RYAN ROSE EARLY the morning after his weekly session with Father Hortense, feeling more refreshed than he’d felt since his abduction in Iraq. More important, he thought, free from distraction; his mind was working again. He could even reflect on his mental state with reasonable accuracy.
At eight o’clock he made himself breakfast for the first time since he’d been in the apartment. He toasted two slices of whole-wheat bread, placed sliced avocado on each slice, then sat down at his table to enjoy the food with a tall glass of milk.
In hindsight his experience these last few months made perfect sense to him. Having passed through the valley of death and climbed up the mountain beyond, looking back provided an interesting view. This is what had happened.
One: He’d been forced into a situation beyond his control and had faced a horror that even now sent a chill down his spine.
Two: He’d managed to escape but only after watching children die, in part because of his refusal to sacrifice his own wife and daughter.
Three: His experience had fundamentally altered his view of his own daughter, Bethany, and the senselessness of abusing innocent life.
Four: After a week of holding as strong as he could in the base hospital, he’d suffered an emotional break for which the navy had put him on an extended leave.
Five: Rushing home to repair his relationship with Celine and Bethany, he’d discovered that he was too late. The damage done to Bethany had understandably blinded her to any reconciliation, and Celine had found love in the arms of another man.
Six: Still suffering from the emotional break, Ryan had lost his calm and assaulted that man, which did nothing but give them all grounds to legally exclude him from their lives with a restraining order.
Ryan stared absently at the blue sky, framed by the window to his right, as he bit off a corner of avocado and toast from the second slice.
Seven: It had taken him two full months to climb out of the hopelessness that had consumed him after their complete rejection of him, but last evening, in a time of deep reflection, he’d finally broken completely free of the emotional bonds that had ripped the life from him.
He was almost whole. A changed man to be sure, but able to function again.
Father Hortense had called him at six o’clock last evening and told him that he’d given the envelope to Bethany, who’d pulled out the photograph, stared at it a moment, then handed it back, asking him who the man in the picture was. She brushed past him without another word.
His daughter had summarily dismissed him.
His ex-wife was in love with another man.
So, then. He had done what he could do. A month ago he would have crawled back in and lost himself to one of the blackouts that were his mind’s way of seeking peace. But now his mind was stable enough to consider it all in a calculated balance.
He would always love his daughter, of course. But the problem was no longer his. He had to get back to his own life. He would make sure that Bethany never hurt for money and get back to living.
He’d decided then that he would travel to San Antonio this very day and begin to look for suitable housing for his move.
Ryan rinsed out the glass, placed it in the dishwasher, and pulled out the keys to the Toyota Camry he’d purchased a week earlier. Silver, decent gas mileage, plenty of power for his tastes.
He left the University apartments and headed south on I-35. Heavy construction on either side of the highway could have bothered him; in his agitated state of hypersensitivity it certainly would have. But today, calm and calculated as he was, he hardly noticed.
It took him four hours to reach San Antonio because he decided to take a side trip through the Hill Country on Highway 281 and come into the city from the west. Late October had brought cooler temperatures, and in the wake of heavy late-summer rains the rolling hills were brilliant green beneath a blue sky.
He knew then, thinking about the landscape around him, that he really was finding himself again. On several occasions he wished he had a cell phone so that he could call up Father Hortense and inform him that he had turned the corner, more so than they had realized even yesterday, but he didn’t have another cell phone yet.
San Antonio was pretty much the way he remembered it. He headed to the east side and took his time driving through neighborhoods near Fort Sam Houston. Knowing that he wouldn’t be staying long if he did come, he looked for monthly rentals—common in this area. He didn’t really care how nice the neighborhood was; he would be going it alone this time.
It was seven o’clock that evening before Ryan Evans pulled the Toyota Camry into the parking lot of the Howard Johnson off I-35, checked in for one night, and retired to his room to watch a pay-per-view movie, something he hadn’t done in over two years.
He fell asleep in the first ten minutes.
RYAN WOKE TO a housekeeping call at his door the next morning. He pulled his sheets off and informed the maid that he wasn’t ready.
Ten o’clock? He’d slept as though dead.
Standing and stretching, he felt an unusual calm. Sunlight flooded the room when he ripped open the green curtains. A new day awaited and there was no way it could disappoint him; he’d already lived through the worst life could bring his way.
Not even death, he thought. He’d faced death and no longer feared it.
He spent the next two hours taking a long, luxuriously hot shower and relishing each bite of his bacon-and-eggs breakfast at the Denny’s next to the hotel. He finished his fourth cup of coffee, paid the cashier sixteen dollars and an extra five for tip, then headed back out to his Toyota Camry.
