Alien Among Us (TJ Steele Book 1)

by L. Edwin Brown

  I knew now she and I were true lovers and would be together forever. She looked great for fifty. I made sure she felt good all the time. If she got a headache, I fixed it. If she had body pain, I took care of that to, all without her ever knowing of my powers.

  We took our time talking, about our past. She showed me a scrap book, she had kept over the years, with articles about me and my companies. They say you are the smartest person on earth, she whispered to me, as we snuggled on her couch.

  I wanted to tell her everything about me and exactly who or what I was. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand and think I was crazy. Even worst, she would believe me, and not want to be around me anymore.

  It was Halloween and Lorain and I passed out candy, to all the kids that came to her house. I had never done this, in all my past years. I remember my father, setting up elaborate Halloween decorations, and passing out candy on the base, while my mother, walked me around the neighborhood.

  I was always too busy to fool with such trivia, at Halloween or any other holiday. Now I realize, what I’ve missed.

  We sat on her sofa, after the beggar’s quit coming, to the front door. We were talking about our past and some of the things, we had done.

  Lorain told me, she got pregnant on prom night, at the end of her senior year of high school, May 14, 1977. She kept her pregnancy a secret, until she turned eighteen that September and married her high school sweetheart, Timothy Thomason.

  We moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, so her husband could work for an uncle, who had a large construction business there. They had a daughter they named Christine, borne on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1978.

  Wait a minute, she said. I want to show you something and she jumped up off the sofa and ran into one of the guest bedrooms. I could hear her rustling around in the room, opening and closing doors. She came back out, carrying a square box, a pair of boots, had once come in.

  She sat down next to me with the box on her lap. She pulled the top off and laid it on the coffee table. Inside the box were a lot of mixed matched photo’s, letters, and documents.

  She told me, her husband was killed on a jobsite, when their daughter was twelve. They were a close family and Christine, loved her daddy. She never got over his death.

  When she was fifteen, she ran away on the third anniversary, of her father’s death. She turned up in St Louis a week later, tired and dehydrated. I went to St Louis and brought her home. She went back to school in the fall and things were starting to return to normal. Christine was a straight A student.

  I took a job at a local bakery to make a little extra cash. I got a good life insurance settlement and my husband’s union benefits. Our home had a credit life policy that paid off our house and a new car we had just purchased. Christine and I were pretty well off and happy, I thought.

  When Christine was eighteen, she graduated from high school as valedictorian. She was all set to go to Ohio State University in the fall. One night I came home from the bakery and found a note and some of Christine’s things gone. The note said, she needed to get away and wanted to wait a year before going to college.

  Lorain said she called the police and filed a missing person’s report. They said they couldn’t do anything for seventy two hours, because Christine was not a minor.

  I waited for two weeks, with no word of where she had gone. I contacted a detective agency that specialized in missing persons. I received Christine’s credit card statement, a few days after I hired the detective agency. There were two charges on the statement, for Greyhound bus tickets. I gave a copy of the statement, to the detective agency, and they track the destinations for both charges.

  The first was for a ticket from Indianapolis to St Louis and then one, two days later, from St Louis to Reno, Nevada.

  I don’t know what was in St Louis that Christine was looking for, but that is where she had gone three years earlier. I also didn’t know why she was headed to Reno. The detective agency tracked her to Reno, or I should say, at least they did her luggage.

  The employees, at the Greyhound bus terminal, in Reno unloaded her three bags, but Christine never picked them up. The detective agency questioned the bus driver, but he couldn’t remember seeing her after she boarded in Denver. A security camera showed the passengers disembarking in Reno, but Christine never got off the bus.

  I was given the name, of a national group of mothers, who had missing children. Most children were a lot younger than Christine, but the group helped me with getting Christine’s high school senior photo, out across the nation.

  I personally, went to Reno and spent a week going around talking with business owners and showing them her picture. They let me post her photo in their stores, with an eight hundred number, they could call if someone saw her.

  I drove the same route back home, the Greyhound bus had taken, and stopped at every place, I thought she may have turned up in. I left her photo with as many people as I could, from Reno to Indianapolis.

  I hadn’t heard anything for years and had given up hope of ever finding out, where Christine had ended up. This box, is all the information, I have accumulated over the years.

  Loraine shuffled through the box of papers and pulled out a police report, from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department. In 2003, she got a call from a sheriff’s detective, telling her they have a man in custody that had her daughter’s billfold, on him. I asked the officer how long they could hold the man. I would like to talk to him. The officer said, he wasn’t going anywhere, for a while.

  The next morning, I drove seventeen hours, straight through to Sarasota. I stayed in a motel, out by the Interstate and waited until morning, to go to the Sheriff’s office, she said.

  They let me speak to the man, but I didn’t get much from him. He was a street person and couldn’t remember where he gotten the billfold. My daughter’s license, credit card and some photos, were still in the billfold.

  The officer that had arrested the man, said he’s has seen him around Sarasota for years. He sleeps in the park and they arrest him every so often, so they can clean him up and feed him. He’s just a harmless old vagrant. Years of living on the street, has destroyed his mind. He can’t remember what he had done yesterday. Let alone what he done years ago.

