The Choice (30 page)

“What are you waiting for, call the sheriff. Get him over there.”

“No.”

“Diane, what the fuck…”

She cut him off. “We call the sheriff, Dan finds out. We lose him and our link to Lance Silver.”

Sam looked at Diane, unable to understand how she’d sacrifice the most vulnerable kids—the ones with no voice.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not unfeeling. I already made a call to a friend of mine—a social worker and asked her to find a way to get those kids pulled out of there now, without tipping Sandra off.” Diane placed a steady hand on Sam’s arm. “Go back in and stay with Marcie. Dan could show up. I suspect he has eyes everywhere, and we don’t want him getting near her again. Jesse and I are going to Maggie and Richards. We’ll talk to them without you. The way you and Richard appear to butt heads, I think he’ll be more apt to open for us.”

Richard approached shoulders hunched fists clenched. He looked miserable, tired, and he appeared to seethe. “Diane, we’re leaving now, are you coming or staying? Decide now, I pull out with or without you.” When he spoke, he transferred his gaze from Diane to Sam in a combatant challenge, the one guys do when one treads on the other’s turf.

Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t move.

“I’m coming. Sam’s going back in.” Diane placed a gentle hand on Sam’s shoulder—one preventing him from moving any closer to Richard.

Sam didn’t trust Richard. No matter what Marcie said about him. He wanted one-on-one time with Richard. He was convinced Richard had his hand in some part of what Dan was involved in.

Diane walked away with Richard and climbed in the back of his full size truck. When Richard drove past, the steel warning he launched at Sam, flared in the hard set of his jaw.

All achy and banged up, Marcie slumped in a typical black wheelchair, pushed by one of the floor nurses out of the hospital. She’d no idea how Sam arranged discharge so quickly. But when she awoke after a few hours’ sleep, the nurse checked her vitals and release papers arrived.

Sam parked Diane’s SUV in the loading zone at the front door. Although warm today, heavy clouds swept in with a slight breeze, stealing away any chance of sun, which added a further gloom to Marcie’s already heavy head.

While the nurse, a slim average woman with shoulder length brown hair, held the wheelchair, Sam eased Marcie into the narrow back seat of Diane’s SUV. She knew he tried to be careful, but when he accidentally banged her cast against the door's edge, the searing pain shot up her leg, and she swore a few curses that would have curled her granny’s hair. Beads of sweat trickled down her back and into the thin blue cotton of the borrowed baggy hospital scrubs, now stuck to her back. Sam leaned over Marcie, careful not to bump her foot. His eyes were bloodshot, and he needed to shave. “You’re going to bed as soon as we get back to Diane’s.” Then he took off his black windbreaker and draped it over her.

While Sam drove, Marcie remained lucid, hovering on a level somewhere between cotton-filled grogginess and hurried anxiety ready to resolve this mess. She leaned against the door and closed her eyes, allowing the engine’s hum and vehicle motion to lull her body past the state of a limp rag doll.

Jerome appeared to her as she remembered, with a halo of golden hair. Except now, she knew who he was.

They stood together in a clearing, by a pool of tranquil water, vibrant greenery from bushes and trees surrounded them. “I found your letters.”

“She never got them; her father intervened.”

“What happened to you?”

“I think you know. I survived twenty years in the Cabildo. Hell on earth, and watched a monster take what was mine.”

“Rand Morison, he’s the one who betrayed you. But why?”

“I was in the way. Her father had plans. Rand and Isabel were his blood. Her father was pure darkness and could not exist in love.”

“I found something in the attic about Sam, his father was killed. His stepfather raised him. I don’t understand.”

