And it was lovely. And it was fulfilling. And Joshua didn’t show any signs of loosening his grip on her.
When she finally got control of her breathing and felt her body discontinue its sobbing, she slowly let go with her legs and slid back to the ground.
She breathed in a wonderful sense of joy and contentment and was able let him go.
“That felt so good,” both of them said at exactly the same time.
She laughed so freely.
Elizabeth looked him in the eyes—his amazing, dark brown eyes—and slowly shook her head. “You really do want me.”
It wasn’t a question. She simply voiced her realization of that truth.
Joshua smiled warmly and nodded.
Elizabeth took a moment to take him in visually. He wasn’t very tall and didn’t look anything like any of the paintings, drawings, or even movies that were made of him. He wasn’t exactly what she would consider.…
She cut off the thought. He could read her thoughts! Her eyes grew big, realizing that he probably even knew what she’d intended to say in her mind.
“Yeah. You’re not the first—nor will you be the last—to be surprised by my appearance. Even King Herod and Pontius Pilate—two of my judges on Earth—couldn’t believe that someone who looked like me could be the source of so much contention under their rule.”
He grinned. “When I met Brent here for the first time, he couldn’t believe I was shorter than he is. He even made the same remark about my face, but he completed the sentence.”
She smiled bashfully.
“But I’m happy with how I look. It helps people to know that I’m not concerned with their outward appearance as compared with their hearts.
“Would you like to go for a walk, Elizabeth?”
She smiled big and nodded bigger.
“Then kick off your shoes. You’ll love this grass underneath your feet.”
While she knelt down and untied her shoes, she watched as Joshua did the same. It didn’t fit right in her mind that he was wearing sneakers, or even jeans and a white button-up dress shirt, for that matter.
As she loosened her second shoe, she asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing a robe or a tunic or something?”
“Sometimes I like to get out of my business attire,” he said with a chuckle.
Oh, how she liked him!
When she slipped off her socks and stood up, she felt the most luxurious texture she’d ever encountered in her life. There couldn’t be any grass, anywhere on Earth, that felt anything like it.
“Wow,” she said, her eyes large.
“I know, right?”
Elizabeth looked around—completely around—again. When she finished her slow turn, she looked at Joshua and said, “Where are we going to walk to? I don’t see anything anywhere.”
“And you won’t. This place extends even farther than I’ve walked it.” A playful grin appeared. “I designed it to be one foot farther than I would ever care to walk.”
She laughed. She knew he was being intentionally humorous, but she also took it as true.
“We’ll just walk and talk, if that’s all right with you,” he said to her.
“Very happy with that,” she responded.
He started off and she moved up beside him.
“A lot is happening where you are in your life on Earth. Would you agree?”
She didn’t really want her thoughts redirected back to the situation she’d just left, but she told him that she did agree.
“I rarely bring people to this place, Elizabeth. But I started something with Brent that I wanted to bring you into as well. I thought it only appropriate that you have an encounter similar to his. I intertwined your lives four times during the course of his life. Twice during the course of yours. It will come to make sense, in due course.”
Joshua stopped, turned, and looked at her.
“Free will, Elizabeth. What is it?”
She thought for a moment. “Is it the ability we have to make right, wrong, and very wrong decisions without being able to blame you for them?”
Joshua laughed heartily. “That was a brilliant answer!”
She giggled again.
“I’ll amend it to say that it’s also your freedom to not be forced to love me and to be free from my love for you. It’s something that I had to give you, but also something that has grieved my heart so very much.
“There isn’t a single one of you—I mean humankind—who wasn’t intended by me to exist. You truly were, as King David penned it, ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’
“Every single soul that I ever created in a womb was deliberately made for my everlasting pleasure.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brow, a bit confused. Joshua knew and understood her unvoiced question.
“Before Eve and Adam introduced sin into the whole of my creation, they had been created to live forever. I wanted to have the joy of their friendship, forever forward. Sin spoiled that, though.
“Free will allowed their sin to happen. I certainly didn’t want it, and I warned them against it, but they chose it, and here we are. Rebellion—a direct result of sin—is going to cause me to lose most of my beloved creation to everlasting punishment one day, even though I created an amazing place for all of them that would more than meet the space requirements, not to mention the needs and desires of every single one of them.”
Joshua got quiet.
After a few moments of thinking about what he’d said, she asked, “But if you went down and showed yourself to them, wouldn’t that change everything? Or would that do something to violate their—our—free will?”
“Already did that. Remember?”
He held out his left wrist for her to see. There was an ugly gash in it. And though the hole had closed up, she knew exactly what had been in that wound. A big Roman nail.
She reached out her hand. “Am I allowed?”
“Yes.”
She traced the damage from the base of his hand up to where his forearm began. She was able to feel how her finger dipped into what had been the hole.
