by Amanda Tru
She sniffed again. Drisklay forced himself not to cringe.
“The reason I brought you in here today, Misty,” he began, “is that I’m trying to get a picture for the kind of young woman Rebekah was. The kind of friends she had, the things she liked to do in her free time, what her family’s like.” He said this last part with no special emphasis but studied her carefully enough he could discern the slight movement of her head when he mentioned the word family.
“Can you tell me anything about her parents?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t frightening the breath completely out of her lungs.
She took a deep breath, and Drisklay was pleasantly surprised that her voice carried the three feet that sat between her mouth and his ears.
“Her parents are really good people. I even lived with them once when my own…” She stared at her skirt and fidgeted with her hands in her lap. “I mean, they helped me out. They’d help anyone out. That’s the kind of people they are.”
Drisklay didn’t comment. Once he realized she had a voice, he didn’t want to risk scaring her back into silence.
“She was real close to her mom. Mrs. Harrison’s a really good woman. She loves having people over. She’d drive us around when we’d be doing a sleepover when we were littler. She’s been my best friend since grade school.”
It took Drisklay half a moment to realize they were talking about the dead victim now, not the mother.
“When did you meet?” he asked.
She took in a choppy breath and stared at a point level with Drisklay’s kneecap. “Well, we were in the same class in second grade but didn’t know each other that well. But the next year our church went through a really bad split, and so my family started going to her dad’s church, and that was the same year…”
“I thought you were both homeschooled,” Drisklay interrupted.
She gave him a sideways glance. “We were.”
She stated this so factually that Drisklay had to do a mental rewind to figure out if he’d heard what he thought he had. “You said you were in second grade together.”
Misty’s look of confusion morphed into a chuckle that looked awkward on her long, angular face. “I’m talking about our homeschool co-op. We’d meet once a month at Rebekah’s dad’s church. We’ve been doing it for years. In fact, it was Mrs. Harrison, that’s Rebekah’s mom, who started it up, and our family became members that very first year…”
Drisklay allowed his mind to wander while Misty droned on about field trips to the zoo, cooking lessons, and annual Christmas pageants, but his thoughts weren’t entirely without purpose. In his years as a detective, he’d gained something of a sixth sense, an almost immediate ability to gauge the usefulness of a witness only a minute or two into an interview. Misty had something important to offer him, but her favorite memories from the fifth-grade homeschool science fair weren’t going to solve his case.
“That’s quite fascinating,” he eventually interrupted. “I wonder could you tell me some about her father?”
“Pastor Harrison?”
“Yes.” Drisklay smiled sardonically. “Tell me about Pastor Harrison.” If his wife knew how much he relished the thought of gaining any sort of dirt on a Christian preacher, she would resent him for being so cynical. But Caroline was on the other side of the world, running errands of mercy, so he didn’t have anything to worry about.
“Pastor Harrison’s a real good man.”
Drisklay immediately noted the way Misty’s quiet voice became even more subdued. Any animation she’d dredged up talking about show-and-tell and homeschool picnics had vanished.
He waited for her to continue then finally prompted, “Did he and Rebekah have a good relationship?”
“Oh, yeah,” she gushed, answering far too quickly, her enthusiasm entirely out of place. “They’re great.” She cleared her throat and stared at her lap. “Real great.”
Bingo. Drisklay knew there was more to this family. Now he just had to keep digging to figure out what.
He stared at Misty, ready to hear whatever else she wanted to divulge.
Instead, she let out a girly giggle. “I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“Don’t worry.” Now it was hard for Drisklay to suppress his grin. “Don’t worry,” he repeated. “You’re being more than helpful. And with your help, we just might be able to nail down your friend’s murderer. You’d like that a lot, wouldn’t you? Alexi!” He reached out his arm and pounded on the door of the room.
“Alexi!” he was bellowing again when the door swung open.
“Yeah, boss. You looking for me?”
“Get this friend of mine a cup of coffee, would you?” He gave his partner an exaggerated smile.
Alexi’s eyes darted from Drisklay to the girl and back again before he raised his eyebrows at Drisklay. “Cream and sugar?”
Drisklay was in too good of a mood to be upset. “Ask her yourself.”
Alexi began blushing and fumbling over his words until Misty breathed softly, “Just sugar, please.” Her words sent the young man bursting out the door in search of drinks, and Drisklay turned back to his interview.
Now it was time to get some answers.
Caroline gasped, whipping her arm across the bed to wake up her husband. She came to two simultaneous realizations. Even if she were back in Massachusetts, Calvin wouldn’t be in bed with her, and the sound that startled her awake was thunder and not gunfire.
She blinked at the clock on her hotel nightstand. 7:05. It took far more mental energy than she was prepared to exert to realize it was still the evening and not even morning yet. She’d only managed to eke out a short nap. What was worse, given her luck, her body would still think she was meant to function on East Coast time. Her stomach rumbled, hungry for breakfast, as if to confirm her suspicions.
