On Tenterhooks (16 page)

Chapter
2
1

“Daddy?”

“Daddy?” the voice repeated in his ear. “Daddy, it’
s me.”

Martin stirred in his sleep. The voice
. . .
something was wrong.

Martin opened his e
yes
.
He’d fallen asleep at his HAM
radio
rig
and h
is earphones were still on
. As he blinked slowly, waking up, he
heard the low level background hiss of his
transceiver.
He’d been dreaming again
.
Maggie
had been in it, but the details of the dream wafted out of his mind with the airiness of smoke.

He yawned
.
As he reached up to remove his headphones, he heard the voice again.

“Daddy? It’s me
. . .
i
t
’s your S
nugglebug.”

Martin froze
.
He wasn’t dreaming
.
He heard the voice over the white static of his radio
.
It was faint but
perfectly clear
.
It was
Maggie
.

“
Maggie
?” he said out
loud
.
“
Mags
? It’s Daddy, honey, it’s Daddy! Wh
—
”

“Daddy,” the voice interrupted. “You have to listen to me
.
I can’t hear you, so please just listen.”

“I got your letter,” the voice said
, trembling
. “Daddy, I know I hurt you
.
I am so sorry
about
how
it .
. .
happened
.
”

Martin heard the voice waver and pause
.
S
he was crying.

“Dadd
y,
p
lease don’t be mad at me
.
I love you so much
,
and
I
wanted to make you proud
.
I wish you could see me now
.
Everything is so beautiful here and so right. But listen
to me
,
Dad
.
You can’t worry about me and the past
.
I am fine now
—
I am more than fine
.
You have to look out for you
.
You’ve got to be strong, no matter what happens.
You are SO important to the world. All of us are watching, listening and praying for you. Please Dad
dy
, trust me on this one
.
Love me like you always have
,
and I’ll be loving you right back
.
I won’t be there to hold, but I will be holding onto you with my love
. . .
always
.
I love you
,
Daddy
,
and I always will
.
Goodbye for now. Please be strong.”

Martin
froze
, staring straight ahead at the controls of the radio. He turned the volume
knob
up and
smashed
the earphones
into the sides of
his head, straining to hear more
.
He remained silent and still for several minutes, hop
ing that she’d come back
.
A
loud white hiss of static was all he got for his efforts. He replayed her words in his head
.
It had been
Maggie.
He was certain of it
.
But how?

A recording? Not possible
.
She had
said
that she had received his letter
.
He assumed that meant the message he had submitted through the
Say Goodbye
website
yesterday
. T
here was no mistaking that it had been
Maggie
’s beautiful
voice in his ear moments ago.

He had tinkered with HAM radio
for years, long
enough to
have heard of
Electronic Voice
Phenomenon
, a branch of paranormal research that claimed to record ghostly voices from electronic devices
.
Martin
had
long ago dismissed it as bunk. E
ven if it were real, it was nothing like this
.
EVPs were limited to short phrases and
words that answered questions,
not the
dialogue
he had just heard.

Maggie
had
died
two months ago
.
Yet, Martin had just heard her, as if she had picked up the phone and dialed his number
.
He heard t
he sadness in her voice
,
and he heard
her love
.
Hearing
her
again had been a brilliant firework explosion of joy that
had
smoldered into a melancholy ache in his heart. He didn’t understand it, nor was he confident that he ever would
.
But it
was
Maggie
.
There was
no question in his heart
.
S
he had given him a message: 
be strong
.
Martin promised
her and himself
that he would.

Chapter
2
2

After Steve found the list of names, it
only took
him
a few minutes to determine his next move
.
He scanned the laptop screen
for the phone numbers of the other people on the list
.
There were
dozens of
Veronica
Ryder
s
in New York City. He skipped her
.
There were no listing
s
for
Abigail Nikko
in San Antonio, but there were about a dozen Nikkos listed
.
He’d come back to her
.
There was only one
Martin Abingdon
listed in Suffolk, V
irginia
.
It was as good a place as any to start.

Steve picked up his
phone
and dialed the number for Martin Abingdon
.
It was 7:20 in the evening, so
the man might actually be
at home
.
After the third ring, the line connected.

“Hello?”

“H
ello
. I
s this Martin Abingdon?”

“Speaking
.”

“Great!
Martin, my name is Steve Connor. I am calling you from Charlotte, North Carolina.
This might sound weird, but t
he reason for my call is I think I might be the target of some kind of internet scam
,
and I think you might be
a victim
,
too
.
Did you happen to get a recent message from a company called
Say Goodbye to Me
?”

“Yes, actually I did,
j
ust this week
.
Do you know what’s going on with my
Maggie
?”

Steve could hear tension in the voice on the other end.
“I’m sorry, no,”
he
said, unsure of how to proceed.

“She’s gone, but, but, she spoke to me,” Martin stumbled. “I don’t understand.”

Steve began to wonder if the call
had been
a mistake, but
decided
to press on.

“Sir, you said you did get the message from
Say Goodbye to Me
?”
he asked.

“Yes, I did.
And I wrote her a letter
.
Then
last night she contacted me through my radio
.
I know it sounds impossible.
S
he died not very long ago
.
But I heard from her last night. I don’t understand.”

