Found and Lost

by Amanda G. Stevens

  The last man she’d accepted that invitation from had slugged her in the jaw. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “We can’t talk on the porch.”

  “Nobody followed me, as far as I know.”

  His eyebrow quirked at her, the message plain. He wasn’t trusting her ability to spot surveillance. Well, he shouldn’t. Agent Stiles might have pondered her interview and decided to bring her back in or observe her from an invisible distance.

  “Violet.”

  She slid through the door sideways, out of his reach and the dog’s, into a small foyer furnished by nothing but a throw rug over the wood floor. The dog padded forward as if to sniff her, but Marcus’s hand swept a short, downward motion, and it sat, then settled at his feet.

  He shut the door. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I, um … I was hoping maybe you would help me with … something.”

  His left hand latched onto his neck, and weary furrows dug deeper into his face. “Come in.”

  Violet followed Marcus, and the dog followed her, into a sparse beige living room. Clearly, a guy’s house. Not a figurine or family picture anywhere, nothing soft but the furniture itself, two stuffed chairs and a couch in matching fudge-brown microfiber.

  She’d expected her palms to sweat in the house of the Christian resistance leader, in the house of the grizzly who’d already proved he might corner her and roar into her face. But he wasn’t only a criminal leader or an angry bear. Her legs rubberized and lowered her to his couch. She could rest here and be safe. On the cushion beside her rested a squishy gel pack, appearing tossed aside. Heat emanated from it.

  Marcus ignored it and didn’t sit. “Why’d you come here?”

  “I thought you might be able to get me a … a Bible. An old one.”

  There it was, out of her mouth, into the air. Marcus went still.

  “If you can’t, just tell me now, and I’ll leave, but you gave one to Chuck. So I thought … you must be in the black market or something.”

  “Why do you want one?”

  “I just want to know what the big deal is, why Christians think the old ones are right and the new ones are wrong, and I don’t know anyone who’ll be objective about it. So I thought I’d just read it, the actual book.”

  He paced, stopped, searched her face for something. “That’s the best way to learn about it.”

  “So you can get me one?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Of course. Black market, not black giveaway. She rubbed her arms and stared down at herself as if her humiliation could conjure a hundred-dollar bill into the pocket of her shorts. Assuming Bibles weren’t worth more than a hundred dollars. Good grief, she didn’t even know the going price.

  “I don’t have any money. Not on me, anyway. I could go home and get some.”

  “Violet—”

  “Wait. Here, I have …” She fumbled with the latch on her bracelet. “The charms are stupidly expensive. I don’t know why I pay so much for them. They’re real sterling silver, they don’t tarnish ever, and you can sell them online or …”

  She dangled the bracelet between them, her lifeline. Why was Marcus staring at her as if she’d sprouted fins? Was she insulting him by offering something other than money?

  Her voice wobbled. “Is it not enough? If you charge like thousands of dollars or something—”

  “Charge … I don’t … Violet.” Marcus’s knuckles dug into his neck. “I don’t distribute.”

  Oh. She lowered her hand, fingers numb around the bracelet.

  “But if I did … The Bible’s not—I wouldn’t—some people do make money. But they shouldn’t. And most of them don’t. It’s not that kind of thing.”

  “So people give people Bibles … for free?” Seriously?

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. People should be able to have a Bible. If they want one.”

  Okay, sure, maybe, but anyone who would offer something so unobtainable and not charge for it … Gifts came from people who wanted something in return.

  Or from people who loved other people.

  “Is this because of Jesus too?” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  Violet ducked her head and put her bracelet back on. “But you can’t get me one.”

  “I …” A soft sigh leached from him. “Wait in the kitchen.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Nothing dangerous in that request. He nodded toward the next room, which pretty much melded into this one. More wood floor, more neutral walls, but the kitchen held a small oak dining table and stainless steel appliances. The counters were black granite. Marcus disappeared in the direction of the living room bookshelves.

  Nothing in this kitchen disclosed that a Christian lived here, cooked here, ate here. Not that she’d expected it to. She wouldn’t open the fridge and discover that he liked to feast on the livers of non-Christians. Still. She’d never stood in a Christian’s house before—Clay’s house, sure, but Khloe and Natalia lived there too. Part of her, especially a week ago, would have expected hostility to ooze from this house, the walls, the floors, the ceilings.

  Something wet bumped her hand, and she jumped. The dog had followed her.

  “Hi.” Violet tried to pet its head, but it ducked her hand. “Sorry. I know I’m intruding. Thanks for not biting me.”

  “She won’t.” Marcus lurked against the far wall, a black leather book in one hand. “You’d have to break in or threaten me.”

  She coughed a laugh. “Right, me threaten you.”

  He shrugged. “If you had a gun, sure.”

  Right, sure.

  “Here.” He crossed the kitchen and offered her the book.

  So he did distribute Bibles, after all. His first lie to her, as far as she knew. “You had to make sure I wanted one for a good reason?”

  “You need to leave.”

  He didn’t trust her. If she could explain, if she could … She reached out and took the Bible on open palms, held the weight of it, illegal and intriguing.

