The Tracker

by Chad Zunker

  She scrunched up her face. “Incapable of saying it? Or incapable of loving someone?”

  “Both.”

  “I believe love is defined in actions, not words. Your actions already say you love me.”

  “Then why do I need to say it?”

  She did not like this reply. “A girl likes to hear it, Sam. A girl needs to hear it eventually.”

  A waiter delivered our food and spared me from the sword in that moment. I understood what Natalie meant. I had obviously thought about little else the past week, since she’d first said it to me. I felt caught in some type of emotional trap. Things had been going so well between us. Almost too well. It really scared me. Natalie had become a part of me somehow on the inside. Like no one ever had before. After almost seven months together, I didn’t feel like I even knew myself or my life without her anymore.

  I was more than scared. I was frightened out of my mind.

  The truth was that I’d grown to love her more than anything in life. More than I thought possible. I’d never let someone inside the walls like I had with Natalie. She had pulled the layers back so masterfully, like a heart surgeon, poking, prodding, and healing. Add the role she’d played with my new relationship with my mother, and it all felt a bit overwhelming at the moment. I’d been having a hard time sleeping the past week. The voices in my head were getting louder and angrier. I’d started to become so afraid of losing her that I’d been having nightmares about it, waking up in cold sweats at night. I’d learned early on in life that if you don’t want to be hurt by someone leaving, you become proactive —you leave first before they ever get the chance to leave you. It was like hitting first in a school yard fight. It’s just the smart thing to do. Get the first lick in before the other person ever gets the chance to shatter your nose. Or your heart.

  That had been the pattern of my life up to this point. The way of survival. I was battling those emotions now. I didn’t know what to do with them. Unable to fully commit, but unwilling to walk away. It was true that I could not imagine my life without Natalie. But over the past week, since she’d openly expressed her love to me, I had become even more afraid of the pain I’d experience when she finally walked away from me. I was certain she would eventually walk away when she finally got so far inside that she knew the real me. Not the image that I still managed to portray, but the real Sam Callahan. The scared, broken and angry kid who was still hiding behind it all. She was way too good for that guy. I knew it, she knew it, everyone knew it. She wouldn’t stay.

  Everyone always leaves. Always.

  Natalie finally broke the awkward silence. “Look, Sam, I’m not going to force you to say it. Good grief, I have my pride. I just don’t get it. We’ve been together long enough. I mean, honestly, I could have told you that I was in love with you after just two months together, but I didn’t. I held back. I wanted to wait on you. I just wonder how long you’re going to make me wait.”

  “I don’t know, Natalie.”

  She did not like this answer either. Neither did I, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I didn’t have another answer. It was the truth. I couldn’t joke or charm my way out of this tonight. I saw tears begin to form in the back of her eyes, but she quickly pushed them away. She was much too tough for that.

  “Then I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she said. “I’m not in this to get hurt.”

  I began to panic. She was hitting the eject button. The wall was going up.

  “I’m not trying to hurt you, I promise.”

  “But you are, Sam. Whether you want to or not.”

  More awkward silence filled the air. She was having a hard time holding the tears at bay. I could feel them in my own eyes. She folded her napkin, stood suddenly. She was bailing. Making a run for it. And I couldn’t blame her.

  “I’m going to go,” she said. “I need to go.”

  “Natalie, wait.”

  “I have been waiting. Very patiently.”

  “Wait a little longer.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. It’s too hard. I think it’s best if we spend some time apart. Until you figure out what you really want. Because I can’t keep going deeper and deeper into this with you if you’re not willing to come along with me.”

  I reached for her, but she pulled her hand away, headed for the door.

  I turned, wanted to rush after her, but I just sat there.

  She was right. I had to figure this out soon or it was over.

  Pastor Isaiah was in town a few days later for a pastors’ conference.

  It was perfect timing. I desperately needed wise counsel.

