Bad Connection (21 page)

Finally, our big night comes to an end. But when we're back at Olivia's house—the first drop-off—Conrad asks if we should pray again. “I sense that you're still having a hard time with this, Samantha.”

“I'm sorry,” I tell him. “I was trying to wear my happy face. Was it that obvious?”

“It's okay,” Olivia assures me from the backseat. “I know you're going through some hard stuff right now. Why don't you just let the three of us pray for you this time?”

I sigh deeply. That'd probably be good.”

And so I just sit there as the three of them pray for me. Most of their prayers seem related to my mom and getting
over
the loss of my dad, but I sense a very real spirit of caring and compassion, and I am deeply moved when they're finally done.

Thank you so much!” I tell them. “You guys are a total blessing to me!”

Finally, we're at my house, and Conrad is walking me to the door (just as Alex walked Olivia to her door), which makes this feel more like a date than ever. And okay, I know it's crazy, but suddenly I'm all nervous, like is he going to kiss me or something? And I am so totally not ready for that. But instead he just takes my hand and gives it a little shake. “I had a cool time tonight, Samantha. Thanks for going out with me.”

I smile in, relief. “Me too. Thanks for taking me.”

“So, maybe you're not completely opposed to dating?”

I shrug. “I guess it all depends on how you define dating. But what happened tonight was awesome, Conrad. Despite the crud going on at home, I had a good time.”

“Cool.” He nods. “And I hope things get better with your mom.”

“Thanks. I'll let you know how it goes.” Part of me really wishes I could tell 'him about everything—about
Ebony and Kayla and Elena and Phoenix, but I know that it's something I need to keep undercover.

I mean, maybe he would understand. But it would also greatly complicate my life. And just like the verse where Jesus tells us to do our good deeds in secret, I believe that God wants me to keep this side of my life private too. o And that's okay. I can live with that.

I
t's hard to believe that I'm actually flying to Phoenix right now. Ebony is seated next to me, eyes closed, and I'm not sure if she's dozing or praying as our plane finally taxis to the runway. Our flight was delayed for more than two hours, and everyone was getting pretty antsy. Too much holiday traffic,” was the excuse, but I also overheard someone talking about “mechanical troubles.”

So feeling a little uneasy myself, just as the plane speeds up to take off, I tightly shut my eyes and pray for a safe flight. Then I grasp the arms of the seat and watch out the window as the Portland airport falls away and then gets smaller and smaller. I watch as we circle over the Columbia River, trying not to imagine what it would feel like to land in the gray icy water below.

The flight attendant told us there were life vests under our seats, but I didn't pay close attention to how to use them in an “actual emergency.” Then I ask myself, if this flight was really going down, wouldn't God have shown me in advance? Or maybe not.

I've flown a couple of times before—once to Disneyland with my family, and once with just Zach and me when we went to visit Grandma Martha (my mom's
mom) in Seattle for about a month during the summer that Mom went back to college. But it still makes me nervous to be thirty-five -thousand feet above the earth with only some plastic and metal between us and thin air. Still, I remind myself to trust God. My life is in His hands.

And then to further distract myself, I focus on Kayla, praying for her and that we'll get down there in time—to find her, alive. I was pretty surprised that Mom agreed to let me go to Arizona with Ebony. When I left them last night, I wasn't sure what I'd return home to. But to my relief, Mom was acting pretty normal when I got home.

“Did you have a good time?” she asked when I came tiptoeing into the house, halfway hoping that she'd already gone to bed and that I could slip to my room without another encounter.

“Yeah. The movie was pretty good.”

“Want some cocoa?” she offered, and I could see she had the ingredients all ready to go, as if she'd been expecting me. She was wearing her old blue bathrobe, the same one she's had since I was little.

“Sure,” I said with surprise, since my mom hasn't been particularly domestic or nurturing these past few years. But hey, I'll take what I can get when I can get it. I sat on a stool by the island and watched as she proceeded to make cocoa the old-fashioned way—the way she used to when Dad was still alive. She poured milk into the pan, measured in powdered baking cocoa and sugar and just a few drops of vanilla, then set it on the stove to heat. I became almost mesmerized as she stirred the spoon
round and round, making a dull metallic dinging sound each time it hit the sides of the pan.

