Water Walker (The Full Story, Episodes 1-4)

by Dekker, Ted

  “Yes, Zeke.” He cleared his throat. “Thirty days.”

  Kathryn could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, but her mind was on her own head. If this was Wyatt’s sentence, what would be hers? Dear God, it was all falling apart. All of it!

  “Well, now, I can’t have a traitor around while we reap our blessing, now can I?”

  Their blessing, Kathryn thought. Eden’s money. It was Zeke’s fixation as much as their obedience.

  She kept her eyes on Zeke, now unnerved by any impulse to look at Wyatt—it would constitute some kind of betrayal of Zeke. She couldn’t allow herself sympathy. Not now. But she didn’t have to look at him to know that he was shrinking and for that she couldn’t help but to feel strangely conflicted.

  Zeke glanced at the door. “Show him out.”

  Claude stepped forward, took Wyatt by the arm, and pulled him way.

  Hot tears blurred Kathryn’s eyes as the front door thumped shut. She was alone now. Alone with Zeke.

  Zeke took a long breath and let it out slowly. A heavy blanket of silence settled over them. He gently tapped the desk with his fingertips, eyes cutting so deep she felt her very soul being severed in two.

  But this was his way, wasn’t it? A good and righteous and pure way, deeply dividing the truth like a sword. Bone and marrow.

  “You disappoint me, Kathryn.”

  “Forgive me, Zeke.” The words came out in a half sob. “Please. I didn’t know . . . I did what you asked. She didn’t know she could—”

  “Shut up, Kathryn.”

  “Yes, Zeke.”

  “The issue has nothing to do with what you did or didn’t know. The issue is Eden. And here I was so sure that you’d brought her up in the ways of truth. Now I see you have a slut for a daughter.”

  He was right. She couldn’t possibly offer any defense. There was nothing to be said. He let the statement stand and continued to tap the desk with the tips of his fingers.

  Only when she didn’t think she could bear his dark gaze a moment longer did he shift it to the wall behind her.

  “Like a shepherd I watch over the sheep that God has entrusted to me. Tell me that I haven’t cared for you, Kathryn.”

  “Yes, Zeke, you’ve cared for me.”

  “That I haven’t been merciful to you in every conceivable way.”

  “Your mercy knows no bounds.”

  “That you don’t owe your own life to me.”

  “I do. All of it.”

  He looked into her eyes again.

  “That Eden and everything she is belongs to me.”

  “She’s yours. Your lamb. Your gift to me and I am so grateful.”

  “And yet this is how you treat me? What have I ever asked in return for what I’ve given you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Wrong. Not nothing. What is the one thing I ask of you?”

  She hesitated only a moment. “Love.”

  “That’s right, love. And how will I know whether or not my flock loves me?”

  “By their obedience.”

  “Good girl. And as obedience brings the blessing, rebellion brings the curse, and, with it, judgment.”

  “Yes, Zeke.”

  “You are the people of my pasture, the sheep of my flock, and I am your good shepherd. Who knows what’s best for you?”

  “You do, Zeke.”

  “And who knows what’s best for Eden?”

  She swallowed hard. “You do.”

  “You’ve allowed her to forget who she is. She’s proven herself a stray sheep prone to wandering. One of these days she just might wander too close to the cliff and bring us all down with her.”

  “I’ll do anything.”

  “Yes. You will.”

  “Just tell me what to do. Anything, I promise. This won’t happen again.”

  “No it won’t, Kathryn. It won’t because you’re going to teach that stray lamb not to wander from the fold.”

  “I will. I swear I will!”

  “Just like a good shepherd teaches any precious lamb.”

  “Yes, just like that. Just like a good shepherd. Tell me, Zeke. Just tell me what I have to do.”

  He picked up his tumbler and drained the last of his whisky. Then set it down and slowly turned it with his thumb and forefinger, as if it was a delicate crystal.

  “I want you to break one of Eden’s legs.”

  EPISODE FOUR

  22

  Charleston, SC

  CLOUDS THE color of cast iron hung low over the restless ocean and drifted inland. Gentle waves stretched up the beach, splashing over Special Agent Olivia Strauss’s bare feet as she jogged along the water’s edge.

  C’mon, Liv. Pick up the pace.

  The approaching storm had kept the usual crowd of early morning runners off the sugar-white beach. Besides a solitary figure standing fifty yards ahead, Olivia was alone with her thoughts and the rhythmic slap of her feet on wet sand.

  Since moving here to supervise the Charleston field office, running was her daily therapy, the one place that put life’s madness into perspective. It would take more than a summer storm to keep her from it.

  Olivia’s eyes were drawn to the man standing motionless on the shore. Something was curious about him, she thought. She slowed her stride.

  She’d jogged this stretch of beach every morning for the past six months and knew the regulars well—the joggers, the fishermen, the retired couple that rose before dawn to search the sands with metal detectors in hand.

  He didn’t carry himself like a tourist, which she could easily spot. Yet, he seemed strangely familiar.

