Chapter 4

Copyright 2000, 2006 by Elizabeth Delayne



Dinner consisted of a hot dog and coke in between screaming, laughing and talking, sitting in a seat so close to Jonathon, trying to read the shuttered light in his eyes. And after baseball, neither mentioned going home, but rode around in the limousine as they talked. They sat informally on the floor of the limo. Jonathon told the driver to drive and opened the sunroof. Together they watched the lights from the city as they drove underneath.

"Wow," Erica said at last pushing from the floor to the seat. She glanced out the window as the limousine stopped at a red light. "What a beautiful old church."

"Mmm," Jonathan moved up to sit beside her as they watched how the light from the streetlights played off the white pillars and stained glass windows. The doors were arched, made of heavy wood and polished brass trim.

”It’s really beautiful. There’s something about old churches . . . that makes me feel . . .”

”Stable?” Jonathon supplied.

”How’d you know?”

He shrugged a single shoulder. “Faith lasting, the generation passing . . . the belief remaining.” He looked up as the limo pulled away and watched until the church could no longer be seen. “And sad . . . something so sad, when the congregation withers and dies away . . .”

”Has it?”

”Has what?”

”Your faith died away . . . for you?”

”Why?”

”You just sounded . . .”

He shook his head. “Melancholy? Maybe it has. Maybe that’s what I feel.”

He continued to stare off, in the direction the church had been. Erica watched him and felt akin. There was something in his eyes that she had felt in her soul. So long ago.

"When I was in freshman in college," Erica started as the limo headed downhill, feeling as if it was her voice, instead of her story, that was a little rusty, "I . . . felt like I had reached the end of the world. Everything seemed to be closing in. College had always seemed like . . . like it would save me. From my mother, from her expectations. Her grief. My own grief. It was my last chance.”

”And then . . . I still felt, lost . . . like I was missing something big and huge. I blamed my mom—but she didn’t have it to give. I remember that I hated looking at myself in the mirror—hating that I wanted something I couldn’t have--and letting it drive me into a living grave."

"My roommate, Amber, convinced me to go to church with her every weekend. She was so warm, and easy to get along with--she still is, and she cared so much more for me, it seemed, then my mother cared for me," Erica glanced at Jonathon. His eyes were so beautiful, intent on her, and her heart lifted as she thought that maybe he believed as well.

"I started going, a little irregular at first, I guess, but soon I was at the church for every service, prayer meeting, missions event. I didn't even know why. I found peace there, I knew, and felt secure there, really for the first time in my life. And so I kept going back, until one day Amber looked me in the eye and asked me who I was, if I wanted it to end there, in all my uncertainties, and what I thought I was chasing after by going to church."

"It startled me, because I thought she wanted me to go, and she did, but she also wanted so much more for me. She made me stop and realize that I was only chasing after what I needed, or possibly running from it, and so, she helped me pray that night, in our dorm room."

She stared out the window, her spirit deeply moved by the memory, and she realized that she was so weary . . . like she had been in college . . . feeling lost and alone and at the end of her rope.

She wanted the time with Jesus that she had held as so precious in college.



Jonathon watched Erica, saw the peace and then the uncertainty. He thought he understood. Her present life was driven by her mother and the company that had been her father's. His life, including his relationship with God, was driven by his past, the memories and pain.

"I won't pretend that my relationship with God is any better, Erica, and I have a lifetime of trust and faith to hold onto. My father and mother took me to church from the time I was three weeks old. And when my mother died, my father never failed to point me in the direction of the church when being alive hurt so bad."

Before he’d left home this last time, his father had asked him. Even though his years of good cop/bad cop were decades past, James Burstin still remembered the art of the question.

Where are you with God?
I don’t know, dad. I just don’t know.

"I let some things take hold of my life, memories . . . excuses I guess. It's been really hard to let them go . . .”

There were questions in her eyes, that she didn’t ask--wouldn’t ask. But the thought that she would listen, that there was a part of him that wanted to open up, eased his heart.

”Why don't we check out that church in the morning, before our flights take us in two different directions?"

* * * * *

Amber Martin released Erica from the exuberant hug, holding onto her friend's shoulders so she could get a good look in her eyes. There was fatigue and there were shadows, neither one a stranger.

"Okay, Miss. Caine," Amber dropped down with a plop into a chair and waited for Erica to sit down. Her green eyes studied her with concern. Erica didn't particularly look unhappy, but she was a bit unsettled. "You never just come to Portland without two months notice. What's going on?"

Their waiter appeared suddenly, placing their ice waters on the table and taking Amber's usual greasy order with him when he left. Erica reached for the glass, needing something to do with her hands.

"I met a guy," she said at last.

"You what?" Amber leaned forward on the table, her eyebrows raised in surprise. "You're not ecstatic about it. He's not . . . what? Interested? Young enough . . . a Christian?"

"No--he's a Christian. Amazingly, even though things didn't even start off where we both would have known. It's just that . . . we're not . . ."

Afraid she would cry all over again, Erica jumped into the story, explaining about Emma, the party, the book signing and then their time together at the baseball game.

"Even after the game we sat and talked and talked, then when we were in the limo, we talked some more. Jonathon just told the driver to drive. It was so crazy and so wonderful and so right. We ordered a pizza from the phone in the limo and sat on the floor between the seats with the sun roof open to the night and just--"

"Talked. I know." Amber laughed. "So then what happened?"

"Well, while we were riding around at, I don't know, two o'clock in the morning, we drove past this really old church and we started talking about church, about growing up and amazingly finding Christ. And then he asked if I wanted to go. Neither one of us had been in a long time, but it felt right."

"So you went to church."

