Water Walker: Episodes 1-4 Part 28

CLOUDS THE color of cast iron hung low over the restless ocean and drifted inland. Gentle waves stretched up the beach, splashing over Special Agent Olivia Strauss's bare feet as she jogged along the water's edge.

C'mon, Liv. Pick up the pace.

The approaching storm had kept the usual crowd of early morning runners off the sugar-white beach. Besides a solitary figure standing fifty yards ahead, Olivia was alone with her thoughts and the rhythmic slap of her feet on wet sand.

Since moving here to supervise the Charleston field office, running was her daily therapy, the one place that put life's madness into perspective. It would take more than a summer storm to keep her from it.

Olivia's eyes were drawn to the man standing motionless on the sh.o.r.e. Something was curious about him, she thought. She slowed her stride.

She'd jogged this stretch of beach every morning for the past six months and knew the regulars well-the joggers, the fishermen, the retired couple that rose before dawn to search the sands with metal detectors in hand.

He didn't carry himself like a tourist, which she could easily spot. Yet, he seemed strangely familiar.

The man looked out to sea with his arms by his sides, the sea breeze lifting his dark hair. Even in the dull, gray light of morning she could see he was barefoot. He wore dark jeans and a stark white T-shirt that stretched taut over his muscular frame. Behind him, a pair of black biker boots lay in the sand just beyond the tide's reach.

She settled to a walk ten feet to his right. Did she know this man?

"h.e.l.lo, Olivia."

She stopped. He knew her?

The man turned. Staring back was a face she'd thought about countless times over the years. She blinked twice, half expecting him to vanish. But he didn't.

"Stephen? Is that you?"

He walked toward her, eyes as gentle and strong as she remembered them. How long had it been? Four years? No, five. Five years since Stephen had shown up and spoken life into her shriveled soul.

Five years since she'd lost Alice Ringwald and unexpectedly found herself along the way.

Stephen stopped in front of her, smiling. "You look well."

"How'd you find me?"

"You run every morning, don't you?"

He studied her for a silent stretch. "I see you've found some peace. Light in your eyes."

"I never got a chance to thank you. What you said that day . . ." She drew a breath. "It changed my life."

"We all play our roles. One person plants the seed, another waters it, but it grows only when the season is right."

His words soaked into her like the radiant warmth of the sun. But there was something else-a distant look of deep concern in his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she said.

"Keeping a promise I made to you. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Alice Ringwald?" she said.

He nodded once. "I said I would tell you if I ever learned anything new."

The image of the young girl still haunted Olivia. Even years after the case had gone cold, she believed Alice was out there somewhere, terrified and waiting for someone to come.

"She's alive, Olivia."

The world seemed to still around her.

"You're sure? She's alive?"

"For now at least."

"How do you know?"

"Because I spoke to her."

Her pulse quickened. "You found her? When?"

He dipped his head. "A couple of times. This last week."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You said you found her."

"I did. In a dream."

A dream? Olivia held his gaze and let the words settle. Coming from anyone else it would have sounded ludicrous, but this was the man who'd told her things about herself that no one else knew. His eyes were unflinching, and there was certainty in them.

"And this . . . dream . . . You're sure it means she's alive?"

"She's alive," he said.

"How do you know it wasn't just a dream? What if it was just wishful thinking, a trick of the mind? We both want to find her; we have for a long time. You know as well as I do that the mind sometimes sees what it wants to see. That doesn't make it real."

"The wind blows wherever it wills. How and why is a mystery. It's enough to simply know that it is. In the same way, I know that my awareness and hers are somehow connected."

"How do you know?"

He shifted his gaze and looked at the horizon again. "A dream called to my mother's heart once. Drew her across the ocean. What she thought she would find and what she actually did were worlds apart. Her story came with great blessing, but also much death. You see? Both life and death were birthed from a dream." He looked back at her. "I know because I know."

She nodded slowly. "Okay. Then tell me where she is in your dream."

"I'm not sure."

