat the same truck he’d been next to at the stoplight. A few seconds later the cowboy got out of the truck and ambled toward the hardware store. He didn’t glance at Corin, but Corin couldn’t shake the feeling the cowboy purposely didn’t look his direction.

As Corin drove away to drop off the sliver of wood with Travis, he tried to relax.

Whew. He needed to get a handle on his emotions. When had the seeds of suspicion grown into a fully grown redwood of paranoia?