Nicole forced her tears to stay inside as she stood and nodded to her daughter. “I see.” She turned and walked to the door, waiting for, praying for Rachel to call her back. But her daughter’s voice was silent.
Nicole blinked and the memory faded. She’d wondered what she would tell Mark when they met. Now she knew; she’d tell him what she’d learned too late in life. That an obsession with the chair was a path of despair unless it led to an obsession with the One who made it.
CORIN SWUNG OPEN the door to Tori’s dojo at 8:20 that night, enough time for any straggling students from her last class to have left. Kings of Leon blared from the four Bose speakers in each corner of the room. She stood at the counter with her back to him, tapping away at her computer, probably recording comments on each student’s performance that night or answering e-mails from aspiring black belts trying to get into her perpetually full class schedule.
He held the yellow roses he’d picked up on the way behind his back and eased toward her, his shoes silent on the sparring mat.
She laughed and said without turning, “True masters can see without seeing and hear when there is no sound.”
“How do you do that?”
“Quite well, thank you.” Tori turned and smiled.
“This is for you.” He handed her the flowers and she took the roses and rubbed them across her cheek. “Thank you. I accept your peace offering.”
“So gracious of you to receive it.” Corin gave a mock bow and returned her smile. “Can we sit?”
“Sure.” Tori came out from behind her counter and they walked toward the double row of white plastic chairs used for parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends who came once a month to see the students spar in a tournament.
They sat and Corin took both her hands in his, stared at her fingers, and rubbed them in his.
“So, you have something to tell me, or did you come down here just to give me a hand massage?”
He looked up into her eyes. “I want you to try sitting in the chair.”
Tori pulled her hands away and leaned back. “You are a stained and polished platinum piece of work.”
“What would it hurt to sit in it?”
“Why should I?” Tori tapped her feet on the floor almost fast enough to double as a drumroll.
“Because it might free you from your past.”
“What in my past do I need to be free of?” Tori folded her arms. “I got free when I left home.”
“Free of your resentment?”
“I’m not holding on to any resentment.”
“Right.”
Tori stood. “Listen to me closely. I’m done talking about the chair forever. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“And if we want to continue this relationship, talk of God is not going to be part of it. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.”
On the way home Corin tried to call Tori three times. She didn’t pick up and he didn’t leave a message.
Another relationship on the rocks. He was getting good at denting them. But he’d fix Tori and he once this chair thing settled down. The dust had to land sometime.
But he was afraid the particles would soon be stirred to their greatest height yet.
CHAPTER 43
Corin stood in the back of his store shelving a new shipment of lamps when the bell on the front door announced the arrival of the last person he ever excepted to spill a shadow across his oak floor.
“Hello?” a voice from the front called out.
A voice he’d heard forever.
“I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Was it him? Had to be.
Corin jogged to the front, skidded to a stop at the end of the aisle, scanned the front of the store, and his pulse spiked. There. Right inside the front door. It was Dominique Shasta Roscoe.
His brother had hated the name Dom or Dominique from the moment he could talk. At eight years old he held up a can of his favorite drink at a family picnic—black cherry Shasta pop—and announced from that moment on his name was Shasta.
Corin stared at his brother for what seemed like ten minutes.
“Surprised to see me, bro?” Shasta tilted his head back and to the side.
Shasta’s dark brown hair was shorter than he’d ever seen it. It was almost a buzz cut. And his face was thin. “Utterly.” Surprise, fear, excitement all rushed through Corin’s brain like a flash flood.
Shasta punched the throttle on his wheelchair with his chin and surged toward him, the electric wheelchair shuddering as he bumped over the uneven wood floor.
“I need to get that floor smoothed out.”
“Why? Do you get a lot of incapacitated customers?”
Corin didn’t know how to respond and said nothing.
Shasta stopped five feet away and stared at Corin. “I’m surprised I’m here too.” His gaze moved slowly around the store. “How is business?”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’ll come back.”
Shasta nodded and the silence between them grew louder. Corin looked at his hands, then back to his brother. “I hope so.”
Another segment of silence.
“Robin tells me you’re dating a nice gal. Tori, is it?”
“Yeah.” Corin rubbed his eyes with the tips of his thumbs. The conversation was straight out of Insipid Talks for Any Occasion. “We could probably make small talk for the next two hours, but I’m not really up for it.”
“In other words, why am I here?”
“I think I know why you’re here. But I have no clue what changed your mind.”
“I’m here to go for a ride I’ll never forget.”
“But what changed your mind?”
“You did.”
“Not when we were on the phone.”
“No. After.” Shasta wheeled his chair another foot closer to Corin. “What I had to face after we talked was the fact you’d been healed. Not someone else. Any other person I couldn’t believe, but you, I do. And no, it wasn’t a physical healing, but you’ve fought your claustrophobia most of your life. If it’s gone, some type of miracle happened to you. If there’s any chance of a miracle happening to me, I have to take it. For Robin. For Sawyer.”
