Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (4 page)

“My mother’s dead.
I have to say that?”

“Have a strong
back story and don’t give away any of the truth. We don’t need this hitting the
papers just yet. There’s still work to do if we’re going to bust this gang.
Here’s your social security number, just in case.”

Tina read the
number repeatedly as they entered the Gateway’s parking lot.

“One more thing,
take care of yourself. When were you born?”

Tina gave the new
information without hesitation.

Miss Shoe pulled
over to park and began rapid-fire questioning.

“What’s your
name?”

“Christina Rosita Benson.”

“Where have you
been?”

“Veracruz with my
parents.”

“Alright, Tina!
You can do this!” Miss Shoe gave Tina a brief hug.

“Aren’t you coming
with me?”

“Afraid not. 
You’re on your own.  Go straight home. Your father’s waiting for you. You can
find your way home without me. Aside from me and your dad, trust no one. Here’s
my card. Call me when you get there.”

Miss Shoe gave her
a business card that said “Fred’s Boots Incorporated”. Tina looked at it and
started laughing, the first time she had laughed in weeks.

“I know. It’s like
a joke. After you and your dad get moved to your new location, go to this
address.” She gave Tina another business card. “This place will be near your
new home. They’re expecting you. They will know you’ve been through physical
and psychological abuse and will help you heal. Well, this is it, Christina
Rosita. You’ve got a new identity, a passport, and contact information. Take
the Gateway Pedestrian Standard. The sign says a 15-minute wait. Make it work.”

Tina nodded,
placed the cards in her handbag and opened the car door.

“Bye, Miss Shoe!
Sorry I called you what I did. I can’t thank you enough,” Tina said. Tears
filled her eyes. She gave Miss Shoe a brief hug and then took another deep
cleansing breath.

“Go now!” Miss
Shoe said urgently.

 Tina briefly
smiled as she closed the car door and then walked up to get in the pedestrian
line at the border crossing.

Suddenly, shots
fired. Tina and the other people in line were hustled into a small lobby.
Customs officials locked the doors and motioned for the travelers to duck down.
Guards drew their guns. Before someone pushed her down, Tina managed one quick
look out the window and struggled to see more. Then she ducked down and closed
her eyes but could not shut out what she had seen.

Abbi couldn’t
sleep. Sometime, well after midnight, she heard Lowell arrive. The Pelletiers
all went downstairs to greet him. Abbi wanted to, but figured this was the
Pelletier’s private family matter. Besides, it had been a year or so since she
had seen Lowell and it was not like they had stayed in touch. To go downstairs
might be seen as an intrusion. She waited for things to quiet down, for Louise
to return to the lower bunk. It seemed to take hours.

During the wait,
she heard bits of the conversation. Lowell was going on an internship soon. He
sounded excited. Abbi felt happy for him. His first job might be in Washington
D.C. with someone named Mrs. Hightower. She couldn’t catch all that he said,
but it sounded intriguing, even adventurous, to Abbi.

Louise finally
returned to the bedroom while the parents helped Lowell bring his things in
from the car and take them to Lowell’s room in the basement. Later, after
everyone settled down for the night, Abbi tried to relax her body, starting
with her feet.

Feet, relax. Go to
sleep. Ankles, relax. Go to sleep. Legs, relax. Go to sleep. It was useless.

Her whole body
felt tingly, and she knew a warning would be coming from a long distance away. When
this happened, every ounce of her body acted as a receptor. Abbi used to think
it was normal, that every kid had these experiences. But now, she thought maybe
it wasn’t so normal. Or maybe people just don’t discuss it. She stayed in bed,
waiting for the vision to take shape, knowing it would.

She tossed. Sleep
eluded her. Rest would not come

Louise moaned. Finally
she said, “Abbi, what is it with you? I need to get some sleep!”

Abbi curled up in
the fetal position, hoping that this would bring her comfort.  Laying there in
a tight ball, she reflected on her parents and tried to formulate a plan to reach
them.

Could the
Pelletiers help? Probably not. They weren’t cut out of the same cloth as her
family.