  We met at a local basketball park near his hotel to shoot some hoops. Although we spoke on the phone every few weeks and emailed often, I had not seen him in more than a year. We only saw each other when he came to DC on church business, which he fortunately did at least once a year. He gave me the biggest bear hug when I walked up to the basketball court. Pastor Isaiah looked as fit as ever, like he could be a point guard for the Wizards. We used to play hoops four or five times a week at the church court when I lived with him back in Denver. They were great battles, where we traded off victories and talked about life in between games.

  I missed those days. I missed him.

  “Good to see you, Sam.”

  “You too. How was the flight?”

  “Just fine, thanks.”

  “How long are you in town?”

  “Only two days. Conference is over on Thursday, then back home to Alisha and the kids.”

  “How are they?”

  He pulled his phone out of his gym shorts pocket, showed me some pictures of the twins and Grace. They were all growing up so fast. Grace was already in the second grade. I couldn’t believe it. And the two boys, who were already three, looked just like their daddy.

  “Kevin is clearly the athlete,” Pastor Isaiah said. “Myles has already taken to the piano. He has an ear for music. I can see him leading worship at Zion one day. He loves the stage.”

  “Just like his daddy.”

  We shared a laugh.

  “They miss seeing their Uncle Sam,” Isaiah added.

  “I miss them, too.”

  Pastor Isaiah nodded. “How is your mom doing, Sam?”

  “She’s doing okay. Some days are worse than others.”

  “I’d like to go see her with you while I’m here, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. She’d love to see you.”

  Pastor Isaiah kicked the basketball up with the toe of his sneaker. “Okay, enough talk. Let’s play ball.”

  We played one-on-one, like usual, and Pastor Isaiah ran circles around me. He was like the Energizer Bunny, so full of energy and bounce. It seemed like every shot he took split the rim and landed in the chain-link net, whether inside or beyond the three point line. I was dragging like I had a load of bricks in my shorts. We played to twenty-one, like we always did, and he clobbered me 21-7. We took a quick break and drank some Gatorade I had brought with me. I sat on a metal bench while Pastor Isaiah stretched out his hamstrings.

  “What’s the deal?” he asked me. “I’m used to kicking your butt, but that was just embarrassing. You okay?”

  “I guess I’m a little distracted.”

  “By what? My biceps?” He flexed his right arm and smiled.

  I forced a smile but looked at the ground and didn’t say anything.

  He stopped smiling. “Uh oh. What? Is it Natalie?”

  The look on my face gave away my answer. Pastor Isaiah sat next to me.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I blew it.”

  “Tell me.”

  I explained to him what all had transpired in the past ten days, including our devastating dinner a few nights ago where Natalie had walked out. I had not spoken with her since. There had been nothing but sleepless nights as the demons inside of me choked my ability to work myself out of this mess on my own.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I finishe
d. “I feel stuck, lost. Hopeless.”

  He put a strong hand on my shoulder. “That’s because you can’t heal yourself, Sam. You have to let God do that.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” I replied, annoyed. “I wish he would stop taking his sweet time. Because it’s like I have all of these sinister voices in my head telling me, ‘Run, Sam, Run. Save yourself.’ I can’t even think clearly. They’re just yelling at me all the time right now.”

  “These voices have faces?”

  I nodded. They did. Faces that I still hated.

  “Abusive foster parents?” he asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Pastor Isaiah exhaled slowly. “You love her, Sam?”

  “Of course I do. Madly.”

  “Then maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. A little time apart can be a good thing. Before you’re farther down the road. Alisha and I went through six months of counseling before Pastor Gregory would marry us. He saw the signs in me. He, of course, knew about my past, the abuse, the demons, and he recognized that I still had my own abandonment issues that needed to be fully addressed before I could commit to marriage. You need to let God deal with these voices inside you, Sam. I’ll help however I can. You’re not a lost cause, I promise. But it could take some time. Natalie deserves that, don’t you think?”

