The Truth Seeker

by Dee Henderson

  “Oh, that’s conniving.”

  “He won’t suspect it.”

  “I wish I were going to be here when he reads the note.”

  “You’ll have your chance. He’s coming down the hall.”

  “Quinn! Why didn’t you say so? Let’s get out of here.” She shoved the items she held into the dry-cleaning bag and slid it under the bed. “So where are we going?”

  “First, to take a walk.”

  “Let me go change to comfortable shoes.”

  “Two minutes. I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

  They heard the door open next door. “Bye,” she whispered and cautiously opened the room door, checked the hall, and slipped out.

  Quinn waited until the door closed, then tapped on the connecting door. “Marcus?”

  His partner opened the door and rested his shoulder against the door frame. “She fell for it?”

  “Hook, line, and sinker.”

  “I wonder how long it will take her to realize she just raided Dave’s room, not mine.”

  Quinn smiled and leaned in to check the room. “She even managed to short sheet his bed? She must have been flying.”

  “Never let it be said Lisa didn’t enjoy setting up a good joke. Go on out for the evening, just stop by my actual room when you get back. I want to see Lisa’s face when she realizes her mistake.”

  “Glad to. Can you slip Dave’s key back before he realizes they were swapped?”

  “Piece of cake.”

  “I ate too much, laughed too hard—I can’t believe how exhausted I am.”

  “Admit it, you had fun.”

  Lisa twirled her new sombrero around her fingers. “I had a wonderful time,” she agreed, “and my ribs ache.”

  Quinn rubbed her nose. “You’ve acquired a sunburn in the last day.”

  “My freckles are going to stand out in the wedding pictures tomorrow.” She dropped the hat back on her head. “What time is it?”

  He checked. “Shortly after 9 P.M.”

  “Suppose Jen will notice if I sleep in tomorrow instead of attending the church service?”

  “Lisa.”

  “I was just checking.”

  “Ready for the wedding?”

  “Not really.” Lisa shrugged one shoulder, her expression defensive. “It’s not just me. The entire family has been trying to cram a couple years’ worth of practical jokes into the last weekend the family exists as the original O’Malleys. None of us likes the idea of change. We’re reverting to our childhood.”

  “I’ve noticed. You’re looking at the guy who’s been on the receiving end of a lot of them.” He held open the hotel door for her.

  “Do you think Jen’s mad at us?”

  “Jennifer is so happy right now she would only be offended if she didn’t think you all were having fun.” Quinn tugged her hand. “Come on. The reception ballroom should be all set up by now. Let’s go look at the decorations.”

  “I want to go crash.”

  “Half an hour.”

  “If I fall asleep on my feet, I’m told I snore.”

  He winced. “Did I really want to know that?”

  “Just telling you, in the interest of full disclosure.”

  The hallway to the banquet rooms and the ballroom being used for the reception was empty and quiet. Quinn opened the door and turned on the lights.

  “It’s beautiful,” Lisa breathed. There were balloons and streamers and white tablecloths and flowers of every kind. There were tables for the cake, the punch, and the gifts. “I want Rachel to plan my wedding. She’s thought of everything.”

  “Her wedding present to Jennifer,” Quinn agreed, impressed by what he saw. Jennifer would have a good wedding. It was comforting not only to know that, but to see it.

  “So much love in this room.” Lisa ran her finger along the lace pattern in the tablecloth. “I think I may cry.”

  “You’d have to borrow a napkin, I’m afraid. Jen already used my last handkerchief.”

  Lisa wandered to the bay of windows. “I hope it’s a sunny day tomorrow, doesn’t rain.”

  Quinn slowly followed, watching her. “If it rains, maybe she’ll get a rainbow.”

  “Do you think she’ll like our gift?”

  “The painting? She’ll love it.”

  “What Jen would really like is for me to believe.”

  She said it with such sadness . . . her ambivalence had been hiding an internal war over what was happening. He should have realized it. “You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?”

  She shrugged one shoulder, traced her finger along the windowsill.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked gently.

  She sat down in one of the chairs and rested her forearms against her knees as she creased the brim of the hat. “Quinn, it hurts. I don’t like disagreeing with the family. They’re all I’ve got that matter to me, and I’m in a disintegrating situation with Kate and Marcus. Now Jennifer wants to talk with me.” She looked up at him, and he could see the fatigue that had reached her eyes. “Can you please get me out of church tomorrow morning?”

  He had no choice but to shake his head. “I wouldn’t try. It matters too much to Jennifer that you be there.” It mattered too much to him.

  “You know, when Kate talks about believing, she gets so excited about it. Her eyes sparkle and her voice lightens, and she looks . . . happy. Marcus—” she quirked a sad smile—“he wants to pray about everything now. Jennifer says everything is going to be okay, even though she’s dying. It’s confusing. I just want my family back the way it was.”

  “Lisa, look at the truth. Believing in Jesus has changed their lives for the better.”

