by Ace Collins
“Got it,” Lije announced as he got back in the car.
“Got what?”
“My old Bible. I haven’t looked at it in years because I use a more modern translation now, but this one has a whole section that goes into great detail concerning the history of the King James edition. That’s what we’re discussing in my class today.”
“Are you teaching?”
“No,” he admitted as he made the left turn onto 62.
“Then you grabbed it to appear smart. You’re trying to show off your biblical knowledge, when all you’ll be doing is pulling facts from the pages in front of you. That’s cheating, you know.”
His silence told her she was right. That was good. She’d been told Lije had once had a fun side to him. In the days she’d known him, that side had rarely appeared. The fact that it was now presenting itself in little ways, like the need to win the classroom battle of knowledge or his trying to sneak by her, meant he was healing. Still, until they found all the answers to what had happened on Farraday Road, the wounds would continue to bleed into everything he did. They could be covered from time to time, but underneath they were still there and seeping.
“You singing in the choir today?” he asked.
“Actually, no,” Janie replied. “They’re doing a special and I missed practice when we went to Texas. So I’ll be out front today in row three. You’re welcome to join me. Or you can be stuck up and sit in your normal spot in the last row.”
He didn’t answer until they arrived at church. “I’ll be there.”
Her class, filled with young men and women her age, went pretty much like it always did. They laughed some, talked of the explosion on the square, and even took a few minutes to go through the material provided for class. As they were about to dismiss, a young mother asked for prayer, so Janie was a bit late getting to her pew. She smelled the Old Spice before she took her seat.
Leaning his way she asked, “Did you wow them with your vast knowledge of King James and the history of his translation of the Bible?”
“No,” Lije admitted. “I picked up the wrong Bible.”
“How’d you do that?”
“I pulled mine off the shelf, put it on my desk to look for a pen, picked it back up, and came out to the car. But what I picked up off my desk was not my Bible; it was Bleicher’s. I sat there like a bump on a log as others expounded on history. I looked ignorant.”
“That’s rich,” she whispered as the organ began to play.
Four songs and two prayers later, the Reverend John Hodges began his message. Janie leaned back in the padded pew, letting her right hand fall to the cushion. It landed on the Bible that Lije had mistakenly brought to the service. Her fingers traced the old leather cover, feeling the still stiff edges and noting the embossed words that declared this book to be the “Holy Bible.” Even she could read that.
Picking it up, she took in its musty odor. Then as she listened to the preacher’s voice, she carefully turned the pages until she found the seventh chapter of Genesis. She knew it had to be the seventh chapter because of the way the underlined section had created slight indentations in the thin paper. She’d thought a lot about these verses, even reading them again and again in her Braille edition, and yet, for a change, she saw nothing that others didn’t see. Why was this passage so important that two men had each chosen to highlight it? The passage didn’t point out a location or a person. It didn’t appear to be a code. What did it mean?
Now on a mission, she carefully and quickly worked her way through the remainder of the German’s Bible, feeling each page for anything unusual that the others might have missed. Each time she came to one of the large satin ribbons once used as bookmarks, she laid it in her lap. She found four page markers.
She could tell the pastor was getting into the last five minutes of his message; his words always came out more quickly, as if he was pushing down on the gas pedal, gunning for home. All around her folks rustled in their bulletins to find the number of the closing hymn. She still had more time to kill.
Janie placed the Bible back on the pew and picked up a ribbon. Since childhood, she had never been good at sitting perfectly still. She always fidgeted. When she lost her sight and her fingers took on an even greater importance, they were hardly ever at rest. She began to carefully examine the ribbon, occupying her time as she counted down the last few minutes of the service.
One side was nothing but satin. The other had words pressed into it. She ran her finger over the letters. She’d found out what they said at the German’s house when Jameson read them aloud: “Koffman Funeral Home” and “We’re here to serve you.” They hadn’t yet figured out where the funeral home had been located. It might just be a location Bleicher had once visited. Still, she couldn’t leave the ribbons alone. She had to “look” at them for herself.
The first three ribbons all felt the same. There was nothing to differentiate one from the next. After she had explored each one, she put it back in the Bible. She’d just picked up the fourth vintage page marker when the pastor surprised everyone by wrapping things up and asking everyone to stand. After a short prayer and three verses of “Softly and Tenderly,” the service ended.
Lije and Janie walked down the center aisle, chatting with church members, some of whom asked about the blast outside the office, until they finally worked their way to the car. Then it was on to lunch at Sonny Burns’ Barbeque. During their meal, Lije changed the subject from food to something of a much different nature. “Give me your impression of Diana.”
The former ABI agent was a part of the team, a woman who had uncovered valuable information in Germany. Janie wondered why Lije now asked that question. “Bright, focused, and driven would be how I’d start. She must be really attractive too. I can hear that.”
“You can hear attractiveness?” Lije asked. This time she heard confusion in his voice.
“In a way, yeah. When she’s in a room, any man who comes in always takes a deep breath before talking. I don’t imagine he’s doing that because he thinks she’s brilliant. So that pause tells me he’s checking her out. She gets checked out a lot.”
