Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin "I" Series Book II (13 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Two

“What
are you ladies talking about?” Jack came walking up the stairs.

“Boy.
You scared me,” Addie said. “Where is Zeus?” He picked up his head from where
he was lying under the chair. “Zeus. People just walking in our house and you
don’t make a sound. Didn’t you hear him come in?” Zeus scampered out from under
the chair and started barking, lifting his two front paws off the floor with
each yelp. “Too late now! He’s already in.”

“I’m
not
people
. C’mere boy. Come to your Uncle Jack. What’s a Marcrutian?”
Jack picked up the dog, and rubbed his head. “You two not talking about that
book again are you?”

“Yep.”
Addie said.

“The
one that’s got aliens coming down from Mars and taking up residence here?”

They’re
not aliens. They’re humans,” Rennie said.

“Just
like you and me. Humans.” Addie emphasized the word. “As Justin puts it, same
DNA. Did you read her book I gave you?”

“Sure
did.” He leaned back against her dresser.

They
both looked at him, surprised.

“You
did?” Addie said, smiling.

“Yep.
Isn’t that why you gave it to me?”

“What’cha
think?” Rennie asked.

“What?
Are we having the book discussion now?”

 “I’m
through discussing it,” Addie said, standing up. “I’ma call her.”

“Call
who?” Rennie eyed Addie, her brow knitted in slight confusion.

“Justin.”

“Justin?”
Rennie fell over on the bed and laughed. “What, you on a first name basis with
her now?”

“I
feel like I know her.”

Rennie
looked at Addie and shook her head. “Jack, you hear your sister?” Rennie asked.

“Okay.
Dr. Dickerson
. Is that better?” Addie said. Rennie gave her a smirk.
“Whatever her name is, I’m calling her.”

“You
going to jail.”

“You
can’t go to jail for calling people.”

“Uhm,
yeah you can. It’s called stalking.”

“Stalking
. . .” Addie’s voice veered off.

“Yeah.
Stalking.” Rennie seemed to notice Addie’s far off gaze. “You listening to me?”
Rennie planted both her hands on her hips.

“No.
Yes. I’m listening to you. But I was thinking that’s what I could do.” She
looked at Rennie, a small smile playing at the edge of his lips. “By stalking,
I mean I could go to her. Go and see her.”

Rennie
studied Addie’s face for a moment. “Jack,” she turned to him. “Please talk to
your sister.”

“I
think that might just be a good idea, Addie.” He didn’t look over at Rennie.
“And, I’ll go with you.”

“You
cannot go to wherever it is she lives,” Rennie said to Addie, disbelief
unfolding on her face. “And you can’t either, Jack. She is a big time
archaeologist and author. And if some of that story in the first book is true,
well, any part of it, especially the part of her family, you’re in trouble. She’s
got one brother that’s a lawyer and one that’s a police officer. They will put
you under the jail.”

“My
brother works at the Pentagon. He’s a Major in the Air Force.” Addie yanked her
thumb in Jack’s direction. “So nobody’s worried about what her brothers will
do. And, nobody read that book, so she is not a big time author.”

“Listen
to you. You always raving about the book. Calling her, ‘Justin’. Now what?”
Rennie asked.

“No.
Don’t get me wrong.” Addie plopped down on her bed. “I love that book. You know
I do. But you can’t find hardly anything on it. Try and Google it. Nada. She
acted as if she didn’t want people to know about it. “

Addie
and Rennie both looked at each other.

“Because
it’s true” they both said.

“Yep.
But, if I got a say in it,” Addie looked at Rennie, “Everyone’s gonna know
about it.”

“Well,
I guess I’m going too. I’m not going to be the only one to miss out on all the
drama. Plus, you two will need somebody to bail you out of jail.”

Addie
told them she’d get all the plans together, contact Dr. Dickerson and then let
them know when they’d leave.

“It’ll
be real soon,” she said. “You might have to take some personal days from work.”

