“Thank you,” Chuck said. “Thanks for praying, too.” He unlocked his office and turned on the lights. Even the ink pens on his desk were untouched in the seven weeks he’d been gone. He turned on his computer and pulled a folder from his briefcase. He spread out the pages of handwritten notes, phone numbers, lists, hand-drawn maps and printouts from Internet searches.
Hours of work, with nothing to show for it, not a lead, not even a sighting. He picked up the top sheet and walked back out to Christine’s desk. “I don’t have a magic formula,” he said. “I’m assuming she’s still in St. Louis, she’s using her real name, and she has a job somewhere, so I’ve been calling every business in the phone book asking for her. I’m on K.” He handed the sheet to Christine. “Of course, if I’m wrong on any of those assumptions, I’m sunk.”
“Oh, Mr. Molinsky.”
“I know. It’s very tedious and discouraging. I’m open to better ideas.”
“No one has talked to her? She hasn’t contacted any of her friends?”
“There was a punk that helped her leave, and her cousin spoke to her the morning after she left. Those are the only contacts we know of.”
“You’ve talked to them, right?” Chuck nodded. Christine swiveled around to her computer and began typing. “What’s the punk’s name?”
“Dylan Snider, but he’s not going to help.”
“Maybe not directly,” Christine said quietly as she continued to type.
“What are you doing?”
“ZIP is a social site, like Facebook or MySpace. Kids have pages where they leave each other messages, pictures and so forth. It’s mostly silly stuff. However, you’d be amazed at how much information they’ll give up.”
“You spy on your girls?”
“It’s not spying,” Christine said with a smile. “I am an informed parent.” She stopped typing and frowned. “How do you spell his name? I can’t find him.”
“S-n-i-d-e-r.”
“Here we go.” Christine pointed to the screen as Dylan’s ZIP page popped up.
Chuck pulled out his glasses and leaned over Christine’s shoulder. “He’s a predator. . . . Everything’s about girls. . . . What’s that little thing with the number beside the girls’ names?”
“You probably don’t want to know,” Christine said.
“Scroll down the list,” Chuck said. “I want to see if . . . I mean, I hope she’s not.” Christine silently clicked down the page past Brittneys, Taylors, Morgans, Jessicas and Emilys. Until she found Shannon.
With Shannon’s name, however, there was a series of grainy photographs, just revealing enough to prove he hadn’t lied about his conquest. The caption under the picture read, “Oh yes, I did! Wes, you owe me $50.”
Chuck gripped the back of Christine’s chair to keep his legs from buckling under him. His daughter, his baby girl . . . And this little . . . using her . . . bragging to his friends . . .
“Mr. Molinsky, I never dreamed . . . I should have let you do this in private. I am so sorry.”
“He . . .” Angry tears blurred his vision, and he used his remaining strength to wipe his eyes. “He told me . . . I didn’t want to believe him.” With another deep breath, he thought he could take a few steps without stumbling. “I’ll be in my office,” he said.
Christine wanted to cry with him. He had worked so hard to make up for his infidelity and it never seemed to be enough. She watched him slump into his desk chair and bury his face in his hands. “Dear God,” she prayed quietly. “Can You give these people a break? Just this once?”
* * *
Bobbi walked through her empty house, unsure what to tackle first now that she was finally “allowed” to be home alone. “When in doubt, make more coffee,” she muttered to herself. She pulled a bag of Indonesian dry roast from her cabinet and brewed a single cup.
Holding the cup in her hands, she said a quick prayer for Chuck on his first day back at work. He hated to leave her, he said, and she had gotten very accustomed to him being there. More than once, she prodded him to go ahead and take his retirement. Things were undone, he said, and he couldn’t leave just yet.
Long-term limbo she could identify with. She had been following Glen’s recommendation, spending most of her days reading and studying, but answers, or even hints, had yet to materialize. Maybe God was checking to see how serious she was about finding an answer. Maybe there was no answer to be found.
No, she didn’t believe that. God was waiting again. Waiting for her. But why? She vented all her anger over Brad. She was going to church, reading, healing. “All right, Lord. It’s not anger. What is it?” She closed her eyes, sipped her coffee and then she knew. Shannon. God wanted her hopelessness, but He was asking her to face it and own it before He would take it.
Facing it wasn’t the problem. Hopelessness insinuated itself into every facet of her existence—her decisions, her emotions, her relationships all reflected that despondency. Untangling herself from it, impossible as it seemed now, was her only real option. And it had to begin in Shannon’s room.
She stood at the bottom of the stairs, wavering between taking that first step and waiting another day, when a slicing chill worked its way from her hands to her spine until it crept across her jawline. Take the first step, Bobbi. I’ll take the rest of them.
She blew out a deep breath, grasped the railing and pulled herself up to the first step, then the second, each one coming a little more easily until she reached the door to Shannon’s bedroom. She hadn’t crossed the threshold since that last Saturday in June.