  “What if I lose her?”

  “Then you never really had her.”

  I didn’t call, text, or email for a month, and neither did she. It was painful.

  But I had a thick chain of fear around my neck that I couldn’t pry off. Every time I reached for the phone and pulled up her number, I just froze. I couldn’t press CALL. I couldn’t hit SEND. I couldn’t do a damn thing but sit there like I was stuck in quicksand, slowly dying. Unable to rescue myself from this hole in the ground. I was so afraid of openly loving her back. I was trying to deal with it, following Pastor Isaiah’s counsel. I’d even started meeting with one of his mentors in DC once a week. A good man of sixty who had counseled a lot of abandoned kids who had become dysfunctional adults over the years. It was going to take time to extinguish the wicked voices in my mind.

  Time felt like the enemy right now.

  Natalie broke our communication stalemate and texted me twenty-seven days later. It was the most simple of messages, but it hit me with the weight of an earthquake and shook me to the core.

  Goodbye, Sam.

  I already had tears in my eyes when I knocked on her apartment door. I pounded the wood repeatedly with a fist. I didn’t know if she would answer.

  I pounded the door again. “Please, Natalie, answer the door.”

  She finally did. Just cracked it open. I could tell that she’d been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red. But she was not crying at the moment. There was a defined resolve there. Natalie was so much braver and tougher than me. She deserved better than me.

  “Why are you here, Sam?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I had to see you.”

  “I meant what I said. It’s over. I’m strong, but I’m not strong enough to sit around and not hear anything from you for a month. That’s just cruel.”

  “I’m sorry, Natalie. I’ve been trying to sort this out.”

  She opened the door more fully, stepped into the doorway close to me. She had her white robe on over pajamas. It was eleven-thirty at night. She put her right hand on my face, caressed my cheek with her soft fingers. Then she leaned in and we kissed. It was deep and full of such raw emotion. She pulled away.

  “I love you, Sam. But I can’t help you figure it out anymore.”

  “Natalie…wait.”

  “Please don’t come back here again.”

  Then she turned and shut the door behind her. I heard the lock turn with a final click.

  TWENTY

  Sunday, 12:16 p.m.

  Washington, DC

  1 day, 11 hours, 44 minutes to Election Day

  Natalie lived on the third floor of a red brownstone near Dupont Circle, a building tucked in with a cluster of others of various vibrant colors, like a box of crayons. There was some parking in the back, in the alley. I was glad to see her silver Jeep Cherokee with the faded St. Louis Cardinals sticker sitting under the metal carport cover in her designated spot. She had not had a change of heart and skipped out on me. I walked up the cracked concrete steps to the back door of her building, typed a code I once used often into the security keypad beside the door. The door lock clicked open. I was inside. Each floor of the brownstone had its own separate apartment. I took the stairs up three flights to the top apartment, which belonged to Natalie. A hundred vivid memories suddenly flooded my mind as I stood outside that familiar door. The last time I was here, she had embraced me with passion, and then asked me to never come back.

  The pain in my stomach had grown to the size of Alaska. Where was my damn time machine? I wanted to go back and push DECLINE on that phone call from Josh, inviting me into this ordeal, and I wanted one more chance with Natalie.

  I swallowed, knocked twice. She cracked open the door. Finding me, she led me inside. She had cleaned herself up, showered, her hair still a little wet, and changed into a pair of snug jeans and a gray Missouri Tigers hoodie. She was barefoot, as she always was inside her apartment. Her toenails were bright red. I experienced a rush of familiar smells. Hazelnut coffee brewing. Her perfume lingering. Natalie had a gorgeous apartment. A simple one-bedroom with a separate living room, small kitchen, full bath, but unlike my despicable bachelor pad, she had it decorated in warm colors — browns, reds, yellows, had candles everywhere, rugs that matched, actual artwork on walls, and everything tied nicely together. There used to be a framed photo of the two of us at a Cardinals game on the entry table. It was no longer there.