She felt deeply pained. Somehow, she knew that what she’d just felt with her own finger was caused by her own heart.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said softly. “Thank you for saying so.”
Joshua lowered his arm.
“So, you see, even in the presence of mankind, most still reject me. It won’t be like that always, though. The time is coming when I’ll make everything right and everything new.”
Another question entered her mind.
“I’m here. But I’m still, what … down there on Earth somewhere?”
“Kind of like that.”
“But … I’m not.…” She felt ashamed and couldn’t finish her thought.
“Not one of mine?”
She nodded, eyes cast downward.
“No, you’re not one of mine. That decision is still yours to make.”
“Can I make it now? Here?”
“Afraid not, dear one. Earth is the place of decisions. But you won’t forget your walk with me, so I’m guessing you’ll make the right one.”
She saw the wry grin on his face, and she called him on it.
“You’re not guessing anything. You already know I’m going to accept you.”
He grinned big again. “You’re a smart one, you are.”
Did Joshua just compliment me?
He began walking again. For the first time, she was cognizant of the scent that came up from the flowers as she brushed them with her feet. It was … dreamy!
“You’re in a very influential position,” Joshua said.
“I am? How?”
“Yes, you very much are. You’re in a locked room with no way out.”
Elizabeth shuddered at the thought. “I don’t get what you’re wanting me to see.”
“Throughout mankind’s hist
ory, many of my most influential witnesses for the kingdom of God were those whose lives were on the line. They were in positions to reach lives that no others could. In some cases—not very unlike the position you are in right now—each was given a mission, to minister love to the one person who was causing him … or her … harm.
“You see, free will gives you an option to either hate those who are doing you wrong or love them in spite of the pain.”
“Drew.”
“It’s easy to hate him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said through a sigh. “But with him, it’s more confusing than that. I thought I loved him when I knew him as Mark. Then when I found out he was only trying to use me, I hated him. Then he turned around and saved my life, hurting himself pretty badly in the process.”
“Drew isn’t your true enemy, Elizabeth. The real enemy—that thief, murderer, and destroyer, Satan—is at work in his life, just as he has been in yours. Fallen angels and their influences are at play here, and Drew is being deceived by them, just as you have been. Know and understand that I love him too.”
He paused, seemingly to allow her to take that in. But he continued with a compassionate question that let her know that he understood what she was going through.
“Life doesn’t always make sense down there, does it?”
“No. It sure doesn’t.”
“Know, Elizabeth, that it all makes perfect sense to me.
“I am not going to say that if it hadn’t been you that Drew tricked, it would have been another. I don’t deal with what-ifs. I deal with what is and what will be.
“It is important for you to think about another scenario, though. What if it had not been you that he tricked?”
“You mean, like, what if it had been another girl in the chat room instead of me?”
Joshua didn’t say anything. He didn’t even nod his head.
She thought the scenario through and recognized an important facet about her life.
What if it had been someone who hadn’t already been rescued by a family like the Lawtons? What if it had been some other girl who didn’t have the truth that the Lawtons have shared about God? What if Brent hadn’t had a dream about … me?
Elizabeth stopped walking. She stared as Joshua turned around.
He had an intense, caring look of love in his eyes. His face was devoid of a smile; it reflected importance of the next thing he said.
“I love you, Elizabeth. I will see you again someday.”
Elizabeth gasped, shocked by the searing pain she felt in her knee. Her vision dimmed significantly, as the scene around her once again became that of a red-light-illuminated room that smelled of film-developing chemicals.
“No, Joshua,” she said weakly. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I wasn’t done. I wasn’t ready to come back here.”
She wasn’t sure which pain she felt the most, that in her leg or the ache of having to leave the side of Jesus.
Elizabeth detected an unwanted but familiar scent that hadn’t been in the room before her departure to the “boardroom.” Her heart sank as she looked down at her lap.
Oh boy. Should I be happy for the bladder relief or embarrassed by what Drew will see when he comes back?
If he comes back.
Chapter 73
T
he first seventy-two hours after a person goes missing are the most crucial in a missing-persons investigation.
Brent had heard those words over and over, as both a cadet and a police officer. What they did now mattered a great deal. He refused to allow that seventy-two-hour mark to come and go in Elizabeth’s life.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s laptop had been password protected. It was taking more time to access it than any of them could almost stand, but Tracy would come through.
After a few minutes of pacing, Brent looked over and found that Tracy was waiting to catch Brent’s eye. He made a slight motion with his head, indicating that he wanted Brent to head over.
Brent knew the game.
“How are we coming?” Brent asked, assuming his question would lead the others to think that no progress had been made yet.
“Brent,” Tracy said quietly, “You’re not going to like what I found. I’m not sure that your family should be let in on this. Hell, I don’t even want you to know about it.”