She
walked Jack and Rennie downstairs, and fidgeted the entire time they were
making small talk. She couldn’t wait until they’d left. After they finally did,
Addie grabbed a cup of coffee, and took the steps two at a time up to her
bedroom, Zeus running up behind her. Her heart beating rapidly, a grin materializing,
and a gleam of delight coming from her eyes, Addie sat on her bedroom floor,
legs crossed with her back against her bed. Zeus settled in lifting his neck
and nuzzling his head on Addie’s knee. Addie pulled out her laptop and opened
up Internet Explorer.  She googled “Justin Dickerson” and came back with pages
of hits. She rubbed Zeus’ head and said, “Let’s see what we have here, boy.”
Clicking on the first link, it read that Dr. Dickerson was an archaeologist for
the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

That
couldn’t be right
, she
thought, looking at her dog. Justin Dickerson worked at the Museum
of Ancient History. She remembered that distinctly from the book. But maybe
she did live in Cleveland. So she googled “ancient history museum + cleveland
ohio.” The curator at that museum was named Franklin Duderhoff. She typed in
another search. “Argh.” She’s not at any ancient history museum in all of the United States.

Going
back to the search results for ‘Justin Dickerson’, she found one that read that
she was a professor at Case Western Reserve University, an archaeologist for
the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, and a lecturer for the Lecture
Series on Biblical Archaeology at Ohio State University.

She
sat back in her chair, deep in thought.

Could
this Justin Dickerson really be
the
Justin Dickerson in the book? This
had to be it. Why else would she put her name in there?

“Oh.
I know.” Her thoughts excited her. “Let me check one more thing,” she said out
loud.

She
typed in the Google search box, ‘Justin Dickerson + Dead Sea Scrolls Jubilee.’

Her
eyes lit up as she read the results.

She
clicked on the link from Cleveland.com archives that read, ‘Two CWRU Professors
Attend 50
^th
Anniversary of Dead Sea Scrolls.’ She searched CWRU’s website
and found Justin E. Dickerson’s picture and bio in the faculty search.

“That
has to be her,” Addie said, staring at the picture. “How many women are there
named ‘Justin’?”

And
right under her picture, Addie saw an email address for Dr. Justin E. Dickerson.
She clicked on the link.

•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•

Cleveland
Heights
, Ohio

Same Day

“Mase.”
I ran into the family room and found him asleep on the couch.  “Mase.” I shook
him. “They know Mase. They know.”

“Who
knows? Knows what?” He rubbed his hand over his eyes, trying to wake up. “What are
you talking about, Justin?” He tugged his sweater down and readjusted himself
on the couch. “What’s wrong?”

“They
know I wrote
In the Beginning
.”

“Who
knows?”

“People.
Some people in a book club. They emailed me.”

“What
book club?”

“I
don’t know.”

“What’s
the big deal, Justin?”

“Oh
my, God.” I fell back on the floor. He peered over at me.

“What
is wrong with you? Get up off that floor and tell me what’s going on.”

“A
book club read my book.” I sat up.

“And
try to say something different than ‘book club’ in your explanation.”

“They
read it. They googled me and found information about me going to Jerusalem.”

“You
mean when you went like seventeen, eighteen years ago?”

“Thirteen.”

“Oh
sorry. Thirteen years ago. But why are you so upset?”

“I
put everybody’s real name in there. Yours, mine. Oh my goodness, Greg’s. He is
going to choke me. Man, Mase, didn’t you read my book?”

He
laughed. “You know I read that thing. But that was a long time ago.”

I
got up on my knees and faced him on the couch. “They know it’s true.” I started
whispering, “And, they’ve read
The Dead Sea Fish
.” Tears were coming out
of my eyes. “How could they have read it, Mase? It’s not even out yet?”

“Who
is this ‘they’? And stop whispering, we’re the only ones here.”

“‘They’
are this woman and her book club. I just can’t believe this.” I fell back on
the floor again, flat on my back, spread eagle.

“Justin.”
He pushed himself up on one elbow and looked down at me. “It’s okay. I thought
you were okay with all this stuff, even putting real names in. Plus, you’re
gonna tell everybody soon enough, anyway. Why are you acting like this? You
want people to know the truth. You want to tell it.”

“No,
I don’t.”

‘Yes,
you do.”

“No.
I. Don’t.” I sat up and glared at him.

“Then
why did you write the book?”

