Chasing the Wind
Norma Beishir
Collin Beishir
Contents
Author’s Note:
1. Caitlin Hammond
2. Lynne Raven
3. Connor Mackenzie
4. Caitlin
5. Connor
6. Lynne
7. Connor
8. Connor
9. Lynne
10. Lynne
11. Lynne
12. Connor
13. Caitlin
14. Lynne
15. Connor
16. Caitlin
17. Connor
18. Lynne
19. Connor
20. Lynne
21. Connor
22. Lynne
23. Connor
24. Lynne
25. Connor
26. Caitlin
27. Phillip Darcy
28. Connor
29. Darcy
30. Lynne
31. Darcy
32. Connor
33. Darcy
34. Connor
35. Darcy
36. Connor
37. Darcy
38. Connor
39. Lynne
40. Connor
41. Lynne
42. Connor
43. Lynne
44. Connor
45. Lynne
46. Connor
47. Lynne
48. Connor
49. Caitlin
50. Darcy
51. Caitlin
52. Darcy
53. Connor
54. Darcy
55. Connor
56. Darcy
57. Connor
58. Lynne
59. Darcy
60. Connor
61. Darcy
62. Caitlin
63. Darcy
64. Caitlin
65. Lynne
66. Connor
67. Lynne
68. Connor
69. Lynne
70. Connor
71. Caitlin
72. Connor
73. Lynne
74. Connor
75. Caitlin
76. Connor
77. Caitlin
78. Lynne
79. Connor
80. Lynne
81. Caitlin
82. Connor
83. Lynne
84. Connor
85. Lynne
86. Connor
87. Lynne
88. Connor
89. Lynne
90. Connor
91. Caitlin
92. Darcy
93. Connor
94. Darcy
95. Lynne
96. Connor
97. Lynne
98. Connor
99. Caitlin
100. Darcy
101. Caitlin
102. Connor
103. Lynne
104. Connor
105. Lynne
Dear Reader
About the Authors
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Copyright (C) 2008, 2012, 2019 Norma Beishir and Collin Beishir
Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter
Published 2019 by Terminal Velocity – A Next Chapter Imprint
Edited by D.S. Williams
Cover art by Cover Mint
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.
Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Is tric a bheothaich srad bheag teinne mòr.
A small spark has often kindled a great fire.
Gaelic saying
-
No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied;
No matter how much we hear, we are not content.
History merely repeats itself; nothing is truly new;
It has all been done or said before….
It is all foolishness, chasing the wind.
What is wrong cannot be righted; it is water over the dam,
And there is no use in thinking of what might have been….
Everything is appropriate in its own time.
But though God has planted eternity in the hearts of men,
Even so, many cannot see the whole scope of God’s work
From beginning to end….
All things are decided by Fate; it was known long ago
What each man would be….
Ecclesiastes 1:8-6:10
In order to be a realist you must
believe in miracles.
David Ben Gurion
To the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We committed this tale to you when it was still a
work-in-progress, and we commit it to you again now.
May it bring you glory.
