A Step of Faith

by Richard Paul Evans

She hesitated a moment, then said, “I’m going back to Spokane.”

  “I thought you were staying longer.”

  She avoided eye contact. “I was going to, but I think I should be going.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “It’s not your fault.” She took another deep breath. “When you were in recovery, you kept asking for Falene. At the time I told myself it was the anesthesia . . .” She looked me in the eyes. “You love her, don’t you?”

  I looked down for a moment, then back at her. “I don’t know. I suppose I don’t know how deep the waters go, since I wasn’t really fishing.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I love you. Not just because you saved me, but . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just making this more difficult.” She took my hand. “I’ll go.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you for all you’ve been to me. I’ll always love you.”

  “Nicole . . .”

  She looked at me, but I had no idea what to say. After a moment she said, “It’s okay, Alan.” She walked out of my room.

  Now I’d lost her too.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  I have become an expert at chasing those I love out of my life.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  Early the next morning my father drove Nicole to the airport. After he returned, he came into my room.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “She’s hurting. Unrequited love is a painful thing.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I do love her.”

  “I know.”

  I sighed. “Now what do I do?”

  He leaned against my wall. “What do you want to do?”

  “Since when has that mattered?”

  “It’s always mattered. It doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want, but what you want always matters. That’s what defines you.”

  “I want my life back.”

  “Your life or wife?”

  “They’re the same thing.”

  “No, they’re not,” he said, frowning. “What do you want for your life that’s within the realm of possibility?”

  “I want to figure out my feelings. I need to talk to Falene. But I don’t even know where she is.”

  “Someone knows where she is.”

  “That’s not helpful,” I said.

  My father thought a moment, then said, “I have a client who’s a private investigator. A few years ago he fell on hard times, and I did his taxes for free. He keeps saying, ‘Let me do something for you.’ That’s his expertise, hunting down people—child support dodgers, bail jumpers, corporate embezzlers. He’s darn good, too. I bet he could find Falene.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Carroll Albo.”

  “Let’s give him a call.”

  That afternoon I spoke with my father’s friend Carroll. He didn’t sound like I expected him to, though, admittedly, my perception of private investigators was largely shaped by Columbo and Magnum, P.I. reruns. This man sounded squeaky and timid, more fit for accounting than man-hunting and intrigue.

  I told him everything I knew about Falene, which wasn’t especially helpful. Her past had little to help us in the present.

  “You say she got a job with a modeling agency in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s probably a couple hundred of them. At least. We could start looking. What about friends or family? Old boyfriends?”

  “Her old boyfriends were all bad news, so she wouldn’t have told any of them where she was going. She didn’t really have any girlfriends that she hung out with.”

  “Family?”

  “She has an aunt. I’ve never met her, but she owns a furniture consignment store.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No, but I know the store. It’s called the Fifth Avenue Consigner. It’s in Seattle.”

  He paused as he wrote it down. “Anyone else?”

  “She has a brother. But he’s MIA. She doesn’t even know where he is.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He was in a gang and messed up with drugs.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” Carroll said. “I mean, it’s horrible for him, but for our purposes, it’s not bad. What’s his name?”

  “Deron Angelis.”

  “Spell it.”

  “D-e-r-o-n A-n-g-e-l-i-s.”

  “Got it. Do you know where he spends his time? What city?”

  “He used to live with Falene.”

  “In Seattle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be back with you as soon as I have something.”

  Carroll called just three days later. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. A part of me didn’t expect to hear from him at all.

  “Her aunt’s name is Chloe Adamson,” Carroll said. “But she doesn’t know where Falene is. Or if she does, she’s not telling. But I found her brother. Deron Angelis, twenty-three years old, born January 20, 1989, in San Joaquin County.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “Hunting drug addicts and gang members isn’t hard. Eventually they end up in one of three places: hospital, jail or the morgue.”

  “Which one was it?”

  “He’s in the King County jail.”

  “King County?”

  “In Seattle. He was caught in possession of meth and was sentenced to prison for several years, but had the sentence suspended. He has to serve a county jail sentence for six months, then when he’s released, he’ll be on probation for a couple of years.”

  “I can see him there?”

  “Visiting hours are determined by inmate location. I checked on it for you. He’s assigned Sundays from noon to one-thirty and Tuesdays from five-thirty to seven.”

  I wrote down the information.

  “In the meantime I’ll keep hunting your girl. My secretary has called at least fifty modeling agencies so far, but only found one Falene, and she’s from Brazil. Your friend didn’t go by a different professional name, did she? You know, like movie stars sometimes do if they don’t have a fancy enough name?”

