“We’ll be stuffed after the grinders,” she said. “Thanks, Jerry,” she called as we left the shop.
“So where do we eat these everything grinders?” I asked.
She handed me the bag. “We’ll drive to a magical place.”
Val pulled to the side of a back road fifteen minutes later. We sat in a forest of tall pine trees.
I removed my helmet. “What’s next? A magic carpet?”
Val laughed. “No, silly. We use magic shoes to climb the hill.” She wheeled the bike behind a rock.
“Have you done this before?”
Val nodded and started up the path.
We avoided the tree roots that seemed to reach out and grab at our feet. The moon had almost set, and it was pretty dark. We made it to the top after ten minutes.
A large granite boulder towered over us. She walked around to the other side. “Over this way,” she called.
I came around the rock, but I didn’t see her.
“Up here.” Val smiled down at me. “This is the magic spot. Hand me the grinders and pull yourself up.”
I passed the bag and climbed up next to her. We sat on a ledge of rock above the trees overlooking a valley. The setting moon illuminated the treetops, and its reflection danced on the rippled surface of a reservoir. White steeples pointed up from churches nestled in sleepy town centers.
“It’s breathtaking,” I said. “You come here often?”
“Is that a pickup line?”
“No. Well, maybe.”
Val hugged her knees. “I found this place last summer when I was riding by. I climbed the path and fell in love with the view. Now I come here when I’m stuck on a bug and I need to sort it out.”
I chuckled. “A true geek. I also have a thinking place back at home. It’s on the water.”
“Where’s that?”
“Maryland. On the Chesapeake Bay. The Eastern Shore, if you’ve heard of it.”
She laughed. “Of course I’ve heard of it. I live in Annapolis.”
I stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s just across the bridge from me.”
She smiled. “Told you this was a magical place. Let’s eat our grinders.”
I pulled them out of the bag. “Everything, huh?”
“Jerry puts a tiny bit of everything in them. Don’t get too attached to a mouthful, because each one is different.”
“Is that the draw? Not too much of any one thing?”
“No, it’s the mixes I like.” Val took a bite. “See, I just had salami and cream cheese. I think.” She swallowed. “That wasn’t bad. It could have been horrible, but it’s only one bite, and the next one may be great.”
I tried my own. I tasted sweet pickle and some unrecognizable deli meat. “Interesting,” I said. “I don’t know what it was, but it doesn’t really matter, I guess.”
“You’re getting it.”
We ate in silence for a minute. Then I caught her eye. “So you’re a member of Soul Identity?”
She nodded. “For two years now.”
“How’d you get involved?”
“One of my co-workers was approached by a soul seeker, and I went to the reading with her. She wasn’t a match, but the idea of starting my own soul line fascinated me. I signed up, and then they recruited me to run their development.”
“I’m also intrigued,” I said. Mostly because of the present company, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Somehow you made a leap from interest to involvement.”
Val was silent for a minute. “You know, I was born in the Soviet Union, in its dying years. I was nine when the wall came down. Do you remember that?”
“Vaguely. I was twelve. That makes you twenty-nine?”
“Almost thirty. Those years were tough. I remember how little food we had to eat, and how nobody was paid. Everybody in my city hated the words glasnost and perestroika. We all craved the stability we had lost.”
“We were taught that you Soviets used to stand six hours in line for a sausage and a loaf of bread, and it all changed after the evil empire collapsed.”
“It did change,” she said. “But not for the better, not at first. My parents were history teachers, and they struggled to recover from the shock that they had spent their lives teaching a pack of lies. My father researched some Stalin-era information, only to learn that his parents were loaded onto a Volga river ferry and drowned. Just to meet some quota.”
“Yuck.”
“They are now happy with their new life in Mother Russia. They have joined the Orthodox Church, and with the extra money I send them, they have a comfortable life. But I want more.”
“More what?”
She picked up an acorn and tossed it over the ledge, and then she turned to face me. “I want to make a difference and leave a legacy of improvement behind. By starting a soul line, I can affect lives far into the future.”
“But can’t you do that as a parent?”
“Maybe I can, and hopefully I will. But it only took one evil person and some stupid bureaucrats to prevent me from ever knowing my grandparents—I’d like some extra insurance. A soul line is a safe way to project my legacy.”
We sat silently. I thought about how Val had some pretty deep waters running under her beautiful top layer.
She studied my face. “What’s your difficulty in believing in Soul Identity?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “Here’s what I see. They claim to help me plan for my future. They use a massive army of recruiters and seekers to grow, and I would guess that many people turn over their money in exchange for simple ego stroking. They seem to have no oversight, which means the potential for corruption is huge.”
She smiled. “It sounds like any organized religion, doesn’t it?”
She had a point. “I guess there’s not much difference,” I said. “Both require believers who have faith in the message and in the system.”
She nodded. “That’s what I see too. Each has believers who have found a purpose in life. Each has members who are uncommitted. And each has bad guys who are only in it for selfish or sick reasons.”