Great.
Well, at least she’d managed a slight rest. Maybe if she lay perfectly still and didn’t think about the rain or the thunder or the time change, she’d fall back to sleep and stay blissfully unaware until morning.
Fat chance.
Two minutes later, she was throwing on fresh clothes after taking the world’s shortest shower. The hotel she’d booked was far from a five-star, but Caroline hadn’t realized that meant there wouldn’t even be hot water. She propped up the pillows by the head of the bed to make herself a backrest of sorts and then tried to decide what to do. She didn’t feel like taking the time to dig around for the TV remote. Seeing as how she could never remember how to use the remote that she and Calvin bought three years ago, she seriously doubted whether she’d be able to figure out a new system here.
She still hadn’t finished her book from the plane, but the last thing she felt like doing was sitting around beating herself up for not being a better wife, the kind of wife whose husband would automatically beg for the chance to ask Jesus to forgive his sins. It just wasn’t realistic to put that kind of pressure on women. Didn’t the authors of drivel like that know just how much guilt people like Caroline already carried around?
Sandy had loaned her a couple novels, two historical romances that looked good and probably offered nothing but sweet and somewhat predictable storylines, but Caroline wasn’t in the mood for happily ever afters either. As if life were ever as simple as those novels made out.
Trust God. Pray hard. Marry the love of your life and never have another problem again for as long as you both shall live.
It was ridiculous. Caroline felt sorry for young Christian girls who read fiction like that and lived their lives fully expecting their husbands to act like perfect, godly, chivalrous fictional heroes. Life just wasn’t like that. Men just weren’t like that. Even Pastor Carl, the man Caroline respected more than any other, would press his wife’s last buttons until Sandy would tell him to head to the den and leave her in peace. Caroline remembered the first time she heard the two of them bicker. It was about something trivial, and they scarcely even raised their voices, but she’d been shocked to discover
that yes, even Christian couples have their fair share of marital conflict.
Caroline’s brain definitely thought it must be morning, and since she didn’t want to spend all night staring at a blank TV screen, she pulled out her Bible. At first, she hadn’t planned on bringing it with her to Seoul, worried as she was about luggage fees and accustomed as she was to finding Bibles in the nightstand drawers of any hotel room she ever entered.
But South Korea wasn’t America, and Caroline was glad for the women’s devotional Bible Sandy had given her the day Caroline was baptized. Now in her hotel room across the planet from her friend, she thumbed through the pages of Scripture, pausing at some of the highlighted passages. Maybe it was the teacher in her. Maybe it was her love for order, but she’d even come up with a color system.
Purple highlights were for verses she hoped to one day memorize. The yellow ones reminded her of that time when she was a brand-new believer, full of fervor and zeal, certain that every single promise she read in Scripture would come true for her in a day, a week, a month at most.
Caroline reserved the pink highlights for times when she felt especially low, verses she knew she could turn to for encouragement when the Christian life got too hard for her to walk alone.
The green highlights were verses that would remind her to pray for her husband, promises she meant to claim specifically for him.
Sadly, she’d hardly used her green highlighter lately. Sometimes it looked like the pink verses were about to overtake everything else, and it was definitely the pink verses she’d need during such an uncertain time as this.
Her favorite passage lately was Romans 8. She loved all of it, especially the part that reminded Christians how absolutely nothing—not death nor life, not height nor depth—could separate them from the love of God. She also nearly always found encouragement from Psalms and Isaiah. The picture from Isaiah 40 of devout believers soaring on wings like eagles always created such vivid imagery in her mind.
Tonight, a passage in Isaiah 43 drew Caroline’s eyes: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
She didn’t recognize the verse from any of Pastor Carl’s sermons or the Christian podcasts she’d listened to. She couldn’t remember ever pulling out her highlighter to mark this particular passage, but the words spoke to her nonetheless, maybe even more so because she was reading them with fresh eyes.
When you pass through the waters. Well, she had certainly done that. Not just little puddles either, but floodwaters that finally engulfed her marriage, leaving behind nothing but debris.
When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. How many times could Caroline have used a verse like this? How many times had she felt swept away by Calvin’s torrential tirade against her faith until she felt like she was drowning, not even able to tell which way would carry her to the surface and which would drag her down to even darker depths?
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. Even though she couldn’t remember reading this passage before, she did remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Israelite men thrown into a fiery furnace as their punishment for refusing to bow down to a false god. And the Lord had protected them. Not even their hair was singed.
Caroline needed that. Her entire life since becoming a Christian felt like she’d been thrown into one blazing furnace with no hope of reprieve. Maybe that was why she’d clung so stubbornly to this idea of serving God short-term here in Seoul, even if it cost her marriage.
