Freefall (24 page)

Now … what would his future be?
Whatever God has determined
. The thought lanced her festering doubt. God knew the plans he had for them, plans to prosper, not to harm. She had said that to the kids in her program, a positive-thinking mantra she’d believed wholeheartedly.

She dropped her face to her hands. What did it mean not to harm, when all around her believers and nonbelievers suffered? There must be a spiritual element Uncle Rob probably grasped, but she didn’t. She groaned. It hurt too much to give in.

Should she pray for what she wanted, or pray to want what God wanted? Did she trust him? On the mountain she’d have said yes. And later, when the waters of baptism had poured over her, she’d been carried to a place of exquisite surrender. But ever since, it had been one long freefall, the accusations, the gossip magazines, her plunge over the falls, and now Uncle Rob.

Again her spirit groaned. The burden grew. She didn’t know what else to do, so she prayed for Uncle Rob’s leg to heal, that in the morning when she went in, the smell would be gone, the flesh would have lost the fiery streaks. She prayed the fever would come down and his former strength return. She prayed for the doctor’s astonishment. Then she prayed for strength to bear it if none of that came true.

Nica woke with a sorrow so fresh she expected to find someone at her door, strung out or near death. But when she looked, no one was there, needing her. No source to the sorrow. What then? Kai?

The thought took the legs from her. She rushed to his room. He’d told her last night he’d be ducking out early to get home, and only the kitty slept now on his neatly made bed. She hated that he flew so far so frequently, but it didn’t usually hit her like this. She went to the kitchen and brewed some jasmine tea, hands shaking.

Growing up, she’d felt his moods, his intensity; he’d absorbed her hurts, cushioned her sensitivity to cruelty and sorrow.

He’d been the one to bring her back to reality that day when she was five.
“We can live at Okelani’s, but I’ll take care of you,”
he’d promised, his childish certainty undaunted by forces that could sweep away lives in a moment.

When their parents’ spirits slipped from the world, she had inadvertently followed. That was the first time she’d seen Jesus, warm and sorrowful, climbed into his arms and felt the warmth of his breath. If it had been her time, nothing could have brought her back. She would never have left that embrace. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t.

But Kai would not let go. He’d said he would take care of her, but it was his need that brought her back. In that choice, she’d received her calling. She didn’t like straddling the realms, but she’d seen that death was only a small step away, and she could comfort those whose time had come to pass over.

But not without a toll. She’d been exhausted when Gentry came, her spirit drained. Now she realized Gentry had not been a burden but a gift. Part of something bigger, maybe, that had yet to be revealed.

Nica sipped her tea and dared to believe Jesus did not intend to take her brother from her. But there was something still. She closed her eyes and found Jesus waiting. Drawing close, she pressed her head against his chest, felt his arms around her. “I’m ready,” she said. “Tell me.”

Gentry knew when she approached the hospital administrator, the surgeon Dr. Long, and two doctors she hadn’t seen before that what they had to say would break her. For the first time, she appreciated the surgeon’s cold brevity. “The leg is septic. It can’t be saved.”

Grief smothered her. She had called her dad, Uncle Rob’s only brother, before the sun was up on Kauai. She’d spoken with her mom as well. True to form, they’d voiced the optimism she had clung to until last night. No mystery where she’d gotten that particular trait.

She had tried to reach her Aunt Allegra, as she’d been for days, getting the answering machine each time. They had no sons or daughters to call. No one else. The weight of the decision had weighed so heavily on her, but now she saw, in reality, she had no control at all.

“You’ve tried everything? There isn’t anything else that might work?”

“My colleagues agree.”

He’d brought them in because of her, she thought, her public platform, her notoriety. But none of it would help Uncle Rob. She glanced at the others, hoping for one dissenting voice.

Dr. Long repeated, “We are all in agreement.”

Including God. She’d known it last night.

“Your uncle gave permission for treatment.”

In the helicopter before he’d lost consciousness. “Not for amputation.”

“For all life-saving measures.”

“And he’ll die without this surgery?”

“I’ve held off as long as I possibly could.” For the first time the doctor’s voice held something human.

Her heart labored like a lump of wax. She nodded. “Save his life.”

From the copilot ’s position beside his friend Denny Bridges, Cameron had watched the morning sun gild the water as the string of islands slid away behind them. A bank of clouds scuttled across the left horizon, but the sky ahead was clear cerulean. Even so, the charter jet that was earning Denny a nice, fat income jumped and wobbled in the trade winds until they’d settled out over the ocean for six hours of contemplation.

Denny would converse when they grabbed food at the airport diner, but he liked it silent while he flew. He’d been awestruck the first time he took the controls and experienced the rush of keeping a plane aloft over the Pacific. They’d trained with the same instructor, so Cameron had been waiting when Denny came back from his first solo, looking as though he’d been on the mountain with Moses. It had been a God thing ever since. But
everything
was for Denny—as he’d said this morning when they hooked up at the Lihue airport.