“Because
you told me to.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Cleveland
Heights
, Ohio

October 29,
2011

A
warm breeze blew in through the French doors in my study. The wind, ruffling the
leaves, sent them rushing, swirling around on the pebbled walkway.

My
mind was just like those leaves. Twirling in circles, going nowhere fast.

I
had been trying to reach Wilcox for the last week to see what else I needed to
do. But their phone stayed busy. I couldn’t imagine they had that many calls or
that they didn’t have lines that rolled over to an open line.

Maybe
I’ll just send them an email.

They
had sent me an email after I visited with confirmation that the books were set
to be released on November 21. They sent my proof copy and told me they had
sent out nine release copies.

Yeah,
I know,
I thought.
I
got a call from the book club you sent them to.

I
remembered Kate Gianopoulos had told me, “We’ll do more with this book. More
publicity. Get it out there. I think that we could do some advance reads.”

Well,
she definitely did that.

It
was really scary thinking about it going out with my name on it. All non-fiction
like. No added back story drama and made-up antics between me and my siblings.
Okay, so how they acted wasn’t necessarily made up. Claire and Greg are just as
irritating as I portrayed them in the book. And my brother Doobie really thought
(still thinks) that everybody in the Bible was Black.

The
Dead Sea Fish
(almost
changed that title after Mase made fun of it. But I think it’s rather
scientific), would be the telling of the true beginning of man’s origin on
Earth. I gave plenty of examples and said I would provide proof.

I’m
a scientist. I could do that.

I
was definitely going to be called out on this one. But no worries. Dr. Sabir
had what I needed. His buried box would provide me with the proof I needed. All
I had to do was get back to Jerusalem.

The
phone jarred me from my thoughts. I sighed. Then it rang again. It was Claire.

“Hey,
Sis,” I said.

“What’cha
doing?”

“Sitting
here thinking about when I’m gonna go back to Jerusalem.”

“Going
back? For what? You feeling okay?”

“Yep.
I’m good. There’s more to the manuscripts than what I’ve been telling
everyone.”

“Well,
you really never told anyone.”

“So
then there is
a lot
more to the manuscripts than what I’ve been telling
everyone.”

“Why
do you need to go back?”

“To
get the proof I need, so everyone will believe me. I don’t have the
manuscripts, remember?”

“That’s
true,” Claire said. So, you’re going back to get the manuscripts? They were in
pieces when we went there thirteen years ago. They’re probably in worse shape
now.”

“Not
going for the manuscripts.”

“No?”

“No.”
I paused. “You wanna come with me?”

“Yep,
just let me know when.”

“Aren’t
you going to ask me what we’re going to do, or something?”

“Nope.
I trust you. I gotta go. I’ma go to the gym. Better start working out a little
more, just in case you have me climbing in caves or whatnot.”

“We’re
old ladies now, Claire, we can’t go around climbing into caves. But when you
get out from exercising, you should come by here. I’m expecting some people.
They know all about the AHM manuscripts. They found my books. They believe the
story, and they want to come and talk to me.”

“And
you’re letting them in your house? Why didn’t you have them go to your office?”

“Gotta
start somewhere. Gotta talk about it at some point.”

“Yeah,
but not to every Tom, Dick and Jane who rings you up. And not at your house.”

I
smiled. Anyone with the Internet and who can type “whitepages.com” could get my
address. I heard the doorbell ring. I knew Mase would not be moved from the
game he was watching on his sports channel.

 “Bye,
Claire. Gotta go. Someone’s at the door. See you in a little bit. Love ya.”

“Me
too. Is that your visitors?”

“Don’t
think so. Too early. Now bye, and don’t forget to come over as soon as you get
out.”

Claire,
my younger sister, baby of our eight sibling clan, was the mother hen to all of
us. She was going to try and protect me even if it was over the phone. I got up
and headed to the front door.

It
couldn’t be them
, I
thought, glancing down at my watch.
Too early. But it is close to that time
.

I
peeked through one of the windows that flanked each side of the front door. It
was a priest.

 “Oh
my God,” I mumbled.

Oops,
I probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Who
is it?” I yelled through the glass.

“Nikhil
Chandra. Father Nikhil Chandra,” he yelled back.