She grasped the doorframe to steady herself and with a trembling hand, she turned the knob and pushed the door open. She stepped in carefully, surveying the room. Nothing had been moved since that Saturday morning. She opened Shannon’s closet and inhaled deeply. It was stale yet familiar, almost comforting, like coming home after a trip. Bobbi lightly touched each shirt, each pair of pants still hanging inside. Shannon left in the summer . . . did she have winter clothes? Was she warm enough?
Shannon was a smart girl. If she could pull off running away, then she was more than capable of getting a decent winter coat. Bobbi eased the closet door closed again and skimmed her hand across the desk as she passed. The note lay not far from its original spot. Bobbi spent every sleepless night visualizing that note. She passed her hand by without touching it.
The bed was uncharacteristically well made, and Bobbi smiled. She gave up the battle for a made bed years ago. “What’s the point?” Shannon said. “Nobody’s gonna see it but me!” But Shannon made the bed before she left. “Mom, I reject everything you’ve ever taught me, but I’ll submit to your authority on bed making before I go.”
Bobbi sat down on the bed and pulled the spread back. Taking Shannon’s pillow in her arms, she hugged it to herself. The scent of Shannon’s shampoo and her favorite perfume clung to the fabric as if she’d slept there just last night. “You know what it’s like to have a daughter who leaves home, don’t You?” Bobbi said to ceiling. “And I’ve been that daughter.” She squeezed the pillow once more, then she laid it back in its place and lovingly remade the bed.
She lingered in the doorway, giving God one last chance to say something, do something . . . anything. “Lord, here’s the thing. You knew where I was the whole time. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know if she’s okay. That’s what’s killing me. I don’t know.” Tears choked off her words.
But I do.
* * *
“You underestimate yourself, Bobbi. You’ll find your answers, and the rest of us will stand back and marvel how God brought you through one more time.” Rita winked and sipped her coffee.
“Just once, I’d like to be in the ‘marveling’ group,” Bobbi said. Just once.
Rita glanced at the kitchen clock. “I’d better get out of here.”
“Don’t rush. Chuck won’t be home on time his first day back.”
“I’m glad he went back to work. I think you needed that vote of confidence
.”
“If you guys are so confident, then how come you conveniently showed up so I wouldn’t be alone today?”
“Habit.”
Bobbi rolled her eyes. “Chuck didn’t ‘suggest’ you stop by?”
Rita put a hand over her heart. “I haven’t talked to Chuck in days. But honestly, you are much better. Things are almost back to normal.”
Normal. Bobbi shook her head. “I’ll learn how to cope, but things will never be what they were.”
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not what I . . .” She closed her eyes and tried to go back to that moment, standing in Shannon’s bedroom when she felt the arms of Almighty God enfold and reassure her that He knew, that He had Shannon in the palm of His hand, that there was a plan and purpose to all of it. “Do you think Shannon is okay?”
“I do.”
“How . . . what makes you so sure?”
“I know her mother.”
“Not good enough,” Bobbi said. “I need more evidence.”
“All right, this sounds twisted, but the fact that she hasn’t come home tells me she’s doing okay.”
“You’re right. That is twisted.”
“Bobbi, Shannon is just a little spoiled, just a little stubborn, and as long as things are clicking along for her, then it looks like she’s right, and she’s done the right thing. She’ll be home as soon as it all falls apart.”
“And in the meantime?”
Rita smiled. “You pray for her to be miserable.”
“Does Gavin know you pray for people’s misery?”
“Are you kidding? He helps me. Of course, he doesn’t frame it exactly like that. He says things like, ‘God, bring her to the point of surrender.’”
“You’ve been praying for me a lot lately, haven’t you?”
“Actually, yes. And I’m seeing some answers.”
“Some?”
“Have you made a doctor’s appointment yet?”
“No.”
“Then it’s just ‘some.’ Will you tell me what on earth you’re waiting on?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“I hope you’re this difficult with Chuck,” Rita huffed.
“She is.” Chuck swept into the kitchen. He paused an instant to kiss Bobbi, then got a glass from the cabinet.
“You’re home much earlier than I expected,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Everything. Nothing.”
“This time I am leaving.” Rita stood and pushed her chair in. “Gavin’s home tonight if you need him, Chuck.”
“Thanks.” Chuck emptied a can of Diet Coke into his glass, then slumped into the chair across from Bobbi. As soon as Rita closed the front door, he looked up at Bobbi. “That punk . . . He took pictures.”
“Pictures? What . . . ?”
“Of Shannon. They’re on the Internet.”
“Shannon? With that boy?”
“Yeah. Her first night away from home and she spent it with that . . . that Snider kid. Mocking us.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Bobbi, I saw the pictures with my own eyes.”
“I don’t care what you saw—”
“See, I debated whether I should even tell you—”
“And that is exactly the same kind of knee-jerk reaction that escalated things in the first place.”
He pushed back from the table, unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt and tugged at the knot on his necktie. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost patronizing. “She rejected everything we’ve taught her, our values, our authority, and God’s moral law, Bobbi. It was calculated—”
“You don’t know that!”
