Saying the name her husband would call her causes a tear to drop from her right eye. Blake hands her a napkin. “Thank you,” she says wiping the tear away before she continues. “He said, ‘Lou, you want to know, well I’ll tell you everything.’”
“‘Do you love her?’ I asked quite sure that I didn’t want to know the answer.”
“’It’s not like that,’ he said.”
“‘Do you love her?’ I screamed.”
“‘I love you Lou. I’ve always loved you. Please just sit down and I’ll tell you everything.’”
“So I sat on the couch with my arms crossed. He sat on the coffee table in front of me and told me the rest. ‘That vacation we went on - it was amazing. We stayed at this giant, beautiful, resort. I didn’t even know these places existed.’”
“The last thing I wanted to hear about was the great times they had together. It infuriated me. I jumped up and said, ‘That’s it. I don't want to hear about your poor broken heart. Go to your little…your little…I’m out of here.’ I got up and started to leave, but he held me in place.”
“‘It was all staged Lou. The whole thing was a charade. I swear I never touched her. I would get these calls, and he’d tell me exactly where to go and what to do. I was a puppet. I was mostly told to show her a good time, but give her time to herself so I did. I was so stupid. I actually thought it was a vacation for her. They found nothing on her so they were rewarding her with a vacation. One last vacation, and it’d all be over.’”
“‘Well, they scheduled her this massage. I was supposed to go pick up our plane tickets to go home. I met with this investigator in another room at our hotel. There were two other guys there with him. They were both Thai and had guns. I was terrified. He had our tickets in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He opened the suitcase, and there was this brown bag inside. I knew right then what they wanted. ‘No way, no way’ I told them. Flint calmed me down. He said it’s not what I thought – it’s for her. It’s what she does. She’ll bring this back for us. You won’t even be on the plane.’”
“Zach was actually relieved. He figured your mom was a drug smuggler just like they said. They told him to wait until morning and take all their bags to the car. Once the bags were in the trunk he was supposed to put the drugs in her suitcase without her knowing. He would return on a flight the next day.”
Hearing her tell Zach’s story is shocking. After all these years of living without my mom, I’m finally learning the truth. “I knew it,” I say slamming both my hands on the table. “I knew they planted the drugs.”
Lois looks at me and says, “Right then Zach knew exactly what was happening. He knew everything was a lie. He said he tried to leave, but they were blocking the door. They told him he had no choice. If he refused, they would file those drug charges against him. Now they showed him affidavits from so many students claiming Zach sold them drugs. He’d be in jail for a long, long time.”
I turned to Blake and asked, “How can the government do this to someone?”
“Zach was pretty upset just talking to me about it. When I took his hand, he was shaking so bad. I felt sorry for him. I asked him why he never told me all this, and he said he couldn’t. He signed these documents when it all started. If he told anyone about it he’d be sued or prosecuted - he’d lose his license and go to jail. His life would be ruined.”
We all sit for a few minutes until she continues. “So he drove your mom to the airport and handed her the ticket knowing she was in so much trouble. He sat with her for a while and almost called the whole thing off, but he couldn’t. He had no ticket home and no money. They never threatened to kill him, but he was in Thailand. He knew they would.”
I'm sitting in this beautiful hotel feeling like I might throw up. I have to take a break. I stand up from my chair and say, “I’ve gotta go to the restroom.”
Once in the bathroom I sit in a stall, unroll some toilet paper, and cry. I’m overwhelmed with such sadness––mourning my mom and everything she went through. She became tangled in a giant web of lies. Grace and I have been wrong all these years. Colt died never knowing the truth. Even my dad was lied to. He spent months trying to find this Christian guy who never even existed.
I splash some water on my face and look in the mirror. “I’m so sorry Mom,” I whisper to myself. Be Strong, Hope. You have to know more. You have to do this for Mom. I dab my face dry with a towel and walk out the bathroom.
When I return to the table, Blake and Lois wait to see if I’m ready to continue. I take my seat, sigh, and give them a forced smile. Lois looks at me and asks if I’m okay. “I’ll be okay,” I say. “Please tell me the rest. She picks back up where she left off.
“He left on a plane back to Austin the next day. He was scared to death. He took all his clothes out of his suitcase, put them in a pillowcase, and carried them on the plane. He was supposed to meet with this Flint guy and get paid $20,000 for what he did. He never went. He never wanted to see Flint again.”
“It was all too much for him to carry. I think telling someone, telling me, helped him. We stayed married – we had two beautiful boys. He was such a good Dad. He loved his work, but he was never right. Again and again, he’d go back to your mother. He started researching all about Thai prisons, and it made everything worse. He started having dreams – these horrible dreams. He couldn’t talk to anyone else except me. He wanted to do something, but now he was afraid he’d be prosecuted for his role in what happened to your mom.”
“Shit,” Blake says.
“He never found out what happened to her until you called. He told me all about it. When you told him your mother died in Thailand, he was devastated. He came home and cried. I tried to convince him it wasn’t his fault. He just kept yelling, “I killed her, I killed her.”