“When did you notice that?”
“Remember a couple of months ago when she dropped by the office?”
“She brought me some papers concerning our case.”
“Well, we suddenly had a huge influx of visitors that morning, and all of them were male. It was so bad I could actually feel their leering eyes.”
She could hear Lije’s smile in his answer. “Sure they weren’t looking at you?”
She grinned. Blind or not, she knew she was cute and she drew attention. But Curtis took men’s breath away. That put her on a completely different level. “Lije, what are you really asking? Tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Do you trust Diana?”
“What triggered this? Did something happen?”
“Sometimes I sense Diana’s not giving me the whole story,” Lije said.
“She’s not. We all hold back things. That’s part of being human. We’re scared to really reveal the things that make us seem weak. How often do you talk about Kaitlyn anymore?”
He didn’t reply.
“Rarely,” she continued. “And you don’t because it tears you and exposes the hole in your heart and your life. Suddenly you’re not this macho guy; you’re a man who breaks. No one likes to break. I know you well enough to know you don’t want us to see that part of you, so you avoid talking about the one thing that you feel most strongly about.”
She paused, looked up, her sightless blue eyes trying to find and lock onto his. After she was sure she had his full attention, she asked, “Did you ever have a hero who really disappointed you?”
“Yeah, Pete Rose.”
“For me it was my cousin. He’s an incredible person—great businessman, super father, wonderful friend. He’s involved in so many different charities. He’d always been so good to his wife. Then I found out he was having an affair with
an old flame from his college days. It cut me to the bone.”
She let her head drop, as if looking at the last part of her sandwich, and added, “But I still want to believe in him. I still know that he’d do anything for me. So because he was my hero, there’s a lot of room for forgiveness and an instinct to still trust him. Just like, deep inside, you want to believe that Pete Rose can somehow come clean and be redeemed.”
Lifting her head, she again directed what would’ve been her gaze at the man on the other side of the table. “The ABI was Diana’s life. She doesn’t want to reveal the flaws she now knows are a part of the organization. She still wants to believe in Hillman, even after everything he’s done. Hey, Heather wants to believe her alcoholic dad will quit drinking and get his life together. So Diana and Heather are both dealing with the pain of broken trust. They’re a lot alike. Because what they’re trying to cover up is similar, they know each other’s weaknesses. They look at each other and see themselves. You’re not blind, Lije, surely you can see that.”
“There’s more to this than you know.”
“There’s more to most things than I know. If you really want my honest observations, then give me the rest of the story.”
“Diana told us something last night that she shouldn’t have known. It was something only those of us who went to Texas know. She knows McGee is hard at work on the Jones case, but she hadn’t talked to any of us or to McGee during the time she was gone.”
“Did you ask her how she knew about it?”
“No.”
“Might start there. She still has contacts beyond the ones we know. One of those might’ve told her. Don’t believe the worst until you have real proof.”
Lije was silent.
“Are you nodding yes or shaking your head no?”
“What’s the sign for conflicted?”
“If you’re blind, there isn’t one unless you talk.”
“Okay, I’m conflicted and confused,” he admitted.
“Diana’s valuable. She brought back key information. You told me that last night on the phone.”
“So we trust her. I understand.”
“Maybe. What do you know about taming a mountain lion?”
“Nothing.”
“It can’t be done,” Janie said. “They often seem like they’re gentle, but you can never fully trust them. At heart, they’re still wild and at any moment they might turn on you.”
“What are you saying?”
“Only this, that animals, even wild ones, are much more predictable than people.”
“I think I get your point.”
He got up and let his hand linger on her cheek for a moment.
In that moment she felt him smile. He was innocent in a lot of ways. There was a charm in that.
33
ONLY AFTER LIJE DROPPED JANIE OFF AT HER HOME did she realize she had something that belonged to him. She’d stuffed the fourth ribbon into her suit pocket during the invitation hymn and never returned it to Bleicher’s Bible. No one thought the ribbons were important, so she didn’t bother calling her boss. Instead she placed the page marker on her dresser, changed clothes, fed Harlow, and switched on the radio.
A couple of hours later, she searched the top of the dresser for a brush and again touched the ribbon’s edge. Her fingers paused. Something was different. Something didn’t feel right. As she lightly ran her index finger along the edge of the antique bookmarker, she noted tiny stitching. The others didn’t have this. Picking it up, she thought back to the ones she’d examined in church. Though none of them weighed hardly anything, this one seemed heavier. Her perceptive fingers also told her it was thicker. She wished she had one of the others for comparison.
Moving to a chair, she examined it closely. The writing was the same as the others in every way but one. This ribbon had words on both sides. That, combined with the stitching, told her that she was actually holding two ribbons that had been stitched together. Why would anyone go to this much work? There had to be a reason, but what was it?