Over the past two years,
Abbi had seen a pattern in Louise, and the Pelletier parents, a blueprint for
the predictable routine of their lives. At first she saw it as a pattern she
longed for, more normal than her family’s way of doing things. It was a series
of ballgames and sporting events. Louise’s parents worked during the day and
always returned home at night. If there was some sporting event on TV, they
were watching it. And on weekends, the Pelletiers would go to local ballgames
in the area. The Pelletiers liked to observe, not participate. Safe.
Predictable. Routine. Too predictable. Couch potato stuff. Mind-numbingly
predictable!

Lowell had always
seemed a little different, either seeking adventure or playing his trumpet, but
obviously a thorn in his father’s side.  Fairly often his father showed his
annoyance. No matter how much Mr. Pelletier encouraged or pushed him, Lowell
had no interest in games with balls. His father cruelly joked that it was
because Lowell didn’t have any. No matter how hard Lowell had tried to prove
otherwise, Abbi had sensed that he felt rejected.

Abbi did not want
to be the recipient of Mr. Pelletier’s scorn. Outwardly, he seemed nice to her
but he seemed to have a short fuse. She stayed out of his sight as much as
possible. Although he attempted to be polite to her, she felt that whatever she
did to secure her parents return home, she’d have to do it on her own. Somehow
she would get her parents back.

Staying with the
Pelletiers always reminded her of how much she missed the laughter that
punctuated her family life. She missed the spontaneity. Her father liked
adventure, often putting on his hiking boots before leaving home, and he would
say, “Gotta go! These boots are made for walking!”

Abbi would hug him
and say, “Bye, Daddy.”  Then she would turn to her mother and say, “I wouldn’t
want to be in your shoes.”

On those occasions
when her mother would call from work, Abbi would play along, asking how the
shoe business was going.

Her mother
light-heartedly would start her phone conversations with, “I’m Miss Shoe
calling from Fred’s Boots Incorporated.” And she would end with, “Remember me.
I’m Miss Shoe.”

Abbi would laugh
and reply, “I miss you too!”

Recently her
mother had said, “We have a large order to fill this time. Boots and shoes, I
mean.” But she said it with hesitation, and the look on her face led Abbi to be
concerned, more than ever. “And take a look at these shoes I’m wearing!”

She lifted a foot
to show off a substantial-looking dress shoe.

“Let me guess,
Fred’s Boots! Mom, stop pretending. You can talk to me!”

“OK,” her mother
said, looking straight into her eyes. It was as if she were trying to relay some
unspoken message. “These are different shoes. Unique. I have a feeling they may
save my life someday.”

Her mother had looked
very serious, as if threatened by something sinister. A sense of foreboding came
over Abbi. Something had her mother on edge.

Minutes later, her
father hugged her longer than ever, like he didn’t want to let her go—like, if
he did, they might never be together again.

Then they left,
her mother looking brave but somewhat distracted.

Since then, Abbi had
waited for her mother’s phone call. And waited. She missed the pretense now,
the laughter. She missed the sound of her mother’s voice. She missed her
parents.

Her parents pretended
to travel frequently, as if they went to various shoe expos around the country.
In reality, they did secretive things and left Abbi with a lot of worry and
minimal spending money.  The longer the away time, the bigger the ache in her
heart. A huge question mark formed in her mind about what they really did but,
like so many things, Abbi figured it must be in her best interest not to know.

Sometimes, when
she asked about something they were doing, her father would say, “Information
will be dispensed on an as-needed basis. You don’t need it. We don’t dispense
it.” Then he would laugh, and somehow he made Abbi laugh too.

Whatever work
Abbi’s parents did must be important--so important that it took them away often,
sometimes detaining them unexpectedly. She knew their lives revolved around
taking action to make the world a better, safer place. That was something to be
proud of, but Abbi suspected her parents’ work put them at high risk for
danger. Now, she worried that their lives were doomed to come to an end sooner
than necessary.

As Abbi lay there
trembling in bed, the vision came in full force. A sudden flash jolted Abbi’s
body and let her know that her own immediate situation would soon change. Abbi
was getting a hazy picture of places and strange drawings but nothing made
sense. She couldn’t focus but her mind wouldn’t let go of it. Abbi’s whole body
stretched out and shook. She kept replaying the same fuzzy image. Focus, she
thought. Focus. Who is that?