  “Falene isn’t fancy enough?”

  “It is to me, but all my taste’s in my mouth.”

  “Not that I know of. She went by Falene in Seattle.”

  “Oh, one more thing. I should have asked you last time if you know any of her past employers.”

  “I’m her past employer,” I said.

  “Holy cow, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I guess I thought you knew.”

  “No, I didn’t. Can you track down her Social Security number?”

  “I think so. I just need to call my old accountant.”

  “That’s our golden ticket. As soon as she applies for a job, or welfare benefits, we’ll find her.”

  “I’ll track it down,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’m happy to be able to do something for your pop. He’s been a lifesaver to me.”

  “He’s a good man,” I said.

  “You said it. You’ve got to be grateful for an old man like that. Mine just beat the crap out of me, then threw me out when I was seventeen. You count your blessings.”

  Within the hour I had Falene’s Social Security number, which I passed on to Carroll. He called back a few hours later.

  “Nothing on her yet,” he said. “But she’ll turn up. Unless she’s bypassing the system.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes people pay under the table.”

  “Maybe I’ll go visit her brother. I can’t imagine that she won’t be looking for him.”

  “Good idea,” Carroll said. “No stone unturned.”

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  We have found Falene’s brother. I hope he knows where she is almost as much as I hope she doesn’t know where he is.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  I called the King County jail
to confirm Deron’s visiting hours, then booked a one-day flight into Seattle for the Sunday after next. I was still struggling with my health and I wanted to be up for the encounter. I also figured this would give Carroll more time to track Falene down and possibly save me the trip.

  He didn’t find her and nine days later, my father drove me to LAX. The flight into the Sea-Tac airport was around three hours, and I had planned my trip to arrive an hour before visiting hours were scheduled to begin. I had no luggage and took a cab from the airport to the jail. It was surreal being back in Seattle. It was my first time back since I had walked out ten months ago. I had purposely scheduled my return flight for the same day so I would spend as little time in Seattle as possible. I wasn’t ready to face all of the memories that the city held for me.

  At the jail I went through a security screening into a long, open visiting room. I was given a booth number, then sat down in front of a thick Plexiglas window. I could see my reflection in the glass. I had forgotten how odd I looked—bald-headed with a row of staples running horizontally across my scalp.

  Even though I’d never seen Falene’s brother before, I knew it was he when he came into the room. He looked like a male version of Falene. He wasn’t big, maybe just a few inches taller than her, and his head was shaved. He had tattoos on his neck of two entwined snakes and Gothic letters, which I guessed spelled out the name of his gang. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit with his last name printed above his left breast. Even though he was trying to look tough, I could sense his anxiety.

  He sat down at a chair on the other side of the window, his dark brown eyes staring into mine. There were phones mounted on the side of the booth next to the window, which we both picked up.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “My name is Alan Christoffersen. I’m a friend of your sister.”

  “You know Falene?”

  “Yes.”

  “You one of her lowlife boyfriends?”

  “No. She used to work for me. At my advertising agency.”

  “You her boss?”

  “I was.”

  “I know who you are. You’re the guy whose stuff I helped Falene move.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that was my stuff.”

  “What happened to your head?”

  “I just had a brain tumor removed.”

  He glanced once more at my head, then said, “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for Falene.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I was hoping you could help me find her.”

  “Call her.”

  “She changed her number.”

  “She worked for you and you don’t know her address?”

  “She moved to New York.”

  He looked surprised. “She doesn’t live in New York.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. A few months ago. Before I came in here.”

  “She got a job offer from a modeling agency back East. She wasn’t going to take it, but after you took off, she gave up.”

  He flinched. “What do you mean, she gave up?”

  “Just what I said. She said she failed with you and gave up.”

  “Falene never failed at anything.”

  “She said she failed with you.”

  In spite of his practiced defiance, he actually looked upset. Finally he stammered out, “What I do with my life has nothing to do with her.”

  “Do you really believe that? She picked up her life and moved here to keep you out of trouble.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I don’t know anything about you except that you’ve brought Falene a lot of pain.”

  He slammed the glass barrier. “I love my sister.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “Your sister has done everything she could to help you and you repay her by breaking her heart.”

  He pounded the window again.

  “Deron!” a guard shouted. “Knock it off.”

  “What do you want?” he said. “You came here to tell me that?”

  “I came here to see if you knew how to find her.”

