by John Faubion
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Loss
Scott sat alone in the family waiting room near the nurses’ station. Other groups came and went, but he was alone. He felt awash in a sea of people that were coming and going like waves breaking on a rocky shore. They came, they went, but he was left alone with an incredible sense of utter loss.
Outside, the streetlights had come on with the onset of darkness. A much deeper darkness had invaded his heart.
The twisted strands of the carpet between his feet moved in and out of focus. He was losing everything. He’d turned his back on God, on his wife, on his family. Could he ever, ever make it right again?
A shadow fell across the floor.
“Scott?”
He felt a man’s hand on his shoulder, turned his head to see Pastor Jim Feldner standing in front of the chair next to him. The man sat down on the cushioned seat beside him. Scott heard the air escaping from the cushion, dreading what was going to come next.
“They tell me Rachel’s going to be all right.”
Scott nodded, but made no effort to meet the other man’s eyes.
“Her father is with her now.” He returned his hand to Scott’s shoulder. “I understand she doesn’t want to see you.”
Tears swelled involuntarily in Scott’s eyes. He wanted them to go away. He didn’t want another man to see him cry.
“I’ve learned something about tough times, Scott. Let me read you something. Just two verses from the hundred and nineteenth psalm.”
Scott heard pages turning. Something from God’s Word was exactly what he needed right now.
Pastor Feldner said, “Verses sixty-seven and -eight. ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.’”
The words were like a salve on a raw wound. Scott turned his face toward his visitor. “Do you know what I did?”
“No.” He shook his head gently. “And I don’t need to. But you went astray, I can see that much. And now you’re afflicted. Does that sound about right?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’d say that’s right.”
“Step one was going astray. Step two? That’s the affliction. But step three is where you want to be right now.”
“Step three?”
“The part that says, ‘Now have I kept thy word.’”
“I don’t know what you did or what came between you and Rachel. But now is the time for you and her, both of you, to keep His word. Time to be the kind of Christian you know you ought to be.”
His pastor was right, and that’s what he was going to do.
But would Rachel ever take him back, trust him again?
His pastor wrapped one arm around Scott’s shoulders, then prayed for him. He prayed that God would not only forgive him, but that when he came through the affliction, he’d be a more obedient child of God than ever before.
“We’ll be in touch. Let me help you wherever, whenever, I can, okay?”
Scott nodded. “Thank you, Pastor,” then followed the retreating form with his eyes as he left the waiting area.
God would forgive him. But could Rachel? When the morning came, would he still have his wife?
It was going to be a long night in the waiting room.
• • •
RACHEL’S EYES CAME OPEN with the sounds of morning. Carts clattered by in the hallway outside her room. Sunlight flowed through the wide glass window and over the sill onto the floor. One bright slice of light crossed her bed, warming her arm, and reflected back off a framed picture on the opposite wall.
Her mother had left a mirror on the tray. She picked it up and looked at herself. The swelling and discoloration in her face were almost gone. Encouraged, she took the hairbrush and brushed out her hair, lay back, and looked at her reflection again. Much, much better.
A quick knock on the door and a young orderly stepped inside the room. “Ready for some breakfast?”
For the first time in two days she didn’t feel the need to hide her face. “I sure am. What have we got?”
“Whatever they said you could have.” The man looked over the tray. “And it looks like you get the special menu version.” He grinned broadly. “Must be trying to fatten you up. Whoa . . . shouldn’t say that to a lady.”
Rachel laughed and was pleased with the sound. She hadn’t laughed at anything for a long time, it seemed.
“Take your time. I’ll be back later and collect the hardware,” he called, making his way out the door to his waiting cartful of meals.
Scrambled eggs, a sausage patty. It was wonderful. She closed her eyes as she chewed, and . . . Scott. Where are you now?
She remembered the way he had looked at her when he asked her to forgive him. Those eyes had once been for her only. But those same eyes—when he was supposed to be working—had looked and lusted on . . . She couldn’t say the name. Revulsion filled her again, and she shivered in the light hospital gown.
Oh, Scott. How could you do it? They had promised to be faithful to each other. She had been faithful, even while he lied to her. Even when he left her crying all alone in the bedroom that night.
And who knows where he went after that?
She swallowed the food, now a dry and tasteless lump that stuck in her throat until she sipped at some juice.
Did she still want him?
Yes.
She closed her eyes, barely willing to face what would come next.
His betrayal had been so great. He had allowed that woman into their house, and . . . The tears came again, two people she had trusted had humiliated her.
Was she going to have to spend the rest of her life wondering if he was telling the truth, wondering if he was with someone else? Trust had to be built on more than wishes.
Pastor Feldner’s voice came to her now. Slow, cadenced. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” He wanted her to understand that Scott could not earn her forgiveness. She just had to give it.
I’ll do it, Lord. Because you say it. Not because I feel it.
