My Soul to Keep Part 25

Mr. Gaines was tall, like her father had been, with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and a West Indian accent. When he spoke to Bea, Jessica happened to notice, he sometimes lighted his hand across her shoulder before self-consciously slipping it away.

"See you Monday night, Bea," he said at last, nodding.

"Uh-huh ..." Jessica muttered as they walked to Bea's car.

"Not a word out of you," Bea said.

"I approve," Jessica said, smiling.

"Oh, just hush." Jessica saw, right before her mother ducked into the car after opening her door, that she was smiling too.

This was another sign, Jessica decided. Everything was unfolding as it should. She could leave her mother now because Bea wouldn't need to rely on her company so much. In all of these years, her mother had never paid attention to any man, despite urgings from her daughters. Now, out of nowhere, here was this Randall Gaines coming to her house. Although it was none of her business, Jessica wondered if her mother was enjoying a s.e.x life. Bea was only in her sixties, after all, and Jessica planned on enjoying s.e.x with David until she was ready for the grave.

The thought stole the smile from her face: David would still be a young man then. Would he take an old woman, even a woman only Bea's age, in his arms? Jessica studied her mother objectively, noting that she was still honestly pretty. The skin on her face didn't sag, except slightly at the jowls. She had a few laugh lines, but no real wrinkles. The Benton women had always been blessed with uncanny youthfulness as they aged. Could David, or Dawit, or whatever she was supposed to call him now, love her when she grew into her mother's face?

If only she could keep her own face, always. Always.

Jessica caught herself, disgusted. Lord, what was going through her mind? Surely every man is vanity, she thought, remembering the words from the Book of Psalms. She was willing to sacrifice her salvation for a young, pretty face?

At her house, Bea turned on the CD boom box Jessica had bought her for Christmas two years before, playing her old-time gospel songs. Bea always complained that the heavy sound of the new drummer and ba.s.s player at church was more like a rock concert than a worship service. She preferred the tried songs, by Mahalia Jackson and The Staple Sisters and Alex Bradford. Jessica understood her point. The old songs were saturated with sorrow and joy like no others. Even a simple organ flourish or a soloist's earnest voice could bring unexpected tears to her eyes, like now. Out of Bea's eyesight, Jessica flicked a tear away with her fingertip.

Lord Jesus, am I doing the right thing?

Bea hummed the tune to "My G.o.d Is Real" along with Mahalia, taking a seat across from Jessica on her plastic-covered living room sofa. The plastic hissed beneath her weight. "What's going on in that busy head of yours?" Bea asked.

Jessica half smiled. "A lot more than usual."

Bea nodded, reflective. "Must be this Africa business. You and David have decided to go, then?"

Jessica's eyes, involuntarily, dropped from her mother's. So, Bea had heard about Africa. Up until now, Jessica had only mentioned France as a possibility. But she'd told Alex how David's editor knew a man in Senegal who had promised to let them stay in his house for at least six months. It was all working out, just like a master plan. Alex must have told Bea. Jessica could trust her sister with most secrets, but apparently not all of them.

"Well, you know what?" Bea went on cheerfully. "I'm not going to say a word about it. I wouldn't run off to Africa in your place, with a good job and Kira so young, but we've always been different people, you and I. And that's fine. G.o.d didn't make carbon copies. What's good for me isn't necessarily the right thing for you, and vice versa."

Jessica looked at her, stunned at her levelheadedness. "That's it?" she asked.

Bea pursed her lips, thoughtful. "Just remember I won't be here forever, and I don't want my grandchild to forget me. I don't fly, and I'm not going all the way across the world on any boat."

"We won't be gone long, Mom," Jessica said, but as she heard her own words she realized they might be lies. She didn't know how long they would be gone. More than at any other point in her life, she didn't know the first thing about what was to come.

"You just be careful with David," Bea said suddenly, intruding into her thoughts.

Jessica's heart honestly jumped. "Be careful?"

"You need to watch out in a new place, with laws that won't protect you. If things go wrong with you and David, you need to bring Kira right back here as fast as you can. David could take her away from you."

The warning made Jessica more uneasy than she'd felt all morning. She leaned back in the parlor chair, listening to Mahalia's a.s.surance that, yes, G.o.d is real. And G.o.d would understand she was trying to do the right thing, keeping her family together. And G.o.d would protect them. Wouldn't He?

"Don't worry about us," Jessica said. "We're soul mates. Mom. I've never been more sure."

Bea nodded, but she didn't look satisfied. Jessica's seven years of marriage hadn't done much to ease Bea's doubts about David's history, or his vague explanations of how he was so self-sufficient and established at such a young age. Now, of course, Jessica could see how flimsily constructed all of David's lies were. An orphan. A trust account. Bea had always seen through him, even when love made insight impossible for Jessica. Thinking back, Jessica was alarmed at how she'd accepted his word at every turn. And here she was, doing it all over again.

"You don't trust him, do you?" Jessica asked.

