I stopped in my tracks and looked over at my friends who were trying to provide support. “What?”
Brad held his palms to the ceiling. “Want to know which way you’re leaning.”
I pondered his question, biting the inside of my cheek. I was trying to separate what I wanted to believe versus believing it and then finding out she really was dead. “I’m just not sure what I should think or what I should do.”
Brad scratched his chin. I could tell he was uncertain as well. Using our FBI connections as a rather large bat, we had been on the phone with six different people at various levels of Virginia state and county governments, asking if there could have been a mistake in the search. They brought in IT folks who actually went into the database and did their own search: neither Charlotte Troutt nor Charlotte Walsh existed amongst the death certificates on file.
“But that doesn’t rule out that it doesn’t exist in our warehouse. It’s happened before,” the senior records management director had said. The woman had gone on to say that the only way to be absolutely certain was to conduct an internal investigation, which translated into a search of their hard copies.
I looked over at Brad again. “How can I sit here and wait for them to conduct their four- to six-week search of their warehouse?”
“I…I don’t know what to say, babe. The wheels of government don’t change for anyone, it seems, regardless of how difficult it might be,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “The question is, what’s the likelihood this one fell through the cracks and wasn’t entered into the system?”
“Probably pretty low,” Ezzy said.
“Thank you,” I said.
Brad glanced out the window into the backyard, the sun illuminating a blueish tint to his gray eyes. He was a handsome man, now in deep thought.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
He turned to face me. “If your mom didn’t die from that crash, then what was going on with your dad? He actually made you think she was dead? I can’t fathom what he was thinking.”
I found the counter and planted both hands on the edge, shaking my head. “And this all comes out now, after he’s dead.”
My gut felt like it was doing flips at a rate equivalent to the beat of my out-of-control pulse, which made it that much more difficult to think clearly. I rubbed the side of my head.
“All these years, I’ve been thinking Mom had died. Then we arrest the guy who was responsible for her death…or so we thought. And when I finally admitted it was time to deal with her death head-on, I find out she may still be alive. It’s just too bizarre to believe.” I took in a deep breath, trying to suppress my emotions a bit.
“Your father…I’m sorry, but that man…” Ezzy said, bringing a hand to her mouth.
I looked Ezzy in the eye. She had stated the obvious, yet my heart thumped against my chest even harder.
After a few seconds, Brad, my voice of reason, jumped in. “We can’t bring your dad back and put him in the FBI interview room and grill him until we get the answers we want. We have no idea about his motivations, or his reasoning. So now we—”
“Motivations?” Ezzy jumped in, her voice pitching higher. “How could that man take his daughter away from her own mother? It’s just unconscionable.”
“Ezzy, not to take up for Dad, but do you remember some of the stories I told you? Maybe Dad just couldn’t put up with her any longer.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t there, and you were only a little kid. But if he had a real problem with her, then why didn’t he just divorce her?” Silence engulfed the room for a moment. Pumpkin strolled in, his back claws softly tapping the tiled floor. He stretched dramatically, as cats tended to do, then stuck his face in his food bowl and started crunching away.
I pushed off from the counter and held up a finger. “Dad moved us to Port Isabel; we all know that. So Mom goes into the hospital, and let’s say she eventually gets out. So then what? She didn’t even try to come find us? To find her own daughter?”
I could hear my voice echoing, and I knew my intensity was on the rise.
“Both parents,” Ezzy said, her cheeks now flush. “What were they thinking? I’m so sorry, Alex. Unfortunately, they don’t issue licenses for people to have kids.”
“It’s so fucked up.” I couldn’t stop shaking my head in sheer disbelief.
Ezzy began shuffling my items into my purse, probably just to keep herself occupied. “I know this might be a reach, but what if your mom had some type of amnesia from her wreck? After all, Alex, you suffered a similar injury in your wreck earlier this year.”
I shrugged my shoulders, but Brad spoke up. “It’s possible, but do you really think the hospital would release her when she couldn’t recall her family?”
“They did with Alex.”
“Not really. Alex basically walked out, and that was only with Nick acting as her chaperone and protector. Who did your mom have?”
I stopped shaking my head. “That last question. What if…?”
“…there was someone else in the mix?” Brad finished for me.
I let the question comingle with reality for a second. “Hold up. We’re talking about my mom…the one whose mug shot shows up next to the term religious fanatic in Google.”
Ezzy lifted her eyes and looked at me.
“I’m just kidding, Ezzy.”
She flipped her hand in my direction. “I know that.”
“You’re right, Alex,” Brad said. “The way you described your mom, it’s hard to fathom that she would be screwing around on your dad. Especially enough to convince her to leave her family behind.” He paced back and forth a few steps, still keeping his distance from me. He knew how to read me, that much was obvious.
I wiped my hand across my head, wondering if it was possible to feel more stress. Yet, at the same time, a rush of nervous energy coursed through my veins. “I’m not sure we’ll ever know why she did it, why Dad didn’t say anything to me. But the bottom line is that Mom might be alive, and I need to find her. Someway, somehow, I need to find my mother.”
I stared straight at Brad, his compassionate eyes looking right back at me. My speeding heart calmed a bit, but at the same time fluttered in my chest.