Shasta whirled and faced the front door as if to say that conversation was over.
“But not for you and me.”
Shasta didn’t turn back. When he spoke his voice was subdued. “No.”
Corin pressed a knuckle into his chin. Shasta wasn’t here to start building a bridge between them. He wasn’t even willing to look at a set of plans. And there was nothing Corin could do to force his brother to put on a construction hat.
But if Shasta was healed . . .
Movement outside his front window drew his attention. Robin paced next to the elevator lift built into their red van, looking almost as thin as Shasta. Probably on a continual stress diet taking care of Sawyer and Shasta. She glanced everywhere except into the store.
It didn’t surprise him.
She would do anything asked of her to help restore his relationship with Shasta, but if he knew his sister-in-law—and he did—she wouldn’t pry into what kind of verbal volley was going on inside the store.
“The chair isn’t here.” Corin turned back to Shasta. “Do you think Robin would mind swapping vehicles with me for a few hours while we take yours to my house?”
“Nope.”
When they reached Robin she grabbed Corin in a fierce hug and whispered, “I’ve prayed for this. I told you to never give up hope.”
Corin hadn’t almost given it up. He’d given up completely, but now it returned, full force, and was giving him a bigger rush than he’d ever had shattering the edges of his extreme-
sports adventures.
It didn’t matter that Shasta was still icing him out of any chance at restoring their friendship. Within forty minutes his brother would sit in the chair.
And Corin would believe in Shasta being healed.
On the ride out to Corin’s, silence was in much greater abundance than conversation but he didn’t mind. It was a chance to talk with God.
Look, God, I don’t know how to pray and I don’t care. I hope You don’t care either. I have to assume You helped set up the circumstances to get Shasta to my store. So if that’s true and You’re part of this . . . just don’t let me down, okay? Don’t let him down.
Heal him, please? Restore us to the way we were before. I want him back.
A peace settled on Corin he’d never felt before.
He glanced at his brother. His brother. Riding alongside him in a car. How long since that had happened? The day of Shasta’s accident, of course. One drive toward disaster, the next drive toward possible restoration.
But what if there was no restoration? What then? Corin tried to push the thought from his mind but it pounded back like the elastic cord on one of his bungee jumps.
C’mon, God, this has to work.
When they reached the house, Shasta’s lift lowered him to the driveway. “I moved the chair from my basement to a hidden bunker I built back when I was making serious bank. It’s a place for priceless artifacts I want kept absolutely safe. No one knows about it and I had to put it in a place where no one would find it. It’s about fifty yards behind the house over rough terrain, which means I’ll have to carry you.”
“Fine,” Shasta said, but he didn’t look at Corin.
“Ready?”
Shasta nodded, his eyes dead. “Sure.”
He hoisted Shasta out of his chair and almost dropped him a moment later from shock. So thin. More bones than flesh. He couldn’t weigh more than 115 pounds. Didn’t he eat?
“Am I doing this right?”
“It doesn’t hurt. No feeling from the neck down, remember?”
“But still—”
“I’ll survive. My physical therapists thrash me much harder than you will. I haven’t turned completely into china yet, and you’re much gentler than a bull.”
When they reached the bunker Corin set Shasta next to an aspen tree next to the entrance and pushed the remote in his pocket. A section of the earth slid back to reveal a narrow set of stairs descending underground.
He tromped down the stairs, opened the bunker door, scrambled back up to Shasta, and picked him up. “It’s going to be different this time.” The words slipped out of Corin’s mouth before he could stop them. He’d inadvertently let his hope spill out and splash all over Shasta.
He guessed hope was pressing in on his brother as well, but Shasta was probably resisting. Too much pain, too many times of trying when the healing didn’t happen.
Corin carried Shasta down into the room and set him in a kitchen chair five feet from the chair.
Shasta gazed at the chair for a long time saying nothing. Finally he said, “So this is the miracle maker.”
“I hope so.” Corin eased over and touched the back of the chair. Nothing. “Are you ready?”
“Sure.”
Corin lifted his brother and set him on the chair like he was placing a baby into his mother’s arms for the first time.
“You’ll need to hold me, keep me from falling over.”
“Of course.” Corin held his brother’s shoulders and closed his eyes.
There was nothing to say, no instructions to give.
Ten minutes later Shasta said, “How do I know when it’s long enough?”
“I don’t know.” Corin sighed. “Do you feel anything?”
“No.”
Shasta’s voice wasn’t sad, wasn’t hopeful, wasn’t anything.
“Believe with me, Shasta. Think of the deepest thing you want.”
Shasta’s raspy breathing was the only noise in the room for the next three minutes.
“Anything?” Corin asked.
“Nothing.” Shasta coughed. “What should be happening?”
“It’s been different each time.” Please, God, heal him.
Corin didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Where was the peace and the lights and the warmth?