Bea shrugged. "I want to. And I have to admit, he's done better by you than I ever thought he would. So there's no reason to doubt his intentions, really. There's something about him, though, honey. I respect that he's your husband, but I always had the feeling you should be careful."

"Why?"

Bea paused, then sighed and shook her head. "Too many unanswered questions. Who knows?" she said sadly. "Maybe I'm just jealous he's taking you away. Guess I always knew he would."

Hurriedly, Jessica looked toward the window, hoping to hide the tears about to make themselves known. Her mother, too, was silent, except for occasional humming. "Shoot, let me go heat up the food ..." Bea said, standing.

There was plenty of food, since Bea had been expecting Alex to come today too. At Jessica's request, though, her sister made other plans. She would deal with Alex later, but she'd wanted this time alone with her mother. Proper goodbyes were best done in private. And she was looking for something from Bea, too. Direction, maybe. She felt as though she were perched on a white-water raft, bouncing against boulders with no idea if a calm pool or a crashing waterfall lay in her path.

The worst part of all, she'd decided, was not being able to tell the full truth about anything. She was growing apart from Bea and Alex in ways they would never know. How could David have kept his secrets for so many hundreds of years? Jessica had known only a short time, and she wanted to share it so badly that she ached.

"Mom, you remember how you went to visit Uncle Joe up in New York? And how the traffic made you miss your plane, the one that crashed?" Jessica asked, sampling from her plate of stewed turkey wings, collard greens, and rice and gravy.

"You think I could forget that?"

Jessica smiled. "That was a miracle. We always said it was, but I know it was now. I know miracles are real."

"Shoot, we raised you to believe that."

"I know, but it's one thing to hear it and another thing to see it. Right? I mean, before that airplane thing, I know you had doubts. Didn't you?"

Bea gazed at her across the table, one eyebrow raised. She looked concerned. "Jessica ... I hear you were in Bible cla.s.s before you dropped by this morning. I thought you didn't have time for that. Why are you getting all this religion all of a sudden?"

"What do you mean?"

"What's going on with you?"

Jessica bit her lip, feeling a surge of joy as she remembered David's touch after he awakened from the dead. The image no longer filled her with fear. Like Christ, he had risen. She'd seen a resurrection. Maybe David was like a prophet, a sign of the messiah's return. His knowledge and incredible history had to be part of a plan. G.o.d hadn't seen fit to make it all clear to her yet, but she knew He would. She only had to stop questioning and believe.

"Nothing's going on. I'm just happy. I'm happy to have Jesus, that's all. And happy to have David."

"David's not taking you to one of those Jim Jones cults, is he?" Bea asked skeptically.

"Mom, quit teasing me," Jessica said. "I remember what you were like those first two weeks after that plane crashed. Playing gospel all the time, listening to all of the televangelists, reading us Bible verses at night. Don't even try to deny it. So I'm allowed to get a little too."

"Well," Bea said, biting her corn m.u.f.fin, "I guess it's all right as long as you don't get any ideas about joining the choir. You know you can't sing, and they have enough trouble as it is."

"That must include Randall Gaines too."

"That's right, bless him. Love is blind, but I'm not deaf."

Together, clutching each other's hands, they laughed.

Sitting with her mother, listening to gospel and then James Brown, then Tina Turner-music David never played-Jessica forgot about the uncertainties outside. She'd thought this would be difficult, saying goodbye, but she and her mother drank sweet iced tea and laughed into the afternoon like old college roommates.

Neither of them had laughed that way in a long time.

35.

As soon as he heard the mailbox clank outside his Biscayne Boulevard studio apartment at midday, Mahmoud left his bowl of lentil soup and opened the door to check for letters. The single piece of mail for him, addressed to Occupant, was a postcard advertising a tire company.

Mahmoud cursed. Did Americans ever receive real correspondence, or was the entire mail system the domain of advertis.e.m.e.nts? Not that these illiterates would know what to do with a pen if they ventured to take one in their pudgy hands.

He returned to his table to eat his soup, which, along with the flat loaf of Cuban bread he'd bought at a nearby bakery that morning, would serve as his day's only meal. This way, both his mind and body were lean. He would feast when his job was finished.

He must learn patience, he told himself. Not even three weeks had pa.s.sed since he mailed the letter to Khaldun. It had barely had time to arrive, much less for Khaldun's response to return. The express letter's pa.s.sage would have been delayed because Lalibela's only airstrip was closed during the rainy season, so it would be delivered by automobile. This one time, he wished their colony was equipped with telephones. If he'd remained in the House of Mystics long enough to learn telepathy, Mahmoud thought, Khaldun could have known his message instantly. But, then again, surely even Khaldun could not hear thoughts across so many thousands of miles.

Mahmoud's eyes wandered to the three black-and-white video monitors lined up on his furnished room's faded pinewood bureau. Alongside the bank of television screens, large reels spun on an audiotape monitoring the telephone wiretap.