Brent took a seat at the table. It wasn’t long before his son approached.
“You found something, didn’t you?” Jamie asked.
Tracy looked at Brent, hesitant to provide an answer to that question.
Not knowing exactly what Larkin had found, he wanted to keep Jamie at a distance.
“Jamie, it might be a good idea to put some space between us and you. You should probably keep your mom and Jenna from coming in here, as well.”
“Dad, I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle whatever it is.”
“It’s private, Jamie. If not for a police investigation, nothing on this computer would be known by any of us. You are not legally permitted to see its contents.”
Brent saw Jamie’s jaw clench. The young man wanted to argue, but thought better of it, gave a single nod, and walked back to the living room.
Larkin said, “That went about as well as it could.”
“What did you find? Give it to me straight.”
“To put it bluntly, porn.”
Brent thought that was what it would be.
“Anything about it offer clues to her whereabouts? If not, shut it down. We’ll move on to something else.”
“Here’s the thing, Brent. It’s not other people porn. It’s … well, it’s her. She’s the one making the porn.”
Brent’s blood went cold. What? Elizabeth? Little girl, what have you been doing?
It wasn’t often that Brent felt an attack of emotion-driven nausea, but he was feeling it now.
“I umm.…”
“Hold on. Take a minute and let me explain more.”
Brent nodded.
“She hasn’t been producing graphic pornography, the kind found on paid sites and such, but she has been viewing that. A lot.”
“Tracy, I’m not sure that’s something I needed to know.”
“I think it is. It ties into what else I found. You see, the type of porn that she, personally, has been involved in is in chat rooms. Taking photos and videos of herself for people on those sites.”
Larkin paused. “Brent, this has been going on for a long time. A very long time, considering how old she is.” He sighed. “There is evidence on here of pictures she began sending when she was twelve years old.”
A cold sweat began to break out on Brent’s face. A torrent of emotions—shock, horror, anger, and sadness—swept through him.
As nonchalantly as he was able, he pushed his chair back, got up, and walked into the kitchen. He walked to the counter near the stove and leaned back against it. His hand was placed firmly over his mouth to prevent the groan that wanted to emerge from his throat.
Oh God. Oh God. What’s she been doing? She’s been purposely doing this? She’s been just giving herself away … as a little girl?!
How many men have….
Dear God, please … please … help me with this! I don’t know what to do with this!
He turned and grabbed a glass out of the cabinet. He set it down and grabbed a pitcher of water from the fridge and poured a glass. He set the pitcher down, took up his drink, and began sucking it down.
The shock of the ice-cold water helped to pull his mind from the depths of the despair that was beginning to rack his soul.
The glass nearly empty, he lowered it and looked at Tracy who was staring at him, a look of deep concern in his eyes.
Brent took a deep breath, released it, and made the decision to focus on what needed to be done, not on what he didn’t like.
He walked back to the table and sat down.
“Tell me the rest,” he sai
d.
Larkin nodded.
“There has been no lack of men who’ve wanted time with her. Fortunately for us, there is a log of conversations. I don’t know why she didn’t go into settings to prevent logging or to at least delete her logs periodically, but she didn’t.”
“What do they tell us?”
“There’s a guy on here who calls himself NewProGuy. During their one interaction, in which—forgive me for saying this, but you need to know—in which she really took a shine to him, she gave him, probably inadvertently, the city in which she worked and that she was a waitress at a family restaurant.”
Brent felt hopeful. It was sickening to hear, but it was the best new information that they had.
“Is there any way to do some sort of IP trace on this guy?”
“No, Brent. That’s probably next to impossible. Elizabeth has a VPN installed on this machine which masked her IP address. It’s likely he did, as well. And you know you’re going to have to talk with Captain Morelli about this information. This is legally his investigation, not ours.”
Brent nodded. “I’ll call him on this. I’m sure he’ll have his team contact both the Internet providers and the company that hosts this chat site. Anything else?”
“Yes. Her calendar.”
“Calendar?”
“She had a couple dates on it, and a name. Mark Johnson.”
DREW WAS ONLY minutes away from his mom’s house when his phone rang.
The wrong one.
The one he’d forgotten all about.
He didn’t need to look at the screen to know that the call wasn’t originating from the one person who knew the number.
Someone else was calling it. And that could only mean one thing.
He slammed on the brakes and got out of the car with it.
With all his might, he threw it against the pavement. Pieces of it splintered from the body of the phone which hopped a few feet on the hard surface. He hurriedly walked over to it and slammed the sole of his shoe on it, crushing the electronic life out of it.
He stood on the street panting.
Who was it? How’d they get the number?
He cursed. The net was closing in.
He got back into the car and darted off to get to Elizabeth.
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