“Sorry I fell apart this afternoon,” she said as she finally skimmed the skinlike surface of the cocoa into the sink. Then she poured the remaining steaming contents into a couple of big stoneware mugs, added some marshmallows, then handed one mug to me with a sad little half smile.

“That's okay,” I told her as she sat across from me.

“Well, no…” she said slowly. “It's not okay.”

“Okay…”

“I had no right to treat Ebony like that. Or you either.”

“You were stressed out, Mom.”

“I was mad.”

“Oh.” I sigh. “At me?”

Mom shook her head as she blew on her cocoa. “No, I was mad at Ebony. I was blaming her…for everything, I think. I know it makes no sense, but Ebony was becoming the focus of all my problems. I was making her into the devil.”

“Ebony?” I said in disbelief, ready to defend my good friend but knowing I should just be quiet and listen.

“I think I've blamed her for your father's death right from the start. Oh, I never would've admitted this to anyone. It would've sounded so bitter, so vindictive. But I think I've held her responsible all along, Samantha.”

I didn't know what to say. So I said nothing, just kept sipping my cocoa.

“Right after it happened, I overheard some police friends of your dad's talking at the precinct. I'd gone in to pick up some of his things and to sign some papers, but I heard an officer saying that Ebony blew it, that if she'd been more experienced and had reacted differently and hadn't been a woman…well, that your dad never would've o been killed.”

“Oh.”

“And then here this woman is,” Mom continued, “back in my life. First she's trying to take over my daughter, and the next thing she's getting my son carted off to rehab— and I know that was a good thing, Samantha, believe me, I know that. But it was just so strange. And I was really starting to resent that woman. A lot.”

“That makes sense.”

“In a crazy way.”

“So did you talk to her about this?”

She nodded and took a slow sip. “I asked her to tell me about what happened that day—the day Dad was shot.

“I asked her the same thing,” I told Mom. “The very first time we talked.”

“Well, I guess I should've asked her sooner.”

“So, she told you?”

“Yes. And it makes sense. I can imagine your dad doing just as she said, telling the less-experienced cop to stand aside and going down the narrow staircase alone, without even calling for backup, not really expecting to find anything much. He was taken by surprise, Samantha. I suppose if anyone made a mistake that day it was him.” She wiped a
straggler tear from her cheek. “But I needed to hear it from Ebony. I needed to sort of clean the slate with her.”

I let out a sigh. “So, you're okay with her now?”

She nodded. “And now it seems that Ebony wants to take you to Phoenix with her.”

I cringed inwardly, unsure of where this would go. “She told you about that?”

Mom nodded again. “It's amazing, Samantha. I don't really understand it, and it worries me. But she said your vision about that Hispanic girl who was murdered was right on the money.”

“Yeah, right on but too late.”

“But Ebony thinks it's related to Kayla. And I suppose if you can help Kayla, if you can keep her from ending up like—like that other poor girl—then who am I to stand in your way?”

“Really?” I said in total shock. “I can go?”

“I made Ebony swear on her own life and her mother's that nothing would happen to you, Samantha. I told her ' that I would never forgive her, or myself for that matter, if anything happened to you. I couldn't take it.”

I wanted to point out to her that only God could keep a promise like that, but didn't want to push it too hard with my mom. She'd already been through a lot.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said as I finished my cocoa. “And I know that God is watching out for me. So I hope you won't worry.”

“Your flight is noonish,” she told me. “Ebony will be here to get you around nine. She wanted to get an early
start since it's the holidays and the airport is supposedly a mess.”

“I'll be ready,” I told her, going around to the other side to give her a big hug. “And you won't be sorry, Mom.”

Mom frowned. “I hope not.”

I hope not too as we fly across the state. So much seems to be riding on this trip. I don't want to disappoint anyone. Then I remind myself that it's not on my shoulders, but God's. He's the one who'll have to do the directing. I just need to lean on Him. And trust.

The sun is just going down when we arrive in Phoenix. A short, dark Hispanic man, who turns out to be Tony Mendez from the FBI, meets us at passenger pick up, and since we have no checked bags, we go straight out to his car, where despite the dusky sky, it feels like it's about 100 degrees.

