Sailing into Death (CJ Washburn, PI Book 2)

by James Paddock

  “But I know we’re going to be beautiful some day.”

  “Maybe you will, but I won’t. I’ll always be ugly.”

  “No you won’t. When I become beautiful, so will you. It always works like that because we’re identicals.”

  “Identicals is not a word.”

  “I know, but it’s what Momma always uses. We’re her identicals.”

  “It’s a silly word.”

  “Sometimes silly is fun.”

  The girls fell silent as Becky Farsi appeared out of the school doors and started toward them. Her head was down and she was walking fast. Thirty feet from the two girls she looked up. Her surprise was brief before she put on her ‘I’m superior and beautiful and you’re not’ look, and cut a wide berth around the playground swings. The twins looked down at their identical shoes until Becky was out of sight.

  “Becky made me sad and angry today.”

  “I know.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In the library. Where were you?”

  “In my classroom.”

  “We were far apart.”

  “It’s getting stronger, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. She made fun of our scarves, didn’t she, Marissa.”

  Marissa looked at her sister. “I didn’t tell you that. How did you know? Did you actually see it happen in your mind?”

  “No. I just felt your sadness and then you got angry, and then I knew.”

  “Like we had become one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Marissa thought for a second. “It’s like our minds merged into one big brain. It’s been happening for a while. Haven’t you felt it? When we were in the math bee, we helped each other.”

  “I didn’t give you any answers.”

  “No. That’s not what I mean. We were like one very powerful brain that we both could use.”

  “Weird.”

  “I know.”

  “Is that why nobody likes us?”

  “That, and because we’re ugly.”

  “No. That can’t be it.”

  “Because we’re different.”

  “We’re special. That’s what Momma says.”

  “I don’t want to be special anymore.”

  “We’re twins. Identicals. We’ll always be special, Marissa.”

  “Sometimes I wish you’d go away.”

  Melissa looked at her sister in shock. “You don’t mean that!”

  Marissa sighed. “No, I guess I don’t. But don’t you sometimes wonder what it’d be like to be by yourself?”

  “No. I’ve never thought of that. I can’t imagine ever being without you.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that you can’t be mad alone, that I always know what you’re feeling?”

  “I’ve never thought of it as being a bother. It’s nice to share.”

  “Pretty soon we’re going to be able to read each other’s minds and then we won’t have any privacy.”

  Melissa hopped off her swing and looked at Marissa. “You really don’t want me around anymore, do you!”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Yes you did. You said you wished I would go away. Well, what if I did? Who’d brush your hair? Who’d you talk to just before you fall asleep? Who would you have when Becky Fart-face starts picking on you?”

  Marissa giggled. “That’s what we should do. Start calling her Fart-face. Becky Farsi Fart-face.”

  “Yeah! That would be funny.”

  Marissa stood up and together they picked up their identical backpacks and started walking in the direction of home. In the background of the warm May afternoon was the sound of a commercial airliner lifting off the runway two miles away. It was a sound heard often by those in the upwind path, a sound mostly ignored.

  “How did you do on the math test?”

  “Why do you ask me? I always get them all right, just like you.”

  “Just wondering. I figure one of us has to make a mistake eventually.”

  “What?” Melissa shouted. The two girls, in identical blouses and identical skirts, turned their identical misshapen faces toward the huge passenger jet. Melissa pulled Marissa to the ground and they covered their heads with their backpacks and cowered against the roar that shook their little bodies.

  At barely two miles off the end of the runway, commercial airliners normally have more than sufficient altitude to avoid scaring the daylights out of a couple of ten-year-old girls on a school playground. Above the girls the airliner was at 200 feet and losing altitude, the pilot having already frantically reported to flight control that there was a hydraulic failure. One of the seven people who survived out of the 159 on board—they would become known as the miracle seven—would remember looking out the window and being surprised at seeing the girls lying on the ground, just before realizing that there was something deadly wrong.

  Two blocks beyond the girls, the jet slipped below 100 feet. Instead of trying to regain hydraulics, the pilot was unsuccessfully attempting to steer the massive flying machine toward an open field. He felt a shudder on contact with the chimney of one house, thought of his wife and child, and saw a woman run out of the next house and look directly at him, and then draw her last surprised breath.