Placing the bookmarker on an end table, she allowed her hand to brush across the satin. About an inch from the top she detected a subtle rise. Her fingers stayed at the level until about a half an inch from the bottom of the ribbon. Her bright unseeing eyes lit up. The ribbon was a hiding place. Why not? Who would look inside an innocuous page marker?
Excited, she grabbed her sewing kit and took out a thread ripper, then carried everything to the dining room table. Once seated, she found an edge and slipped the blade into the almost invisible seam. Working with great precision, making sure she didn’t harm the two ribbons or whatever was hidden between them, she moved from the top to the bottom of the marker. After she had removed all the side stitching, she slipped her finger between the two pieces of satin. There it was, a thin piece of paper she judged was about two inches by four inches.
She carefully pulled out the paper and placed it on the table, then ran her fingers over both sides of it. It was onionskin. Someone had written something on just one side. They must’ve been in a hurry because they’d pushed hard with what she thought was a lead pencil. The marks seemed too wide for a pen. The impressions she could feel weren’t deep enough for her to read with her fingers. What did it say? She couldn’t see and Harlow, who was resting her head in Janie’s lap, couldn’t read.
Having done as much as she could, she slipped the paper into her Braille copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and placed the book on a shelf.
“Harlow, this is going to make someone we know very happy.” She headed for the phone, but her dialing was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling into her driveway. She touched the top of a table clock. “Three fifty-five p.m.”
It had to be Heather. They were supposed to go for a long run. “Harlow, I’m literally running late.”
Janie moved over to the door and opened it just as her visitor knocked. “I got caught up in a project,” Janie said. “Give me a second and I’ll get changed.”
“Sure,” Jameson said as she walked in. “What were you working on?”
Janie opened her mouth, but remembering her advice to Lije, the words caught in her throat. “Kind of hard to explain to someone who’s not blind.”
“Okay, I’ll just sit down and wait for you. I’m not looking forward to the hills today. Hope you have lots of cold water.”
“Got some yesterday at the store,” Janie said as she left the room.
“Tell me again,” Jameson moaned, “why our doing a marathon will make us better people.”
“Trust me, it’ll change your life.”
“Yeah, if I live through it.”
As Janie slipped off her blouse, the obvious hit her. Jameson could read the note and she’d know what she’d found. Why not let her see it? It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the woman. So what was holding her back? She wanted to find out what was on the paper, so why not ask for help?
Maybe she was afraid to reveal her weakness. No, surely it wasn’t that. She might be blind, but she wasn’t weak and she definitely wasn’t scared.
No, this was Lije’s mystery. It had to be Lije who saw it first. She’d call him later this evening or just wait until tomorrow and give it to him at the office. The paper had been hidden for more than six decades. A few more hours or even a day wouldn’t matter.
Now it was time to run, to really run.
34
IVY BEALS WATCHED AS JOSHUA KLASSER GOT OFF THE elevator in the lobby of the North American Bank Tower. Wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, white shirt, and conservative gray-striped tie, Klasser looked every bit his title—investment counselor for the European Limited Money Group in Washington, D.C. His corner office on the fourteenth floor cemented his status as a financial wizard. He even had his name spelled out in huge gold letters on the door. Yet thanks to his experience in the CIA, Beals knew the office and title were a cover. The few deals Klasser pulled off were just for show. He had much more important investments to oversee, and banking had nothing t
o do with it.
For more than two decades, this man had been an operative in Israel’s premier intelligence agency. This was a fact Beals would’ve never known if, many years before, he had not viewed classified intelligence information on industrial spying in the petroleum industry. The report, given to him by his superior, contained some prime information, including one tidbit that could’ve undermined much of the intelligence gathering in the entire region. The CIA supervising agent had failed to remove the name of the Israeli contact for the operation. Beals had immediately corrected the oversight so no one else in his unit learned that name, and saved the value of the covert operator. Yet even though he had blocked it out on the paper, he hadn’t wiped the information from his mind. Like money in a cookie jar, he’d simply squirreled it away for a rainy day. Now it was time to put that old card into play.
“Joshua Klasser,” Beals announced as he approached the man who hurried through the ornate granite-filled three-story lobby.
Klasser stopped just short of the front doors, adjusted his glasses, and studied the powerfully built bald man. “You have me at a disadvantage. You seem to know me, but I am afraid I do not know you.”
Klasser looked nothing like an officer in the feared Mossad. If anything, he resembled a jeweler. His accent was slight but apparent enough to give away his roots and heritage. The fact that he refrained from employing contractions revealed that English wasn’t his primary language. Yet, this, along with the glint in his brown eyes, the slight hook in his nose, and his small stature, truly made his cover believable.
“My name is Ivy Beals.”
“Well, Mr. Beals, if you will call my secretary in the morning and make an appointment, perhaps I can squeeze you in later this week. Today would be impossible. I am leaving for an appointment, and I am not coming back to the office until tomorrow.” He smiled. “And, as I am being transferred back to our Middle East office in Tel Aviv in a week, it might be best if you spoke with one of our other advisers. Might I suggest Marie Felts. She is bright, well read, has great instincts.”
