The Keeper

by T F Allen

  “Whatever Delacroix said to himself before he got kidnapped. You and Thatcher seemed to think that was normal.”

  “Oh,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “That’s because it’s something he does all the time. He was talking to his Keeper.”

  “His what?”

  “That’s what Michael calls his guardian angel.”

  “Are you serious? Like with wings and a halo?”

  “Make fun all you want, but that won’t make it any less true. Michael has known his Keeper since he was a child. They’re very close. He talks to him every day like he would to me or you.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “I thought he was smarter than that.”

  “It’s not about brains, dear.”

  Hannah glanced at Sister Mary Elizabeth and smiled, but her expression didn’t soften her words. “No offense, but I don’t believe in God or angels.”

  “Then I guess it doesn’t matter who he was talking to.”

  The Richmond District police station waited just ahead. They parked on the street a block away. Sister Mary Elizabeth adjusted her veil as they approached. A Romanesque revival-style exterior greeted them. The year 1927 was etched into the cornerstone. This station must have been built to last. Few buildings in San Francisco had survived as many earthquakes as this place. She took it as a good sign.

  She also took the lead when they walked inside, using the same charm that had worked so well for her at the Louisiana Children and Family Services office years ago. Given her story, her demeanor, and her clothing, the station clerk buzzed us through the office doors immediately. Two minutes later we were in the captain’s office.

  Captain Leland Tuttle seemed as kind as he was large—a bear of a man with huge hairy arms and a mustache you could paint a house with. She assumed he’d earned his position after years of hard-nosed effort. And he must have honed his people skills, too, nodding and gesturing with empathy as the two of them shared their story. When Hannah slapped the security camera DVD on his desk, Captain Tuttle didn’t flinch. He calmly inserted it into the player behind him and rested his arms on his belly as it started to play.

  A chill ran through me as the scene played out on the screen again. This video captured my worst moment as Michael’s protector. I never saw Donnie coming, hadn’t even thought of trying to warn Michael about him. That guilt was something I’d have to live with until I could lead someone out to that vineyard.

  “What do you think?” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.

  “It’s definitely an abduction,” the captain said. “I’ll get this down to the technical team and see what they can learn from it. We need to identify that other vehicle and see if we can identify the suspect as well.”

  “What about Michael’s car?”

  “Did he have a vehicle location or recovery system like OnStar or LoJack?”

  “It’s a twelve-year-old Hyundai,” Hannah said. “It barely has an engine.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to track it down,” the captain said.

  Sister Mary Elizabeth appreciated the captain’s words, but they did nothing to soothe the anxiety that kept her from sitting still. “What else can we do? Where do we start looking?”

  The captain leaned forward and took one of her hands. He cupped it with his own hairy mitts. Surely he had no idea how they looked and felt to her. “Sister, you’ve done something amazing by finding this security video. I’m not sure anyone would have believed you if you hadn’t. This gives us a good place to start. I’ll assign an investigative team, and they’ll check out Mr. Delacroix’s apartment and the abduction site. They’ll be very thorough, I promise. I just need you to be patient and let us do our job.”

  “It’s already been twenty-four hours,” she said.

  “Yes, and that makes it more difficult. But I’ll put my best people on it.”

  “We want to be notified of every development, no matter how minor,” Hannah said.

  Captain Tuttle turned toward Hannah. “I’m sorry. How did you say you know Michael?”

  “She’s with me,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “We’re a team on this. Listen, I’ve known this boy his whole life. I loved him long before the world fell in love with his paintings.” She pulled her hand away from the captain. “We both know he’s in trouble. Right now he’s in trouble. What are you going to do to find my Michael?”

  “Everything we can,” he said. “My people, they’re professionals. They’ve been trained on the protocol for this exact situation.”

  “So we have to wait while they follow the protocol?”

  “We’re not good at waiting,” Hannah said.

  “There’s still plenty you can do. My lead investigator will want to conduct interviews with you, Mr. Thatcher, and anyone else who had contact with Mr. Delacroix in the past few days. You could also help by giving us a detailed background.”

  • • •

  Outside the station, Sister Mary Elizabeth compared notes with Hannah. “It’ll take them at least a day to learn what we already know if they stick with their protocol.”

  Hannah kept a fierce pace down the sidewalk, like she already knew where to drive next. “It’s good to have them working the case. They’ll track down his car much faster than we could. But I’m betting that car is nowhere near Delacroix right now.”

  “You’re saying you think he’s…”

  “He’s not dead,” Hannah said. “Not yet, anyway. This kidnapping was planned. No way he’s picked up at random in a neighborhood like that. This guy wants something from Delacroix. And he’s keeping him alive until he gets it.”

  I knew Hannah was right about that last part, even though I’d been avoiding the obvious connection she’d drawn to words she hadn’t heard. But I had. Midnight tomorrow. That was Donnie’s deadline. No matter how well Michael painted, Donnie would probably kill him then.

  Hannah’s words fed the anxiety in Sister Mary Elizabeth’s mind. A thousand people might have wanted a thousand different things from her Michael, and she couldn’t think of a scenario that didn’t scare her to death. “He’s never hurt anyone, never taken anything that wasn’t given. What did he do to deserve this?”