Author’s Note:
Writing a novel is like childbirth. Some are easy and over in no time; others are long, painful labors that seem to take forever and are plagued by complications. This baby had to fight its way into the world, and we are deeply and forever grateful to the many “midwives” who assisted, in one way or another, to the birthing process: our fellow authors at the Writers of Mass Distraction—especially William Kendall, Mike Saxton, April Morone, Eve Gaal, Lorelei Bell, Mark Hunter and Linton Robinson; our two guardian angels, Carolyn Crowe and Kathie Chambers, and their husbands, Bob and Lee, respectively; our pastors at the South Side Church of God, Brandon Hunter and his wife Carly and John Morden and his wife Carole; Cathy Smith, Martin Rus, Nicole Tuberty and Kyle Tuberty from our writing group; Pearl Wilson, who watched us both grow up and became our surrogate family when we had none left; Maria Carvainis and Damaris Rowland, who once whipped a green writer into printworthy shape; Sabra Elliott, from whom I learned a great deal about “the biz”; Jim Moses and the rest of the staff at the Buder branch of the St. Louis Public Library (thanks for coming in early to get things going by the time we charged through your doors at precisely 9 am every morning!); Dr. Ferris N. Pitts, Jr, MD, who, many years ago, looked at a bad-tempered, out-of-control teenager and saw potential few could have imagined back then; Pastors Keith and Penny Holste and Susan Hunt, Christ Lutheran Church of Webster Groves; Edward Magee of St. Joan of Arc Parish, St. Louis; Joyce Moran, Annunciation Catholic Church, Webster Groves; Julia Finnegan of the now-defunct Chapter One bookstore—thanks for everything; Michael Kahn, who’s both a brilliant writer and a brilliant attorney; the late Donna Julian, onetime partner in crime, who would never have believed the route we now follow—you’re sorely missed, dear friend; and to the many other friends, associates, and professionals who saw us through the storms: Dr. Taylor Bear, MD, Washington University School of Medicine, Department of Neurology; Dr. Robert A. Zink, MD, South Side Family Practice; Bob Powell; Jim Wolf; Carol McGrael; Debbie Henderson; Josephine Roe; Karen Alexander; Sue Easterby; Jim Hux; Charlie Kingston; Mike Dickerson; Katie Alexander Greer; Steph Duran; and the gang at the Quality Inn Southwest, St. Louis. We had the benefit of several resources for research, but the ones that proved most beneficial were Daniel B. Davis
' Muses, Madmen and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science and Meaning of Auditory Hallucinations, as well as The Creating Brain: the Neuroscience of Genius, by Nancy C. Andreasen, MD, PhD; Clone by Gina Kolata; and The Blood and the Shroud by Ian Wilson. Of course, we take all the blame for any factual errors.
And to Jake and Lolly Beishir, our parents/grandparents. You were right. We did need you and we do miss you.
Norma & Collin Beishir
1
Caitlin Hammond
The woman was hysterical.
Her husband wasn’t in much better shape. He could barely talk, struggling to answer my questions in fragmented sentences. Their six-year-old daughter had been abducted from their backyard. There were no witnesses, and an exhaustive search of the neighborhood turned up nothing.
“I don’t understand how this could have happened,” the child’s father said, choking on every other word. “She only let Mandy out of her sight for a minute.”
He looked over his shoulder at his inconsolable wife, being tended by a neighbor. “She’s always been an overprotective mother,” he said, lowering his voice. “Mandy’s our miracle baby.”
“How so?” I asked, taking notes. In the years I'd been with the FBI, I'd found child abduction cases to be the biggest test of my objectivity. If somebody took my kid, I'd probably hunt them down and kill them. Kidnappers and pedophiles should always be turned over to the parents. The courts might let them go. But you didn't hear that from me.
“We’d been trying to have children for years, almost as long as we’ve been married,” the distraught father went on. “We both come from big families and wanted kids of our own, but it just wasn’t happening.”
“Is your daughter adopted?” my partner, Jack Farlow, asked.
He shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “She’s ours. We went to a fertility clinic when we couldn’t conceive. It took everything we had, all of our savings, but Mandy’s worth it.”
“You had difficulty in having a child,” Jack said slowly. “Who was at fault?”
The man was at first puzzled, then angry. “What kind of question is that?” he asked. “What has it to do with Mandy being missing?”
“Probably nothing, maybe everything, depending on the circumstances of her birth, sir,” Jack said. “Did you use an egg or sperm donor?”
The man shook his head. “No,” he said. “Mandy’s ours, one hundred percent. She was conceived by in vitro, but we used our own…you know.”
“We have to ask,” I apologized. “If your daughter were not biologically yours, then we would have to consider the possibility that the biological parent might have taken her.”
“We’re her parents, no one else,” the man insisted. His face reflected his deep fear for his child’s safety. “Please bring our baby home. Please.”
“I only turned my back for a moment,” the distraught teacher repeated over and over. “I never left the schoolyard!”
A six-year-old boy had been abducted outside a prestigious Seattle school for gifted children. No one saw it happen, even though there were several children in the schoolyard, being picked up by their own parents. Everyone was being questioned.
“We understand, Mrs. Harwood,” I said in an attempt to calm her.
“I don’t understand!” The emotional outburst came from the child’s mother. “You were responsible for him! You were supposed to be watching him!”
“I was watching him!” the teacher attempted to defend herself. “I was watching all of them! I only turned away for a moment!”
“Long enough for someone to take my son!” the angry mother shot back at her.