“He quit going to work and started drinking and taking these pain pills. He wanted to tell you everything, but he was afraid. He was going to meet with you, but––” Lois starts crying and can barely talk. “He was going to meet with you, but that night he….he….he shot himself.”
I get up, kneel down beside her, and hold her while she cries. Blake reaches out and takes her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she says again and again. “I'm so sorry for what happened to your mom.”
I thought I’d have so many questions, but she pretty much said everything – well almost everything. I still don’t know who did this or why my mom? I take the torn photo out of my purse and hand it to her. “Can you answer a question for me? Would this be Zach in this photo?”
She looks at the photo a little closer and says, “That’s the watch they gave him to wear. I’ll never forget that watch. We pretended like it was actually ours. It was a gold Rolex. It had diamonds on the twelve, the three, the six, and the nine.”
“Do you have it?” I ask.
“Oh no, they took everything back. He gave Flint the watch at the hotel room. When he got back home, the black Mercedes was gone. They didn’t even give him a ride back from the airport. As far as I know, Zach never heard from Flint or about those charges again except…”
“Except what?”
“Gees I forgot about this,” she says shaking her head. “A few months after he went to Thailand, we were eating at a restaurant. It’s this little sandwich shop in east Austin. This guy came up and shook our hand. Zach introduced me, but I never got his name. Before he left he took pictures of Zach and me. Then he gave the camera to our waiter and took pictures with all of us. It was all so strange.”
“Do you have the photos?” I ask.
“No, it was all on his phone. As far as I know we never got them.”
“Was it Flint?” Blake asks.
“For sure it wasn’t Flint. He was thin, had dark hair, and was much better looking. He was very friendly––called Zach by his first name. I later asked Zach who that was. All he said is that it was one of his father’s old friends. Maybe it had nothing to do with your mom, but I didn’t understand why he took all those pho
tos with us. It was the weirdest thing ever.”
Lois reaches in her bag, and pulls out a small sack. “I have something to give you. This bag was sitting on the nightstand beside Zach when he died.” She opens the sack and hands me a card. On the front of the card is a picture of a man and woman walking hand in hand on the beach. Inside the card there’s a handwritten note:
===============================================
“Christian,
These last months have been very special to me.
I want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed my time with you.
This vacation was wonderful. I don’t deserve it. You are the
one truly kind man I’ve ever met in my life. I hope this is
only the beginning of things to come.
Yours,
Faith”
===============================================
She then pulls out a large book and sets it on the table between them. It's a hardback copy of Gone With The Wind. Inside the book, there’s a bookmarker with a red cardinal on a branch. Underneath the branch it says:
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen.–Hebrews 11:1”
“Zach said she gave this to him for Christmas. It’s the only gift she ever gave him. I thought you might want it back.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say.
“Zach left a note. It was private between him and me, but he asked me to give these things to you. He wanted me to tell you how sorry he is for everything.”
After a little more talk we all get up to leave. I feel exhausted. Every time I think I have things figured out everything flips upside down. Now I finally know the truth. Sometimes knowing the truth is hard, but I’d rather be “slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie.” I think this was another saying by Chastain.
We walk out to the front valet, and she gives her ticket to the attendant. While we’re waiting for her car she says, “Hope, I want you to know that Zach thought the world of your mom. He told me how much she loved her kids.”
When the valet arrives with her car, I reach in to give her a hug. “Thanks again for coming,” I say.
Instead of giving me a hug, she kisses my cheek and says, “I had to come. I did it for Zach.” Her lips start to quiver, and her eyes begin to tear up again. “He knew you hated him for what he did. He hated himself. Nothing I could do or say could ever change that. I needed you to know the truth. Zach was such a good man. He deserves to rest in peace.”
“I don’t hate him,” I make clear. “It wasn’t his fault.”
She gets in the car and drives off. I take Blake in my arms and cry.
– CHAPTER 32 –
B lake and I were together almost four months when he first told me he loved me. We were lying in the park on a blanket surround by our schoolbooks, notes, and the picnic basket I put together so we’d have something to eat. It was a beautiful, southern California Saturday. We both took a break so Blake pulled a bottle of wine out of his book bag that I didn't even know he packed.
“Ah…, aren’t you a romantic,” I said.
He opened the bottle of wine and poured a little wine into two paper cups. He handed me one of the cups and said, “A toast!”
“A toast,” I said also raising my cup.
His jolly demeanor got real serious as he looked at me and said, “To the most beautiful woman in all of California. I’d be lost without you.”
“I tap his paper cup and toast, “To the most handsome man in the whole wide world. I would be lost without you.”
Instead of drinking the wine, he stares right at me with a look like he’s looking into my soul. Tears start to build in his eyes so he reaches forward and touches his lips to mine. I put my hand on the side of his face, and he pulls away just enough so our lips are so close, but not touching anymore. “I love you, Hope,” he whispers.
For some reason, I didn’t see this coming. Several times I wanted to tell him the same thing, but I didn’t have the courage to be the first to say it. Maybe I was afraid he didn’t feel the same. I lean forward and press my lips hard to his. Without letting go I say, “I love you too Blake. I love you so much.”