Steve felt his stomach drop
.
He pic
ked up the
letter he’d found in his office.
Were they related?  It sounded similar.
T
o Steve
, this man
sounded sincere
.
Confused, perhaps even scared, but definitely sincere.

“I can’t explain it
,
Martin.
But I think we’re being set up for some reason
.
I don’t know why yet
.
But I intend to find out
.
My wife also died recently
,
and someone forged a letter from her and sent it to me
.
But
I don’t think it is wise for us to talk
more
over the phone. Can you meet me? I can come to you first thing in the morning.”

“Ca
n you tell me what’s going on?”

“No, at
least not yet,” said Steve, “b
ut we need to talk
.
I think you’d be very interested to hear what I have to say.”

“Okay, y
es
then, tomorrow would be fine.
I am in Virginia, but I guess you already know that.
There’s a place here in downtown Suffolk
—
Woody’s Diner.
Can you
meet
me
there around noon?
Give me a minute
,
and I can get the address for you.
”

“Woody’s Diner
at
noon,” Steve repeated, taking a note
.
“
I can get the address online.
See you then
,
Martin
.
Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”

“
I just hope you can bring me some answers
.”

“I’ll do my best
.”

“I’ll be the
tall
black gentleman
.
I’ll be w
earing
a .
.
. blue
shirt and yellow tie.”

“Got it,” said Steve. “See you tomorrow.”

The next morning,
Steve was late to the airport. There had been a large wreck on I-77 that he hadn’t counted on
.
The wreck, combined with the general Charlotte
morning
commute left him with only minutes to spare for parking and the security checkpoint
.
He parked in the garage and jogged toward the terminal
.
Charlotte-Douglas International
was busy, as always
.
As he
hurried
past the ticket counters, he was thankful that he
had checked in online and that he
only had a small carry
-
on to deal with
.
He whispered a second silent
“
thank you
”
when he got to the security line and saw that it was not
creeping
around the corner
,
as he had seen it in times past
.

He kept
close to
the travelers in front of him as he filed through the
slow-
moving line
, and
took the opportunity to
email
Randy
that
he would be out of the office “for a while
.
”
He knew it was a cop out
,
but he didn’t know how he could explain to Randy what he was after, so he opted to avoid the conversation altogether.

He checked his watch.
It
was going to be close. He took off his shoes and his belt well in advance of the counter
,
and triple-checked his pockets to make sure he
carried
nothing that might slow
the process
down.
Having
made it through the
body scanner
beep free
, he
waited impatiently for his luggage and belongings to follow. When he finally was able to collect it all, he made a beeline for the benches to put on his shoes
.

A large group of traveling teenagers engaged in the redressing ritual occupied all of the nearby benches
, so he walked to the unoccupied
rocking chairs
further away from the security station
. He dumped his belongings unceremoniously onto the
chair
and began weaving his belt back through the loops in his jeans.

“Does it hurt, my son?”

Steve looked up
.
Across the
small alcove from his chair
, a man dressed as a pastor was riding
past him
on
one of airport’s
moving walkway
s
.
To Steve,
his
smile
looked contrived and almost hostile.
The man
himself
looked like a human version of the thing in his dreams.
In the bright sunshine of the terminal, the preacher’s face was pale
—
too pale
.
It was yellowish like ancient parchment, and just as wrinkled.

“Excuse me?”
Steve called to him
.

“Does it hurt?” the p
reacher
yelled to Steve
. “The pain you feel?”
The walkway was carrying him away
,
but he remained
turned against the stream of other passengers who tried to move around him.

“I would imagine it does,”
the voice called out
, “b
ut perhaps not as much
as the pain
she felt!”
He cocked his head
, like a stray dog listening for a far-off call to dinner
and h
is smile deepened.
The terminal PA crackled, announcing the final boarding call for Steve’s flight.

“
Hey!” Steve shouted at him. “Who the hell are you?” He
moved to the edge of the walkway and considered jumping onto it
,
then
saw from the corner of his eye that his shouts had caught the attention of several TSA agents across the
terminal
.

“Letitgo,” said the p
reacher
. It seemed be a whisper
.
But Steve heard it just the same. The man laughed gleefully, as if he
were
the only one in on a private joke
.
..Then, unceremoniously, he
turned
away and
quickly became lost in the heavy line of people on the walkway.

Steve gathered his bag
and considered
running to the other end of the walkway to tackle
the guy
right there in the airport
, a move that
would probably get him arrested.
Then, the sight of a
jogging traveler reminded him how close he was to missing his flight
.
He
turned and ran to the gate
,
becoming
the last in a small line of stragglers
.

He was out of breath and frustrated. He did not like being late
,
and he did not like being played
.
This morning he
was both
,
and it did not sit well
.
His run-in with the jaundiced man of
G
od had his mind buzzing with questions. Did that
p
reacher know what
had happened to Julie
,
or was it mere coincidence
?
He certainly looked like the figure
in all those
nightmare
s
.
Was
this
just reading too much into everything? Maybe
Steve
was trying too hard to make sense of what was going on.

No.
It was the same man
. And he had answers that I should’ve forced him to give me.

He ground teeth in anger and silently cursed himself for not forcing an explanation from the preacher.