We sat there and looked out over the valley. “Now that you put it that way, Soul Identity doesn’t seem so strange,” I said.
She smiled at me. “Actually, the premise is much simpler here. Your soul identity is unique, and somebody else gets it after you die. All the rest is added in later.”
“Added in?”
She nodded. “That everything grinder you just ate? Soul Identity is like that. The bun is the basic premise, but it can be filled with lots of beliefs—some that fit well, and others that are vile.”
Bob did mention that various churches have formed over the years, each adding different meanings to the base message.
Simple or not, the premise was still a big stretch for me. “I wish I could sit here and tell you I’m there with you,” I said. “But I’m too much of a skeptic to believe this quickly.”
Val nodded.
“Though I’ve gotta tell you,” I said, “I like what you’re doing. Creating a positive legacy is a really nice thought. So much more unselfish than thinking ‘I want to live forever’ or ‘I don’t want to burn.’”
She frowned. “Don’t make me into too much of a saint. I don’t want to become untouchable.”
God forbid that happened; I’d been fantasizing about the touching part all evening long.
She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “I’m twenty-nine years old,” she said. “I got married at twenty-four, and it lasted three years. No kids. I have an apartment in Annapolis. No pets, no roommate, and no significant other.”
I raised my eyebrows.
She patted my knee with her palm. “Your turn,” she said.
So she was raising the bar. “I’m thirty-two,” I said. “I got married at twenty-seven and divorced last year. No kids, but my parents tell me I owe them two grandchildren. I live on Kent Island. No pets, no roommate, and no significant other.”
/>
We stared at each other, and then we both burst out laughing.
“Is there anything else you need to know?” I asked.
“You’re not gay, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Do you hate children?”
“Nope.”
“Do you have a psychotic ex-wife or ex-girlfriend?”
“Not as far as I know,” I said. “But you must’ve had some crazy relationships if you’re asking these kinds of questions.”
“There’s been some bad ones,” she said. “I’ve got one last question—are you as good at computer security as you seem, or was that an act this afternoon?”
I smiled. “I’m better than you can possibly imagine.”
Val leaned over and started a kiss that I hoped would last all night. After a few minutes, she pulled away, breathing hard. “So am I.”
ten
It took me a few seconds when I woke up to remember I was in the Soul Identity guesthouse. Val and I had climbed down the hill and returned to the office, where she wasted a few hours giving me demonstrations of her new online applications.
I laughed out loud when I remembered how disappointed I was to go back to work. But I had earned my round-the-clock pay, even if I did have a hard time staying focused on the software.
Val had called it a night at two o’clock in the morning, brought me back to the guesthouse, and agreed with my assessment that it was too late for her to head back, alone, to her place. I rolled over and again was stunned by the most gorgeous blue eyes I had ever seen.
She smiled. “What’s so funny?”
I reached out and stroked her cheek. “I was remembering how sad I was when we came down the hill and went to the office.”
“And you call yourself a computer geek?”
“Hey, I had some good suggestions for you, didn’t I?”
She reached out and ruffled my hair. “You did. What time is it?”
“Seven thirty. Let’s get up. George is coming to show me his gadgets at eight.”
We got out of bed and hopped in the shower. We didn’t even wait for it to warm up, figuring the cold water would wake us up faster.
“Ahhh!” I yelled. The water must have passed through a freezer on its way to the showerhead. We pressed ourselves against the walls and avoided most of the spray as we waited for the heat to kick in.
“Check the handle,” Val screamed.
I reached into the spray and pointed the handle toward the other direction. We waited a bit, but the water only felt colder.
“Let me find the cutoff valve.” I crossed the spray and climbed out of the tub. I turned on the sink faucet: that water was nice and hot. I ran into the next room and looked for an access panel.
“Any luck?” Val called.
“Nope. I can’t find a valve.”
“That’s okay, I’m done now. Come finish up.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You scared of a little cold water?”
I went back in the bathroom and saw Val toweling off. I took a deep breath and got back in. Damn, it was cold.
In less than a minute I was done. “Where’s my towel?” I asked. “I need to scrape off the icicles.”
“Sorry, there was only one.” Val tossed it to me, and I dried off as best as I could.
“That was invigorating,” I said. “Don’t tell me you did that all the time in Russia.”
She nodded. “It brought back lots of memories.” She pointed to the clock. “You have ten minutes before George comes. I have to get to my place for some fresh clothes. Will I see you in the dungeon today?”
“I think that’s the plan, but it’s up to Archie. I can call you when I know something.”
We exchanged cell numbers and finished getting dressed. Val gave me a quick kiss.
“How far away is your place, anyway?” I asked.
She smiled. “Maybe twenty feet.”
“You’re in the guesthouse?”
“Right above you.”
“But last night you said you were too tired to go home alone.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Are you complaining?”
“We could’ve taken a hot shower upstairs.”
She laughed and gave me a longer and lingering kiss. “That should warm you up.”