Rachel pushed the tray away, laid her head back on her pillow, tried to prepare herself. She feared to forgive Scott. She was frightened to trust him again, so soon.
“Done with that breakfast?”
The orderly picked up the tray, and Rachel thumbed the button for a nurse to come. She hoped Scott would be a long time arriving. She needed time to get ready. Time to be believable.
“How can I help you?” The nurse that had cleaned her up the first time was back. “You’re sure looking better.”
Rachel’s smile was weak. “My husband will probably be coming by today. It’s all right if he comes in now.”
“Are you sure, honey? If you need some space . . .”
“No, it’s okay. I want to see him.”
“I’ll go get him if you’re ready.”
“What? How will you get him?”
“Sweetheart, he’s been in the waiting room all night.”
She whispered, “Okay,” then turned to look out the window again. The leaves moved in the light breeze. What would she say to him? Back and forth they moved.
“Rachel?”
She took her eyes from the tree outside, turned her head to see Scott in the door.
“I love you, Rachel.”
And I love you.
She put her arms out and let him come into her embrace.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Plans
The buckle snapped as Rachel cinched the seat belt tightly around herself. Her face was drawn, but the color was returning. Scott closed her car door, went around to the driver’s side, and settled down behind the wheel. The windshield was dusty, the result of three days in the hospital parking lot.
The Andersons were at the house and the children were safe. Scott had scarcely left Rachel’s side.
He was weary, but elated at the same time. He was bringing his wife home.
It was time to make everything new again
and time to defend their family.
“It’s almost like going to someone else’s house, isn’t it?” he asked.
She dipped her head. “Yes, but not for long. Just as soon as I get everything wiped down I’ll be okay again. I’ve got to get every trace of that woman out of my house.”
It was an odd feeling, going back to his home, treating it like a hazardous materials cleanup. An invader had been inside and like any kind of dangerous predator had left its mark. Animals always left a trail.
He sensed his mind focusing on their situation. Clarity was returning. Rachel was safe and the children would be all right. That was good for now, but the threat remained.
Scott tightened his grip on the wheel as he accelerated onto the highway. “The most important thing we’ve got to do is get the kids somewhere safe. Now that your dad’s here, he and your mom can take them both back home with them until we figure out what we have to do. It may not take long to track Melissa down, whoever she is.”
“Agreed. I don’t think they’ll have any problem with that. Dad already told me that they would do whatever we asked to help make us safe again.”
“I know. Thank God for them.” Scott reached for Rachel’s hand, found it, and held it tightly. “We’ll do whatever it takes and we’ll do it together.”
Rachel’s hand was smaller than Scott’s, but she gripped his firmly. “Together. The way God intended.”
• • •
ANDY ANDERSON put his arm around Scott’s shoulder and steered him toward the empty laundry room. “You haven’t told us much, and that’s okay. I just want to hear from you that our daughter’s going to be safe. Promise me that?”
Andy’s eyes locked on Scott’s, who met his gaze and returned the same intensity.
He took the older man’s hand in his own, gripped his forearm with the other. “I promise you she’ll be okay. That we’ll all be safe soon. There’re some things we don’t know yet, but we’re going to learn all we need to.”
Scott paused, breathed out. “And I’m going to make my family safe.”
“That’s good enough for me, son. We’ll be praying for you constantly. We love you both. I’m trusting you completely.”
The two men embraced, then returned to help their wives finish packing up the car.
• • •
“YOU CALL US WHEN you get there, okay? Don’t forget.” Rachel waved to her mother as she closed the door on her father’s Chrysler sedan. Angela and Scotty waved back from the big rear seat. Ruff bounced across the seat and pressed his wet nose against the window, leaving a smeared splotch.
“They’ll be fine.” Scott wrapped his arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “They couldn’t be with better people than your mom and dad.”
She nodded and leaned close to Scott as they watched the big car leave the driveway and move onto the road. When the car was out of sight they turned and went back into the house.
Scott laid two yellow notepads on the dining room table, one for each of them. He put his laptop computer on the table and flipped up the lid, powering it on. By the time the coffee had dripped through and been poured into two large, heavy mugs they were ready to work.
“Let’s review what we know,” said Scott. “We probably know more than we think we do. Number one, we both got fooled. Alicia is real. Not fake.”
“And I think that must mean she works for the website somehow,” said Rachel. “Otherwise, how could she have done all she did?”
“I think then that the first thing we’re going to want to do is check out the company.” On the laptop, he keyed in http://www.VirtualFriendMe.com. From the website menu he chose “About.” A brief history of the company appeared and the company’s corporate address on the northeast side of Indianapolis.
“See this?” He pointed to the address. “I know where that is.”
Rachel brought her head close to Scott’s. He felt her warm breath on his cheek. It felt good to him, good to be close to her again.
“I know that place too. What else is there? Look at all the documents.”
Scott said, “Look here, they have a press release from their big Go-Live.”