  “I’m in jail. How would I know how to find her? Why didn’t she tell you where she was going? She like worshiped you.”

  I felt ashamed to hear that. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to see you. Maybe you’re the reason she left.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “She’s been carrying a lot of people by herself for a long time. Maybe she just hit her limit. If you love her, now’s a good time to start showing her.”

  I expected another outburst. Instead he looked down for a moment, then to my surprise said, “Thanks for looking out for her. She deserves that. If I hear from her, I’ll let her know you came by.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I hung up the phone and walked out of the room.

  My flight arrived back in Los Angeles that evening at eight. The effects of my surgery were exacerbated by my traveling, and I was feeling so exhausted I wasn’t sure I could make it through the terminal. Gratefully, my father picked me up at the terminal curb.

  “How’d it go?” he asked as I climbed into the car.

  “He was no help at all.”

  “Sorry,” he said. A moment later he asked, “What was he like?”

  I reclined my seat. “Nothing like Falene. Nothing at all.”

  CHAPTER

  Eleven

  I’ve read that there are specific, predictable stages of grief. But there must be as many manifestations of those stages as there are bereft.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  Over the next few weeks I was hoping to hear from Carroll about Falene, but he never called. Physically, I was getting stronger, though my recovery was coming slower than I had hoped, and I was tired most of the time. Emotionally, I was depressed. Sitting in one place made it easy for all my negative thoughts to circle and land on me, like flies on roadkill. All I could think about was getting back out on the road.

  Three weeks after my surgery I went back to the hospital to have my staples removed, which I expected to be painful, but the skin around my incision was still numb from where the nerves had been cut and I felt no pain. The next day I began walking again. I started at two miles, then, a week later, increased to three, then four. The dizziness was gone. I still got occasional headaches, but that, and exhaustion, seemed to be the extent of my complications.

  A month after my surgery I went back again to see Dr. Schlozman. After telling me a pretty funny joke about Superman in a bar, he gave me a clean bill of health and we scheduled my next MRI for a year out. That afternoon I started making plans to return to the road.

  A couple nights later, at dinner, my father said, “I noticed you had your maps out.”

  I looked up at him. He had been strangely quiet all afternoon, like he was brooding. I finally understood why. “Yes, I was planning my route.”

  “Then you’re going back out after all.”

  “That was always the plan.”

  I couldn’t read his expression. “When are you leaving?”

  “August thirtieth,” I said.

  “That’s next week.”

  “It’s next Tuesday.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Are you up to it?”

  “I’m not all the way back, but Dr. Schlozman didn’t see any problem with it.”

  He pushed his plate away, then said, “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Why not just stay here and get on with your life?”

  “Right now the walk is my life.”

  “Walking is no life,” he said. “It’s just walking.”

  “What about what you said on the way here? You said I’m entitled to my own grief, and that I need to allow it to run its course.”

  “Yes, but allowing it to run its course doesn’t mean running from it.”

  “I’m not running from my grief. Believe me, it follows me every ste
p of the way.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “You said in Spokane that you understood why I needed to do this.”

  “I understood why you left. But it’s been almost a year. I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish by this.”

  “I’m not trying to accomplish anything.” I looked at him. “Or maybe I am. I can’t explain why it’s so important. I just know that I need to finish what I started.”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. Then he shook his head. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “But it does to me. And that’s what matters. You need to let me deal with my grief the way I need to deal with it.”

  “But you’re not dealing with it. You’re running away from it. No, you’re walking away from it.”

  “So let me not deal with it the way I need to.”

  He breathed out in exasperation.

  “Dad, you know what I’m going through. After Mom died, didn’t you want to just escape?”

  “I had you,” he said. “I couldn’t just walk away from everything.”

  “But did you want to?”

  He looked at me for a moment, then stood and took his plate over to the sink. Then he went to his bedroom and shut the door.

  I just sat alone at the table. Is there anyone else I can run out of my life?

  CHAPTER

  Twelve

  You should always be careful of what you say in parting.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  Over the next week my father didn’t say much—at least not about my leaving. As the time for my departure neared, things between us became increasingly tense, which I dealt with by walking more. Two days before my flight back to St. Louis, my father and I were eating dinner when I just couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

  “My flight’s Tuesday morning,” I said.

  He kept on eating, meticulously cutting off bite-sized pieces of flank steak, then spearing them and putting them into his mouth.

  I breathed out in exasperation. “Dad, I’m leaving. Can we talk about this?”