Soul Tracker, page 1
Soul Tracker
Soul Tracker Series
Book One
Bill Myers
Epigraph
“Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”
John 4:16
For Nicole:
Who will always own a piece of my heart.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
Dedication
Part one
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Part two
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Part three
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Epilogue
Preview
By Bill Myers
Copyright
About the Publisher
Share Your Thoughts
Part one
One
It had started again. The voice. Five hours earlier in Wal-Mart. He’d been doing his usual stalking up and down the aisles, this time for laundry detergent. Why was it every month they moved at least one item to a new location? Over the years, since Jacqueline left, he felt he’d become quite the veteran shopper—reading labels, clipping coupons, even watching as the cashier rang up each purchase on the register. But this moving of products, especially to the least likely places, always frustrated him. He was reaching the peak of just such a frustration when he heard the child crying one row over.
“Daddy! Daddy, where are you?”
The fear in her voice brought him to a stop. It was the same panic, the same desperation that had haunted him for weeks.
“Daddy, come get me!”
The tone was so similar to another’s that David forgot the laundry detergent. He hesitated, then pushed his cart to the end of the aisle. He slowed as he rounded the corner and peered up the next row. A little blonde, about kindergarten age, sat alone in a cart. She was bundled in a bright red coat, pink tights, and shiny black shoes. Tears streamed down her face as she cried.
“Daddy, please don’t leave me!”
He scowled, glancing around. There was no one near. What parent would leave a child like this? Had the father no sense of responsibility? He pushed his cart up the aisle toward her. “Sweetie, are you all right?”
She turned, eyeing him, then took a brave, trembling breath.
He continued to approach. “It’ll be okay, darling. I’m sure your—”
Suddenly her face brightened as she looked past him. “Daddy!”
He turned to see a concerned young man in a green fleece jacket and worn jeans stride up the aisle toward them. In his hands he held a new push broom, grasped tightly enough to assure David he would not hesitate to use it if necessary. David forced a reassuring grin. The young man sized him up and said nothing as he brushed by and joined his daughter.
“Oh, Daddy.” The little girl sobbed as she stretched out her arms.
“I was just around the corner.” Laughing, he scooped her out of the cart. “Did you think I forgot you?” She nodded and he hugged her. Then, pushing aside her damp hair, he kissed her cheek. “You know I wouldn’t do that.” Again, she nodded, but continued to whimper—an obvious attempt to make him pay penance.
David thought of stopping and turning his cart around, but that would be clumsy and awkward, only adding fuel to the parent’s suspicion. So he continued up the aisle. As he passed, he felt he should say something to the young father, something instructive, something to remind him what a precious responsibility he held in his arms. He said nothing.
But the voice remained. A whisper in the back of his mind. It remained through the wooden conversation between Grams, Luke, and himself over dinner. It remained through the forced laughter as Grams recounted some scene from one of her daytime soaps. It even remained as David rode his son about the poor progress report they’d received in the mail from school.
And now, several hours later, as David Kauffman stood alone in the dark, silent living room, the whisper grew louder, becoming a more familiar voice. The one that always filled his head and swelled his heart to breaking.
“Daddy, I’ll be good! I promise…please…please!”
He approached the overstuffed chair from behind, reaching out to its back to steady himself. He had not bothered to turn on a light. Across the room on the mantel, he heard the clock ticking. Outside, a faint stirring of wind chimes. He caught the shadowy movement of the cat—her cat—scurrying past and up the stairs to safety. David hated this room. Tried his best to avoid it. The memories were too painful—as bad as the upstairs bathroom, its lock still broken from when he’d busted through it to find her opening her veins…
The first time.
“Daddy…”
David closed his eyes against the memories, but he could still hear feet scuffing carpet, attendants’ muffled grunts as they grabbed her flailing arms, pinning them to her side. And, of course, her pleas.
“I’ll do better, I promise! Please, don’t make me go!”
Images flashed in his head. Flying hair, twisting body, kicking feet, the appearance of a pearl-white syringe…Emily’s eyes widening in panic.
“Daddy, no!”
“To help you relax,” the attendant had said.
“Don’t let them take me…” She no longer sounded sixteen. She was four, five. So helpless. “Daddy…”
He leaned against the chair, his throat tightening.
“Daddy…”
That was the deepest cut. The word. Daddy. Protector. Defender. Daddy. The one who always made things right. That was the word that had gripped him in Wal-Mart. The word that sucked breath out of him every time he heard it, that drew tears to his eyes before he could stop them. Even in front of Luke.
He tried his best not to cry when he was with his son. The boy had been through so much already. What he needed now was stability, and David was the only one who could provide it. If his twelve-year-old saw tears it would spell weakness, and weakness meant things were still out of control. No. Now, more than ever, Luke needed to know things were returning to normal, that there was someone he could depend on.
But David was by himself now. Alone. Luke was upstairs sleeping (or more likely working on the Internet) while Grams snored quietly just down the hall.