  The girls jumped to their feet and watched the tail of the huge plane disappear beyond the oak trees and tops of houses, and then heard the explosions and saw the horrendous fireballs in the sky. They took off through the opening in the fence, across the street and down the avenue that ran directly to where they lived. People were coming out of their houses and running in the same direction, toward the flames and smoke shooting high in the air. The girls ran and ran and ran. More and more people were running with them; women were screaming and crying. Two men ran past them, shouting, and there were sirens.

  And then they stopped.

  They moved no farther than the corner sign marking the cross streets of Berry Lane and West Third Avenue. They were holding hands and staring. Their hearts raced and tears streamed down their misshapen cheeks. It was not the raging fire that stopped them. It was the fact that the house, which they called home since the day they were born, where Momma sang songs and called them her identicals, was gone. They also knew that so was Mamma. Today was her day off from work. What they had yet to know was how totally alone they were yet to become.

  Chapter 2

  August 28

  Mrs. Frank Croons dried her hands, flipped the towel over her shoulder and picked up the portable phone. “Croons residence,” she said with her usual upbeat, happy voice. She listened to the caller and then said, “Yes, this is Patricia Croons.” She didn’t recognize the caller’s name, but her tone and the words, child welfare, were enough to dampen her cheerfulness. She eased down onto the sofa and listened to the reason for the woman’s call. It was short and to the point and Patricia had no more to say than, “I see. I understand.” She glanced at the mantel clock. “Sure. I’ll have her ready. Why so little time?” The only explanation she was given was that adoptions at that age were hard to find, and sometimes, when a good placement pops up, quick action was warranted.

  “What about family?” Patricia asked. “Hasn’t there been anything?”

  “Afraid not,” the woman said. “As you already know, the father died in a hunting accident when they were two. There are no living relatives.”

  Patricia Croons returned the phone to its cradle and remained sitting. When she finally pushed herself up, the clock read 5:15. Frank would be home in fifteen minutes. The agency would be here at 7:30. She returned to the kitchen, dropped the towel into the sink and looked out at the girls in the backyard. A thunderstorm had rolled in an hour before. After the thunder and lightning were gone, leaving a steady rain, the girls put on their yellow rain slickers and went out and sat on the bench next to the flower garden. There they still sat like two canaries enjoying the rain. But there was no enjoyment in their lives and every day that Patricia watched them her heart ached for their sadness. She
and Frank did everything foster parents can imagine to make their lives happy. But there was only so much they could do. It was time that would heal, and for Melissa and Marissa she had a terrible hunch that that time would be very long.

  And now it was going to be even harder.

  One of them—she had yet to be able to tell them apart—was being adopted. Not both of them. That would be too much to wish for, wouldn’t it? They were going to be split. Who was it that decided what’s best for these girls? Patricia slammed her hand down on the counter. “Why! Won’t they be better off anywhere together, than anywhere else apart?”

  But of course there was no answer to her question. She picked up the towel, uselessly wiped away her tears and then retrieved her own rain slicker and stepped out to talk to the girls. They were only days away from celebrating their eleventh birthday, as though the word celebrate had returned to their vocabulary. It was to be a backyard party. As Patricia hunched down in front of the emotionless faces, she understood that there would be no point in a big party, especially for just one. Such a party would only enhance the level of abandonment they already felt.

  To mask her tears Patricia left the hood of her slicker back and let the rain beat upon her face. She knelt before Melissa and Marissa and forced a smile. They gave her a slight smile in return, maybe amused by the water running down their foster mother’s face. Hell, she thought, I’d run naked and throw myself in the mud with everyone and anyone watching if it would make them laugh.

  She gulped down a lump of something stuck in her throat and then hated herself for what she was about to say. She hated the aviation people. She hated the government bureaucracy. She hated the situation God had thrown these little girls into. She hated the fact that she had chosen to become a foster parent. She hated having to pretend as though it was a happy day for these two unfortunate little girls.

  “I have good news!”

  To purchase Lost & Forgotten in eBook or paperback visit:

  Desert Bookshelf Publishing

  www.desertbookshelf.com

  About the author

  A retired graphic designer, James Paddock lives in Florida with his wife, Penny, a retired teacher. Novel writing, which keeps his sanity, if there is such a thing, is his passion and gives Penny, an avid reader, something to look forward to every few years. Together they claim five children and many grandchildren, and they, of course, are all beautiful and highly intelligent.

  James began his writing efforts in 1993 with the publication of his very first short story. He became hooked on the craft of storytelling and soon began longer works, completing his first novel, Elkhorn Mountain Menace, a story of terrorism in rural Montana, in August of 2001, only weeks before 9/11.