“Easy, Mrs. Wyndham,” Jack urged. “She won’t be able to remember anything if you keep attacking her.”
Charlotte Wyndham turned to the window, hugging herself tightly as if trying to shield herself from the chill of fear that consumed her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d said her husband was in Paris on business. He’d booked a flight as soon as she called him, but he could not be there before the next morning.
"We only had each other, until Noah was born," she said. "Neither of us have any other family, and we both wanted children. When we couldn’t get pregnant on our own, we sought out the experts. It took us three years and thousands of dollars to have Noah, but he's worth every penny. If anything happens to him…."
The woman’s body was found in her car, parked in the driveway outside her Florida home. She was still in the driver’s seat, her seatbelt still in place. She’d been shot in the head at close range. Her five-year-old son was missing, presumably taken from his car seat.
We questioned her husband at length. He was frustrated by the endless probing. "My wife is dead, my child is missing. Why are you wasting time questioning me?" he demanded.
"You found her, sir, " I said. "We have to start there. With you."
“She had no enemies,” he said irritably. “None. She got along with everybody. I always envied that about her. She was the peacemaker. I was the loose cannon.”
“Were you a loose cannon with her, Mr. Reynolds?” Jack asked.
“No, of course not.” Roger Reynolds didn’t miss the implication. “What are you asking me?”
“Only if there were any problems between the two of you.”
“You think I killed her?” Reynolds asked incredulously.
“Did you?”
“No, of course not!”
“What about your son?”
“What about him?”
“Were there any problems regarding the child?” I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Reynolds snapped. “Our son was perfect. Perfect.”
2
Lynne Raven
Dear God, how long has it been? As I stood at the window in my hotel room in London, looking at the city below, I found myself feeling like I'd just landed on another planet.
I should probably explain. I'm a field archaeologist. Home is wherever I happen to be excavating—at that time, “home” was Egypt. The only people I see on a daily basis are the members of my team. Restaurants, theaters, shopping—all are rare luxuries. My wardrobe is simple and functional, much like everything else in my life.
As I looked at the royal blue tunic I'd planned to wear that night, I realized I hadn’t worn it in months. It didn’t fit my normal lifestyle. Too feminine for a dig. Thinking about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made the effort to be feminine, to actually look like a woman. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like a woman, the last time I’d wanted to feel like a woman. Feeling and acting like a woman always seemed to get me into trouble. I had discovered long ago that I got on better with people who’d been dead for a thousand years than I did with the living.
I'm not one to spend a lot of time worrying about my looks. For what? I've been divorced over a decade and can't remember the last time I was on a date. I turned forty that summer, but on the good days, I could still pass for thirty. I had fine lines around my eyes—“archaeologist’s squint”, an occupational hazard more than a sign of aging. I haven't changed my hairstyle since college—it's long, dark and threaded with strands of copper from being out in the sun all day, every day. I know I don’t look my age. But there are times I feel it acutely. I got good genes from my parents. Genes that I haven’t been able to pass on to any children of my own. The thought of the children I’d never have and the family I hadn’t seen in a year brought a wave of unexpected sadness I couldn't shake. It was Thanksgiving in the States. How many years had it been since I’d gone home for Thanksgiving or any other holiday? I told my parents I was too busy, but the truth was that it was too painful to see my three sisters with their children. Seeing what I’d been missing.
I always believed this was the path God had chosen for me. I could never have been satisfied with the life my sisters led back in Missouri. Taking the easy route had never been my style. We all have a purpose. I believed without doubt that mine was to find evidence that would prove the eve
nts described in the Bible had actually happened.
As for why I was in London, I hadn’t planned on being here. Three weeks before, I’d been minding my own business, working on my dig in Egypt when that call came, asking me to do a series of lectures in London, to replace a colleague who’d been injured in an earthquake in China. The request surprised the hell out of me, since it came from someone I not only didn’t know well personally, but had been at odds with professionally. What was it Dr. McCallum had called me? Too much of a dreamer to ever be a serious archaeologist. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t about to debate the merits of his request. It had been so long since I’d taken any time off from my work, for any reason…and as much as I loved it, I’d been feeling the need for a break for a long time now. It was a feeling I’d never had before, one I was at a loss to explain, even to myself. Work had been my whole life for…how long? Ever since the divorce.
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