Ten minutes later Corin carried his brother out of the bunker at his request, across the lawn, and put him in Shasta’s red van. They didn’t speak on the way back to Corin’s shop.
Before he and Robin drove away, Corin stood at the passenger side window trying to find the right words. “The healings have all come after sitting in the chair, not at the time the people sat.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll call me if anything happens?”
“Of course.” Shasta squinted up at him. “You’ll be the first.”
Would God come through? No idea.
But as the van pulled away Corin couldn’t shake the feeling that was the last time he’d talk to his brother for another age.
CHAPTER 44
Corin was pouring over his sales figures in his office, trying to find even one statistic that offered hope when he heard the front door open softly. Problem. He glanced at his watch. Ten fifteen on a Thursday night? A little late for shopping. But maybe not too early for a little breaking and entering.
He stood and eased toward his office door. The sound of heavy shoes—boots by the sound of it—echoed toward him from two different spots on his showroom floor. There was more than one of whoever it was.
Corin slipped his cell phone out of his pants pocket and pulled up his text messages. Yes. A. C. was the last person he’d texted. Please have your cell on, pal.
Corin stabbed his thumbs at the letters. Faster. Have to get this out before they come back here. AT THE STORE. IN TROU—
His office door flew open and smashed against the inside wall as a man thick in the shoulders and neck with a glistening shaved head stepped into the door frame. A wide grin played on the man’s face as he glanced around the office.
“Hello, Corin.” The man extended his hand and beckoned with his fingers. “It’s probably not a good idea to be texting anyone right now. We need to have a chat and I wouldn’t want you to be distracted by someone texting you back in the middle of our conversation. Can I have your phone, please?”
Corin pressed down on his phone hoping his thumb was in the right spot to send A. C. the text, then slid his phone onto his desk and turned back toward the man.
“Thanks for stopping by Artifications, are you in the market for an antique?”
“Interestingly enough, we are. One particular piece we understand you might be able to help us with has caught our attention in a substantial way.” The man ambled over to Corin’s desk and fished out the cell phone from where it had slid under a stack of papers. He batted the phone to the center of the desk with a finger of his gloved hand and glanced at its display.
Corin’s heart hammered.
“Let’s hope”—the man peered closer at Corin’s phone—“A. C. doesn’t get the message before we leave, hmm? For his sake. And yours.” He raised his elbow above the phone and brought it down hard. Then again. The man laughed. “I call that the iSmash. Almost as good as that Will It Blend guy on YouTube, don’t you think?” He laughed again, then motioned Corin toward the door. “Shall we?”
Corin found two other men standing in the front area of his store. One was around five eleven and looked like he should work at a university from the 1950s. All he was missing was a tweed jacket. But his shoulders were broad and his boots looked steel toed.
The other was maybe six foot, his hair cut short in front with a ponytail in back, and a tattoo of a dagger on both sides of his neck.
“I understand
you gentlemen are doing some late-night shopping.” Corin forced his breathing to steady and wished he’d taken more of Tori’s classes. His skills were at the level of would-get-himself-killed-if-he-tried-anything at best. And he suspected his guests knew more about street fighting than the average grizzly.
The man with the ponytail grinned. “Yes, we’re interested in buying a chair. But the one we want doesn’t seem to be on display tonight. However I have it on excellent authority you haven’t sold it yet.”
“And what chair would that be?”
“A powerful chair. A miraculous chair. One worth going to great lengths to possess.”
“I’m not sure I know which piece you’re referring to.”
“I think you do.” Ponytail Man tilted his head and closed his eyes. “I so wish you would be truthful with us.”
“All the chairs I have for sale are on the floor. So if you don’t see it, I don’t have it.”
The man sighed and pulled a photo out of his pocket. “It looks like this.”
Corin glanced at the photo of his chair. He hoped his face didn’t betray his question of how they got a picture of it. “I don’t have anything like that.”
Ponytail slipped the photo into his back pocket, eased over to Corin, and poked him in the chest. “Get me the chair. Now.”
“It’s gone. I sold it.”
“I see.” The man waved his hand at Baldy and Mr. 1950s. A minute and a half later Corin sat tied in a dining room chair from the thirties, thin brown twine cutting off the circulation in his wrists.
“We asked you to simply leave it in the barn, but you couldn’t do that, could you? So let me ask again. May we have the chair, please?”
“I sold it.”
Ponytail looked at Baldy, who backhanded Corin’s jaw. His head snapped back and it felt like the car accident he’d been in two years earlier. Whiplash, lights, and exploding brain cells.
“Let me ask again, Corin.” The man licked his lips. “Where is it?”
Corin let out a soft moan. “I don’t have it.” They could beat him all they wanted. He wouldn’t give up the chair. Ever.
“Okay.” Ponytail nodded and rubbed his temple. “Fine. But let me explain something to you. This isn’t the movies. If you don’t tell us, we don’t give you a long speech or torture you, and we don’t kill you. We all go find Tori and torture her and kill her in front of you very slowly.”
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