"Yes, but a.s.suming the dream is real, there must be clues to where she is."

"My dreams are of that place where heart calls to heart. Even what I do see may not be a direct reflection of what's outside that heart."

"Is she in danger? That's a matter of the heart, right?"

"Terrible danger."

"And?"

"I believe that she's with her birth mother."

The prevailing theory at the time. So she was right.

"And that's just another dead end. There must be something else. Anything that could at least narrow our search."

"She was standing alone on a lakesh.o.r.e, in fear of her mother. I came to her in a rowboat-from where I have no clue. There were thick trees covered in stringy moss and the air was tinged with the scent of salt."

Olivia paced as he spoke, mind spinning through the possibilities. "She must be near the coast. Swamp lands near the ocean . . . that describes half of the Gulf coast."

"Or perhaps not. It may only represent something more. What I can tell you for certain is that she's alive, and, wherever she is, she's trapped in a state of great fear and suffering. Truthfully, I may be the only one who can help her find emanc.i.p.ation."

Drizzle began to fall as Olivia worked the problem in her mind. "What about sounds? Traffic? Maybe an airport? Anything that would put her near a landmark that we could use to narrow a search."

He shook his head. "Nothing."

She stopped and faced him. "That's it, then? Nothing but a dream with no helpful details."

"Not nothing. Alice is alive and she's opened up to me. That's something."

"What good is that if we can't get to her?"

His right brow c.o.c.ked. "But I can. I thought I'd mentioned that."

"Through a dream."

"Exactly."

"Then can't you tell her how to escape in that dream? Tell her to call a number or make a mark on the sh.o.r.e . . . Anything that might help-"

"I can only speak to her heart. What she chooses to do is entirely up to her . . ." He paused. "You must understand . . . there's no guarantee she will get out. And even if she does, her freedom may only come at a great price to her or to others."

"What kind of price?"

"I don't know."

She stared at him. "We're helpless then."

"Not helpless, no. We can hope that Alice will find that narrow way to her freedom. You must remember that she's not just any child, Olivia. Not at all."

He was referring to her upbringing in the monastery, a history totally lost to Alice.

"What was it about that monastery?" she asked.

Stephen stared out at the ocean, thinking.

"She was protected from this world. Taught the virtues of love, beauty, and peace in ways very few are. Although she doesn't remember, there's a deep place in Alice that still knows . . . Mountains can be moved, the blind can see, the lame can walk if only one can let go."

"In my experience, the best way to move a mountain is with a bulldozer."

He offered a slight smile. "That would be in your experience. In either case, I doubt Alice has access to a bulldozer at the moment."

Touche.

"And if she can't let go?"

He didn't respond.

The rain fell harder and a peal of thunder shook the sky. "We'll find her," Olivia said, watching the waves.

"I hope you do. But I don't think she's ready yet. She'll only be found when she is. It's why I only met her in my dreams recently."

"Because she wasn't ready."

"I can a.s.sure you, it wasn't for a lack of trying on my part."

All this talk of life and death and readiness was such an inverted way of thinking. Offensive even. Wasn't any abducted girl always ready to be rescued?

Yes, yes, of course . . . but Alice wasn't just any girl. And this was all coming from Stephen. She couldn't bring herself to object.

"And it won't be for any lack of trying on my part either," she said. "I'm going to do everything in my power to find her."

"As will I." He dipped his head, gave her a parting smile, and walked to his boots. "As will I."

23.

BREAK HER LEG. That's what Zeke had said.

Break her leg. And with those three words Zeke had broken Kathryn's heart.

She'd driven home in Wyatt's truck, mind numb, head ringing. It all made sense, she knew it did, but she wasn't in the place to piece all the scriptures and bits of reasoning together yet. She could only trust in what she knew to be the truth.

And the truth was, Zeke had saved her. He'd led her down the path of righteousness and, when she wasn't righteous enough herself, provided a way for her to be reconciled with G.o.d. Eden, the lamb of G.o.d, come to take away all of her sin.