“The boy couldn’t have taken the pictures if Shannon wasn’t…”
“Consenting. I understand that, but you don’t know that she did it in defiance. When we first found out about this months ago, you said yourself she was emotionally compromised.”
“But her brain was engaged.”
“Just like yours was? With Tracy?” She instantly regretted the words, but it was too late.
With shock and shame in his eyes, he said quietly, “I asked for that, I guess.”
“No, it was a cheap shot. I’m sorry.” Bobbi reached across the table for his hand. “Chuck, you and I have both been where she is now. Defiant, callous and self-righteous.” She squeezed his hand. “And isolated, afraid and miserable. I don’t care what she’s done, we need to get her home.”
“I’m doing everything I can. Rita’s been calling Shannon’s friends for me—”
“She never mentioned that.”
“She has been. Relentlessly. Christine’s putting notices on Facebook and those other sites. I don’t even remember all of them. Chad and some of the others called a bunch of places today, but we’re not getting anywhere.” He frowned and picked up his glass and gulped half the contents. “What if I rent a billboard? Tell her everything’s okay. It’s okay to come home.”
“I think it’s a beautiful idea. Do you know what that will cost?”
He shook his head. “Thousands of dollars, I expect.”
“What if she’s not in St. Louis anymore?”
“I’m assuming she’d want to stick where things are familiar. So what do you think?”
“Rent the billboard. Rent a hundred if you have to.”
He kissed her hand. “I probably should warn you, we may be entering into some legal action, too.”
“We are?”
“Yes, we advised Mr. Dylan Snider to remove the photos of Shannon from his ZIP page in twenty-four hours unless he could produce a signed consent form agreeing to the use of her likeness.”
“Or?”
“I don’t know. Something really bad. Chad wrote the thing for me.”
“Can you do that?”
“Eventually yes, but it’ll be a lot easier if he just goes along with it. We named his parents, too, even though he’s nineteen.”
“I thought they were ‘unengaged’ as far as parenting went.”
“They are, but I’m guessing they don’t want their names in the paper, and they don’t want to risk paying the settlement over a couple of pictures.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“That would be nice for a change.”
* * *
That evening after Bobbi had gone to bed, Chuck sat alone at the desk in the study. Those pictures. That boy and his leering grin, his hands where only a husband’s hands should be, crudely bragging about being with his only daughter. Chuck would carry those images to his grave.
It wasn’t just the pictures but what they had touched off inside him—waves of grief, powerlessness and a profound sense of failure. He failed to shield his daughter. He failed God Himself. He immediately assumed the worst about Shannon, her actions, her motives and her intentions.
Where was all that grace he claimed to believe in? Maybe that was why there was no mother in the story of the prodigal son. Shannon’s actions didn’t seem to matter to Bobbi. She unconditionally loved and accepted Shannon. Did he?
He always thought he was a good father. But he thought he was a good husband until Phil Shannon told him he didn’t love Bobbi. Phil challenged him to learn how to love sacrificially. Now Bobbi blasted him for seeing only Shannon’s actions.
God, what do I need to do? How do I change this?
He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes for a moment, and he could visualize the page in his Bible with Psalm 37. “Do not fret because of evildoers . . . for they shall soon be cut down like grass.”
Easier said than done.
He rolled his chair over and grabbed his Bible from the table by the love seat, and quickly found the well-worn page for Psalm 37. Without his glasses, focusing took more effort and he caught himself skimming the familiar passage. ‘Rest,’ ‘wait patiently,’ ‘He shall bring it to pass.’
After what that . . . after what he did to Shannon, You want me t
o just let it go?
He got his glasses out of his shirt pocket to reread the chapter. “Their sword shall enter their own heart.”
You wanna spell it out a little plainer maybe? He huffed and laid the Bible aside. God, this goes against everything inside me. But that was the point. Doing things his way heaped the disasters one upon the other.
“All right, God, Dylan Snider . . . You can have him. Now, You have to help me live that way, because I know when I wake up tomorrow, it’s gonna be right there again.” He sighed and pulled the Bible closer. “Now what about Shannon?”
He read through the psalm, quietly mumbling the words to himself. “‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand.’” He shook his head. “The story of my life.”
Though he fall . . . Not just the story of his life. Shannon’s. Shannon fell just like he did, but God was going to uphold her, support her and defend her. Like a father.
And that was exactly what he would do, too.
Chapter 19
Commencement
Tuesday, November 11
A little after nine, Chuck strode into the lobby of Benton, Davis & Molinsky with renewed purpose, ready to slay dragons on Shannon’s behalf. Before he spoke to Christine, he glanced across to his office and stopped dead in his tracks. “Christine, why is there a homeless man in my office?” He never took his eyes off the man.
“He’s not homeless,” she said, “and he wants very much to talk to you.”
“You couldn’t have warned me?”
“I called. I got your voice mail.”
He frowned and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Dead battery,” he grumbled. “Of course. Who else is in the building? Is Chad here?”
Christine smiled broadly. “Mr. Molinsky, are you afraid to go talk to that man?” she teased.
Precedent: Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series Page 21
