Tara let out a pensive breath as she leaned into the back of the couch. “Every night.…” She furrowed her eyebrows in concern. “I remember a lot of the details that you shared with me back then, not long after I had become a Christian. Of course, I can’t remember everything you said, but I don’t remember anything about white pants and bare feet. Is there significance in that?”
“I don’t know. Nothing that I’m aware of. I can’t remember if I was barefoot in those dreams when I was a kid, and not once did the color of my pants seem to be important. In fact, I can’t remember specifically what I’d worn in my dreams back then. Blue jeans, maybe? But the pants in this dream are blatantly white.”
He paused. Wait a minute. The spark of a memory. Not blue jeans. Just blue.
“What?” Tara asked, noticing his moment of reflection.
“The pants when I was a kid weren’t jeans; they were just blue.”
“That’s something new. Does that mean something to you?”
Brent shook his head and took Tara’s hand in his. “Listen, there’s every likelihood that these dreams hold absolutely no significance whatsoever. I just thought that I should come clean about them. I don’t want to start making up theories.” He paused and looked directly into her eyes. “Will you forgive me for not being open about them before now?”
Tara pursed her lips again for a moment, this time in deliberation. “Yes, I forgive you for…” She fake-cleared her throat. “…lying to me.”
“Yeah, that’s the term I meant to use.”
Tara sighed, leaned forward toward Brent, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t do it again. Got it?”
“Oh, I got it, all right.”
She gave him a soft smile and brushed a few wayward strands of strawberry-blonde hair off her face, tucking them behind her ear.
“So,” she ventured, “let’s make an appointment to see Pastor Jonathan.”
“What?”
“Why not? Let’s get his opinion.”
“Now hold on.…”
MONDAY, AUGUST 4
Chapter 18
B
rent backed his patrol car out of the driveway and headed toward work. It was a beautiful morning. The glow of the sun inching its way up to the horizon was gripping. Barely a cloud in the sky.
It was going to be a cool summer day, in the mid- to upper 60s. A good day for long sleeves. So be it.
Something about the beautiful canvas of sky made him reflective … grateful.
He was still living his dream. And just how many men could say that? he wondered? A nice house in his hometown, filled with all the love and respect he could hope for. Working the job that he was quite literally made for.
Living in Millsville since childhood had been good for him too. He hadn’t had to give up all his friends and family for a job elsewhere. Nearing 19,000 people, the small city still maintained a comfortable and peaceful profile. As a patrol officer and sergeant for the majority of his life, he’d gotten to know just about every nook and cranny of every neighborhood. He’d gotten to see the city grow up and modernize. Tastefully done.
He enjoyed being a Millsvillite.
Then came Pittston—a village, as his son just loved to remind him. But it wouldn’t be so for much longer. Over the past several years, the population had grown rather significantly. The village had missed graduation into city status by a mere twenty-seven people during its last census. However, since then, even in the midst of a sluggish economic recovery, the village had done a good job of luring in businesses and developing land into residential and multi-family developments. And following the lead of its neighbor to the north, it was being done with class.
In a year or two, everything would officially change—a new city seal, flags, signs, police cars, even badges—and when that happened, Jamie would have to give his dad his due. Chief of the City of Pittston Police Department.
Brent smiled and shook his head. That kid.
After stopping off at a local Mocha Manz for his “frou-frou coffee,” as Tracy Larkin liked to call it, Brent walked into the police station a few minutes before 7:00 a.m.
As he passed by the small office for patrol officers, he noticed that a couple of his men were wrapping up their night patrol incident reports. Rounding the corner into his office, he stopped abruptly, surprised that it wasn’t vacant. Sitting in the chairs at his desk were two other officers: Sergeants Tracy Larkin and John Eldredge.
“Okay, what’s this?” asked Brent, walking behind his desk. He sat his gear bag on the floor and faced his men.
“Well, let’s just say that it’s likely to be ‘one of those days,’” came Larkin’s response.
Brent looked at Eldredge. The man just sat there, closed his eyes, and gave a slow shake of his head.
“Listen, guys. I’m going to need more than that. Now, out with it.”
This time Eldredge spoke. “Kimberly Townsend.”
“All right. Officer Townsend. So, what?”
“She got herself into a bit of a fix Saturday night in Bedford.”
Brent sat down. Looked at Larkin. “What sort of fix?”
Tracy Larkin was a man who typically cut to the chase, but it was obvious that neither he nor Eldredge wanted to be the bearer of this information.
“Good grief! You two are already exhausting me! One of the two of you had better give me what I want here, or so help me.…”
“She was arrested.”
Brent’s shoulders slumped. “For what?”
“Drunk and disorderly and … indecent exposure.”
“Kimberly Townsend? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Both Eldredge and Larkin shook their heads.
“She drinks?”
Now both men shrugged.
Brent could hardly believe it. The woman had just finished her rookie year on the force and had been the epitome of the model cop.