  “He destroyed a painting,” Hannah said. “A painting millions of people admired and loved. Maybe he ticked off the wrong guy.”

  “No. That’s not it. No one kidnaps a person over a painting. This must be about something else.”

  “No one I know would kidnap anyone, period.” Hannah unlocked the doors to the SUV. “An average Joe wouldn’t do what we saw on that video, either. God knows what was motivating him.”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth froze as she reached for the door handle. Hannah didn’t even know what she’d said, but she’d nailed it. “You’re absolutely right, dear. And I’m going to ask Him to tell me. Take me to Star of the Sea.”

  “You’re going to what? Where?”

  “The cathedral two blocks west of here.” Sister Mary Elizabeth opened the passenger door and jumped inside, pulling the folds of her dress with her. “We passed it on the way from Mr. Thatcher’s. I’ll only need a few minutes. You can wait in the car if you want.”

  Hannah closed her door but didn’t start the engine. “You want to ask God who kidnapped Michael?”

  “Yes.”

  Hannah’s mouth hung open. She grabbed the steering wheel like it was the last solid thing in this world. “And you expect to get an answer?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” She pointed to her veil. “I dedicated my life to Him.”

  “I see that. But still…” Hannah’s lips twisted like she’d kissed a lemon. “We need to be realistic here.”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth collapsed into her seat. This poor girl was more lost than she’d imagined. Just when she thought she was part of a special partnership brought together by the Father, Hannah opened her mouth and let Sister Mary Elizabeth know how alone in her faith she was.

  “I know you think I’m wasting your time, but I’m not. Michael means everything to me.�
� She fought back her tears; this wasn’t the time. “My faith brought me here. It helped us prove Michael was taken. Now it’s all I’ve got left. I can’t stop trusting it.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  She slammed her fist on the dashboard. “I don’t care about my feelings. This is more important than me or you. We’re not the police. We can’t operate like them. You said it yourself—the man who took Michael isn’t normal. He’ll probably kill Michael if we don’t find him soon. This is the only way I can do it.”

  She was in her sixties and weary from lack of sleep. But I knew she was the only person in the world I could lead toward Michael. She wouldn’t stop until she found him. Even if she had to crawl over broken glass or hot coals, this woman would die before she gave up on him. Hopefully the reporter could see that as clearly as I could.

  Hannah started the engine and reached for her seat belt. “Star of the Sea?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s a pretty weird name for a church.”

  • • •

  Hannah parked on the street in front of the main entrance. Sister Mary Elizabeth had noticed it when they passed by earlier because of its distinctly Catholic features: the Latin cross floor plan, the twin bell towers topped with shiny bronze crosses, and the decorative rose window high above the narthex. She climbed the steps leading to the entrance before she thought to turn around.

  Hannah stood at the bottom of the steps with her arms crossed. She stared at a spot on the whitewashed church facade. Sister Mary Elizabeth followed her gaze and found her target: a colored fresco just above the entry arch depicting a ship sailing on an angry sea. Above the waters, a golden star lit up the sky.

  “You’re really going to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it matter if I come, too?” Hannah said.

  “He probably won’t mind.”

  Once Sister Mary Elizabeth crossed through the narthex, she felt the tension in her body melt away. Even though she was used to being in the outside world, the craziness of the past twelve hours had pushed her nerves to their limits. Her mind started spinning after she read Hannah’s online article, and she hadn’t been able to make it stop since. She didn’t want to slow down because she thought it meant letting up on the search for Michael. But now she realized this was the only way she and Hannah could move forward. Her mind had been quiet when God spoke to her the night before and again when she felt so lost in Michael’s apartment. Maybe if she silenced her mind now in the comfortable surroundings of this church, He would speak to her again.

  I was still nervous about impersonating the voice of God, or whoever she thought I was, especially when it was so clear how much Sister Mary Elizabeth’s faith meant to her. This was a crime more intrusive than placing a wiretap or hacking an email account. Each time I spoke into someone’s mind, I needed to choose my words carefully. Otherwise I could end up causing more harm than I could ever hope to heal.

  She dipped her fingers into the holy water at the entrance to the nave, made the sign of the cross, then marched down the main aisle. Hannah followed, but stayed several steps back. Sister Mary Elizabeth was glad she’d found such a traditional Roman Catholic cathedral. A wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross stood just inside the south transept, and it looked just like the one inside Saint Bartholomew’s. She knelt in the pew directly in front of it.

  I guessed it was fitting such a sudden transformation would occur on holy ground, but it surprised me how quickly she was able to quiet her mind. Even though she bowed her head and closed her eyes, she still held a perfect image of the statue in her mind. She focused on the picture first, and then on what it symbolized: the ultimate gift of sacrifice, given to her nearly two thousand years ago by the Son of God. His death as payment for every sin she would ever commit. It reminded her that she was loved, that she was special, just like Michael. And it calmed her mind to the point where she was open to hearing my voice.

  Like before, I didn’t want to scare her or make her doubt her faith. But Donnie’s deadline was creeping closer. This wasn’t the time to be vague.