Two nearby apartment complexes were to his liking and he took applications from both and told the managers he’d be in touch. No hurry, but both had several vacancies that they were eager to fill immediately.
The drive back to Waco was uneventful, except for the driving rhythm, which provided for an excellent environment to think clearly now that he was once again capable. Celine was in the hands and arms of another man.
Bethany was growing into a young woman with a bright future who would thrive in this self-indulgent landscape called North America.
He, on the other hand, was an outsider, with neither lover nor bright future in a place he was neither needed nor wanted.
The thought did pain him some, but he was now healthy enough to understand that some emotion was good, so long as it didn’t interfere with sound reasoning.
His apartment off University was no worse off for sitting vacant for two days. He flipped the lights on, tossed his keys on the counter, and took another shower. Few realized the benefits of raising one’s skin temperature roughly an hour before sleep through a hot shower. The body compensated by slowing itself down to cool, and this often resulted in drowsiness and sound sleep.
He pulled on a pair of gray sweats and a black Nike T-shirt, then sat down to scan the cable feeds. Nothing jumped out at him. Unless the terrorists had knocked over another tower, he wasn’t interested in the news. The evening soaps, as he called them, no better. He settled on the Science Channel, which was running a program on how technology was changing forensics and crime scene investigation. CSI.
This he found utterly fascinating. But when the show ended fifty minutes later, it was followed by a less interesting program about the building of the Titanic.
Feeling drowsy from his hot shower, Ryan clicked the TV off, poured himself a glass of water, and headed off to bed.
He’d pulled back the covers and was about to climb under the cool sheets when it occurred to him that he hadn’t checked the answering machine for messages. He’d gone days and even a week without checking the messages, something that Hortense had chided him for.
Not that it would matter at ten in the evening. He would check the machine when he woke.
Ryan slid into bed and sighed deeply. He’d slept a lot over the past two months but those times of lapsed consciousness had been a mental retreat from reality. The sleep his body demanded now came from a healthy, even overactive mind.
The next morning came too soon for his tastes, thanks to the shrill ring of his phone. He rolled from the bed and lurched for the kitchen, noting that it was already a quarter past eight. But the phone stopped ringing while he was still in the living room.
Time to get up anyway.
Whoever it was didn’t bother to leave a message. He walked into the kitchen, started the coffeemaker, and filled the pot with filtered water. The little red light on the answering machine was blinking.
So he did have a message?
He looked closer. 4 messages.
Four? He’d received maybe a total of five messages since taking the apartment. Setting the pot he was filling back in the sink, he wiped his hands and pushed the playback button.
The first message was from a gravely concerned Father Hortense. “Please, Ryan, if you’re there, pick up the phone. It’s urgent I talk to you.” A small stretch of silence. “Check the news. Call me as soon as you can.”
The news? He’d never heard Hortense speak with such urgency.
Ryan let the machine run, a second message from Father Hortense, demanding he call him immediately. He hurried into the living room and tuned to CNN.
Football scores.
FOX was no better, some story about a bear that had taken a swipe at a photographer who—
Headline News. Sports again. But the headlines ran across the bottom in a ticker tape.
REBELS STRIKE MILITARY BASE IN SOMALIA, KILLING 34 U.S. TROOPS…
STOCK MARKET GAINS 312 POINTS ON NEWS OF HOUSING REBOUND…
KILLER KNOWN AS BONEMAN TAKES ANOTHER VICTIM AFTER TWO-YEAR HIATUS…
CHINA…
But Ryan’s mind was locked on the story that had just rolled off the screen. The BoneMan had struck again. Either because the man they’d released from prison had indeed been BoneMan or because the killer no longer wanted to hide behind the wrong man.
Father Hortense was calling him to talk it through with him so that he wouldn’t overreact.
He let out some air. Hortense didn’t realize just how far Ryan had progressed these last few days. He not only cared very little about this whole BoneMan connection to his torture in the desert but he had released the guilt that had kept him bound to the experience.
He’d let Bethany go.
Headline News was talking about Michael Jackson. Ryan watched for a minute, waiting for the ticker tape to roll back around to news of the BoneMan, just in case he’d missed something.
The third message was from Hortense, yet again, left yesterday afternoon. Same thing. He would have to call the man back and set his mind to rest.
There it was again, rolling across the bottom: Killer known…
The fourth answering machine message began to play, a soft, low voice from the kitchen. “Hello, Father. I have the girl you think is your daughter.”
Ryan spun his head in the direction of the kitchen.
The voice continued after a brief pause. “Her name is Bethany and she is mine now. It took you seven days to make her, now I’m giving you as much time to save her. If you think you can catch her, follow me where the crows fly, alone, Father.”
Click.