Hidden Pearl (5 page)

"Very biblical."

"The Bible is God's book, but He still speaks to men. Do you believe that?"

She considered a moment. "Possibly although in different ways."

His smile seemed genuine. "Possibly? You do or you do not. To doubt is to disbelieve”

“You are quite rigid.”

“That is a way to avoid facing the reality of God. We must accept the Lord’s direction for today. If we broaden meanings enough, they tend to lose value. Do you agree?"

"I will have to think about that." She realized she would not be able to debate this man. He was a master at the art, would most likely turn everything she said against her. "Do you believe God gives you messages for others?" she asked, cutting to the quick of it.

He laughed and bent to pour their tea. Was the laugh real or a manipulation? Nothing about him was putting her at ease.

“You are indeed a delight, fair lady.” He handed her a cup. "Are you yourself a believer?" he asked, his gaze steady.

"In my own way," she said.

"How can there be your own way?"

"I believe in a spiritual reality. I don’t necessarily believe it all comes through a religion as such... or a guru, but I do feel there is something beyond us in this world."

"Ah, experience, sometimes a good teacher. Unless it's the wrong experience or we put the wrong interpretation on it. That's why God sends prophets into the world, to help us interpret our experiences, to help us fully understand the Word of God."

“You are such a prophet?” She took a sip of the tea. “It’s very good.”

“A prophet must be declared so by others, don’t you think?” His smile was saintly, beatific, and she didn't like it. She suddenly wanted this project over with, wanted away from this man. S.T. Taggert with his rough edges, his reluctance to let her work with him, had filled her with reassurance, with a feeling of innate goodness. This obviously self-anointed prophet left her with none of those feelings. She wished she'd never agreed to the assignment, but she always finished what she began.

She picked her camera from its bag. "I usually attain the best results by following around a subject... that is wherever it's okay. In your case, I'd like to do some photographs of you with the people in your church, certainly some of you preaching."

Soul smiled. "I prefer to call what I do teaching. It isn't traditional preaching the way you might expect it to be."

"All the more reason to capture it all on film," Christine said. She realized her hands were shaky as she took off the lens cap. "Would you mind my taking some of you at your desk?" she asked.

"Not at all." His smile broadened. "How could I turn down any request from such a lovely woman? Or did I just open myself up to a risk I hadn't calculated?"

Christine doubted there were many risks this man didn't calculate to the last detail, but she managed another smile. Just take the pictures and get out.

#

S.T. looked into the apartment manager's eyes, trying to decide why the man was lying. What was behind his fear?

"She lived here a year," the man said, rubbing his broad belly with a beefy hand. "She was never hardly here though."

"Where did she work?"

"Look, I manage their apartments.  I don’t baby-sit them. They pay their rent and that’s all I ask. Up until the last, she was always on time."

"Yet you noticed she wasn't here that much."

The manager shrugged. "Easy to notice. She came in at the last just to pay me. Apartment never had no lights on."

"Then she moved out."

"I didn't say that. She just quit paying."

"Where's her stuff?"

"How do I know you're her brother?" the man asked, suddenly belligerent.

"Because I said so. Show me her apartment and if everything's still there, I'll pay what she owed. Nobody but a brother would be willing to do that." S.T. knew that wasn't strictly speaking true, knew the manager probably knew it too, but he was betting on the man's greed.

S.T. could see the calculations in the man's eyes as he considered before he said, "Okay." He reached up and grabbed a key from the wall behind him. "But if she don't like this when she comes back, you explain it to her."

S.T. nodded and followed the man back out into the sunlight, down a sidewalk to a two story addition. They walked up the stairs where the manager stopped in front of a door that looked as though someone had once kicked it in.

"Was she burglarized?" S.T. asked as they entered the quiet apartment.

"You mean the door?" the man asked. "If she was, she never reported it to me. I figure it was a boyfriend or something. Damage is going to have to be paid for."

S.T. smiled coldly. "When you can prove Shonna did it."

The man shrugged. "How about that rent check? She owed me four hundred bucks"

"I want to look around." S.T. dug into his jeans pocket for his wallet.

"No skin off my nose," the manager said, his eyes widening as S.T. peeled off four one hundred dollar bills.

"I'll want a receipt."

"Sure, sure," the manager said, grabbing the money. "Take your time here. I'll have it ready when you come back down. You want her stuff?"

“No.” S.T. gave him another hundred. “I’ll take what I want, you get rid of the rest.”

When he was alone in the apartment, the door closed, S.T. looked around, trying to see any sign of his sister in the sterile, worn environment. The pictures on the wall looked to have come from a discount store. Maybe she hadn't even furnished this place. He had forgotten to ask. The sofa and matching chair were some kind of pink, the fabrics frayed, the cushions misshapen. The little television in the corner looked past the age of working. He didn’t care to test it.