  The man looked out to sea with his arms by his sides, the sea breeze lifting his dark hair. Even in the dull, gray light of morning she could see he was barefoot. He wore dark jeans and a stark white T-shirt that stretched taut over his muscular frame. Behind him, a pair of black biker boots lay in the sand just beyond the tide’s reach.

  She settled to a walk ten feet to his right. Did she know this man?

  “Hello, Olivia.”

  She stopped. He knew her?

  The man turned. Staring back was a face she’d thought about countless times over the years. She blinked twice, half expecting him to vanish. But he didn’t.

  “Stephen? Is that you?”

  He walked toward her, eyes as gentle and strong as she remembered them. How long had it been? Four years? No, five. Five years since Stephen had shown up and spoken life into her shriveled soul.

  Five years since she’d lost Alice Ringwald and unexpectedly found herself along the way.

  Stephen stopped in front of her, smiling. “You look well.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “You run every morning, don’t you?”

  He studied her for a silent stretch. “I see you’ve found some peace. Light in your eyes.”

  “I never got a chance to thank you. What you said that day . . .” She drew a breath. “It changed my life.”

  “We all play our roles. One person plants the seed, another waters it, but it grows only when the season is right.”

  His words soaked into her like the radiant warmth of the sun. But there was something else—a distant look of deep concern in his eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “Keeping a promise I made to you. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Alice Ringwald?” she said.

  He nodded once. “I said I would tell you if I ever learned anything new.”

  The image of the young girl still haunted Olivia. Even years after the case had gone cold, she believed Alice was out there somewhere, terrified and waiting for someone to come.

  “She’s alive, Olivia.”

  The world seemed to still around her.

  “You’re sure? She’s alive?”

  “For now at least.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I spoke to her.”

  Her pulse quickened. “You found her? When?”
>
  He dipped his head. “A couple of times. This last week.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You said you found her.”

  “I did. In a dream.”

  A dream? Olivia held his gaze and let the words settle. Coming from anyone else it would have sounded ludicrous, but this was the man who’d told her things about herself that no one else knew. His eyes were unflinching, and there was certainty in them.

  “And this . . . dream . . . You’re sure it means she’s alive?”

  “She’s alive,” he said.

  “How do you know it wasn’t just a dream? What if it was just wishful thinking, a trick of the mind? We both want to find her; we have for a long time. You know as well as I do that the mind sometimes sees what it wants to see. That doesn’t make it real.”

  “The wind blows wherever it wills. How and why is a mystery. It’s enough to simply know that it is. In the same way, I know that my awareness and hers are somehow connected.”

  “How do you know?”

  He shifted his gaze and looked at the horizon again. “A dream called to my mother’s heart once. Drew her across the ocean. What she thought she would find and what she actually did were worlds apart. Her story came with great blessing, but also much death. You see? Both life and death were birthed from a dream.” He looked back at her. “I know because I know.”

  She nodded slowly. “Okay. Then tell me where she is in your dream.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Yes, but assuming the dream is real, there must be clues to where she is.”

  “My dreams are of that place where heart calls to heart. Even what I do see may not be a direct reflection of what’s outside that heart.”

  “Is she in danger? That’s a matter of the heart, right?”

  “Terrible danger.”

  “And?”

  “I believe that she’s with her birth mother.”

  The prevailing theory at the time. So she was right.

  “And that’s just another dead end. There must be something else. Anything that could at least narrow our search.”

  “She was standing alone on a lakeshore, in fear of her mother. I came to her in a rowboat—from where I have no clue. There were thick trees covered in stringy moss and the air was tinged with the scent of salt.”

  Olivia paced as he spoke, mind spinning through the possibilities. “She must be near the coast. Swamp lands near the ocean . . . that describes half of the Gulf coast.”

  “Or perhaps not. It may only represent something more. What I can tell you for certain is that she’s alive, and, wherever she is, she’s trapped in a state of great fear and suffering. Truthfully, I may be the only one who can help her find emancipation.”

  Drizzle began to fall as Olivia worked the problem in her mind. “What about sounds? Traffic? Maybe an airport? Anything that would put her near a landmark that we could use to narrow a search.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  She stopped and faced him. “That’s it, then? Nothing but a dream with no helpful details.”

  “Not nothing. Alice is alive and she’s opened up to me. That’s something.”

  “What good is that if we can’t get to her?”

  His right brow cocked. “But I can. I thought I’d mentioned that.”

  “Through a dream.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then can’t you tell her how to escape in that dream? Tell her to call a number or make a mark on the shore . . . Anything that might help—”

  “I can only speak to her heart. What she chooses to do is entirely up to her . . .” He paused. “You must understand . . . there’s no guarantee she will get out. And even if she does, her freedom may only come at a great price to her or to others.”

  “What kind of price?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She stared at him. “We’re helpless then.”

  “Not helpless, no. We can hope that Alice will find that narrow way to her freedom. You must remember that she’s not just any child, Olivia. Not at all.”

  He was referring to her upbringing in the monastery, a history totally lost to Alice.

  “What was it about that monastery?” she asked.