“Our Officer Townsend … not some ‘Kimberly Townsend’ visiting Ohio from … Oshkosh, Wisconsin?”
“Ours,” verified Eldredge.
Brent sighed. “Okay. So … have either of you spoken with her? Spoken with the Bedford chief?”
Larkin answered. “We wanted to wait until you were told.”
“Speaking of which, why’d you wait until this morning? Why didn’t one of you call me?”
Larkin answered. “I told John that we should wait. Why ruin a perfectly good weekend when we can ruin the start to a perfectly good work week?”
“Gee, thanks. Well, first, is there any real evidence?”
“Only a few dozen bystanders who were cheering her on while she danced,” said Eldredge.
“Apparently, there’s a video,” added Larkin. “Or five.”
Brent paused before saying anything else. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Opening his eyes again and dropping his hand, he said, “Okay. How about instead of me continuing to ask questions, you two guys fill me in on all the details that you know?”
“There’s not much more to tell, other than the fact that she was somewhat compliant when the police arrived,” said Larkin.
“Yeah, somewhat,” Eldredge added.
“How is it that both of you seem equally knowledgeable about this? Did you both talk with Bedford P.D.?”
“Speaker phone.”
“Gotcha. Okay. Well, we’ve got to see what we can do about getting our officer back. I’ll give Chief Baylor out there a call and see if she’ll release her into our custody.
“Actually, she was released Sunday morning under her own recognizance.”
“Mixed blessing, I guess,” responded Brent. “Okay. Well, John, here’s what I want you to do then. When she reports to work this morning….”
ANOTHER AFTERNOON OF “just the same ol’ thing” loomed before Elizabeth. After a rather uneventful f
irst half of her day—except for happily getting to play with Kyla for a few hours, of course—Elizabeth walked up the stairs from the basement laundry room, her arms filled with three still-warm “uniforms.” It was still a bit of a mind twister to think of the 1950s fashion statements as uniforms, but whatever.
Reaching the dining room, she came across Jamie sitting over a sandwich. A PB&J, she surmised.
He looked up and over to her. “Hey.”
With the recent revelation from Jenna that Jamie may actually have eyes for her, she felt a little awkward.
“Hey,” she said.
He sat upright. “Have to work today?”
“Yeah. I start at 3:30.”
He glanced at the clock. It was almost 2:00.
“Dinner shift, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah.”
Awkward pause.
Very awkward.
“Well, I guess I should get these upstairs and hung up.”
Almost too quickly, and stumbling over his words a bit, Jamie said, “Yes. Yeah. You should. Umm. Maybe I’ll be hungry later.”
Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “Huh?”
“I mean … maybe I’ll come to the diner for some fries or pie or something.”
Now awkward didn’t seem a strong enough word for what had just been stirred up inside her. She felt her hands clench the wad of laundry. And, to her surprise, her heart skipped a beat.
Shut up! He’s too young!
“Uhh … yeah. Well, that’s where I’ll be.”
She swallowed, turned away. Stopped. Looked back at him for a moment, felt her face flush with heat, then rapidly turned away again and scampered into the living room and up the steps.
What just happened?!
Chapter 19
D
rew looked at the clock. It was 3:35 p.m. He still had another fifty-five minutes before he could call it a day. His computer seemed to mock him as he stared at the last line of code he’d written.
Fortunately, his task for the project was still ahead of schedule. He should be able to test the module in the next day or two, and if it passed all of his tests—or if he was able to quickly clear up any bugs—he could submit it a day or two early to the team lead.
He was good at his job. Really good. Writing code to develop software solutions for commercial clients came pretty naturally to him. He enjoyed the complexity of the job because it involved solving logic problems.
Written into this particular module were a lot of IF-THEN and IF-THEN-ELSE control statements. If you do this, then the program will cause this to happen. Simple and perfect for developing answers to this particular client’s automation problems within their warehousing division. His seemingly innate ability to help a client move from an old legacy system to new hardware and custom-designed software seemed written into his genetic code.
He pondered that for a moment.
Written into my own genetic code? Careful now, don’t let yourself start walking the perimeter of that whole God fallacy again.
The fact that he was able to write solutions did make him a sort of creator: someone who had the ability to use words—in this case, computer code—to bring something to life. But the idea that someone in ages past had written genetic code to do the same for biological life? Well, he wasn’t going to let that idea drift fully into his lane.
Just let it pass.
The reason that his computer seemed to mock him had nothing to do with his job, but rather that there was a perfectly good browser on it. And protecting it was an excellent encrypted server with an outstanding virtual private network.
All that safety and he still couldn’t use it to do what he really wanted. No, that had to wait for another hour and a half until he got home.
If he stopped coding for the next fifty-four minutes, he’d end up spending the next hour just sitting there in frustration. But somehow, he preferred the frustration. He preferred to daydream about what lay ahead of him at the end of his drive home.
