A Father's Quest

by Debra Salonen

  Brother Thom looked ready to hit her, too, but his friend—the man who caught Birdie with the matches—stopped him. “Temper, temper, Brother Thom. Remember, thou shalt not be accused of child abuse,” the friend warned.

  Mommy had hurried Birdie away and made her tell exactly what happened. “Oh, Birdie, please. You’ve got to stop looking back. Your father had his chance and he left us. God found us and now we are doing His work. We’re never going back to our old life.”

  Birdie had cried herself to sleep. Her mother had tried to wake her up to eat, but Birdie wouldn’t open her eyes. She liked her dreams better than the world her mother picked for them. Maybe she’d just stay asleep forever. Safe and sound with the dream lady.

  “I’M SORRY, JONAS. I had a lot of dreams. Some really crazy stuff, but I’m not sure which—if any—pertains to Birdie.”

  Jonas closed his eyes, glad he’d called instead of going over to Remy’s as he’d planned. He’d been awake since before dawn, following dead-end after dead-end on the internet, trying to find any hint to the current where abouts of the GoodFriends.

  “Except maybe the one with the alligator. Birdie mentioned that yesterday, and alligators symbolize treachery and deceit. Some people think they’re a sign of needing to take a completely new approach to a problem. You know, like, if you keep on your current path, you might lose a leg.” Her laugh sounded forced.

  “Have you ever dreamed of alligators before?”

  “No. Never.” She paused a moment, then added, “I also bumped into the devil in a different dream. He looked like an ordinary man, but he was leading a donkey and they blocked the road so I couldn’t get past.”

  He shook his head. “Does that mean something?”

  “It might. Donkeys are stubborn. If you’re able to lead one, you obviously have the power to influence people. The fact that I could tell he was the devil and not the friendly salesman he appeared to be, gives me hope that I’ll be able to stay clearheaded and on task.”

  “So, which one am I? The donkey or the devil?’

  She didn’t answer right away. “Actually, you were in a different dream, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Have you decided about the P.I.?”

  Jonas was glad to get off the topic of dreams if she didn’t have anything specific to say about Birdie. He’d dreamed, too. Hot and steamy dreams that made him want the impossible.

  “Actually, I checked out his website last night. I filled in a contact sheet and left a phone message this morning. His bio seems legit, and he claims to return calls within two hours. We’ll see,” he said, checking his watch. An hour and ten minutes to go.

  “Good. I might have met him in my dreams last night, too. Not the man himself, but a symbol of him.”

  “Are you trying to confuse me?”

  She laughed. “No, but that’s the thing about dreams. They’re not an exact science. In fact, they’re probably the exact opposite of science.”

  “This is what I hired you for,” he said, more to himself than her. “What was his symbol? A parrot? A baboon? A goat?”

  “Stop it. You can make fun on your own dime. Oh, wait, this is your dime. Okay. Make fun all you want, but in most dream-interpretation circles, a stationmaster or gatekeeper is still a stationmaster or gatekeeper. You and I were climbing this long, winding staircase, and at the top we met a man who handed us two tickets. I don’t know where we were going or what sort of transportation we were supposed to take because the dream changed, but I do remember that. And I was left with the impression that this man will be of help.”

  He looked at his cell phone. He’d called her from his mom’s line so that he didn’t miss the P.I. Time would tell.

  “What happened when your dream changed?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Long enough for him to get suspicious. “It’s not pertinent.”

  He would have argued the point but his phone jingled. He picked it up, noting the area code. “It’s him. I’ll call you back.”

  He hung up without waiting for her goodbye and pressed the receive button on his phone. His heart rate quickened, but he forced himself not to get his hopes up. “Jonas Galloway. Hello?”

  “Mr. Galloway, this is Leonard Franey in Tampa. I just got off the phone with an old friend of mine by the name of Shane Reynard. The good news, sir, is you’ve got the right connections. The bad news is you need my help.”

  “Did you read my email?”

  “Yes, sir, I did. And one of the reasons I’m interested in taking your case is because this happened while you were in service to our country. As a veteran myself, I made the decision a long time ago to give priority to fellow vets.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “No thanks necessary. Let’s get this ball rolling. How soon can you be here?”

  “Florida?”

  “Yes, sir. I gave the name of this two-bit charlatan to two of my best researchers and I’m not liking what they’ve come up with—and that’s after less than an hour on the phone and the web. I won’t go into details on the phone because there are some aspects of this case that would be best addressed in person. Is that a problem?”

  “No. I could grab a plane and rent a car or I could probably drive in it ten or twelve hours,” he said.

  “I suggest you drive. That will give me time to narrow down the focus of our search. And, best-case scenario, you’ll have your own car here when we find your daughter.”

  Jonas’s breath caught in his throat. The man’s confidence could be bullshit, but Jonas chose to believe otherwise. They’d found the gatekeeper, just like Remy predicted.

  They talked for another ten minutes. Jonas gave him all the pertinent information he had regarding Birdie, Cheryl and the names of the authorities involved in his daughter’s case to date. He also agreed to email several photos of his ex-wife and daughter, along with the most recent video he had. The same one he’d shown Remy. “Would you have any objection to me bringing along a friend?” Jonas asked. “She has good instincts and I trust her.”

