On Tenterhooks (34 page)

“Okay,” said Abby, still writing.
“Wait a second
.
Veronica
, you said your mom died in Cozumel?”

“Yes
.”

“How?”

“She was SCUBA diving.
Well, technically, she was
learning
to SCUBA div
e, going for her open water l
icense.”

“And you?” Abby asked. “Do you ever SCUBA dive?”

“Any chance I get.
In fact I’ve been to Cozumel several
times;
it is one of my favorite places to go
.
Why?”

“Holy crap, guys!” said Abby excitedly
.
“I just got us a clue or a fact or whatever you want to call it!”

Martin woke
when
Abby
leaned forward off the bench and
began talking
rapidly in a conspiratorial tone.
The group huddled close to listen.

“Think about this
:
Steve
,
your wife was the safest driver in the world and an insurance adjuster, and
she
died in a car wreck. Martin, you are a
pharmacist
,
and you told me that your daughter died of an accidental overdose
.
And
Veronica
, your mother passed away trying to learn the very thing that you love to do. I don’t think we could get more irony if we tried!”

She looked excited and scared at the same time.

“And Zack,” she said
.
“He was
one
of
the best quarterback
s in
S Tech
’s long football history, a
shoo
-in for the NFL
.
And he
died .
.
. from
a helmet accident?  I am sorry, but
that
is way too much
for this
to be just coincidence
.
Each of the people we love
died in some ironic way.”

“No,” said Martin, shaking his head.
“
It’s not ironic.
It’s just plain sick
.
That makes it sound like
we are
the butt of some cosmic joke
.
I don’t buy that.”

“You might not buy it, Martin,” said
Veronica
. “But you do have to face that it happened
.
Abby’s right
.
This
is too much
to be coincidence
.
We have to consider the idea that
maybe
someone
made these things happen.”

“You mean like murdered them,
Veronica
?” asked Steve. “Come on, that’s hard to swallow.”

“But not impossible,” said
Veronica
.
“Think about it
—
none of us were there when they died
.
Steve, your wife was alone
.
Martin, you were not in that dorm room
with your daughter
.
And I most certainly was not in Mexico
.
What if somebody
were
there, or tampered with the
cars
or the SCUBA tanks?”

“No,” said Abby
.
“Zack wasn’t alone
.
He was walking off the field in front of thousands of people.”

“And
Veronica
,” said Steve. “Your
m
om wasn’t alone
—
there was probably a whole class there right?”

“Yea
h,
but
even so, maybe somebody was there and found a way to make these things happen.”

“
The
preacher
,” said Martin.

Veronica
shivered.

“E
ach time I dream about Julie’s death, it’s
the preacher’s
face
that
I see behind the wheel of the other car
,” said Steve.

“I see
the
preacher
hovering over my
Maggie
in my nightmare,” said Martin.

“And
I am pretty sure
he’s
the
one who kills
Zack in my dreams
,
too,” said Abby, fear on her face.

The initial board
ing
call for their flight interrupted any further discussion. They packed up without another word about
it
and joined the throng that was funneling toward the jetway
. As they made it past the attendant, Martin beckoned Steve to stay back a few feet for a private
word
.

“You know, Steve,” he said. “She
is
onto something
.
How is she going to handle it if he shows up again?
”

“I am hoping that Abby never meets him,” replied Steve
.
As he did, he took an unconscious look over
his
should
er
into the terminal
.
There was no sign of the
preacher
.

“Amen to that,” said Martin.
“But something tells me that if we get to where we’re going, if we get to the heart of it, we’ll be seeing him again.”

A
non-committal grunt from Steve was all he got in reply. Martin sighed and shook his head.
As they neared the end of the jetway, Abby was waiting for them by the doorway to the plane.

“Hey Steve, c
an we swap seats? Martin, I’d like to work on your memory a bit if you’re up for it
.
I’d like to take some notes.”

“Fine with me,” said Steve.

“Me too,” said Martin. “Lead on, young lady!”

Their seats were only 10 rows from the front, three seats on each side of the aisle
.
The crowd on the plane was relatively light
.
It was a 737 and held
nearly
200
passengers
,
but by St
eve’s
guess,
it was barely half-
full
.