  “That doesn’t mean what they believe in is true.” She looked up at him. “I know you believe too. I’m not trying to be insulting, but knowing their lives are happier doesn’t mean much. A doctor can give a patient a placebo and have the symptoms improve. It was the patient who believed that brought the improvement, not what he believed in.” She sighed. “Can you prove it to me?”

  “Prove what?”

  “That Jesus rose from the dead?”

  He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the table across from her. “Why ask me? You’re convinced you already know the answer.”

  “Do you have to rub it in?”

  “Lisa.” It wasn’t the right time for this. She was too tired to have a complete conversation, was asking the question for reasons that made the situation even more difficult.

  He pulled over one of the chairs, spun it around, and straddled it, folding his arms across the back of the chair. He studied her face, trying to decide how to convince her that the God he served was not only alive but loved her too. “Do you really want to talk about this? I’d be happy too, for as long as you like, for as many questions as you have, but only if you really want to have the conversation. I know the pressure you’re feeling. You’d rather just have it go away.”

  “That’s not going to happen. They’re family. I’m tired. If I’m wrong, convince me. If you can’t . . . ” She shook her head. “I don’t want what’s coming. We’ve always been one family, solid, together, and it feels like we’re in the process of splitting in two in so many ways—the wedding, Marcus and Shari’s engagement, the deep division over faith.”

  “You have to be willing to trust me and listen.” To talk about the Resurrection and not to talk about Andy was to ignore the elephant in the room; yet he could not bring himself to try and approach that subject. “What are your questions, Lizzy?”

  “I know what happens when someone dies. It isn’t that easy to set aside what I know for something you are asking me to believe. The two contradict each other. How can Jesus rise from the dead? And please don’t give that ‘because He’s God’ answer I’ve gotten all my life. If something so profound is true, then it should have more substance beneath it than simply someone’s word that it occurred. There should be something on which faith could be based
rather than a ‘believe because I told you to’ answer. That’s blind faith, and I need a rational faith.”

  Quinn tried to make it as concrete an answer as he could. “When a child is born, he has features of both his mother and father. The genetics of both combine to form the child, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the Bible, Jesus is called both the Son of God and the Son of Man. He has traits of both God and man. Jesus, as God, existed forever. Jesus of Nazareth, the man, had a day He came into existence . . . and He also had a day He died. That’s the death you understand, Lisa. When He was resurrected on the third day, He was still Jesus the Son of God, He was still fully divine, but He was also what the Bible called the first resurrected human, a look at who we will also be someday in the future.” She started to interrupt and he lifted a hand. “Let me finish. You asked for a rational reason. I’m giving you one. People saw Jesus after the Resurrection. He appeared to the twelve apostles, then to five hundred of his disciples.”

  “That’s supposed to be conclusive?”

  “Lisa, if someone who looked like Kate and acted like Kate tried to take Kate’s place, how long do you think they could fool you? An hour? A day? How long could they fool you if you had reason to doubt it was really her?”

  She conceded his point with a nod.

  “Jesus still bore the wounds in His hands and side. His friends could recognize Him, so He looked the same. His voice must have sounded the same. He could eat. But His body was clearly different—He could move through a closed door, He could vanish. Men and women saw Him after the Resurrection for over a month before He ascended to heaven. They recognized the man they called Jesus. They recognized His words, His actions, His appearance. An impostor could not have fooled so many people for so many days.”

  “You would argue that the historical record within the Bible is sufficient proof the impossible did happen.”

  “Look at what the men and women who saw the resurrected Jesus went out and did. They took the Gospel to the entire Roman world. Thousands of them were killed because they chose to continue to insist what they saw was true rather than recant to the authorities. You tell me, is mass hysteria over a common event going to last for a couple thousand years? And not only last, but stay consistent across all those years as to what actually happened? Fifty years after the event, people were still standing as eyewitnesses to the fact they had seen Jesus alive and resurrected three days after He had been crucified.”

  “It’s only recorded in the Bible.”

  “On the contrary, what the apostles and early Christians did is recorded by secular historians of the day. Christianity did not have an isolated, obscure beginning. It happened in the open and was recorded as people who followed Jesus literally disrupted cities with their radical message.”

  “You would argue that Jesus is alive now, but in a different body, not one made of dust as ours are?”

  “Lisa—”

  “What?”

  “Please don’t get upset, but Marcus wanted you to see one passage from the Bible. I wrote it down.” He slid the folded page from his shirt pocket.

  “You were talking about me.”

  “Marcus loves you. He wants to answer your questions as much if not more than I do. Please, if you’re my friend, read it.”

  She reluctantly reached for the note.

  “Your question is not unique. This comes from 1 Corinthians 15:35 on.”

  “Your handwriting needs work.”

  “So does yours. Read.”

  He knew what it said, understood why Marcus had felt so certain Lisa should see it. “But some one will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’. . . . “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. . . . The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. . . . For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.”