“Alex.” Ezzy interrupted our little moment. “Alex.”
“Uh…yeah. Ezzy,” I said, finally shifting my eyes to her.
A small envelope was clenched in her hand. “I found this stuffed between one of the brochures lying on the counter from your purse.”
“That’s not mine. Are you sure it came from my purse?”
She tilted her head to the side and gave me the look.
“Okay, I believe you,” I said, walking toward her with my arm extended. “But I have no clue who put that in my purse.”
“I do,” she said, turning it around, then pulling it a few inches from her face. She began to read something written in pen on the backside of the envelope. “Please read this note from your dad. He wanted you to have it. Carly. P.S. I have no idea what this says. I hope you believe me.”
I took the envelope from Ezzy and quickly noticed it was sealed shut.
“I don’t think Carly wanted to see what was inside,” Brad said, moving next to me. He nudged my arm and I leaned against him.
On the front of the envelope, I saw my name written in Dad’s chicken-scratch handwriting. I recalled him often shaking when he was writing a check at the grocery store. Probably related to one of his monster hangovers.
I opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper.
“What does it say?” Ezzy asked.
I heard her words, but it was impossible to respond. My mouth became parched, and I could feel my airways closing up.
“Alex, are you okay?” Ezzy asked as Brad put his hand on my back. “Tell me. What did that bastard say?”
I looked up and flicked my wrist, snapping the piece of paper. “He starts off by telling me how sorry he is for not telling me about what happened to Mo
m and that he didn’t know what to do, so he just moved us as far away as the Coast Guard would allow.”
I licked my lips and fought to keep my emotions in check.
Ezzy’s hand went to her mouth. “What happened?”
“Mom...well, according to Dad, Mom was brainwashed by one of the deacons of our church. Dad believed she was slowly losing touch with reality, and then after the accident, she ran off with him. Dad thinks the man was essentially trying to start his own…” A wave of emotion temporarily cut off my ability to speak.
I tried to complete my thought. “Dad said he believed the man was recruiting Mom as part of an effort to start his own religious cult.”
Ezzy gasped. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Brad rubbing my back, but I couldn’t feel a thing.
Finally, Ezzy spoke up. “A letter from the dead. How appropriate.”
7
The truck coughed, sputtered, and then finally turned over, the engine settling into its normal droning growl. It would have been easy for the silver-haired woman sitting in the passenger’s seat of the sixteen-year-old pickup to let the rhythmic cadence lull her to sleep. Last night had been filled with grunts and shrills, both pained and euphoric, depending on the perspective.
From her perspective, it was simply another night of hell.
She looked over her shoulder and watched the big, hairy man, who appeared much older than his twenty-three years of age, lift the young ladies into the bed of the pickup. Each wore gray bonnets and dresses, their shoes dingy, black flats. Four lucky souls had earned the right to make the weekly trip to the county store, but as usual, there was only a single winter jacket. With temperatures hovering in the upper thirties, and a low, gray sky chopping off the tops of the enormous pines, the jacket’s value was particularly high. Jamin, an elder of Camp Israel, had bestowed the honor to Shiloh. The meaning of her name in Hebrew was ‘tranquil.” The camp’s elders had named her Shiloh because she rarely cried following her birth. She seemed at peace, the council of men had said.
But last night the woman was almost certain the ear-piercing screams had come from Shiloh, her youthful voice painfully echoing through the bare hallways. Shiloh had been raped by Jamin, and his gift to her was to allow her to wear a jacket in the brutal cold to the store.
That was fucked up.
The woman seethed inside as she thought about what Shiloh had given up just to stay warm. The sixteen-year-old girl with pale skin found her spot in the corner of the truck, her tiny arms wrapped around her body, which was engulfed by the oversized jacket. Stuffing spilled out in five places where the coat had been torn. The elders said they had to ration the coat to those who deserved it most—a practice they often used for any incentive inside Camp Israel. Yet, the woman had seen new coats dispensed to twenty men just a month earlier, when they conducted an emergency alertness drill and they were sent into the woods around their compound to man their stations.
Since her very first day in the camp, they had been told—rather, instructed—that they could never trust outsiders. The non-believers. Satanists. And every decision in the camp seemed to feed off of trust, or the lack thereof.
The woman was jarred out of her daze, as another girl in the back had smacked Shiloh across the face. It was Jaala. The woman quickly reached for the door handle and tugged, but it didn’t budge. She lifted her eyes and saw the deep stare of Ezra.
“Hold up, Beulah. When it gets physical, you know I gotta handle this.”
The man, who with each passing day looked more like a brown bear, hopped into the bed of the truck and lifted Jaala off her feet. The young girl was kicking and swinging her arms, her eyes shooting spears into Shiloh, the defenseless girl with the jacket.
“I want to rip your fucking eyes out, you fucking bitch. You’re nothing but a whore who was sent from the depths of hell to ruin my life,” Jaala screamed. “Let me go, dammit. Shiloh is a whore and all whores must die!”