“MOM!” She cried
out. Abbi’s body jerked, as if she were fighting off monsters. That was her
mother and she was involved in a horrible brawl.

 As quickly as it
came, the vision left, and Abbi lay there drenched in her own sweat, exhausted.

“Abbi, wake up.
You’re having a nightmare,” Louise said.

“Not a nightmare.
Worse,” Abbi said, feeling weak from the intensity of the vision and confused
by what she had just seen.

“Go to sleep,”
Louise said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

Before she fell
asleep, feeling clammy all over, Abbi realized that to stay here, safe and
sound, and do
nothing
while her parents were missing went against
everything her parents had taught her.

That morning,
after the especially restless night, Abbi couldn’t wait to get something
started toward her parents’ safe return. At the first streaming of daylight,
before the Pelletier parents were up for their first cup of coffee, Abbi was at
her computer, still trying to find drawings online that matched the ones her
mother had. So far, that’s all she had to go on--that, and the compelling suspicion
that she had to act fast.

Abbi’s cell phone
rang and she tried quickly to stop the sound.

“Hello?” she
whispered, hoping it was her parents talking nonsense about the shoe business,
but it was too early for them to call.

Instead, the caller
again identified himself as Shoe Clerk. This could not be good, Abbi thought.

Louise’s brother
Lowell, apparently up early too, walked in with a pile of his mail and
overheard Abbi talking on the house phone.

“I thought you would
call sooner,” Abbi whispered with urgency into the phone. “Where are they? When
can I see them?

No comment.

“Just tell me
they’re OK.”

Abbi turned her
head so that Lowell wouldn’t see her tears while she received a long litany of
what to do—stay off social networks, avoid crowds, stay in the designated safe
place, and always be with a trusted friend.

“Are they OK?”

“I can’t say. We
know you have concerns,” Shoe Clerk said stiffly. “We…we can’t force you, but
we’d like to ask, just ask, that you lay low, for your own good, for maybe as
much as two months. Don’t do anything that would put you at risk. Be patient. These
things take time.”

“I want my parents
back!” Abbi said loudly, forgetting the sleeping household.

“Listen. You may
be in grave danger. Am…am I making that clear? For right now, just stay put and
talk to no one. Let me know if anyone suspicious tries to get in touch with
you. Stay off the Internet and your phone as much as possible.”

“OK,” she said.
“No social networking. No strangers. I get it. Can’t you tell me anything about
my parents?”

“Not yet. I’ll
call when I can tell you something. Consider me your guardian agent. Good-bye.”

“Really. Guardian
agent. I like that! Call me. Soon. Really soon.”

“Stay safe.”

 Abbi stared at
the phone and then slammed it down.

“Damn it!”

“Yes?” Lowell asked.

Abbi wiped her
face and swung around to see Lowell. How long had it been? He didn’t look
pizza-faced or fat anymore. In fact, he looked so good that she stuttered when
she tried to speak.

“H- h-hello, Lowell!
Yeah, uh, this guy Shoe Clerk. He said he doesn’t know when my parents are
returning. It could stretch into two months.”

“OUCH!”

With her back
turned to Lowell, Abbi said a raspy “yeah” and looked at Lowell’s sprawling
stack of envelopes on the table where he had tossed them, odds and ends from a
semester’s worth of forgotten mail.

She glanced back
at him. He turned over an envelope in his hand and looked excited. She noticed
his muscles pumping up as he opened the envelope. He had definitely changed
since she last saw him!

The mail reminded
Abbi that over the next two months she would need to check the mail at home on
Meriweather Lane, feed the chickens, and keep an eye on things. That was her
routine in the past, when her parents were gone, but they always came back in a
couple of days. It’s not that she didn’t want to do it. She wanted her parents
back.

“So, nothing this
time?” Lowell asked.

“I’m not sure,”
Abbi replied. “He couldn’t tell me anything, but something is different. Very
different.”