  Stephen stared out at the ocean, thinking.

  “She was protected from this world. Taught the virtues of love, beauty, and peace in ways very few are. Although she doesn’t remember, there’s a deep place in Alice that still knows . . . Mountains can be moved, the blind can see, the lame can walk if only one can let go.”

  “In my experience, the best way to move a mountain is with a bulldozer.”

  He offered a slight smile. “That would be in your experience. In either case, I doubt Alice has access to a bulldozer at the moment.”

  Touché.

  “And if she can’t let go?”

  He didn’t respond.

  The rain fell harder and a peal of thunder shook the sky. “We’ll find her,” Olivia said, watching the waves.

  “I hope you do. But I don’t think she’s ready yet. She’ll only be found when she is. It’s why I only met her in my dreams recently.”

  “Because she wasn’t ready.”

  “I can assure you, it wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part.”

  All this talk of life and death and readiness was such an inverted way of thinking. Offensive even. Wasn’t any abducted girl always ready to be rescued?

  Yes, yes, of course . . . but Alice wasn’t just any girl. And this was all coming from Stephen. She couldn’t bring herself to object.

  “And it won’t be for any lack of trying on my part either,” she said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to find her.”

  “As will I.” He dipped his head, gave her a parting smile, and walked to his boots. “As will I.”

  23

  BREAK HER LEG. That’s what Zeke had said.

  Break her leg. And with those three words Zeke had broken Kathryn’s heart.

  She’d driven home in Wyatt’s truck, mind numb, head ringing. It all made sense, she knew it did, but she wasn’t in the place to piece all the scriptures and bits of reasoning together yet. She could only trust in what she knew to be the truth.

  And the truth was, Zeke had saved her. He’d led her down the path of righteousness and, when she wasn’t righteous enough herself, provided a way for her to be reconciled with God. Eden, the lamb of God, come to take away all of her sin.

  And now she had to break Eden’s leg so that she couldn’t stray and fall off a cliff and bring them all down with her.

  So why did it break her heart? Why did the thought of breaking Eden’s leg feel like an order had been given to break her own leg? Or worse.

  Because you love Eden, Kathryn. Didn’t God love his child?

  She walked straight to her bedroom without checking on either Bobby or Eden, knowing they wouldn’t dare make another attempt. Not tonight anyway. And not tomorrow because Eden wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow.

  She lay in bed and stared at the dark ceiling, only dimly aware. An hour passed. Two. Three, and sleep didn’t even bother tempting her. Slowly her mind began to settle into that place of deep understanding that was far beyond the world’s way of knowing.

  There were times when you had to shut your mind down and trust in what you knew at a deeper level. She’d invested her whole life in Zeke, and, in some ways, he’d invested his in her. All she knew now was that she had to follow him, regardless of where he took her. Regardless of how terrifying the path or sickening the thought.

  And that meant she had no real alternative but to do exactly what he said.

  Break her leg. She’s the lamb who would stray into guilt. By breaking her leg, you will save her.

  Spare the rod, spoil the child. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Put them on the slippery slope and they’ll slide all the way to the bottom. That’s just how it was. Hadn’t God put J
acob’s hip out of joint to help him understand?

  Didn’t the good shepherd lovingly break the leg of the wayward lamb to teach it not to stray, just like Zeke had said?

  And hadn’t God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac? It didn’t matter that God had sent a ram from the thicket to spare Abraham; what did matter was that Abraham had been obedient. Sometimes the righteous were called upon to do what seemed humanly impossible in order to bring blessing to the world.

  Truth was, the first time she’d drowned Eden in baptism, she’d been terrified. And yet she’d been obedient, and held her daughter down, covering up her own fear with exclamations of praise and long quotes of scripture.

  And, having died to the flesh, hadn’t Eden come out of the water with tears of gratefulness? Hadn’t they all been abundantly blessed for her obedience?

  That was the path of being dead to the flesh.

  So Kathryn shut down her reasoning mind and embraced the word of life that had saved her for this day of great blessing.

  “Praise be to God,” she whispered, and doing so she felt even more calm. “Praise be to God.”

  By the time first light was graying the sky outside her window, Kathryn had found a measure of resolution. It wasn’t her place to think or reason; only to obey. And the only way to obey was to shut out the tempting voice of the serpent that would seduce her into eating from the tree of death.

  Kathryn lay in bed for another hour, trying her best not to think, remaining as best she could in that place of obedience, until it occurred to her that she might only be procrastinating the good will of God, which was only another clever temptation of the serpent.

  She swung her legs off the bed and placed her feet on the floor.

  Break her leg. So she would.

  She stood, took up the small package Zeke had given her, and walked to the door, aware that she was moving slowly, as if through water. Drowned. Numb. Dead to the flesh.

  She opened the door and listened in the silence for a long moment that might have stretched into a full minute. Not a sound in the house. They would be fast asleep.

  Walking slowly so as not to disturb the children, she headed to the kitchen to retrieve the ball of twine. She’d never tied Eden up before.