  This was the best lead I had gotten, over the years. I hung around Sarasota for several weeks, talking to people and passing out photos of Christine.

  When I got back home, I couldn’t get over the feeling, Christine was somewhere around the central, gulf coast of Florida. I sold my house and came down here a few months later and that’s how I ended up here in Florida, she said.

  Loraine sat the box of papers on the coffee table and we snuggled up once again and turned on the television.

  We were spending every extra minute, with each other. She stayed with me Thanksgiving and returned to the tiki bar on Friday. We had given each other our house keys, as if we were living together, where ever we ended up at night.

  I hired a local holiday decorating company to decorate the beach house for Christmas. We spent New Year’s Eve at a party, the owner of the Kasey Key Fish House threw. We felt that we could drink more than usual, because driving to my house, was a simple trip and Loraine would be off work on Friday, New Year’s Day.

  I left the party at 1:30 in the morning with both Lorain and Kala Kealoha in tow. The ladies had drank more than me and were two sheets to the wind, when we left. I was afraid to allow Kala to drive home, so I took her to my house and put her in bed, with Lorain, in the master bedroom. I slept on the sofa and checked on the ladies a couple times, throughout the night.

  New Year’s Day brought huge headaches and upset tummies. When the two inebriated females were awake, around 10:00 AM, I fixed them a cup of black coffee. Kala asked, how she got into a pair of Lorain’s pajamas. I told her I put them on her around 2:00 this morning. Lorain was teasing her, saying I saw Kala’s boobies. The two ladies sat together on the sofa and laughed and joked about the way, some of th
e older employees at the party, were dancing.

  It was the start of a new year and I was happier, than I had been, my whole life. I even tried to get Loraine to give up her job at the tiki bar, sale her house and move in permanently, with me. I even offered to give her the beach house. Her answers were always the same. She loved working at the tiki bar and her little house, was her home and she loved the place, even though she was staying with me, the majority of her time now.

  The year 2010 came and went with me falling deeper in love with Loraine. I also had a little crush on Kala, probably because she was around, so often. She and Lorain would shop together, on their days off. I never understood why Kala wasn’t married or in love with someone. She was one of the most beautiful women, I had ever seen. She made both Lorain and I happy, when she was around.

  I used my free time, designing highly technological devices for the military. I spent hours around the pool meditating and practicing my tai chi. My cleaning service came in and cleaned the beach house, on Tuesday’s and Friday’s. They also did all the laundry and that included Loraine’s clothes, as well as some that Kala left, around the house.

  Over the past year, Loraine had filled, my walk-in closet and most of the built-in drawers, with her clothes. As far as I was concern, she could have taken over the whole closet.

  I was sitting at the tiki bar one Saturday afternoon in July of 2011, when a Sarasota County Deputy Sheriff, pulled into the parking lot. The officer got out of his cruiser and walked over to the tiki bar. Loraine stepped around to the side of the bar, where the officer was standing.

  I slipped off my stool and move over to where Lorain and the officer were standing. The deputy looked at me, and Lorain said I was her boyfriend. The officer said he had been to her house and a neighbor told him where to find her.

  I’m here to let you know, the Colorado State Police, may have found the remains of your daughter. Lorain’s knees almost buckled and I jumped over the bar and held her.

  I asked the officer, to hand me one of the stools, from the other side of the bar. He lifted the stool across the bar and I placed it down, so Lorain could sit. She leaned backed against me and I placed my arms around her.

  How do you know it’s Christine Thomason, I asked the officer. I don’t have that information, I was only sent to deliver the message. The Grand Junction, Colorado Sheriff Department, notified us last night.

  The deputy handed Lorain, a piece of paper with the Colorado’s police phone number on it. The officer also handed me his business card and said if I had any questions, I could call the number on the front of the card.

  Lorain handed me the paper, with the phone numbers on it. I told her to sit still and I would be right back. I walked over to the Fish House restaurant and told the owner, Oscar Hobbs, what had just transpired. I asked, if he had someone that could come out and take over the tiki bar. I said, I needed to get Lorain home.

  I walked back out to the tiki bar and a few minutes later, one of the restaurant bar tenders came out and took over the tiki bar. As Lorain and I were walking to my SUV, Kala came running out the door, of the restaurant.

  After placing Lorain in the front seat, I told Kala what was going on. She said she would come by after her shift and I thanked her.

  I took Lorain to my house and sat her down in my study. I called one of the Colorado phone numbers, the deputy had given me. I had to speak with several people, before I finally got someone that could help me.

  The gentleman on the other end of the phone was the local coroner. He said he was trying to find dental records, for a Christine Thomason, from Indianapolis, Indiana.

  He said, they have the decomposed remains, of a young female that matches the description of Miss Thomason. I asked the coroner, if there was a direct number, where I could reach him. He gave me his office number as well as his cell phone. I told him I would call him back, with the information he was requesting.

