“Oh, come on,” Jamison snapped. “This has gone far enough.”
“I swear it’s true,” Blake exclaimed. “We carried on a conversation with each other for several minutes and the guy beside Danni never suspected a thing.”
I spoke up. “That is exactly what happened, sir.”
Turning back to face Jamison, Grandpère made his point. “So there you have it, your honor. Eyewitness testimony from credible witnesses—not one, but six, if you count Cody. Doesn’t that create some reasonable doubt in your mind that maybe what you’ve read is not a false or deliberately evasive report?”
“Not if this is a conspiracy among the six of you,” he shot right back. He turned and glared at Clay and Blake. “Though I cannot fathom why one of my top agents and an experienced UHP officer would be part of that. But I promise you, I will find that out.”
Grandpère sighed. “Then let me ask you one last question, your Honor, since it appears that your mind is made up. Which of the following three options do you think best describes my granddaughter: One, she is telling the truth.”
Emphatically shaking his head, Jamison started to answer, but Grandpère cut him off. “Two, Danni is a fraud. She is a liar and a cheat, a clever con woman engaging in an elaborate deception for reasons we do not fully understand. As are all the rest of us. Or three—” he turned and looked at me, then back to Jamison. “Danni is wildly delusional. She is mentally deranged, out of touch with reality. She’s either schizophrenic or possibly even wildly psychotic.” He leaned in and punched out the next words. “As are her parents, her grandfather, her brother, her best friend, a top FBI agent, and a UHP officer.”
He abruptly sat down. “That’s all I have to say.”
For a long time, there was not a sound in the room. Then Jamison started shaking his head, and I could see we had lost. “You make an eloquent case, Mr. LaRoche, and I admit that I am perplexed. But if there is a conspiracy, then that would explain—” He stopped and blew out his breath, clearly very much frustrated. He turned and looked at Clay.
“I will admit that part of me wants to believe you. I do find it troublesome that six of you who are, as nearly as I can determine, perfectly normal and trustworthy citizens are engaged in some wild conspiracy, or some grand con scheme. And for some reason that I cannot fathom.”
Now he looked at me. “My heart wants to believe you, Danni, but my head refuses to. It is simply not possible. Yet ...” Deep sigh. “The same rational part of me that says there cannot be an enchanted pouch, that the things which you have described are simply not possible, also refuses to accept that you are delusional or perjuring yourself.”
“Thank you. Mr. Jamison,” I said. “I fully understand how you must feel.” Suddenly I had another thought. “But don’t you see that your unwillingness to believe changes the whole dynamic of this situation?”
His face hardened perceptibly. “Meaning what?”
I stalled. I wasn’t sure myself. I focused inwardly and was filled with wonder as understanding flooded into my mind. It was like suddenly I had this teleprompter inside my head, and all I had to do was read from it. I took a quick breath. “My grandfather has a story that he occasionally tells us about believing what you see. I think it is true.” I turned to Grandpère.
“That is what I was told,” Grandpère said.
I went on. “There was a Christian missionary who went to India many years ago to bring those of other faiths to Christ. He worked among a people who had a great reverence for life. They wouldn’t eat meat. They refused to harm any animal. They would even go to great lengths to avoid stepping on insects on the ground. When the minister tried to teach them about Jesus, they refused to listen because he did not have the same reverence for life as they did.
“Highly frustrated, one day he decided to show them that their position was not logical. So he got a glass and filled it with water from a tap. He offered it to one of his most vocal critics. After the man took a drink, the missionary said: ‘You say you refuse to harm any living thing, but come and look at this.’ He then took an eyedropper, put a drop of water on a microscope slide, and asked the man to look through the microscope. He saw that the water was filled with tiny life forms.
“‘That is what you just drank, my friend,’ the missionary said. ‘Now what do you have to say about your belief?’” I stopped, watching Jamison closely but saying nothing.
“And?” he asked. “What did the man do?”
“He broke the microscope.”
Jamison rocked back, his face instantly darkening.
I decided I had to press my advantage. “Meaning no disrespect, Mr. Jamison, but it does seem to us that this is what you just did. You refuse to believe what your head and your heart are saying is true.”
At that moment, the door to the conference room opened. A woman in a hotel uniform stepped inside. She was carrying a tray with fresh glasses and two pitchers, one of water, one of punch. “Excuse me. I’ll just—”
“Not now!” Jamison barked.
Her mouth dropped and she started to back away. “I ... I’m sorry, sir. The manager asked me to—I’m very sorry. I’ll come back later.”
“Wait!” I cried. I peered at her name tag. “Wait, Lani.” I was on my feet and to her in moments. I took her elbow and gently pulled her forward. “Please come in. It’s all right.”
Jamison’s eyes were shooting daggers at me at the rate of about ten per second, but I ignored him. “It’s all right, Lani. I think we all would like something to drink.”
Clearly understanding that I was not the one in charge in this room, she looked at Jamison. After a second, he nodded. “It’s okay.”
As she set the tray on the table and started distributing the glasses, asking each person if they preferred punch or water, I moved around to stand behind the Deputy Director. I leaned down. “Do you know this woman?”