  “You can bring along the Pope if you want. Makes me no never mind. Just plan on staying in the background. I don’t like civilians underfoot any more than the cops do.”

  Jonas smiled, remembering his response to Remy the night before. Why had he changed his mind about taking her along? As bizarre as it sounded, he’d had a dream—beyond the hot and steamy ones—where he’d heard his daughter’s laughter. He’d raced down a poorly marked trail, losing his way more than once, until he stumbled into a meadow. There, not forty feet ahead of him, sat Birdie and Remy playing cards. Old Maid. His daughter’s favorite game. They appeared safe and happy and when Remy looked at him he’d felt a peacefulness that had been missing from his life for months, maybe years.

  “Got it. We’ll be on the road inside an hour. Thanks again, Leonard. I can’t tell you what a shot in the arm this is. I look forward to meeting you.”

  “Drive safe, soldier.”

  He opened his laptop and sent everything the P.I. had asked for, then faxed copies of the reports he’d filled out with the Memphis P.D. He was on his way to his room to pack, when he remembered he hadn’t called Remy back.

  She picked up on the first ring. “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘I am the gatekeeper. Come to Florida.’”

  She made a sound of exasperation. “Stop making fun of me. Wait. He wants you to come to Florida? Really?”

  Jonas pulled the suitcase he’d never completely unpacked off the chair and tossed it on the bed. “I told him I’d be on the road in an hour.”

  “He’s going to help. That’s wonderful, Jonas. I’m so glad.”

  “I want you to come with me, Remy. This is the first break I’ve had in a month. And it wouldn’t have happened if not for you.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. “I’d like to come, Jonas. But I have to be honest. I’m afraid. Being with you has stirred up a lot of feelings I’ve spent a long time trying to de
ny. DNA test or no DNA test, I’m not sure spending more time with you is a good idea—especially considering your focus has to be on your daughter.”

  Being with Remy was risky on more levels than she knew. But that same voice that told him Birdie was in trouble insisted Remy was the key to getting his daughter back.

  “I know what you mean, Remy. I do. But you’ve breathed new life into this investigation. That’s why I promise you I will keep things aboveboard. No more kisses. No more trips down memory lane. This is all about Birdie, and I can’t do it without you. You saw the gatekeeper. And devil for who he really was. Please say you’ll come.”

  “Mama used to say the worst thing you can do when something is troubling you is to overthink it. When are you picking me up?”

  “Is half an hour too soon?”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  REMY TOSSED SOME CLOTHES into her oversize carpet bag—the one she’d only unpacked a few days earlier—and was debating which shoes to take when her phone rang. Thinking it was Jonas calling back, she didn’t look at the caller ID. “Yeah, yeah, I’m almost ready.”

  “Pardon? Remy? This is Gloria over at Shadybrook.”

  Gloria? For a second, she tried to place the name as someone in personnel, but then it hit her: charge nurse for the full-care wing. “Oh, hi, Gloria, what can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering—hoping, actually—that you could come over. Mrs. Galloway is extremely agitated this morning. She keeps asking for you. I honestly don’t know why. We called her son, but his line was busy. Do you know if he’s still in town?”

  “Yes, but I believe he has business out of town and was planning to leave this morning. Should I give Mrs. Galloway a call?”

  “You could try, but you know how some of the residents get with the phone. It might be even better if you could come and see her.”

  “I’ll be there as quickly as I can, Gloria.”

  As soon as she hung up, she sent Jonas a text message:

  Meet me at Shadybrook.

  Then she called a cab.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be moving in?” Raul Lopez, the cabdriver who picked her up, asked when she pulled her overstuffed bag onto her lap and gave him her destination.

  “Depends on who you ask,” she quipped.

  Raul was a veteran cabbie, who probably knew more about the history—written and wishfully forgotten—of her hometown than anyone. “Mr. Lopez,” she said, sitting forward to rest one arm on the front seat. “Do you remember my mama?”

  “Of course. Marlene was the nicest woman in town. She did my late wife’s hair, free of charge, a few days before she passed away. Came to the hospice. Told us, ‘Every woman wants to look her best in her casket and I simply don’t trust those undertakers to do this right.’”

  Remy had no memory of that but she wasn’t surprised. She’d heard similar stories at her mother’s funeral. “I’m glad of that. She was kind and generous, but you’ll agree she had another sort of reputation, too.”

  He chuckled, not unkindly. “Marlene did enjoy people. Men and women. For different reasons, mind you.”

  She looked ahead. Shadybrook was only a few blocks away. “Do you remember hearing about her association with Charlotte Galloway’s husband? I believe his name was Merrill.”

  The man thought a few seconds, then slowly shook his head. “Nope. That doesn’t ring a bell. I knew of the man, of course, but can’t say as I ever drove him in my cab. He was a car dealer, after all. But, truthfully, I can’t picture the two of them together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Miss Charlotte was your mama’s friend. Your mama would never have stabbed her friend in the heart. Never.”