Emily’s voice returned, softer, thicker. The drug taking effect. “Daddy…”
“Just a few weeks, honey,” he had promised. “You’ll get better and then you can come home.”
He remembered her eyes. Those startling, violet blue eyes. Eyes so vivid that people assumed she wore colored contacts. Eyes glassing over from the drug. Eyes once so full of anger and confusion and accusation and—this is what always did him in—eyes that, at that moment, had been so full of trust.
He had held her look. Then slowly, with the intimacy of a father to his daughter, he gave a little nod, his silent assurance.
And she believed him.
She still sobbed, tears still ran down her cheeks, but she no longer fought. In that single act, that quiet nod, her daddy told her everything would be all right. And she trusted him. She trusted him!
David leaned forward onto the back of the chair, tears falling. He remembered the front door opening—bright sunlight pouring in, flaunting its cheeriness.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he had promised. “Grams and I will be in the car right behind you.”
She could no longer wipe her nose. She could only nod and mumble. “Okay.”
The last word she ever spoke in the house. Okay, I believe you. Okay, I’m depending on you. Okay…I trust you.
David dropped his head against the chair. He was trembling again, trying to breathe. The house was asleep and he was alone. “Where are you, baby girl?” He whispered hoarsely. “Just tell me. Let me know so I can help.”
The screen door groaned. He looked up and quickly wiped his face. This was no memory. The boy was here. He’d called half an hour ago, asking if he could come over. David straightened himself, listening. There was a tentative knock. He took a breath and ordered his legs to move. Somehow they obeyed. He reached out to the cold door. He took another breath, wiped his face, and pulled it open.
The boy wore a gray sweatshirt with the word Panthers and red paw prints across his chest. He was tall and lanky, around six feet, with curly brown, unkempt hair. Long, dark lashes highlighted even darker eyes. His chin was strong and his nose slightly large, almost classical. David blinked. In many ways he was looking at a younger version of himself, back when he was in high school.
He forced a smile. “Rory?”
“Cory,” the boy corrected. His voice was clogged. He coughed slightly and plumes of uneven breath came from his mouth.
“Well”—David opened the door wider, as if to an old friend—“Come in.”
The kid swallowed. “No thanks, I gotta”—he shifted—“I gotta be going.”
David’s heart both sank and eased. Though he wanted this confrontation more than anything, he also feared it. This was the famous Cory. Cory, the sensitive. Cory, the “You’ll really like him, Dad, he’s just like you.” Cory, the boy Emily couldn’t stop talking about the last few times he’d visited her at the hospital.
And now this same Cory had come to meet the parent. A bit ironic. Maybe even macabre. But better late than never.
With long, delicate fingers the boy produced a cloth-covered n otebook. “This is what I was telling you about.” He cleared his throat again. “I know she’d want you to have it.”
David took it into his hands, but he barely looked down. Instead, he was drinking in every detail of the boy, every nuance—those dark eyes, the frail shoulders under the too-big sweatshirt, his nervous, painful energy. He’d just been released from the hospital the day before yesterday. And, if possible, this meeting seemed even harder on him than David.
“She left it in my room the night she, uh…” He lowered his head, examining the porch.
David nodded, watching. He looked at the notebook. It was six inches long, four wide, and nearly an inch thick. The cover was pale pink with a white iris on the front. It felt like silk. He stared at it a long moment.
The boy shifted.
Coming to, more on autopilot than anything else, David repeated, “You sure you don’t want to come in?”
“No”—the boy cleared his throat again—“no, thanks.” He motioned over his shoulder to a van that was idling. “I’ve got people waiting.”
“Oh…right.” Hiding his neediness, David forced a shrug. “Well, maybe we can have coffee together or something sometime…if you want.”
Cory glanced up to him. “I’d like that.” His eyes faltered then dropped back down. Speaking softer now, and still to his shoes, he added, “She was pretty amazing. I mean, I never met anyone like her. Never.” He took a breath, then looked up.
David saw the sheen in the boy’s eyes, felt his own starting to burn. “Yeah.”
Cory glanced away, studying the porch light above them. “So…uh…”
David came to his rescue. “I’ll give you a call next week, how does that sound?”
Cory gave the slightest nod.
David watched, waiting.
As if he’d completed an impossible mission, the boy took a deep breath and blew it out. He nodded more broadly and turned to start down the walk. David watched, absorbing everything.
Halfway to the street, Cory paused and turned. “I just, uh…” He cleared his throat. “It just doesn’t, you know, seem right.”
David swallowed, then nodded.
“I mean, she was getting so strong…so healthy. She was really happy, Mr. Kauffman. The happiest I’d seen her.”
David wanted to respond, but he no longer trusted his voice.
Cory shook his head. “It just doesn’t…things just don’t seem right.” With that he turned and headed toward the van.