  “You believe this.”

  “Yes, Lizzy, I do. This world was not designed to die; sin did that. But Jesus has beaten sin, and it gave Him the right to put on the imperishable as those verses describe. I believe the Resurrection is true. Jesus is alive. That’s what Kate has been trying to convince you of, Marcus and Jennifer also.”

  She folded the note but didn’t hand it back. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Please—think hard.” He hesitated, then said what his heart demanded. “Lizzy, even if you don’t believe, I will still be your friend. Nothing is going to change that. I’m loyal to my friends for a lifetime. There are no qualifications.”

  She just looked at him for a long time, and then the smile that could make his heart roll over appeared. She got to her feet and lightly tapped his arm with the sombrero. “You’re forgiven for asking me out fourth.”

  She would have passed him but he snagged her hand. “Lizzy.”

  She stopped.

  “I saved the best for last.”

  Nineteen

  She was going to have to tell him about Andy. Lisa rolled over on her bed with a groan, stared at the ceiling. It was 1:14 A.M. She was so tired it was making her punchy. She’d slept an hour only to have a horrible nightmare and wake shivering.

  She turned on the bedside light, admitting sleep wasn’t going to return soon. Quinn’s Bible was on the side table. He’d handed it to her tonight and suggested she borrow it for a few days. She picked it up.

  It showed its age. Quinn had carried it with him for years and it was falling apart. There were notes in the margins and verses underlined, some of them dated with cryptic notes beside them. In the front of the book were tucked a couple letters, a faded newspaper clipping—it was like glancing through a guy’s version of a diary.

  She was familiar with the book. She turned to the passage Marcus had noted and read it again.

  She had prayed that Andy would breathe again and he hadn’t. It had convinced her that Jesus could not work a miracle and bring back the dead as the Bible claimed. She’d dismissed the Resurrection.

  And over the years she found it easier to ignore the subject entirely than rethink it. She’d learned at Trevor House that the only way to deal with the turmoil of the past—religion being just one issue of many—was to draw a line in time and leave the past behind.

  It helped to know the Bible did try to argue that the body of dust returned to life. Not much, but it helped.

  “They recognized His words, His actions, His appearance.”

  If Jesus was alive as Quinn and her family claimed, then His actions now should still be consistent with His behavior recorded in the Bible. He’d been a hands-on man, teaching, healing the sick.

  Again she felt the same disquieting realization as when the pain had eased during her hospital stay because of Quinn’s prayer. It had not been a case of her belief changing the situation for the better; it had been a case of Quinn’s belief changing the situation. That required there to be someone else acting. And Quinn said it was Jesus.

  Ignoring the time, she picked up the phone and punched in a room number.

  “Quinn?”

  “Lizzy? Hi.”

  “Can you meet me for a walk or something?”

  “Sure.” She heard the concern, and he didn’t even comment on the time. “Five minutes? I’ll tap on your door.”

  “Thanks.”

  She staggered to her feet, moved across the room to her suitcase, and unzipped it. She pulled on a white shirt and jeans, not really caring what it was her hand found first in her suitcase; she just wanted to get out of the room for a while. She was tying her shoelaces when he tapped on
her door. She slipped her room key in her pocket and went to slide open the lock. His gaze swept across her, concerned. “Bad dream?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I need a walk.”

  “We can take care of that,” he assured. She pulled her room door closed. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the elevators. Lisa reached up to grasp his wrist, appreciating the company. She would have normally gone for a walk alone. This was so much better.

  They walked through the lobby and outside to the gardens that landscaped the open area between the hotel and the conference center complex.

  “You’re going to need a jacket. I should have thought of it upstairs.”

  It was kind of chilly out, but she shook her head. “I’ll be fine for now.”

  She’d never been good about sharing secrets. She didn’t want to talk about Andy. She needed to, but she didn’t want to see the pity that would come into Quinn’s eyes. It was better all around that she not say anything.

  “Has Dave forgiven me yet?”

  “He thinks it was Kate. She’s denying it, of course, but she doesn’t have much credibility on the subject and Dave doesn’t believe her.”

  “I think I’m relieved.”

  “You should be. You really did a pretty good job for five minutes.”

  “I can’t believe you had me raid the wrong room.”

  “Me?”

  “I think this means we’re even.”

  He smiled. “Just about.”

  She leaned her head back to look at the moon. “It’s not full.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “I am.”

  “It’s only full one day this month.” He tightened his hand. “What was the nightmare about?”

  She hesitated about answering him. “Do you dream about when you found your father?”

  He stopped walking. “Yes.”

  “I dream about Andy.”

  He turned her to face him, his hands settling on her shoulders. “Do you?”

  She looked up, wondering why he hadn’t asked the more obvious question: who was Andy? He was looking at her with that expression she’d seen once before, compassion so deep she could drown in his gaze. “I don’t like the dream,” she answered awkwardly, pulling back from telling him the truth.