" ... Two bedrooms," he heard Dawit's voice say. Dawit's image was visible on the middle screen as he talked on the telephone while he sat at his computer. Mahmoud's pin-sized video camera, hidden within a groove on Dawit's VCR, broadcast an exceptional view of the house's living room and dining room table. A second camera, subst.i.tuting for a nail in a wooden picture frame upstairs, showed a view of their cat sleeping in the middle of Dawit's bed.

Miami was flush with spy shops of every variety, which Mahmoud browsed for entertainment, but he'd brought his devices with him from Lalibela. Mortal wits could not match those in the House of Science. Mahmoud's simple wireless cameras and microphones were nearly invisible, broadcasting flawless images and sounds.

"And bathrooms?" a woman's voice asked on the tape.

"Only one, unfortunately. But the plumbing is new."

At last, there was movement in the third video screen, which had remained unchanged since early that morning. Mahmoud saw Dawit's wife take a seat in front of the camera, so close he could only make out her waist and chest. Her blurred, monstrous fingers came toward the camera, holding her key chain.

Where was she going?

Lighting a cigarette, Mahmoud lowered the volume of the telephone conversation and turned up the sound from the wife's monitor. She had someone with her, apparently. Mahmoud heard a man's voice briefly, though he was out of the camera's frame.

"You're shooting from the van?" she asked her guest.

"h.e.l.l, yeah. A photog had his equipment stolen at Evergreen Courts last month, at an antidrug rally for the kids," the man said. "Can you believe that? The a.s.shole broke into his trunk while he was out shooting."

"I thought you had insurance for stuff like that."

"Don't worry about the photos. I'll use my zoom. Just point the guys out to me."

Mahmoud couldn't make out their voices after that because of a sudden explosion of loud music. Dawit's wife must have turned on the radio, where the camera was hidden in the eye of one of the k.n.o.bs. No matter; there was nothing terribly revealing there anyway. She was working, posing no immediate threat.

Mahmoud turned down the volume on the vehicle's monitor, then raised Dawit's so he could hear the remainder of his telephone call. The tapes would capture whatever Mahmoud missed, and he would replay all of the tapes while they slept, as usual.

"How about three?" Dawit's woman caller asked.

"That's not good, I'm afraid, unless you just want a look at the grounds. I pick up my daughter at three. But anytime after three-thirty is wonderful. You can have a full tour."

Despite the rage Mahmoud felt-and he tried to control his rage, since rage dulled intellect-he found himself marveling at Dawit's hubris. Hubris was the only word that suited Dawit's behavior. He must think himself a G.o.d, to behave so-to carry on the sale of his house as though he would be allowed to walk away despite Khaldun's desire for him to return to Lalibela.

But if only that were the extent of it!

The monitor in Dawit's vehicle had captured evidence that would result in Dawit's imprisonment for all of time. Not only had he broken the Covenant, but he had told his wife so much shocking detail, more than Mahmoud had imagined any Life brother would ever dare. Only Allah could divine what more Dawit had revealed when they stole away from the cameras at night. And she a reporter who conducted investigations!

Her spell on him was so powerful that, with his own eyes, Mahmoud had seen Dawit allow the woman to raise her voice at him in front of their child! How had he come to this?

Dawit must be insane to behave this way. For that, Mahmoud pitied his dear friend. Khaldun was sure to be angry, but perhaps he could implore their teacher to show mercy on Dawit. He clearly was not in control of his actions, as his violence and poor judgment proved. The danger Dawit had thrust upon them was unintentional. And it was not too late to repair the damage.

Exactly when, he didn't know.

Mahmoud did not dare act until he had the words from Khaldun himself. Since no one had ever broken the Covenant, Mahmoud did not trust his own solutions, though he knew Khaldun would echo them. He needed Khaldun's sanction, and then he would finish it.

The entire business was regrettable.

"Dawit, Dawit ..." Mahmoud said aloud, watching Dawit's wife's hands on the steering wheel of the van. "What insanity is this you have brewed for us all, you pathetic fool?"

The tapes played on for the audience of one.

36.

Jessica tapped on the door frame of her boss's office. "Sy? We got great photos. I think we saw a transaction."

"Uh oh. Next, it'll be sting operations," a deep voice came from her left, surprising her. She hadn't realized Sy was in a meeting. A dark-haired man with round-frame gla.s.ses sat in a chair in front of Sy's desk, legs crossed. Jessica knew his face.

"Oops, sorry to interrupt. This can wait."

"No, Jess, come on in," Sy said, standing, indicating an empty seat in the comer. "This is Lieutenant Fernando Reyes. Believe it or not, your name just came up."

"Si, claro," Jessica said, shaking the detective's outstretched palm. "I remember you from my days on the police beat. But you weren't a lieutenant then."

"And you weren't on the I-Team," Reyes said, smiling. His brown skin looked rich against a light-pink dress shirt. Jessica remembered how female reporters used to joke that Reyes looked like Andy Garcia. He really did, she noticed.

Jessica sat, slightly breathless. She'd been hot as h.e.l.l idling under the sun for two hours. She needed a cool drink.

"My name came up? What's going on?"

"Jess, Reyes is leading Miami PD's investigation of Peter's death. He's tying up some loose ends, he said."