  Remy’s hand was shaking as she paid the man. She tipped him well, despite the fact she was sorry she’d ever opened her mouth. She’d asked; he answered. Did he tell her some fabulous, life-altering revelation? No, she realized, as she walked toward the brick building. No, he told her a truth she’d always known.

  But if Jonas’s father was not one of her mother’s lovers, then why had Mama told them he was? “Why?”

  “Why what?” a voice asked, startling her.

  “Jonas.” She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts she hadn’t even looked around.

  “Yes, it’s me. Right where I’m supposed to be to meet you. May I take that bag for you?”

  She relaxed her white-knuckle grip on the handle and held it out. “Thank you. Have you been inside?”

  He nodded. “The nurse told me Mom woke up agitated, muttering about something she couldn’t make out. She wouldn’t eat breakfast and she tried to walk out the front door about an hour ago, insisting she needed to go see you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  He made a “who knows?” gesture. “I’ll put this in the car and meet you inside. The nurse thought maybe you should talk to her alone to start out.”

  “Is this holding you up? I know you wanted to get on the road.”

  “It’s a ten-hour drive. We’re not going to get there before Mr. Franey leaves for the day, so no worries. Take your time.”

  She might have appreciated his flexibility more if she wasn’t dreading this meeting.

  “Miss Charlotte? It’s me, Remy Bouchard. I haven’t seen you in so long. How are you?”

  The woman was sitting in a floral-print chair closest to the window that opened onto Shadybrook’s rose garden. She looked the same as the last time Remy had visited her—except for the nervous wringing of her hands and the pinched expression on her face. “Remy, child. You’re here. I told your mother you’d come.”

  Remy glanced around, half-expecting to see her mother’s ghost wandering past. “Are you feeling okay, Miss Charlotte?” she asked, pulling up an embroidered footstool to sit on. “You look a little upset.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be? Kids these days. They don’t listen. They go off and do whatever they want—even if it’s not in their best interest.” She looked out the window, her hand worrying her chin, back and forth. “I nearly lost him once, you know. Marlene understood. She lost someone once, too.”

  Remy had heard many elderly people in her care suddenly talk about events in their lives that left indelible impressions but meant nothing to the person listening. But she knew that wasn’t the case now. Charlotte had come close to losing her son when he was child. Who had her mother lost?

  “They were too young. They had their whole lives ahead of them. A mother can’t sit back and watch her boy make a terrible mistake, can she?”

  She’s talking about Jonas and me.

  Charlotte looked down. “I did a terrible thing. I used my friend’s secret against her. She never wanted her girls to know the truth about that preacher man. He left town before he knew she was pregnant. Rolled up his tent and moved on. Never came back.”

  Jessie, our father was a preacher, not Jonas’s dad.

  “I’m sure Mama understood, Miss Charlotte. She wasn’t one to hold a grudge.” She waited half a heartbeat to find the courage to ask, “You don’t happen to remember his name, do you? The preacher man? The one she loved?”

  The woman’s eyes closed and her head lolled back against the chair. Her body seemed to deflate like a blow-up doll with a slow leak. Remy checked her pulse. Slow and steady. The temporary short-circuit had passed, along with Remy’s link to her real father’s identity.

  She put her hands on her knees and pushed to her feet. She felt a little wobbly, too, as though they’d traveled through the same time warp together. A movement at the corner of her eye alerted her to Jonas’s presence. His warm, strong fingers on her elbow helped anchor her to the present. She looked at him and tried to smile. “I think we might have wasted our money on that test.”

  Miss Charlotte suddenly straightened. She looked at them both but with no spark of recognition. “Thomas Goodson. Good. Son,” she said, repeating the two words distinctly. “Marlene thought that meant she’d have a boy, but she had twin
girls, instead.”

  Remy left the room without saying goodbye to Charlotte. She took the side door—the same one she and Jonas had used the day before. She walked to the middle of the rose garden and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Thomas Goodson.

  She had a name. Thirty-two years after the fact. Maybe not the right name. The woman who gave it to her could barely remember her own name most days.

  “Are you okay?”

  She took a deep breath of rose-scented air and released it. “I don’t know. I think so.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  She debated a moment but, in the end, answered truthfully, “Yes. Do you?”

  “I’m reserving judgment until the test results come back.”

  So like him.

  “Are you still up for going to Florida with me? I’d certainly understand if you changed your mind. I mean, now, instead of blaming your mother for ruining our lives, we get to blame my mother. Could this get any weirder?”

  She flew to his side and shushed him with one finger pressed to his lips. “Never say that. Mama always said only a fool invites Fate to show you how crazy life can get.”

  The look in his eyes made her heart go all fluttery.

  She knew this was big. Important. Life-changing, for heaven’s sake. She might truly know the name of her father for the first time her in life. She needed to call Jessie. Get online. Try to find the man. What if he was still alive? Mama had died young. Her father might still be walking this earth and she could see him.

  “Remy? You didn’t answer me. Do you want me to take you home? I would understand.”

  What to do? She glanced toward where his car was parked in an unloading zone. The sun was angled so that the bright purple paint on the funny frame his daughter made for him caught her eye. Birdie.

  Go. She felt the answer in the same way she knew which dreams held meaning and which didn’t.