They had the entire row to themselves, six seats for four people
.
Steve and
Veronica
were
on one side, Martin and Abby on the other. Eventually the aisle traffic dwindled and disappeared. The flight attendant
s
did
a
manual headcount and locked the door in place
.
Veronica
breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“You were expecting him to stroll through that door
?
” Steve asked.

“Maybe.
Abby’s right you know
.
This is
more than coinciden
ce, way more
.
And I think that nasty
pastor
is behind it.”

She leaned over,
shut
the
window shade and closed her eyes.

“Martin couldn’t agree with you more,” Steve
said
.

“Yeah, well,
I recognized him as
the brains of the outfit when you two showed up at my door.”

She smiled
,
but didn’t open her eyes
.
Steve
turned and looked at Martin and Abby who were already deep into their conversation
.
He watched them for a minute
.
Martin talked excitedly, waving his hands, as Abby
scribbl
ed furiously in her notepad to catch up. Eventually he gave up watching and closed his own eyes
.

Abby’s ominous detective work left Steve uneas
y.  He acknowledged
that perhaps he was dealing
with something well beyond his
ability to control. How much more was involved
,
and how m
uch could they really handle?  
Doubt wrestled with optimism in his mind. As he drifted off to sleep, he heard Abby’s girlish giggle
,
and it warmed him, if only a little bit.
He hoped
her
deduction skills would
indeed
pay off
,
and they’d have a purpose
or at least a next step
when they landed
.

By the time the flight reached its cruising altitude, Steve and
Veronica
were both asleep.

Chapter
3
2

They touched down in Cozumel shortly after
4
PM
.
The flights and the stopover in Houston had been uneventful
.
For nearly the entire first leg of the journey, Abby had grilled Martin extensively and developed copious notes
.
During the short layover between flights, the group ventured out into the airport
just long enough
for a quick lunch
and bathroom break
.
Re-boarding, Steve noticed that the flight had even fewer passengers than before.
He supposed the Cozumel vacation crowd would come later in the week.

For the second leg of the flight, Abby parked herself by a window and spread her notes around her
.
She
put her
ear buds
in
, donned her sunglasses
,
and
made it abundantly
evident that she was no longer in a conversational mood
.
Martin gave her space and took an entire row for himself, eager for an opportunity to take a nap.

The first
thing
Steve noticed
after they landed
was the heat
.
Even through the jetway, he could feel the pulsating and oppressive tropical weather
.
Texas had been mild compared to the heat here in Mexico.
As they entered the small terminal of the
Cozumel Airport,
he noted
the giant welcome banner directly opposite the gateway: Welcome to Mexico!/ ¡Bienvenidos a Mexico!
 

“So,
what
’s first
?
”
he
asked
.

“
W
e’ve got to get through customs,”
Veronica
replied. “
After that, well,
t
he island isn’t
that
big and we are right outside San Miguel, the main town
.
But since we don’t know exactly what we’re doing here, I guess
after customs
we should
locate some transportation
.
”

The trip through customs was little more than a wave of their passports and the requisite inane questions about the intent and extent of their trip
.
They had all agreed to respond as if it
were
a vacation, despite the fact that they had no big luggage, no SCUBA gear or even a golf bag
.
After making it through with little scrutiny
, they
beat
a path to the bathroom and
then
gathered back in the
entryway to the terminal
.

Veronica
insisted on renting
the car
this
time
.
She was well experienced
in renting a car
on the island
for her regular diving
pilgrimages
.
She also knew that the cost of the rentals, like most everything else here, was negotiable.

When they walked out of
the airport to locate their rented vehicle
, t
he sun was blazing overhead in full force.
Warm weather
had not yet reached the east coast, so Abby was the only one prepared for the
heat
of Cozumel in April.

“Bring the heat, baby!”
Abby
said, staring up at the sky
.
She took off her jacket and
basked
in the
warmth
that soaked into her arms and shoulders
.
It felt good after hours aboard the chilly airplane. After a brief search, they located their gunmetal gray
rental car
and dumped their bags unceremoniously in the trunk
.
Steve and Martin took the back seat
, while
Abby rode shotgun. The black vinyl seats did
nothing
to combat
the oppressive heat.
As
Veronica
maneuvered the car out of the parking lot, they bombarded her with cries for lowered windows and “max AC!” 
Abby laughed and rolled down her window
.
She looked natural in the heat
.
Her long slender arm rested comfortably on the sill of the window
,
and her
blonde
hair whipped in and out of the window as the car gained speed.