He looked up in surprise. “No. Should I?”
“No. Neither do I. I have never seen her before. In fact, I have never been in this hotel before.”
“So?”
“Tell me her last name.”
He jerked up. “What?”
Lani came to an abrupt halt. She had evidently heard what I said. “Are you talking to me?”
I held up a hand. “Hold on a second.” Then back to Jamison. “Tell me her last name.”
His eyes suddenly widened. “Lani Kinkaid.”
The maid almost dropped the pitcher. “How do you know that?”
I pointed at her. “I think he read it off your name tag.”
She looked down, then gasped. She wasn’t the only one. Her last name now appeared on her tag below her first name. She set the pitcher down and grabbed at the tag, turning it up so she could see it more clearly. Beside me, I saw Jamison jerk forward. I couldn’t see his eyes but I hoped they were bugging out of his head.
I bent down again. “Put your hands on the pouch.”
Jamison looked up, as if he had forgotten I was there. “Why?”
“Just take the pouch. Hold it in your hands.”
After a moment, he took it from the table and put it in his lap again. His eyes widened. “It’s warm.”
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. But all I said was, “Yes, I know. So tell me her birth date.”
“I ...” He turned and looked at the woman. “April twenty-third, nineteen eighty-two.”
The maid still had her name tag between her fingers. She gave a little yelp and fell back a step. As she let it go, we all saw it plainly. Just beneath her name were seven numbers—4/23/1982.
Shocked to the core, Jamison got to his feet, speaking slowly. “Is that true? Is that your birth date?”
She started backing away. I thought she was going to throw up her hands, like she was warding off evil spirits.
“Is that your birthday?” Jam
ison said, more forcefully now.
She nodded numbly. “Yes, but how—”
“Where was she born?” I asked.
“Ely, Nevada.” He said it without hesitation.
She was thoroughly frightened now. “How are you doing this?”
“The name of her first boyfriend?”
“Elwood Franklin, nicknamed Woody.”
The woman gave a little cry, ripped off her tag, and flung it at Jamison, then fled from the room, half sobbing. The tag hit the table, bounced twice, and sailed off onto the floor. I reached down and picked it up, then handed it to Jamison. Besides the Marriott logo, only one word was now on the tag. Lani.
He turned slowly, clearly dazed. His mouth opened, then clamped shut again. “But—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. The door slammed open and a very large black guy in a dark suit burst into the room. He pulled up, looking quickly at all of us, then focused on Jamison. “What is going on here? What did you just do to Lani? She’s hysterical.”
“I ...” Jamison held out the name tag. “There seemed to be some problem with this. We didn’t mean to upset her.”
I leaned closer. “What’s her husband’s name?”
The manager’s eyes went very dark. “That is none of your business, young lady.”
“Because she has no husband right now,” I shot right back. “She has been married twice, but is currently living with her boyfriend, whose name is Roger, and—”
The manager spun on his heel and headed for the door again. “I’m calling the cops,” he called over his shoulder. “You all stay right here.” And he was gone.
Clay was instantly on his feet. “I’ll go straighten this out,” he said, trying hard to keep the glee out of his voice. As he went past me, he turned his back on Jamison and gave me a thumbs-up and mouthed, “Thank you.”
I turned as Jamison sat down heavily in his seat again. I moved back around the table and sat down across from him. I leaned forward, gazing into his troubled eyes. “Like I said. Sometimes we have to see to believe. But other times, we have to believe in order to see.”
Five minutes later, we all sat quietly as two different maids cleared our table. The manager hovered nearby, glaring at each of us in turn. No one said anything, but I can say this: It was a very different Joel Jamison who sat before us now than when we first entered the room.
Finally, the girls finished and left. The manager, whose name tag read Joseph, followed them to the door. But he stopped and turned back. “Will you be needing anything else, Mr. Jamison?” It was polite, but very cool.
He shook his head. “No. Thank you. We’ll be through here in a few minutes. Thank you, Joseph.”
“You’re welcome.” He turned and started for the door.
“Joseph?”
He half turned back. “Yes, sir?”
“Please give our apologies to Miss Kinkaid. We didn’t mean to upset her. And add a fifty-dollar tip for her onto my bill.”
He thawed a little. “Thank you, sir. I’ll tell her that.”
After he left, we all sat there. All eyes were on Jamison, who seemed far away. He straightened and looked down at the folders before him, his face a study in perplexity. Finally, he reached out and took the fattest one, the one that contained Clay’s full report. He handed it to Clay.
Clearly surprised, Clay took it. “What would you like me to do with this, sir?”
He sighed, and then a little twinkle appeared in his eyes. “I would definitely recommend that you not publish it. I’ll make a few tweaks to your—uh—sanitized report, and that will go into the official files.”
We all laughed.
“If it were me, Clay, I’d lock it in my personal safe and—” He shrugged. “Well, you get the picture.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you write a full account, Officer Blake?”
Shayla shook her head. “No, sir. I ... I didn’t dare.”
“Good. I commend you for your good judgment.”
Then he turned and fixed his eyes on me and Rick. “And what about you two?”