He had flown a group in the day before and was right there to provide this flight back. Coincidence? “God’s got his hand all over it.” Denny’s smile was radiant.

Cameron hadn’t pointed out that he made the trip two or three times a week, and odds were good that they’d hook up the morning he needed a ride. He’d simply finagled the seat Denny usually held open for the Lord and was thankful for it.

As they cruised over the deep blue expanse, Cameron let his thoughts run over everything. The pictures were in his shirt pocket, but he hadn’t looked at them; partly at Gentry’s request, partly because of the missionary blood coursing through his veins, but mostly because the thought of seeing Gentry’s face on some porn model’s body disgusted him. It would ruin the images of her that he’d tucked up into his heart, whether he wanted them there or not.

He would take the pictures to the authorities if he had to, but even as he and Gentry had sat in his truck on the island, he’d contemplated another way. He hoped to minimize the chance that those pictures would get out, but even more he wanted to quash the real purpose behind them. She hadn’t feigned embarrassment in his truck. Her reaction had proved her a mark for blackmail.

After the six long hours, Denny soared in for a nice, tight landing. He offloaded the foursome who’d ridden in comfort behind them, as well as their luggage, then led the way to the diner for a late lunch according to their bodies’ timing, though it was dinnertime in California. The diner’s scent of fat, fried and seared, marked the place as a staunch holdout against sprouts and low-carb wraps. He’d work it off later.

They’d barely put seats to the booth when Denny came out with it. “Gentry Fox.”

May as well start explaining with someone who tended to believe him. Even so, the less said, the better. “She showed up lost and injured, and Nica asked me to look into it.”

Denny’s face danced with amusement. “Great for your press conference, buddy. Now give me the real story.”

“That’s it. Nica called me to investigate when Gentry couldn’t remember who she was. Then she remembered, and all hell broke loose.”

“Hell tends to break loose a lot on that woman.” Denny sobered. “Is she lost?”

Denny didn’t mean in the forest. “Hardly. Reminds me of you.”

“Ah.” Denny gripped his hands together. “When I watched her in
Steel
I thought: a light shining in the darkness.”

Only Denny. His own reaction had been far less elevated, cynical absorption. Darla could hardly hide her envy, the press their rabid curiosity; Nica, of course, responded with tender mercy. Maybe Gentry brought out people’s most basic natures. One thing was sure; there was no lukewarm response to Gentry Fox.

Shaking his head, Denny said, “When all that persecution started, my spirit ached.”

“Did you think her innocent?”

Denny V-pointed to his own eyeballs. “Windows to the soul. I saw it in her eyes.”

Cameron didn’t doubt it. His reaction had been more physiological than spiritual, though. Until a few days ago, he’d been sealed tighter than a time capsule—a condition he preferred to whatever it was Gentry had released. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about her situation. “I didn’t know you followed that kind of thing.”

“It was everywhere. Shuttling my clientele, I hear too much.”

People in the motion picture industry formed a large customer base for charter flights to the islands. Denny’s business depended on them and the corporate bigwigs all along the coast.

“So you’d have recognized her?”

Denny shrugged. “It’s hard when you see someone out of context.”

Their shapely, black-haired waitress approached the table with a tall strawberry shake and the metal blender cup it was mixed in. She set it in front of Denny and received his thanks with deepening dimples, then turned. “Something for you?”

Cameron ordered iced tea, and she sashayed off to get it.

Denny sucked the shake through his straw with hollowed cheeks, then licked his lips. “Still working for her?”

“Unofficially.”

“No retainer, no expenses?”

“It’s a favor to Nica.”

The pert waitress brought his tea and said, “I know what he wants. How about you?”

“Whatever he’s having.”

She nodded. “Right-o.”

With his flaxen stubble and sky-blue eyes, Denny’s piercing gaze gave him the look of an archangel on truth detail. “A favor for Nica.”

Cameron sipped the cold, tannic tea. “It’s not like that.” Now that he’d put distance between them, the days he’d spent up close with Gentry seemed surreal. “She’s a rising star, and I’m not …” He pressed back from the table. “I’m not looking.”

Denny stirred the shake with his straw. “To everything its time; to hate, to love; to kill, to heal.”

Cameron stared into his glass. Some things didn’t heal. And some people learned from that. He chose not to hate, not to kill. He could avoid the rest as well.

Denny drew the straw out of the shake and licked it. “Myra called me.”

Her name jolted him like a cattle prod. “What did she want?”

“To know where you were.”

“Before or after the stories hit?”

“That day.”

Yesterday, the same day she’d called him, spurred by the thought of him and Gentry? Or him and anyone at all. Maybe it was Denny who’d told her he hadn’t dated.

“Since I’d flown you over, I couldn’t say I didn’t know.” Denny’s brow furrowed.

“It doesn’t matter. She can reach me anytime she wants. My numbers haven’t changed.”