“Okay, so we got the car,”
Veronica
said, turning her head so that the others could hear her over the wind. “Where do we want to take it?”

“I dunno,” said Steve. “Abby, any chance all those note
s
you’ve been
taking
point us in some kinda direction?”

“No, not exactly.
I did find some very int
eresting stuff though.”

“Do tell,” said
Veronica
.

“Well,
l
isten to this.”  She took her
now-
familiar notepad from her
backpack
and flipped through her notes.

“Where is it?’ she said, mostly to herself
,
as she scanned the notes covering several pages.
“Aha, here it is!  Steve, in the letter from your wife, she says something that made me wonder who she was talking about: ‘There is so much at stake here and we are all watching, listening and praying.
’
It kinda shocked me ‘cause there is something
almost identical
in my letter
from Zack
.”

She flipped through the pages of notebook and read further
:
“‘
We R so worried about UR well-bein, but you gotta be strong, for everyone. U gotta show them the way!
All of us R watching, listening & praying 4 U.
’
And
,
when I talked to Martin about the message he got from his daughter, he recalled that she said something very similar
.”

“Yep.
As soon as she mentioned that part of Steve’s note, I realize
d
that
Maggie
had said something
just like that
to me, something about being very important to the world and that everyone was watching and praying for me to be strong.”

“Exactly,” said Abby. “I don’t know what it means
yet
, but
there is
something going on with it
.”

Steve pondered the connections Abby had made.
“Well, i
f nothing else, I suppose it does tell us that the same person or group sent those messages.”

Martin shook his head
.
“So
,
you stil
l don’t believe in it, do you?”

Steve sighed
,
“I don’t know Mart
in. I
believe it’
s something, but I am not sold yet
on that note being from Julie
.
”

“You are a tough one to please
, man
!” said Martin.

“
Hey
!
I am here,
am I not
?”

He
noticed that they were winding through narrow city streets, crowded with p
edestrians, cars and livestock.
“Speaking of here,”
he
said
,
“
where
are we going
Veronica
?
”

“Well, since no one could decide, I figured our first stop’d be the Hotel Carmelita
.
It’s where I stay when
I come down here
, a
s
mall place with
great views.”

“A hotel?” said Steve. “Are we staying long enough for a hotel?”

“How should I know?
If you
’ve
got
a better destination in mind, I’m
all ears.”

“Abby?” Steve asked
.
“Anything?”

Abby shook her head.
“No.
I’ve been scanning all my notes and stuff
, but nothing’s hit me yet
.
For what it’s worth, it still feels right to me that we’re here
.”
S
he smiled sheepishly
at him
.

“
Fine
.
The Carmelita it is.”

He sat back and watched the small city of
San Miguel
pass by in the warm afternoon light
.
In other circumstances, Steve would
have
appreciate
d
the trip
.
He and Julie had loved to travel
.
The cruise that would’ve taken them here was to be their first trip
this far south
.
Looking at the
streets
paved
in cobblestones, the whitewashed buildings with their terracotta roofs and the bright sundresses worn by every woman
he saw
on the street, Steve knew Julie would
ha
ve loved it.
Getting
here
like this, without her, was more painful than he had anticipated.

Steve reminisced in silence all the way to the hotel
, and
was startled to see that they
arrived
so quickly
.

A simple “
W
e’re here
,
” from
Veronica
announced their arrival
.

As they
climbed out from the back seat
, Steve and Martin were greeted by
the clean and airy smell of the ocean
.

“Beautiful, huh?’ Martin asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s timeless,” Martin
mused,
“
like
they stopped moving forward at just the right time
—
got enough to go on
but
not
enough to screw it up
.”

Abby and
Veronica
walked to the front door to reserve the rooms. As Martin headed to the trunk to unload, Steve stepped out into the side street to take
in the surroundings
. The small hotel was directly across
from
the main beach road. On the other side of the
street
were
open-
fronted stores, teeming with
shoppers
.
The stores looked like a patchwork quilt
.
Jewelry stores, souvenir stands, tequila and cigar dealers and t-shirt vendors
were
all vying for the attention of the throngs of tourists crowding the sidewalks
.

Between the
storefronts,
Steve could catch tiny
sliver views
of the aqua waters
that
Julie had fallen in love with
.
In the distance, out in the water,
he
counted four giant cruise ships
anchored.