Ezra tucked the wild child under his arm like she was a sack of potatoes. His boots hit the ground, and Beulah could hear him chuckling. It was all a game to him, the girls nothing more than a sideshow, as long as they followed the rules—those that came from the Good Book, and those that weren’t written in any book. It had taken a long while to understand the culture of Camp Israel and those who had founded it. But for many, especially those who were younger and experiencing normal rebellious feelings, their defiance was met with a harsh reality: they would suffer in ways they couldn’t comprehend until they were broken. And Beulah knew that even the heartiest would eventually break.
Beulah watched Ezra open the side screen door to the main house and then dump Jaala inside. One of the elders took her in his arms and guided her into the darkness. With her eyes now gazing at Shiloh hovering in the corner, she could see tears streaming across red cheeks.
Clenching her teeth, Beulah opened her door and stepped outside. She reached out to Shiloh, resting a gentle hand against Shiloh’s ear. The girl nestled against it, but it didn’t stop her crying.
“Shh. It’s okay, Shiloh,” Beulah said in a calm voice. She glanced up and saw Ezra walking off the small porch, but Shiloh’s sobbing continued. “Dear, you can cry when you go to sleep tonight. For now, you need to be strong. It’s for your own good.”
“But…but why did Jaala say those awful things about me? I try to be a good person, to follow the teachings of Malachi and his elders, and now I’m persecuted. I…I don’t understand.”
Beulah gripped the young girl’s shoulder. “Shiloh, you are young, and only when you get older will you better understand why people do and say things. Life isn’t always fair, but we can’t forget how fortunate we are to have this life.”
Shiloh sniffled a couple of times. “Why did Jamin…do those things to me? He hurt me.”
Her breath stuck in the back of her throat. “I…I’m so sorry. It—”
“You, back in the truck,” Ezra barked, pointing a finger at Beulah. She removed her hand and stepped backward. The enormous man hopped into the bed of the truck and barreled over to Shiloh, but turned his head to ensure the two other girls could hear him.
“Scripture tells us, ‘And not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation. A generation that did not prepare its heart. And whose spirit was not faithful to God.’ Now, you girls can’t be acting like wild horses. It ain’t proper or right. Not at Camp Israel. You gotta do your work, thank the good Lord you have proper food and shelter and a whole community of people who care and love you, and grow up a little and get along. Do you hear me? Am I being clear?”
All three muttered yes sir under their breaths.
“Okay, now,” Ezra said, clapping his hands. “It’s a glorious day, so take in some good, clean air, and let’s enjoy this time of fellowship.”
He hopped over the edge of the truck and motioned for Beulah to get into the cab. Once both doors were shut, she said, “Ezra, given what we just experienced, don’t you think it’s best that I ride in the back with the girls? I think they need some womanly guidance.”
Squeezing the steering wheel inside his beefy fingers, Ezra began to pump out breaths, his gaze looking straight ahead into the narrow dirt road that snaked through woods and eventually to Highway 5, the main road.
“Ezra, I’m not trying to upset you. I only want to help the girls learn from this episode, to bring faith and forgiveness into their hearts, and, of course, loyalty to those who follow our ways at Camp Israel.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” He flipped his head to look straight at her, spit flying out of his mouth.
“I never said that, Ezra. You are a gracious, good person. And yes, you are very smart. Far smarter than me,” she said, bowing her head slightly.
“You know the rules, Beulah. A lady’s place is in the seat, next to the man. Even if I ain’t your husband, you belong here, next to me. That’s the way it’s supposed to work in the world. You should know that, right?” With emotion coursing through his
veins, his voice pitched an octave higher.
“Of course, Ezra. You are right.” She placed her hands in her lap and looked straight ahead. A moment later, he slipped the gearshift into drive, and the truck motored forward.
Halfway through the mile-long route to the main road, Ezra finally spoke up. “You know I don’t like using my position of power to hurt you, Beulah.”
“That’s why I said you’re a good man, Ezra. I truly believe that,” she said, feigning admiration for him.
He nodded and gave her a straight-lipped smile. “I remember all those stories you used to tell me when I was younger, about you changing my diapers and all. And here we are now, twenty-something years later and look at us.” He turned his head and winked. “We’re almost acting like an old married couple.”
It took everything in her power to force out a smile. At the same time, she was confused with his odd and untimely flirtation. There were numerous girls in the compound near his age; yet, for some reason he never attempted to bed any of those young ladies, who were more energetic and, frankly, more attractive. She had been forced to have sex with countless men in the compound, although all had been near her age. Once considered one of the trophies in the camp, time had caught up with her, and the torch had been passed on to the next generation.
At sixty-one years old, the aging process couldn’t have happened fast enough.
She had begged her Maker for most of three decades that she would turn ugly or age more quickly, anything to keep the leeches from invading her body. She once even sliced her face with broken glass, leaving a scar to the side of her lip as a reminder of that time in her life. When she was the rebel.
“I have plenty of stories about changing your diapers, Ezra, but I don’t want to embarrass you. Let’s focus on what we need to get at the store.”
The bumpy ride finally reached the main road. Ezra turned left, and as the so-called family made their way into town, Beulah dreamed of days when she spent time with her own family. And she cried inside the entire road trip.
8
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2) Page 55