David remained at the door. Moisture blurred his vision as he watched Cory arrive at the vehicle, open the door, and climb into the passenger’s side. A moment passed before the van slowly pulled away. The boy never looked up.
It wasn’t until the vehicle disappeared around the corner that David glanced down to the journal in his hands. He was trembling again. The meeting had taken a lot out of him. And it was still taking. Because he knew exactly what he held.
Emily’s journal. Her final thoughts and hopes and dreams…and nightmares.
He turned and reentered the house, easing the door shut behind him. But he could go no farther. He leaned against the closed door and lifted the notebook to his face with both hands. He inhaled deeply, hoping for some fragrance, some lingering trace of his daughter. There was nothing. Only the faint odor of smoke and antiseptic. He brought the cover to his lips and kissed it. This was all he had left. All that remained.
“Where are you, baby girl? Where are you?”
You never get married?” Nubee cried. “It is possible.”
“But, must be somebody…” He hesitated looking for the right word.
“Somebody what?” Gita asked.
“Somebody blind enough to think you look beautif—ow!”
Gita gave her little brother a playful smack upside the head. Well, most of it was playful. It made no difference that he was thirty-two, so physically disabled that he could not look after himself, and that she was pushing his wheelchair on the walk past other residents. There were some things she just wouldn’t cut him slack on.
“Help me!” he cried to Rosa, a passing staff member. “Help me! Help me!”
“You picking on your sister again, Nubee?”
“She beating me! Cruelty to animals, cruelty to animals!”
Rosa smiled. “How’s it going, Dr. Patekar?”
“Very well,” Gita answered. “And you?”
“Still breathing.”
Gita smiled. “That is a good sign.”
“At least around this place.” The plump Hispanic chuckled as she started up the ramp toward the building.
Gita and her brother continued along the walkway. She lifted her face and closed her eyes to feel the warmth of the winter sun flickering through the bare mulberry branches. In her faster-than-the-speed-of-light world, these few hours a week spent with her little brother always brought a certain peace. Many saw her visits as compassion for her only living relative, but the truth was she needed them more than he did.
Gita had flown Nubee over from their home in Nepal as soon as she’d settled in. That was part of her agreement with the Orbolitz Group. She would work for them and commit her sizable experience to their new Life After Life program, a series of studies designed to scientifically track the soul after death. All they had to do was offer reasonable pay and pull a string or two to bring her little brother to the States so she could look after him. To her surprise, not only did they agree, but they made certain Nubee was admitted to one of the finest nursing homes in Southern California, and picked up the tab for his room and board. It was a gracious offer, but typical of Norman E. Orbolitz. Granted, he was an eccentric recluse, a billionaire who owned one of the world’s largest communication empires. It was also true that he was a master at playing hardball with any and all competitors. But he was known equally well for his generosity and philanthropic outreaches. That fact as much as any other convinced Gita to move halfway around the world and join his organization.
As a thanatologist, someone who studies death and dying, Gita had made a name for herself by exposing one of Great Britain’s most famous psychics as a fraud. It wasn’t intentional, just the outcome of her unwavering, dogged research. But it had created a stir that caught the attention of the Orbolitz people. In a matter of months they’d convinced her to leave her position at Tribhuvan University in Nepal and join their Life After Life program in the States.
Unfortunately, her focus quickly became something more along the lines of Hoax After Life. Apparently the Orbolitz Group—more precisely Gita’s department head, Dr. Richard Griffin—wasn’t as interested in her research as he was in her ability to expose false psychics, particularly those who exploited the grief-stricken with promises of contacting their deceased loved ones. It wasn’t exactly the program she’d signed up for, but she had always seen the importance of truth, the need to separate fact from fiction. And, like it or not, she was getting quite good at it. No surprise there. Dr. Gita Patekar enjoyed success at everything she put her mind to.
Well, almost everything…
“So, nobody in all world think you pretty?” Nubee was doing his best to get another rise out of her.
“I am afraid you are correct.” She sighed, playing along. Unfortunately, the opposite was true, and she knew it. For better or worse, she’d been attractive all of her life. And not just to the Asian community. Her petite frame, high cheekbones, coal black eyes, and well-endowed figure made her fresh meat in any male shark tank—even at the church singles’ group. Then there was the problem of her intellect. It was supposed to be one of her better features, but she found herself having to use it mostly as a weapon of self-defense.
Last night’s fiasco with Geoffrey Boltten was the perfect example. Was there some unspoken law that said after the third date men were entitled to have sex with a woman? Was that the new definition of lifelong commitment? Because, just like clockwork, after a romantic dinner and enjoying Mozart’s “Magic Flute” at the Civic Arts Plaza, Dr. Boltten, respected surgeon and churchgoer, felt he was entitled to make his move.
Gita had barely let him inside her townhouse, supposedly to use the bathroom, when he grabbed her shoulders. Always the understanding type, she stepped back and tried to defuse the awkward situation with an obvious scientific explanation.