  She sat in a maroon chair next to the sofa. She had a large mug of coffee in front of her. I put my backpack down, sat on the sofa, with my elbows on my knees, feeling awkward. I’d wished for months to be in this position, back in her apartment, begging for forgiveness and another chance, and now I was finally sitting here again. At the moment, staring at Natalie, seeing how her brown hair curled up around her shoulders, watching her pick at her cuticles nervously; I felt the trade-off to get back here was almost worth it.

  “Are you sure about this, Natalie?” I said, breaking the ice. “It’s risky, me being here.”

  “I can take care of myself, Sam.”

  “Yes, I know. Did you tell anyone else I was going to be here?”

  She gave me a familiar look, one I saw almost daily when we dated, her head tilted to the right, her eyes narrow, her lips pursed. I called it the “don’t be a dumbass” look.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not in my right mind. I’ve been living a nightmare the past two days.”

  “Tell me everything.”

  I told her the whole story and left out no details.

  Somewhere in the middle of it all, Natalie had switched into journalist mode and grabbed a notepad, and she started scribbling down notes.

  “I’ve seen four dead bodies in the past thirty-six hours, Natalie.”

  She bit her bottom lip, shook her head.

  “You called me back the other night,” I mentioned. “Right when the guy was coming after me in my motel room. Why?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I woke up, saw a missed call from you. And I just had this really weird feeling that something was wrong.”

  We always had that type of connection. “I don’t know what to do,” I said, moving on. “Where do I go from here? How do I find my mom?"

  “You think that this gray-bearded man has your mom?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know where or why. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Yeah, if this man wanted you, he could have had you in Austin. And he could have taken your mom yesterday when he visited her.”

  “Exactly.”

  “She’s alive, Sam. You have to believe that. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “I
keep repeating that in my mind over and over again.”

  “We will find her.”

  I liked that Natalie was using “we” and was already in it with me.

  She stood, started to pace the small living room, while processing. “We need the video, Sam. That’s your ultimate protection in this thing.”

  I exhaled. “I know. There’s probably some kid out there in Boerne who found my phone and has no idea what he has on it.”

  “But the video still exists. Rick sent it somewhere.”

  “Right. But not to our group server. He uploaded it somewhere else. Tommy is trying to find it, but he says it’s a needle in a haystack.”

  “Rick lived here in DC?”

  “Yes. He has an apartment here. He was living out of a hotel room in Austin for the campaign.”

  “Wife? Family?”

  “No wife. He wasn’t married. I don’t really know much about him. We didn’t spend that much time together. I think his mom lives in Canada. I believe he has a sister in California. Or Oregon. That’s about all I know, really.”

  “I’ll look into it. And I’ll check on your mom. Maybe there is security video.”

  “You have to be careful, Natalie. I’ve only told three people anything about this. Rick and Ted were dead within hours. Now my mother is missing.”

  “Sam, this is what I do for a living. Let it go.”

  “Okay, I know, which is why I came to you, but I’d rather catch a bullet to the head than have something happen to you, too.”

  “I’ll be fine. Focus. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You bring the wallet belonging to this Carson guy with you?”

  “Yes, in my backpack.”

  “I want to see it. Tell me more about the other one, the security guy for Congressman Mitchell. Don’t leave out anything.”

  I told her everything I could think of about him, including the fact that I hadn’t been able to find him in any other video or pictures when searching the Internet, which wasn’t surprising considering security guys are trained to stay in the shadows. However, I was certain he was standing there directly behind Mitchell for that news conference. Natalie scribbled away. I walked to the kitchen, filled up a mug of coffee, stared out the window. The rain was coming down harder now. Natalie was already on the phone, making some initial calls. I pulled out my tablet, logged in to Leia’s Lounge to see if Tommy had anything new for me. I perked up. He had left a message for me to ping him. I did. Tommy was online twenty seconds later.