“What’s a Go-Live?”
“That’s when a company officially tells the world their website is running. They had theirs here.”
He clicked on the hyperlink and a PDF file expanded onto the display. “I’ll print it out.”
“Let me look while you check that.” She clicked other links while Scott turned to pluck the papers coming out of the printer.
He was quiet until she heard a low whistle escape his lips.
“And what do you know? Wonder if it’s her.” He pointed to a name.
Rachel took the sheet, studied the document. “Melissa Montalvo. That’s the right first name. I guess it could be. Let’s see what it says about her.”
He put his finger back on the spot and followed along the line. “It says she’s the chief software scientist. She probably has access to everything. Let’s find out what else we can learn about her.”
The website revealed nothing else about the person they had found. Most important, there was no picture.
“Check Google images. See if she’s there.”
Scott tried the image search, came up dry. “This is really strange. Can you imagine how hard you’d have to work to keep Google from having any picture at all of you?”
“Way weird. Okay, this isn’t working. You know what we’re going to have to do, don’t you?” asked Rachel.
Scott nodded, as his stomach took a turn. The last time he’d seen her he’d been weak. That wasn’t going to happen again. She’d tried to kill Rachel.
“We’re going to go there and see if she shows up. We have to find out if it’s her or not. And if it is, then we’re going to dig deeper.”
“Do you think the sheriff will ever come up with anything?”
“Maybe. They seem interested enough. For all I know they’re still looking at me. I don’t blame them. I’m sure they thought I did something to you. So much weird stuff goes on today. They don’t know anything about me.”
“It had to be when she was babysitting that she put that poison in the bottle, though, don’t you think?” asked Rachel.
“Probably. But for all we know, she even knew the code to the garage door opener, or copied one of your keys when you were at Hugest Losers. We just don’t know. One thing we do know is that we can’t depend on other people to do this for us, police or not. God gave us our family and it’s up to us to protect it.”
Rachel tapped her index finger on the tabletop. “What is that website for professional networking? Linked Up, or something like that? Maybe she has an entry there.”
A quick search of the website brought up eight different matches on the name spread all across the country. Two had pictures and were eliminated, but one matched.
“She’s got a listing, but there’s just a blank avatar where a picture should be. Not unusual; I don’t have my picture there either.”
“We’re just going to spin our wheels doing all these web searches. Tomorrow morning we’ll go to their office, park the car, and watch everyone that comes or goes. If she shows up for work, we’ll know it.”
“What if we don’t see her? Then what do we do?”
“Whether we see her or not, I think the next step has to be the same. We find out what we can about her. We know about how old she is and we know what she looks like. We know her name’s Melissa, and we’re almost as sure that her last name is Montalvo. That makes pretty good sense so far.
“We can ask questions. Play dumb. I doubt that anyone else in that company has any idea what has happened. Think about it—they’re in business to make a profit, not mess with people’s lives. No, I think this must have been purely the work of one person.”
“Why did she come after us, Scott? I still can’t figure that out. Why did she go after you? Do you think we’ll ever know?”
“We’ll probably only know that if she
tells us. And who knows? She might do just that. Time will tell.”
“How do we stop her, then? Let’s say that she works there and we find her. Let’s even assume we find out where she lives and some personal information on her. What do we do then? Give all that to the police?”
“I don’t know if the sheriff will be able to do any more than they have already. They didn’t have a name, they didn’t have anyone they could place at our home, nothing. Only your fingerprints were on the pill bottle. They did the basic things. They checked the references at Hugest Losers. That was all fake. I think that as far as they’re concerned, they’ve done what they can. Unless something else happens, of course.”
“Unless she gives us some kind of confession, which I really doubt, all we can do is confront her and threaten to expose her. Maybe her job is important enough to her that she’ll back off. In any case she’ll know she isn’t going to get any farther with us.”
Rachel wagged her head back and forth. “But we have to remember the children. We can’t assume anything. The woman’s a nutcase, and dangerous. She’s already shown she can get close to them.”
Scott smiled grimly, blinked. “You’re right about that. Okay, so maybe we don’t know everything right now. Not even what step three is going to look like. I say we don’t waste any more time, though. We take step one, and go to the company in the morning. No matter what we find, we take step two, and ask around. Find out what we can about her. When we’ve done all that, we regroup, see where we stand.”
“Scott, there’s something important you’ve got to do. I can’t do it.” Rachel shivered, crossed her arms.
“What? Just tell me.”
She picked her cell phone off the desktop and put it in his hand.
“Her pictures are in there, when she’s holding Angela. I can’t look at them. I want them gone.”
He scrolled to the first picture, nearly pressed the delete button, then stopped. “I’d better forward them to my phone. We may need them someday.”
Rachel raised one eyebrow. “Why would we want them?”
“Not us. The sheriff may want them. Who knows? But I’m getting them off your phone.”