MayB4U.
The girl had grabbed him psychologically from the outset, and when she started sharing pictures of herself…?
Drew closed his eyes and leaned his head back.
He had to meet her. He had to, at the very least, meet her. And that was going to take some planning and some crafty IF-THEN statements written into that plan.
It shouldn’t be hard. She’s never seen the real me, and she thinks I’m a thousand miles away.
Yeah, easy peasy.
JAMIE PULLED THE minivan into the driveway. Putting it into park and turning off the engine, he looked at his mom in the passenger seat. And waited.
She looked over to him.
He disconnected his seatbelt and let it retract away from him. Angling himself to better look at her, he lifted both his eyebrows and shoulders, urging her to speak.
“Oh. You want your critique now?”
He gave her his best look of exasperation.
“That’s a good look on you. You should use it more,” she said, the comment dripping with sarcasm.
“Well?”
She smiled. “I can’t think of a single thing you did wrong. If you had taken your test today, you’d have passed with flying colors.”
“Well, let’s go take it!” He grabbed for his seatbelt, not breaking eye contact.
He could see that his mom was trying to refrain from laughing. “Not yet, hotshot. You’ve got to do some more driving with your dad. Let’s see how you do under the scrutiny of a police officer.”
Jamie rolled his eyes. “He’s easier than you are.”
“I’ll let him know you said that.”
“No! No, no, no. Don’t do that!”
His mom giggled and exited the van. As for him, he waited for her to walk toward the house. He needed a moment. He thought about what he’d seen just a few minutes before they arrived back home: Elizabeth’s car sitting in the lot at Fairlane Diner.
Two things entered his mind: The first was that Elizabeth had her own car. How long would it take before he could say the same? And the second was that he was suddenly hungry for some French fries and pie.
Should I go down there?
It didn’t take but a moment to process the answer: Oh, definitely.
Jamie got out of the van and trotted into the house. He started for the stairs, when his mom saw him from the dining room.
“Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be eating soon.”
“Umm … I had plans to grab something out and then head over to Zach’s. Is that okay?”
She looked at him for a moment then said, “Home by 10:00.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He sprinted up the stairs to grab a ball cap for his bike ride to the diner.
LESS THAN FIFTEEN minutes later, Jamie arrived at the Fairlane Diner. It was a place his family had been going to since it opened two years before. It had the feel of a ‘50s diner, though, according to those who had lived way back then, this was far larger than what they had enjoyed when they were young. His mom called it a family restaurant that was diner-esque in its appeal.
The main appeal to Jamie was the server uniforms. Most were red-and-white striped dresses with small white aprons that were obviously designed to showcase the servers. Their legs, anyway. There were some more conservative, longer-length dresses that were also an option, but Elizabeth wore the short version. He didn’t hate that.
The guys wore white dress shirts and black pants under long red-and-white man-aprons. No appeal there.
Since Elizabeth had started working there, they’d made sure to visit a couple of times a month during her shift to have her as their server. Jamie had loved how awkward it was for her the first time they’d come in unexpectedly.
Good times.
When he walked inside, it was obvious they were in the midst of their dinner rush. Lots of people were waiting for tables.
Jam
ie walked up to the counter. There was a hostess that he didn’t know. Good.
“Hi, there,” the girl named Dena said. “How many in your party?”
“Just me.”
She looked down at the seating chart and her waiting list. “Maybe fifteen minutes.”
“Not a problem.”
“Your name?”
“Jamie.”
“Okay, Jamie. We’ll call you in a little bit.”
“Thanks.”
He looked to see if there was anywhere to sit in the waiting area. There wasn’t. It seemed like the best place to stand was at the far end of the checkout counter. Moving there, he found that he had a pretty unobstructed view of the dining room, at least when the hostess wasn’t standing directly in front of him.
It only took a couple of minutes for Elizabeth to come into view. She was carrying a serving tray in her left hand, filled with food-laden plates.
His heart began beating harder. Now he was nervous.
Oh, come on. You see her every day … in your own house! Chill!
She couldn’t see him, of course. And her attention was directed toward her customers anyway. He just watched. Watched and smiled.
She makes that uniform look good.
He caught himself. It was still a weird situation. She was still his pseudo-sister. She’d been living in their house for well over two years, now. Back when she’d arrived, he recognized that she was pretty, but he’d been barely thirteen at the time. He hadn’t had any romantic or physical attraction to her. Just curiosity about what her story was.
And when she’d started really showing that she was pregnant, it was a period of fascination more than anything else. And did she get big! He couldn’t believe that a girl’s body could do that, even though he’d seen plenty of pregnant women before. Somehow it had been different when it happened in his own home.
Then there were those times that she had actually lifted up her shirt enough to show off her belly. She had wanted his mom to take pictures periodically, to record the differences in the baby’s growth. That was a different level of fascination. Still, though, not that huge a draw.
That Dark Place Page 11