Rick was quick to respond. “I’ve written nothing about it.”
“I’ve written a full account in my journal, Mr. Jamison, and I—”
He cut in, half smiling. “I’m not going to throw you in prison now, so you can call me Joel.”
Laughing, I said, “Yes, Joel. And thank you for that. Anyway, I wrote it all up, including details that Clay didn’t have in his report, because they were things that happened that didn’t directly have to do with El Cobra and his gang.”
And please don’t ask me more, because I’m never going to tell you about the speed limit sign, or the cutie in the BMW, or the guy with a neck like a tree stump.
He was watching me closely, almost as if he were reading my thoughts. But finally he smiled. “And is that journal in a safe place?”
“Yes, sir—uh—Joel.”
“We have it in a safety deposit box in the bank,” Mom said.
“Good. Very good.” He abruptly stood, glancing at his watch. “Well, I have a plane waiting for me at the airport. I’m sure they’re wondering where I am.”
Clay stood too. “I’ll go get the car and bring it around front.” He gave us a happy wave and called his good-byes as he left.
Joel came around the table and began shaking hands, first with Rick, then Grandpère, then Mom and Dad. But when he came to me, he totally caught me off guard by brushing aside my outstretched hand and giving me a big hug. When he stepped back, I looked into his face and wondered why I had ever thought of him as being plain. That was not true at all. He actually seemed like a warm and kindly grandfather. “You’re a wonder, Danni. Just like Clay said. It’s been a pleasure to cross swords with you.”
“Thank you.”
He turned to Mom. “We’re going to try to keep a lid on this for as long as we can, Mrs. McAllister. So I have an assignment for you.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I want you to take these people home. I want you to forbid them to talk about this anymore, at least until we get back in touch with you. And I want you to see if you can’t have a little more normal life for a while.”
Mom, beaming triumphantly, shot us each a look, then turned back to him. “That I will do,” she said. “You have my word on that.”
CHAPTER 14
McAllister Ranch, Hanksville, Utah
September 12, 2011
“How was school today, kids?”
I didn’t look up. That was Mom. Go ten seconds without anyone saying something and she would ask one of her conversation-starting questions at the dinner table. Knowing Cody would answer—he always did—I kept right on pushing my peas into a line with my fork so they formed a little dam for my gravy.
“Muy bien, Señora.”
I put my fork down and shot him a dirty look. He had enrolled in eighth-grade Spanish this year, and on the way home on the bus this afternoon, he’d been showing off to some girls. If you didn’t count words like taco, enchilada, tortilla, burrito, and empanada, his total vocabulary was about ten words. And he slaughtered most of them. So I had leaned over the seat and told him to put a sock in it until he could at least pronounce the words correctly. That had started the girls tittering, and he had gone bright red. He shot me a look that told me he was looking for revenge, then totally ignored me.
But Mom, of course, loved it. “Oh, Code. That’s wonderful. Two weeks into school and you’re already talking Spanish. And you do it so well.”
I rolled my eyes and went back to my construction project.
“How about you, Danni?” Dad asked.
“How about me what?”
“How was school?”
“BOR-ing!” I sang out.
Mom also shot me one of her looks. “I don’t like it when you
talk like that, Carruthers.”
“Well,” I fired right back, “Dad asked. And while we’re at it, ‘How was the bus ride to school this morning, Carruthers?’ BOR-ing! ‘And how was the ride home, Danni?’ BOR-ing!”
Mom’s lips pinched a little. “All right, we get the picture.” She turned back to Cody. “So is Spanish your favorite class?”
“Nope!” he chirped. “Algebra.”
“BOR-ing,” I mouthed, turning my head so Mom wouldn’t see it.
But Grandpère did. He was watching me steadily. “Now that Rick drives himself to school because he only goes half a day, who do you sit with on the bus?” he asked.
“I sit with Corrie Wallstein or Serena Batista.”
“Always the same two?”
“I ... um ... yeah, I guess so. I get pretty tired of being teased about being Danni Oakley.”
“Are they still doing that?” Mom asked. “I thought that would have died out by now.”
“I wish!”
Grandpère went back to his eating, but after a moment, he looked over at Dad. “Maybe you could look into a limousine service for Danni, Mack. You know, something that would help her get to school in the style to which she has grown accustomed.”
Cody guffawed loudly, happy anytime he saw me put down.
“With a chauffeur named Dudley,” Mom said, trying not to laugh. “Or perhaps McIntosh.”
“I am glad that you all find my situation so amusing,” I sniffed.
“Do you take the pouch every day?” Grandpère asked, this time serious.
“Yes, I do,” I snapped. “Every single day. And I keep it with me in class, and I take it to lunch, and I take it to the bathroom, and I—”
“Danni,” Dad said in soft warning.
I ignored him. “Le Gardien provides more fodder for jokes than even Danni Oakley.”
“Poor Danni,” Cody said, with obvious relish.
I nearly told him to shut his mouth, but I was wise enough to bite that back. We had a rule in our house. When one of us—meaning Cody or me—told the other one to shut up, we had dishes that night. And if we really mouthed off, Dad wouldn’t let us use the dishwasher to do them.
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