Blake has been my godsend. He’s the only person (besides Lois) who knows this whole, crazy story. I’ve wanted to call Grace and tell her the whole thing, but I don't know how. Nothing that I heard changes the fact that there are powerful people in the government who don’t want people knowing what they did. Grace would not approve.
“If you ever want to see Grace or Hope or Bonnie again, tell your daughter to stop sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. This is your last warning.”
“What do I do now?” I ask Blake when we get back to his apartment.
“What can you do?” he asks.
“I have to do something,” I say.
“You wanted answers, and you got them,” Blake says. “Your mom knew nothing about the drugs – that has to be a relief. They used her to smuggle the drugs. She’s not the first, and she won’t be the last. I’m sure they plant drugs in other people’s suitcases. If she would have made it through security I guess they would’ve taken the drugs when she got back.”
“So you don’t think it was the government?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “Why would the FBI, or whoever, go all the way to Thailand to get someone? This Flint is a private investigator. He must have been working for the drug cartel or something. I don’t think you’ll ever know the answer to that part. Even Zach didn’t know.”
“So that’s it?” I ask. “I just give up?”
“I don’t have the answers, Hope, but this is becoming a huge mess. You’re getting yourself all wrapped up in it. You’ve got to let it go.”
His attitude surprises me. “Are you kidding me?” I ask.
“Your dad is right––this is dangerous. You are being consumed by it all. Look at you––it’s all you think about…all you talk about. Don’t you see what this is doing to you? You rarely have fun anymore.”
I look away and say, “Wow…I’m sorry I’m not fun enough for you.”
He takes my hand and says, “No, it’s not that. I love you. I don’t like seeing you so upset all the time.”
I know he’s right. I left rehab ready to begin the rest of my life. I wanted to go to college and have fun like everyone else. Instead, I went to Thailand and things have never been the same. This has consumed me––it is consuming me––but I can’t go back. My eyes are open, and I can’t, or won’t, turn away. “I’m sorry, Blake,” I say. “I feel like my whole life has led me to this point. With every step I learn more about my mother….and more about myself.”
Blake moves towards me and says, “Can’t you see what a huge mess you’re unraveling? Where is this all going to end?”
“I don't know, but I’ve come too far to just––”
“Hope, please listen to your dad,” he interrupts. “You can’t continue like this. It’s changing you. It’s changing us. I don't like it.”
I can see his frustration. I want to hold him. I want to tell him everything will be okay. I wish I could say that I’ll come back one day and all this will be behind me, but I know I can’t––at least no time soon. We’re sitting on the couch. I squeeze his hand, and say, “I’m so sorry, but my mom is gone. I’m the only one who cares. I’m the one who went to Thailand. I’m the one who talked to Tian and Lois. If I don’t get to the bottom of this no one will. My mom deserved better.”
“Please listen to me,” he presses. “You gotta stop. You’ve done your part. Now you have to let it go.”
My lips begin to quiver, and a tear falls down my cheek. I wipe it away to keep my emotions in check, but another tear falls down my other cheek. “Blake, I understand what you’re saying, but I know in my heart that something’s not right. Let it go? I can’t let it go. Not for my dad, not for my sister, and not for you.”
Blake stands up from the couc
h and walks to the kitchen. He turns back around and with a puzzled look asks, “What are you saying?”
“I’m not really sure.” I pause a moment for him to say something, or do something, or make everything okay. When he returns to the couch without talking, I look down and say, “I think…..I think maybe we should break things off.”
I can’t believe what I just said. The second I get the words out I wish I could take them back. Ever since I moved to California, he’s been my friend, my love, and my greatest strength. Because of him, I haven’t really made friends, joined organizations, or done some of the things I’ve always enjoyed doing. He’s been my heart’s desire. I didn't mean it. Losing him will leave me all alone.
“This is what you want?” he asks.
What I really want is for him to pull me back in. “I want you, I love you, or Please don’t go,” would sound real good right now, but because of my stupidity, or my pride, I say none of those things.
“I guess so,” I whisper.
The look on Blake’s face says it all. It’s a look of hurt and betrayal. I want to take it all back, but it’s too late. That bell can’t be unrung. He shakes his head and says, “If this is what you want, I can’t stop you.”
It all makes no sense - two people doing what neither one wants. I grab my purse and look for my keys while he sits back down on the couch. Taking longer than it should, I find my keys and go into his bedroom. He comes to the door and watches as I pick up my clothes from off floor and search for my bra and panties hidden at the bottom of his bedspread and sheets.
You can stop me….just say something.
I move from the bedroom into the bathroom and continue packing. I wish my tears, and the fact that I continue looking in the same drawers again and again, would show him that I don’t want to leave, but it’s not enough. I’m sure he needs more. I look around at his lovely apartment. Just minutes ago it was our lovely apartment. When all my belongings are separated from his, I walk to the door and turn around one last time. “Take care of yourself,” I say wiping my tears.
The Beginning of Hope: The Highly Anticipated, Mind-Blowing Sequel to the Killing of Faith (The Killing of Faith Series Book 2) Page 18