Walking through the room, thinking about his sister walking the same route, S.T. opened the door to a small hall leading to the bedroom. He had spent years dismissing his family from his mind. He wouldn’t have known Shonna if he had seen her walk through the door. He'd not let himself think about her, about the shared memories he had only with her. Suddenly he wished he'd thought of her sooner, wished he'd tried to find her before she seemingly disappeared.

In the bedroom were a few photographs on the bureau, no one he recognized and a newspaper clipping in front of them. He picked it up and didn't need to read the article to know it was about him, one of the rare pieces he hadn't been able to suppress. 

S.T. didn’t want to think about the possibility that she had cared what he was doing. If she had, why hadn't she come to Portland, looked him up?

On the bedside stand was a small stack of books. Picking up the top one, he saw the author's name was Peter Soul, the book titled "Salvation or Enslavement." The ones beneath it were all by Soul.

Straightening, S.T. walked over to the closet, his mind filled with more questions. Questions to which he doubted he'd find the answers in this barren little apartment. The closet held two dresses, a blouse, a pair of old jeans and a pair of worn high-heeled shoes, sandals with a broken strap. Nothing told him anything except that his sister had been slender and liked the color pink.

#

Sipping a cup of coffee at the closest cafe to his sister's apartment, S.T. considered what little information he'd managed to glean.  An aging newspaper clipping, a sparse lifestyle, no clue as to what paid for it, an interest in Peter Soul's writings. 

"Can I get you anything besides coffee?" the waitress asked.

He looked up, taking in her round, youthful face. He saw her eyes go from his face, down his body, then back with obvious interest. "Maybe," he said." Did you know Shonna Taggert?"

"Shonna?" The girl seemed to consider. "Don't remember nobody by that name. She your girlfriend?"

"My sister."

"What'd she look like?"

He felt a fist clench in his stomach. He couldn’t describe her even. “Dark haired, like me,” he guessed. “Slim. She liked pink”

The waitress pretended to consider. He doubted she'd known Shonna, but she obviously didn't mind prolonging her time with him. She started to say something, then glanced over at whoever had just walked up.

"Sinclair?"

S.T. looked up and saw Christine Johnson looking down on him, an amused glint in those clear blue eyes.

He grinned. "Nope."

She slid into the seat across from him. "Sidney?" She raised her eyebrows hopefully. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her neck. Even with little make-up and a plain denim jacket and jeans, she was startlingly beautiful and looked like a page out of a magazine.

"So now you think I look like a Sidney," he complained. "A definite step down from Sam."

The waitress gave Christine a calculating look. "You want something?" she asked in a less than friendly tone.

"Coffee.” Christine turned over a cup.

 “One of your groupies?” Christine asked when the girl had gone to get the pot.

"I'm not in a field that invites groupies." Then it occurred to him she wasn't where he'd expected to find her. "What are you doing down this way?"

"Assignment," she said with a sigh.

"A tough one?"

"I had to make an excuse for a break from it," she confessed with a shudder.

"As bad as me?" he asked with a grin.

"You were a delight by comparison," she retorted, "and that tells you how bad it was."

"Ouch."

"Well, you weren't exactly one of my more cooperative subjects." She looked up and smiled at the disappointed looking waitress as her coffee was poured, S.T.’s heated up.

"How did the photos come out?" he asked when they were again as alone as it was possible to be in a small cafe with only five booths, three of them occupied.

"You'll have to wait for Monday."

"That awful huh? I could have told you you were wasting your time."

She poured a container of cream into her coffee, then took a good-sized sip. "For a man who won't give me a single clue as to his name, you're pretty sneaky at getting your own information."

"Don't you know that for an Indian to give his name is to give his guts, his soul. Bad enough I let you take the photos." He said it jokingly but had done it deliberately. If she hadn't guessed he was a half-breed, he wanted her to know it.

"So," she teased, "in addition to your gold, I get your soul if I manage to guess your name."

Their gazes locked as their smiles disappeared. He looked away first. He couldn't afford another pretty, little girl who would toy with him, then reject him when it got time for something serious. Hell, he didn’t want anything serious anyway. What was there about this woman that made him forget that?

Christine swallowed. She'd forgotten how handsome S.T. Taggert was, how clean and free he looked. After spending a morning with Peter Soul and his people, S.T. was like a breath of fresh air, possessing a quality of goodness and clarity that seemed to reach deep within her. For the first time, she realized she was attracted to a man and not feeling aghast at the thought.