Caroline liked the picture of herself as a martyr, the zealous believer willing to sacrifice anything—yes, even her husband—for the sake of the gospel. Certain believers would look at her actions this summer and see just that. There was no doubt Caroline felt God calling her to Seoul. In fact, even before the director of Freedom Korea asked her to consider this placement, Caroline had dreamed one night about Mrs. Cho and her orphanage. It had been over a year since Caroline interviewed the old woman, and they hadn’t corresponded in months. But still, it was clearly Mrs. Cho in Caroline’s dream, handing her a baby and asking her if she could change his diaper.
The next day, Caroline had joked to Sandy, “I think God’s telling me I should go to Seoul.” Two weeks later, she was contacted by the director of Freedom Korea. The very next day she purchased her plane ticket and began the paperwork to update her passport.
Then came the fun responsibility of telling her husband about her plans.
And he acted just about as irrationally as she’d expected.
“Well, maybe you could have asked for his opinion first,” Sandy told her thoughtfully one day when Caroline dialed her up to complain.
But Sandy didn’t understand. God had called Caroline to make this trip. There was no way Calvin would have agreed to her going if she’d spoken to him about it first. This wasn’t a case of asking permission and letting the cards fall where they might. This was a desperate attempt for Caroline to finally take charge of her own spiritual life for a change instead of hiding in fear, her heart pounding every Sunday morning when she had to sneak back into her own home after church.
“I just think it would have been respectful to talk to your husband about it before finalizing your plans,” Sandy had said in response to Caroline’s protests.
Well, that was easy for Sandy to say. She was married to a man who fit nearly every definition of the word saint. All their (usually) good-natured bickering aside, Carl and Sandy loved each other deeply. Not only that, but they respected each other. If God told Sandy to do something, all she had to do was say, “Okay, God,” then go ahead and tell her husband about that conversation. There was nothing else to it.
What really irritated Caroline about Calvin’s reaction was the hypocrisy. If she had said she was going to spend the summer away doing something to further her career, he would have been totally supportive. Or at least he wouldn’t have made her feel horrible for even having the desire.
“Why would you spend thousands of dollars to travel to another country to help orphans? Do you know how many kids there are in a five-mile radius of our home who don’t have adequate food or clothing or shelter?”
He’d flung that argument at her a dozen times, along with his typical tirades about how all Christians want to do is steal your money. Words like cult and brainwashed were shot out until she was almost immune to them.
Almost, but not entirely.
Why does this have to be so hard, God? she prayed, but like she expected, God gave her no response.
Now she stared at the words of comfort and encouragement on the page of her Bible. Maybe heaven wasn’t so silent after all.
Drisklay was finishing up his second pot of coffee by the time he started to wrap up his interview with Misty. He felt more than a little pleased with himself at getting such a quiet young woman to tell him everything she could possibly think of to shed light on the Harrison family.
Conservative parents. No surprise there. Rebekah and her older brother weren’t allowed to go to any dances or overnights. Because Misty and Rebekah were so close and the families shared such similar values, the two girls were allowed occasional sleepovers, but only until Misty’s brother, four years younger than she was, shot up in the sixth grade and both families decided that the days of slumber parties were at an end.
“Did Rebekah have any suitors?” Drisklay finally asked. He felt like he’d been transported back into one of his wife’s cherished old-fashioned TV adaptations using outdated language like that, but Misty had already spent the better part of half an hour explaining the Harrisons’ church’s view on courtship. Because apparently, members of their congregation viewed dating in a contemporary context as obscene.
Heaven forbid two young people would want to meet up and get to know each other over drinks. Even if those drinks were nothing st
ronger than the sweetened decaf coffee Misty was holding in her hand.
“There was this guy she was excited to meet,” Misty began, speaking slowly. Tentatively. Eying Drisklay cautiously as if she didn’t exactly trust him even after divulging so much about her church and her dead friend’s family members. She took in a deep breath and went on. “They met on a dating website. That new one for Christians.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Drisklay mumbled. He tried not to let his impatience show. This was what happened in interviews like this. You sat for an hour and a half, listening while people blabbered on, giving you not only their own life stories but their grandmother’s and step-aunt’s babysitter’s as well. But in the end, you got the answer you were looking for.
If you were lucky.
Today, Drisklay felt remarkably lucky. “Did she ever meet this man as far as you’re aware?”
Misty shook her head. “No. Well, at least I don’t think so. She was supposed to meet him the night she…” She lowered her gaze. “That’s when she disappeared.”
Drisklay leaned forward, wishing for the ability to telepathically communicate to her how important her honesty was going to be on this next question. “Are you sure she didn’t meet him another time? Are you sure this was going to be their very first meeting?”
Misty sniffed. “Yeah. I’m her best friend. She would have told me if they’d met before. She told me everything.” She set down her coffee cup. “He was all she could talk about. She was so excited to meet him, too.” Her voice broke, and Drisklay waited for her to compose herself.
“She was nervous.” Misty began sobbing. “I was on the phone with her while she was getting ready for her date, and she was about to change her mind. She said she didn’t want to go through with it. That maybe she should cancel. She said her mom told her she had her blessing, but she was afraid of making her dad angry.”