  She stayed completely still inside and out for another minute. Then she said a prayer like she always did. Her lips moved, but she didn’t make a sound. Only I could hear her: Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Someone is lost and needs to be found.

  It was a common prayer she’d recited since she was a child, usually after losing a necklace or a hair band. She changed only one word of that standard prayer this time, and she hoped the patron saint of lost items would forgive her. It was a risk she was willing to take.

  I know you brought me here to find Michael, but now we’re lost. I kneel before you, ready to hear your voice again. Please, for the sake of this boy, tell me where he was taken. I beg you, please show me the way…

  This time when I spoke into her mind, she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t debate internally about what she’d heard or who was speaking. She made the sign of the cross, stood, and retraced her steps back down the aisle.

  Hannah rushed to her side. “Did you hear anything?”

  “Not here. Outside, dear.”

  They walked in silence back through the nave and the narthex. When they passed under the entry arch, Hannah grabbed her arm. “Spill it.”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth squinted into the sunlight while her eyes adjusted to her surroundings. “We have our work cut out for us. I don’t know where to start.”

  Hannah stepped in front of her, blocking the sun with her golden hair. “Tell me exactly what you heard.”

  “I have a name—actually, two. They’re connected. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Hannah pulled out her smartphone. “Try me.”

  “The first name you’ll know—Jolene Anderson.”

  “Yeah, I know all about her. Except where to find her.” Hannah put her hand on her hip. “What about the second name?”

  “Do you know a man named Donnie Harkrider?”

  CHAPTER 17

  Of course I told the nun about Donnie. I didn’t want them to waste valuable time racing from clue to clue only to reach the vineyard too late.

  There was still much left to do. The police wouldn’t believe Sister Mary Elizabeth. I wasn’t sure Hannah would, either. But I had to tell her. Donnie had taken the only thing that mattered to me in this world, the only person I ever loved. If he killed Michael, I’d be left in darkness forever.

  After Sister Mary Elizabeth shared what she’d heard, I jumped into Hannah’s head. I needed to see how she processed the news. I needed to see if there was a chance she’d take the nun’s word and set her sights on Donnie.

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Hannah’s mind raced in circles. She couldn’t decide if the nun was suffering from sleep deprivation or delusions or just a desperate need to come out of that church with something more than when she entered. The first name meant nothing—an easy guess. Jolene Anderson was a name connected to Delacroix since he created her painting and she disappeared. Anyone who knew anything about art knew that. But the second name was completely foreign to her. It sounded like a name a storyteller might dream up when forced to create a character on the fly. Or a name an old nun might have pulled from her subconscious while kneeling before a god who didn’t exist.

  “Donnie Harkrider. Are you sure that’s what you heard?”

  “As clearly as you’re talking to me. Want me to spell it for you?”

  Hannah typed the name into her phone and scrolled through the search results. It seemed his last name was more common than his first.

  “I know there’s a winery called Harkrider Vineyard,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “Does that help?”

  Of course the nun knew about the winery connected to that name. Half the search results mentioned the winery. Nuns loved wine. It was probably one of the few indulgences their religion allowed. The old woman had searched her subconscious for a name that would help her deal with losing a
boy she’d loved since he was a baby. And she’d found it on a bottle of her favorite drink.

  “What do you see on there?” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “Does he exist? Is he close?”

  None of the winery links included any mention of a Donnie or a Donald. When Hannah scrolled again, she found a Donnie with that last name, but he wasn’t connected to the winery. She tapped on the link and read what popped up.

  “Here’s one—Donnie Harkrider, student of painting and sculpture. San Francisco Art Institute.”

  “See? I knew it.” The sister faced the church and pointed to four places on her chest.

  Hannah read more of his profile. Three of his years at SFAI overlapped with Michael’s. But she wasn’t convinced. “You’ve never heard his name before? Delacroix never mentioned him to you?”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth shook her head. “I would have remembered.” She wouldn’t turn away from the church entry. “Thank you, Father. Thank you so much!”

  Hannah knew the nun was mistaken. Sister Mary Elizabeth talked to Delacroix more than anyone. She followed him like a helicopter mom even though she lived two thousand miles away. Michael and Donnie might have shared a few classes together. He probably mentioned Donnie’s name once or twice on the phone. She’d tucked it deep into her subconscious because she was so constantly worried about him. Bringing it up now didn’t prove anything. But Hannah couldn’t tell the sister that.

  “We need to go back to the police station,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.

  “And tell them what?”

  “About Donnie Harkrider.”

  “It’s just a name. We’ve got nothing to go with it. They’ll never believe us unless we get more.”

  “Then how do we get more?”

  Hannah turned away. This was so frustrating. The only reason she’d agreed to drive the sister to the church was because she didn’t know where to search next. She thought she’d use the time Sister Mary Elizabeth was inside to figure out their next move. She’d never intended to get out of the SUV. But then she saw the fresco above the entry—a huge star shining over dark waters, a heavenly body etched into the face of a church. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe the Universe was using the nun to nudge her in the right direction. She supposed there was a chance that could happen.