“Man, it's hot,” I say as I climb into the backseat of a dark-colored SUV.

“Yeah, especially for this time of year,” he admits from the front, where Ebony is seated next to him. “It's been in the nineties. Usually it's more like the seventies.”

This reminds me of my dreams and how it was stifling in that little dark room, where I could barely move and breathe.

“There are some bottles of water back there,” he says. “Help yourself. It's easy to get dehydrated down here.”

So I take one and hand one to Ebony, thankful for the cool wetness.

“I'm going to take you directly to your hotel. I was hoping we'd get started on this today, but your flight
was so late that I don't think it's worth it to start looking yet.”

I'm not sure what he means by “looking,” but I decide to just listen.

“Still, I'd like to ask you some questions, Samantha. Kind of a debriefing, you know? And I'd like to compare notes with you, Detective Hamilton. I'll drop you off, and you can check in and drop off your things then meet me downstairs at the restaurant to talk and have some dinner. Sound okay?”

“Sounds fine,” she tells him.

It's almost seven o'clock by the time we reconvene in the hotel restaurant, but Tony is patiently waiting next to an enormous Christmas tree. It seems totally weird that we're in this warm, sunny place and it's almost Christmas, but as we walk out to a table by the pool, I hear a jazzy version of “White Christmas” playing over the sound system. It feels like I've entered the holiday
Twilight Zone.

Tony makes small talk, letting us finish our meals before he starts in on the more serious questions. He begins by asking me about how well I knew Kayla and what I thought of her and Why she took off like that and then slowly works his way into how it was that I got my “information.”

“It's kind of hard to explain.” I glance at Ebony. “And some people don't really understand, but it's a gift from God.” I wait for his response, but he just nods and jots something down in his little notebook. “I've had it since I was a little kid, and I guess my paternal grandmother, who is deceased, had it too. Sometimes I have these dreams,
kind of prophetic dreams, you know? And sometimes I have visions.” Then I tell him the verse my dad told me; that's from Joel in the Old Testament.

“I see…”

“Really?” I question him. “Or are you just being nice?”.

He grins. “You know, I've been in the FBI for about twenty-seven years now, Samantha. I've seen a lot of “ things that are tough to explain. But I do believe in God. So why couldn't He do something like this?”

I try not to show my surprise. “Right.

Then he asks me more questions, specifically about my visions and dreams, taking notes the whole time while I talk. And finally he says, “Okay, now tell me, what is your gut feeling about this, Samantha? Do you think that Elena Maiesa and Kayla Henderson were somehow connected? Or do you think you might've just gotten your spiritual wires crossed, so to speak?”

I carefully consider this. “I do think they're connected.”

“Why?”

“I can't even explain it, but it's like you said. It's a gut feeling.”

He nods. “Okay, I can go with that. I just needed to hear it from the horse's mouth.” He's studying his notes now. “So you had this dream about Elena Maiesa being dead just a week or so ago? Is that right?”

I have to think about this., So much has happened that it seems like a long time ago, but I know it wasn't. “Not even a week,” I finally say. “And it wasn't a dream. It was a vision.” I describe the billboard and what I saw; then
Ebony mentions the composite drawing that Michael created from it.

“Yes,” says Tony. “That was instrumental in finding the Maiesa girl.” He shakes his head sadly. “Right down to the shoe.”

The shoe?” I echo.

“Yes. It was there at the site. And since we didn't have any way to immediately identify the victim, we contacted the family, and they confirmed that Elena had a pair of shoes fitting that description.”

“So sad…” I say as I remember the lone Adidas shoe with the blue stripes all covered with dust.

“Does it make you wonder?” muses Tony. “I mean, why you'd have a vision of a girl, but she'd already been dead for nearly two weeks by then? Why didn't you have this vision
before she
died?”

“I wondered that exact thing, and it was pretty discouraging. But it's times like that when I have to trust God. Like Ebony keeps reminding me, I don't have control over this thing any more than I have control over God.” I stir my iced tea and think about this. “But I think that's one more reason that Elena is connected to Kayla.”