I looked down. “I’m gonna have to get back in that shower.”
George knocked on my door promptly at eight. We headed straight for the gadget room.
“When’s the last time somebody stayed here?” I asked.
“It’s been a while,” he said. “Why, was it dusty?”
“It was clean. But there was a problem with the shower. No hot water.”
“You’re kidding me,” he said. “I’ve never had a complaint. Did you work the handle properly?”
I walked into the bathroom. “Maybe you can show me how it’s done.”
“Sure.” He reached out for the handle. “Just turn it like this and it will warm right up.” He stuck his hand under the shower and shook his head. “Let’s give it a minute.” He checked again. “Maybe I need to turn it the other way.”
That didn’t work either.
“Well, Mr. Waverly, you have me there.” He scratched his head. “What the devil could have happened to the hot water?”
“When did you say somebody stayed here last?”
He thought for a minute. “Golly, it’s been about ten years since we used this room. Mr. Feret stayed for a few weeks while they did his validation.” He chuckled. “I called him Mr. Ferret when he first arrived and I thought he was going to bite my head off.”
“Not the nicest guy, huh?”
“Nice enough for an overseer, I suppose. I haven’t seen much of him since. Not since the troubles started.”
That got my attention. “Troubles?”
“You’ll have to talk to Mr. Morgan about that.”
I nodded. So Feret was the other overseer. I remembered seeing the portrait of a young man in the lobby. If that was only ten years ago, he must still be pretty young.
“Maybe Feret likes cold showers,” I said.
“Maybe, but he was the kind of guest who would have immediately complained, if you know what I mean,” he said. “I’ll call the plumber today. You can expect hot water by this evening.”
“Could I have an extra towel? I’m having company tonight.”
He looked at me. “Don’t tell me you had a guest this morning.”
I nodded.
“With just cold water in the shower?”
“Yup. And we didn’t realize it until we were already under that cold spray.”
He seemed to try to hold it in, but he burst out with a huge laugh.
“It wasn’t that funny,” I said. “It was pretty damn shocking.”
But George couldn’t breathe, much less say anything. He doubled over and held his belly and shook. Finally he stood up and wiped the tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry, but that is just about the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.” He started laughing all over again. “I’ll make sure it’s fixed today.”
George was all business when we reached the gadget room. “Okay, Mr. Waverly, in the entertainment center we have the standard toys—large screen satellite television, sound system, DVD player, and satellite radio.” He showed me how to work the universal remote.
Then he patted the leather sofa. “This reclines, and it has built-in massage, heat, and air cooling.” He sat down and demonstrated the couch to me. “Right here on the coffee table,” he pointed to a small box, “is the central lighting control.”
“This seems more like an entertainment room. Why do you call it a gadget room?”
“I’m glad you asked.” George went to the wall next to the television. He pressed a button on the remote, and the wall panels opened up to reveal a small display, microphone and speakers, and a rack of yellow electronic equipment with blinking blue lights. He smiled. “Gadgets.”
“What’re they for?”
“This is one of our communications centers. The radio lets me receive Soul Identity broadcasts and talk to our members all over the world. If it goes over the air, you can probably pick it up here.”
I nodded. “Why are you showing this to me?”
“Mr. Morgan told me to show you every gadget I have.” He checked his watch. “Don’t forget to come up for breakfast. Sue’s an excellent cook.”
I examined the gadgets after George left. Maybe they’d be able to help me track down that mysterious phone caller I overheard last night. After a few minutes of playing around, I grabbed my bag and headed upstairs.
In the dining room, Val sat next to Sue and both of them laughed at something George had said. The three tried to hide their smiles when I walked in.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
Sue snorted and said, “George was telling us about your cold shower. We’re so sorry, Mr. Waverly.” Sue looked at Val. “Ms. Nikolskaya, please meet our guest, Mr. Waverly.”
“We’ve already met,” Val said. She flashed me a dazzling smile, and George and Sue went to the other room.
Val pointed to a plate in the middle of the table. “Have a bagel.”
I raised my eyebrows. “George just bragged about what a great cook Sue is. What’s with the bagels?”
She shrugged. “We have bagels every morning. Sue makes great juices, though.” She lifted her glass. “Carrot tangerine, with a hint of lime.”
I made a face. “Does she have any simple juice?”
“How simple?”
“Coffee bean juice, served hot. Cow juice mixed in.”
“Let’s find out.” She turned toward the door. “Sue, do you have any coffee?” she called.
Sue came out, wiping her hands on a towel. “I have organic coffee somewhere in the closet,” she said. “How do you take it?”
“Cream and sweetener, thanks,” I said.
Sue nodded. “Is soy milk okay? We’ve been reducing George’s lactose intake.”
“Let’s skip the milk then.”
She balled the towel in her hands. “And I only have real sugar. Actually, it’s organic raw cane sugar. It may have a little aftertaste, but it’s better for you.”
Soul Identity Page 10