  “You don’t have a purse,” Marcus said.

  “Um, not anymore.”

  “You can’t carry it like that.”

  He wrapped it in one plastic grocery bag, then shoved the bundle into another one. He walked her to the front door, and she let the bag swing at her side, though instinct wanted to hide it under her T-shirt. Yeah, that wouldn’t look suspicious. Marcus started to open the door, then stopped.

  His eyes burned straight through her, but she didn’t let herself look away. Her hold rustled the plastic bag handles.

  “Violet, I … I know what you did.”

  “And you let me go anyway. I didn’t say thanks before.”

  “No, I mean, I know what you did. For us. For—for me. You talked to a Constabulary agent this morning. But you didn’t tell him anything.”

  Wait a minute. “How’d you find out?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You know what they do,” Violet said. “You know what’s happening to Janelle right now, and to other people.”

  He nodded.

  “No one told me. If that agent hadn’t walked me past the window, I still wouldn’t …” Pieces fell together. “Do you know Agent Stiles?”

  “Don’t, Violet.”

  Don’t ask questions. Okay. “For all I know, this thing—” She jerked and rustled the bag—“is full of mistakes and teaches intolerance and—”

  “Well. Just read it.”

  “I’m going to.”

  “Good. And thanks.”

  A silence lingered between them and rooted itself in some crevice inside Violet that she’d never known was empty. This was respect between two people. Two adults.

>   “Marcus?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need to know something.” Risk shuddered down her spine.

  Marcus closed the front door but didn’t lock it, didn’t lean against it. “Okay.”

  “I need to know who’s buried in the woods.”

  He breathed in and seemed to keep the air in his lungs. “I can’t tell you that.”

  So it was a grave. “Did you kill him, or her—the person?”

  For only a second, his mouth seemed to tremble. “No. But if I’d … done things differently … she’d be alive.”

  “Did she get shot?”

  “What? No, she—you saw the truck? In the woods?”

  Violet nodded.

  “She was driving it.”

  “What about the blood?”

  His knuckles dug into his neck. “It’s my truck. And that’s my blood.”

  “You just said she was driving.”

  “That happened a couple days before. I—I had a cut on my back. She— I wasn’t in the truck when it … It hit some ice. Went off the road. When I found her, she … She was already …”

  Khloe’s tendency to weave tales had educated Violet on spotting them. People tried to tell a lie in order, tie everything together, give plenty of convincing details. Marcus’s story didn’t make enough sense to be untrue, especially not rehearsed.

  Grieving, Belinda had said. He didn’t look so massive right now, only tired and bent and barely guarded.

  “I’m sorry,” Violet said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No.” He dragged in a deep breath. “If you thought I … well, I can’t prove anything, but it’s good you asked.”

  “I believe you.”

  That brought out a crinkling around his eyes. “Thanks. Now, you’ve got to leave.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the Bible.”

  “Sure.”

  He opened the door for her, and she hurried down the walkway, down the street, following the curb. The plastic bag in her left hand wasn’t heavy enough to dig into her palm, but she still felt ready to drop it all the way back to her car. She should drop it. But she couldn’t, because Marcus should have kidnapped her and didn’t. He shouldn’t have opened his door to her, but he had. And this book might be the reason.

  36

  By the time Violet dredged up the audacity to drive back home, the sun had gone to sleep, and a crescent moon floated out the passenger window. She parked in the driveway and slipped into her parents’ house with the spare key again. They weren’t likely to notice she’d lost her purse. She shoved the key into her pocket and clutched the Bible to her chest, nestled in the white plastic bag. Four days, nearly five—a record sleepover at Khloe’s, especially without letting Dad know first. One hope gleamed: that he hadn’t worried enough yet to call the Hansens, that Violet’s story didn’t have to match anyone else’s.

  At the mudroom doorway, she crouched to untie her shoes and tug them off. Now to stash the bag in her room. Then she could double back to the mudroom and announce her presence. Voices came from the living room, Dad’s easygoing baritone and Mom’s clipped vowels. Playing cards, maybe one of those close games that sounded casual until you watched their eyes darting from their own cards to their opponent’s face. Violet ventured into the kitchen.

  “I’ll peek at your cards.” Mom would never use that warmth for her. Violet paused to listen anyway.

  “And spoil your own victory? Never.”

  Not even a second to hide, plan, panic. Dad rounded the corner and froze.

  “Violet. Well, what do you know.”

  “Hi.” Shrug. Make distance. Amble toward her bedroom, business as usual, all quiet on the home front.

  “I saw your car was gone. Thought about calling your cell.”

  “Oh, Khloe and I went to the mall today, and I thought it would be good to do some driving.” She tossed the words over her shoulder. Almost to her room. They’d never bother to trespass.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  Her heartbeat pounded her calm veneer to a pulp. If she faced him, he’d read everything, not because he was some gifted face reader, but because he wasn’t blind.

  “Charms. For my bracelet.”

  “And you’re not wearing them yet? They must not be that great.”