  When I got off the phone, I could see Lorain was in shock. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. I told her what the coroner wanted and asked if she could tell me, who Christine’s dentist was, when she was growing up.

  Before she could tell me, she began crying. I just held her and let her cry. It took her a while to compose herself. I want to go to Colorado, she said. I told her, they need dental records for Christine. Lorain said she had them in the box at home. She had Christine’s dentist give her several copies, for a private investigator, years earlier. I told her, we would fly to Colorado in the morning.

  We drove to Lorain’s house and she searched through the large square box, until she found, a five by seven brown envelope. She opened the envelope and removed a dozen xrays, from Christine’s dentist.

  I called Samuel Black at the Florida Coastal Aviation and told him, to get my plane ready, for a flight to Grand Junction Regional Airport in Grand Junction, Colorado. I asked that he assist me, in finding a private hanger, at the airport where I could leave my plane. I also needed a rental car, for a few days.

  I took Lorain back to my house and dug out my brown duffle bags. She sat on the bed and told me what to pack for her. When I finish with her bag, I packed one for me.

  Kala came by at 10:15 that night and sat with Lorain. They talked and I heard Kala, tell her not to worry, she feels they have not found Christine.

  I tried, but couldn’t get her to eat anything that evening. Kala stayed with us and she slept with Lorain, while I took the sofa. I’m not always the best at comforting someone. It’s one of the things, I still handle poorly. It was late when we went bed. The next morning we were up early and at the airport by 9:00 AM. We were in the air by 10:00, for the four hour flight.

  Lorain was quiet for most of the trip. When we landed, the tower directed me over to a local private hanger. An employee for the private hanger, took us around to the terminal, where we could rent a car. After picking up the car, we drove back around to the hanger, and removed the duffle bags, from the side storage compartment, on my plane.

  The rental car had GPS, which I used to get us to the coroners building, located on the campus of the Colorado Mesa University. When we entered the building, we were introduced to several law enforcement people, who had a ton of questions for Lorain. The coroner took the dental Xrays and left the area, leaving Lorain and me with the police officers.

  When the coroner returned, he had a tarnished gold chain, with a gold heart. On the back of the heart were the words, “Daddy Loves You.” It was Christine’s locket and chain. Lorain, was fighting to hold back the tears, when the coroner said the dental records, don’t even come close to the remains in his lab.

  The coroner estimated the remains to be those of a female, twenty five to thirty years old, five foot five to five foot six in height. Lorain looked up at the coroner and asked him, to repeat what he just said. He repeated the information and Lorain said that’s not Christine, she was five eleven, tall and slender.

  The remains, were found by two hikers, in the hills of McInnis Canyon National Park, about two weeks ago. The FBI and Colorado State Police, helped us track you down, through several agency and photos of your daughter, wearing this necklace. It took us a while to fine you in Florida, the coroner said.

  Lorain was relieved, but still saddened by the death of the woman, they had in the morgue. The police asked Lorain, if she thought another woman was traveling with her daughter, when she left home. Lorain said she didn’t think so, but she may have met someone in St Louis.

  The police questioned Lorain for another hour, then we left the coroner’s office and drove to a Hampton Inn, where we stayed that night.

  The police, had now gotten Loraine to wander if her daughter was with someone, and that’s why she went to St Louis back in 1993 and 95. She had driven through here, on her way home from Reno, and left a lot of posters. The police had several, they were using as part of their investigation. Her senior high school photo showed her wearing the gold necklace.

  We stayed in Grand Junction a
nother day and drove around, hoping to see something that may have attracted Christine to this area. We flew out the next morning, returning home to Sarasota and the Casey Key beach house.

  Lorain waited a week before going back to work at the tiki bar. After a month, we were back to normal, and she was enjoying life once again. The support, she received from Kala and her other friends, helped tremendously.

  A day before Thanksgiving, she called me from the tiki bar and said she had forgotten to get the turkey out of the refrigerator, at home. She said it was still frozen this morning, and she forgot to put it in the sink, full of cold water. I ran over to her house and removed the turkey from the refrigerator, filled the sinks with cold water and slipped the turkey into the water.

  I went into the guest room to grab a jacket, I left at her house, last spring. I opened the closet door and slipped the jacket off the hanger. I looked down and there were several boxes on the floor, including the square one with all the information on Christine’s disappearance.

  I picked up the box and sat it on the bed. I looked down at my feet and saw, a standard size shoe box. I picked the shoe box, up off the floor. The shoe box was also filled with notes, pictures, cards, and a diary. The box belonged to Christine and Lorain had kept it all these years.

  I took both boxes and placed them in the back of my Escalade. I locked up the house and drove home. When I got there, I took the boxes into my study and for the next two and a half hours, I scanned everything that was in both boxes, into my computer. I now had a complete library of all the photos, legal documents, letters, postal cards, messages, notes, and Christine’s diary.

  I knew Lorain would work until 10:00, before she would close up the tiki bar. The day time high temperatures were in the low eighties and the evening and night temperatures would drop, to the mid-sixties. It was a nice day and as long as there were patrons at the tiki bar, Lorain would stay open, at least until 9:00 PM.