Jerome wore a white shirt that shimmered over his arm. His light touch was filled with love and hope. “Marcie, you need to look here now. We learn from the past. I needed you to understand what happened to Sam, how he grew up. Darkness feeds down to the next generation if you allow it. You already saw in the notes. Your heritage comes from Rand Morison. They’re nothing but pirates who feed on the darkness of greed, take whatever’s not theirs, by whatever means. The piracy continues, instinctively handed down. But for you it’s in a secret society that arrived in Rand, his great great grandchild’s here in the community where you live. It’s not so different Marcie, what we stole in my time, and what you illegally sell now. Boats still come, but the cargo’s different. There’s one on the way up now from South America, bringing cocaine. And Richard knows. It’s pure evil, now the drug of choice. Each generation of Rand’s surviving offspring has descended further into darkness; they’re powerful and still evade detection. Dan’s not a middle guy, Marcie; you have it all wrong. He’s vying for the top. You were the target all along. It was no coincidence when you met Dan at that market after your granny died. That was arranged. Lance Silver’s wanted you as a toy for years. He sent Dan. You were his assignment. He was supposed to get your land. But Dan discovered he needed your light too. And it became a game for him to eliminate all your goodness and fill you with his darkness as he slowly dragged you into that vile sticky black tar of his underworld. Didn’t you feel the spiritual connection? You two have been together in another life. There was a lot of pain between you in that lifetime, and you died of a broken heart.”

“There’s something about him I’ve never felt with anyone. I couldn’t get past this desperate need to be with him, to connect with him. I needed his love, and it felt like he dangled it like a carrot. I’d almost have it. Then he’d snatch it away again. What’s wrong with me still to want him so much? It’s like I’m being pulled toward him, and I can’t help myself.”

“Marcie, he’s powerful, and he knew how to surpass your weak aura. He connected to you, attached his cords into you. You weren’t strong enough to fight him after your granny died.

“Did he ever love me?”

“This isn’t about love Marcie. Darkness holds no love. Haven’t you figured that out yet? He wants and needs your light; he feeds off it. It makes him stronger. The only way he can get his power is to take yours. He’s taking it from you bit by bit, and if you continue with him, he’ll suck the life force right out of you. You’ll end up with some autoimmune disease. Then you’ll be dead. Your physical body can’t take much more. Didn’t you notice your energy depleted around Dan?”

“Yes, but I made excuses.”

Jerome touched her hand. “Marcie, don’t be confused by what I’m telling you, the universe is not black and white. It’s filled with mysteries that’ll take a lifetime to tap into. And then still, you’ll know very little. Not all of Rand’s offspring have followed the darkness. Some broke away. You have that chance too. And not all were born with dark entities. It’s like a game within the shadows, to turn those of the light dark. And if they can’t, they’re eliminated, in many different ways.”

“Just remember the future’s not set; it’s what you make of it. You, Maggie, Sam, are all pawns, easily disposed and inconsequential. Don’t you get it yet? Dan and Lance care for no one but themselves. To them this is about destruction, greed, control and power.”

“What about Richard? I know he’s not bad he can’t be part of this.”

“Richard’s involved more than you know. He’s the warrior, who’s balancing on the line of light and darkness. He ventured into the muck, but it hasn’t stuck to him yet. He too is at a crossroad, and only he can make that choice. You need to trust and have faith. You need to look closer and not on a linear level. What you see in the material world is an illusion; it’s not as it is. When you get past that, you’ll see what you came from, and what you are now.”

“I’ve been sent to help you get back on the right path. I need you to learn from what I did, and what happened to Isabel and me. You’ve a choice to make, start by looking back at your childhood. Your Granny saved you, remember? As a child, your father's land oozed in immorality. It’s who he was. He liked them young. Didn’t much care where they came from. Your mother lived in the other house with you, chose not to see. You’re still deeply scarred from that cesspool. Your granny took you when you were twelve, and she broke that circle for you. Dan came from that circle, a spawn of your fathers' seed.”

“He’s my brother!” She felt the violation of intimacy.

“No, your father wasn’t blood, he was your stepfather. And Dan wasn’t raised by your father. Dan’s mother was one of his victims. But Dan is Rand, who’s come back into this life bringing his karma and powerful gift of sight, destruction and power, but even more so, he sees through the veil. And is far more gifted in sight than you’ll ever be. You need to go back to your teacher. She’s still waiting to hear from you.”