  Somehow, in the last four days, Violet had shed herself like a lizard skin. Stepped clean out of that girl and forgotten how to wear her. Of course, new charms should already dangle from her bracelet. She should be spinning them, wandering to the living room to angle them beneath the lamp glow.

  “I’m putting them on right now.” She slipped into her bedroom and closed the door.

  Now she could hyperventilate in peace. She pressed the bag closer to her chest. She took a breath and tried to will her pulse to steady. If it didn’t in a few minutes, she’d try Lee’s trick of breathing into her hands. She sat on the bed and watched her fish. Then she drew the Bible from the bags and let them fall to the floor.

  God, I don’t know what You want me to learn from this, but please don’t let any messed up ideas get into my head. Thanks.

  She opened the cover to the dedication page. A handmade bookmark lay against the spine, braided ribbons in various shades of pink. But if this Bible had belonged to a name in the news, she’d never know. No one had written on the dedication page. The leather hadn’t softened like that on its own, though. This book was far from new.

  So many books in the Old Testament that she didn’t recognize. Foreign names, and one called Job. As in, good job? Never mind all these added books—well, not added. This Bible was the original. But first things first. She found the book she’d never gotten to read at Chuck’s house. Matthew. She needed to find some words from Jesus.

  And this Bible made that crazy easy. It printed everything He said in red. She scooted back on her bed, turned the lamp to its brightest setting, and propped herself against a pillow and her headboard. Her fish seemed to eye her from across the room, which was impossible, but she had to restrain herself from throwing a beach towel over the aquarium.

  I am breaking the law. I could end up handcuffed to a table for days.

  No, she couldn’t, because she wasn’t like Janelle. Something pricked in her chest. She’d never believed in anything the way Janelle believed in this book.

  Hours melted. Her back stiffened. Even through the pillow, her headboard pressed soreness into her backbone. Her hand fell asleep until she realized she’d leaned all her weight on it and shifted position. Her fish darted and drifted. And Violet read the red letters.

  The Christians were right. This Jesus was different.

  At first, she couldn’t find a word for the change, but she finally did. Tough. Then she found another one. Passionate. Yeah, this Jesus was tough, and this Jesus was passionate for the truth as He saw it. Good grief, as He saw it? He was obviously God. He even said so Himself. So He didn’t see truth, He was truth. Or made truth. Or both. This Jesus grabbed a whip and chased the money guys out of the temple like some kind of Old West sheriff who rode into his town and saw that no one cared about the laws anymore. This Jesus called the Pharisees some pretty gross names when they lied to people. But this Jesus had so many feelings, too. Sometimes, Violet could picture Him smiling at the people around Him. And when Lazarus died, His tears made Violet want to cry too.

  She didn’t cry then, though. She didn’t cry until He got Himself arrested, and the palace guards started hitting Him and pulling out His beard and whipping Him. Then her tears dripped onto the Bible’s thin pages. She held it out in front of her—it wouldn’t be right to leave drop-marks all over a Bible—and she sobbed for Him. He’d loved the people, healed them, fed them, but He’d also told them truth they didn’t want to hear, so they yelled for His death until they got it. She hated them.

  Jesus, I’m so sorry they did this
to You. Are You this Jesus? Did You say these things?

  She wiped her face on the hem of her T-shirt and kept reading. The crucifixion seemed like the same scene, though maybe some of the details were different. She should boot up her computer and pull up a PUV Bible online to compare the two, but the story tugged her forward, page after page. She’d have to compare details later. When He rose from the dead and called Mary by her name, Violet cried all over again, but this time the tears dripped into her smile. Jesus was so kind. So good. In this Bible, He wasn’t a fluffy teacher guy. He was a whole person. He could be angry or stern, not just happy.

  And the things He said were so different. He never once told someone that they hadn’t sinned. He forgave them instead. The story of the hooker was similar, but not really, because at the end, Jesus didn’t tell her to go in love and gladness. He told her to go and sin no more.

  Elysium speakers echoed in Violet’s head. They taught that Jesus loved everyone, which was true in both versions of the Bible. But they also taught about rewarding oneself, understanding one’s true nature and potential for goodness. If they met the Jesus in this Bible, they wouldn’t like what He had to say.

  A knock on her door nearly jolted Violet off the bed. She shoved the Bible under a pillow and lost her place.

  “Food out here, if you’re hungry.”

  She sniffed hard against the leftover tears. Her stomach had been growling for the last hour, but it was almost midnight now. “What’s for dinner, Dad?”

  A chuckle wafted through the door. “Made some nachos. Come on out and have some.”

  Violet shoved off the bed and padded toward the food. The tang of salsa filled the kitchen, and two paper plates of topping-slathered chips sat on the counter.

  “So.” Dad pulled a whole section of chips onto a new plate and added sour cream. “I keep trying to concede the night, but your mother wants one more round. She’s going to sweep me. Must be off my game.”

  Violet snagged a random chip that had missed all the toppings but the melted cheese. Mmm. Good stuff. “She’s savoring the victory.”

  “She’d better savor it. I’ll mop—”

  “The floor with her next time,” Violet finished for him. “How’d it get to be just you two?”