“Who’s my real father?”

“You’re not ready to know that Marcie. Your teacher will help you find him after you cut ties with Dan and put an end to his destruction. You have the power to do it and end his battle with Sam. Stop giving Dan control. Take it back, turn the tables on him but do it in love, not hate.”

“Why’s he trying to hurt Sam?”

“Sam’s from me, he’s my generation. Sam’s goodness is a threat to him because he holds Dan back from gaining all he desires: power and control. To you, it’s just drugs, marijuana and money. It’s more than that for Dan. He made a choice, and he knows more than you who the threat is: Sam, you and your light.”

“How do I turn the tables on Dan?”

A cell phone rang in the distance. Marcie jerked away from the peaceful pool to the cramped vinyl backseat of Diane’s SUV. She teetered on the brink of her dream world and conscious reality. Her back ached, and she had a kink in her neck. She shoved Sam’s coat behind her to cushion the armrest digging into her spine. Sam closed his cell phone and dumped it on the empty passenger seat.

“Change of plans, we’re going to Richard and Maggie’s.” He watched her in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”

“Sam, I don’t know how to stop Dan. We have to find a way. He’s going to destroy you, all of us, and he’s powerful.

His eyes narrowed as he first glanced at the road and then at her in the rear view mirror. “Marcie, you made me a promise. Do you remember? You said you wouldn’t withhold anything, and yet you did, when Dan cornered you in the cabin. Why?”

Would he ever forgive her? Maybe she should’ve told him. “I was scared Sam. He caught me off guard when I got out of the shower. I don’t know where he was hiding in the cabin. He wanted his marijuana from all the gardens I planted. He can’t get it himself because he doesn’t know where they’re all planted. I believed him then as I do now. He’ll hurt you, Sam.”

“Marcie I could’ve stopped him.”

“No, Sam, you couldn’t. And he still may set you up. What I didn’t believe until he cornered me is Dan is very much involved with Lance Silver’s drug empire.”

“And you do now?”

“Well, of course. When he mentioned Lance in the same breath as his threat to set you up, I knew. You should be worried, Sam. Lance Silver has the kind of power that controls politicians. People disappear. One thing’s clear, Sam, whatever they decide to set you up with, it’ll be unexpected, and there will be rock solid evidence that’ll most likely put you in prison for life.”

“You still lied to me Marcie. So how am I supposed to trust you again?”

She shut her eyes and looked away. He didn’t understand. But how could he?

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, because I’d probably do the same thing again.” Her throat thickened making her words sound strained.

“Ah shit, don’t do that.”

Marcie refused to answer him. Her eyes burned and her throat throbbed; she felt an icy wall deepen the gulf between them.

“Well that’s just great, as if I need this crap now too.” He banged the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

He turned off the Olympic highway. Thank goodness, they were almost there because the rest of the drive passed in bitter silence.

Richard owned twenty acres, ten miles from Diane’s spread, in rural Gardiner. Sam pressed the brakes and turned down the paved driveway. Only a few fir trees remained, dividing the front stretch of the property with the nearly deserted gravel road. Marcie let out a sigh, forcing out all the awful pent up anxiety. The barn, the fenced pasture, the weeping willow by the pond and the five acres of cleared green land, surrounding a beautiful two-story west coast house, appeared out of the thick fir trees. A labor of love, Richard built it for Maggie.

A long cedar porch ran the width of the house, framed by custom built Victorian spindles and posts. Richard leaned over the smooth white railing dressed in the same black jeans and long sleeved coffee colored T-shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

Marcie curled her fingers around the back of Sam’s seat as he parked beside Richard’s big truck. The way Richard glared, the way he gripped the railing, she wondered if he’d launch over it the moment Sam opened his door. All that burning male pride, she couldn’t remember seeing Richard in such a state, even amid his fights with Dan.

Sam popped open her door on the side where her feet dangled. He reached in to help her out, but she slapped his hand away. It was so like him to think he knew what was best, and how it was to be done. Marcie slid forward and lowered her leg out the door.