"Yes, and it was right. I mean, I never thought going to church in a strange town with strange people would be so comforting and special. It wasn't just Jonathon; it was like I was connected with them--with everybody."

"And that surprises you?"

"Somewhat, yes. When we were in college, it seemed like we just fit in. I haven't been able to find that . . . . And anyway, Jonathon and I went to lunch and talked about what the service had meant. There was so much to say and not enough time. Everything was so rushed and suddenly distant. I took him to the airport and watched him get on the plane before I got onto mine. He said bye, thanked me for the weekend . . . as if--"

"As if it were just a weekend."

Erica frowned over her friend's words. "How did you know?"

"Because you're not happy."

Erica let the words roll around in her head. She’d thought she’d feel relief to know that Amber understood. Instead, the pain remained.

"I guess what hurts the most," she looked across the restaurant seeing nothing in particular, "is that I thought he felt so . . . the same. I've never connected with someone so fast. Not like that. I mean, here's my life," she motioned from herself to the table with a quick swipe of her hand. "I travel, I live out of fancy hotels and an eight-hundred dollar luggage set. I don't guess I've ever been truly happy with it, but I've never felt so empty before . . . or so whole. So right. I'm so confused."

The self defeated laugh spilled out as tears pooled in her eyes. Erica glanced down at her glass and turned it in her hands. Where was Jonathon now, she wondered. Did he remember their weekend? Did he think on it with as much enthusiasm as she?

"I can't regret one minute," she said at last, telling herself not to cry now. She'd never cried over a man before, but she’d never dreamed she would connect with one as she had with Jonathon. "He helped me see that I've been missing out on so much in the last few years. Out of every word we said that weekend, it was those quiet moments in church that I cherish the most, which mean the most."

Amber reached across the table to squeeze Erica's hand. They both knew that church . . . and having a church family had not been a part of her upbringing, and her encounter in college and eventual acceptance had given her little time to grow before she was put back under her mother's schedule. Amber prayed continuously for her friend, knowing that Erica needed and desired so much more.

The waiter came then with the appetizer and they placed their orders. When he left again, Amber shook her head. "So, you really met the Jonathon Burstin?"

Erica laughed, finally able to rise above the tears. "I really, really did. And he's nothing like the picture on the back of his books. I even had one autographed, but I think I left it in the limo the night we went to the baseball game. I can't remember."

"How many have you read since you met him?"

"All seven."

Peter Philips had never believed in anything much, beyond the pack of his twelve gauge, and the truth that evil circulated through the world. Until he'd met Whitney, he'd lived a stale life of eating old bread and drinking cold coffee, working for the force running after dime-a-day crimes.

He looked across the cafe table and watched her as she stirred her spoon around her ice tea, the ice chattering in the glass. Her hands were soft, magazine hands, long, thin, with nails gently tapered.

She dressed well, in professional suits. When he met her, the first few times he'd seen her, the thick brown hair that now framed her face in gentle waves had been pulled back into sleek French twists. His fingers ached even now to reach out and touch the soft curl that whispered across her cheek.

She sighed and rolled her shoulders back as if stuffing herself back into place. The look in her blue eyes told him it was time to part--that she would miss him, that it would be easier to stay.

"You'll be in tonight?"

"I'll be there," he promised and smiled at the easy delight in her eyes. She would call him and they would talk, saying more in the voices then they had voiced from their hearts.

"Finish your lunch," she bayed him with a knowing smile and leaned over to kiss him as she stood.

Her kiss, gentle and sweet, meant to be quick, lengthened a little as he asked for a bit more. It was like honey, sweet, tempting and warm, golden in the sunlight.

"See you . . ." she whispered as she broke the kiss, looking into his eyes as she slowly stepped back, straightened into the straight-laced broker he had first fallen in love with.

He smiled as she walked away, her heels clipping on the cafe's sparkling linoleum. No, he thought, he'd never believed in anything until meeting Whitney.

Turning, he watched her as he always did through the picture window, catching up with the line of people walking the crosswalk.

Even in the cafe, he heard the engine rev, saw the car, unmarked, dark and back, the speed picking up through the intersection--

His love turning, shocked . . .

Then gone.

Jonathon leaned back from the desk and stared at the computer screen. He struggled over his own breath as the image rolled through his mind. His hands were shaking, he realized, and glanced down at them, watching their quiver.

He balled his fingers into fists, fought against the panic, and slowly reminding himself that there was a line between fiction and reality. He could close the file, turn off the computer, go to bed, and hopefully find rest now that he'd exterminated Erica from his mind.

* * * * *

As the yellow taxi cab pulled away from the curb, and wound its way into the onslaught of New York traffic, Erica leaned back in the seat and pulled out her book. It was Jonathon's second, her favorite. Named Hallowed because of the hollow, but religious fundamentalism going on in a small town police department, Erica liked it most because she was able to pick up the traces of Jonathon's father, whom the dedication of his third book had gone to.

It had taken a little research on the internet to know for sure . . . but she’d felt it in her heart almost from the first description.

He was the quiet, but wise man who explained the wooded areas to the city policeman, who sat almost invisible in a room until the pivotal moment of brainstorming, the giant force of reason, though his words were few. The main character had learned from the man, had listened to the silent words spoken only by an hand on his shoulder, and had walked away at the end of the book knowing that he was leaving behind his greatest ally for the city streets.

It made her think of her father. Made her wish that Jonathon could bring him alive again in one of his books.

* * * * *

Jonathon turned the book over in his hands. It was another hotel room, another night. The air was still. His heart felt heavy. He'd tried reading his Bible, but had only felt the burden deepen, making him think of Erica and of how the weekend they'd spent together had been a balm over years of wounds and fatigue. He'd entered a church for the first time since leaving the force, had met a woman who made him forget . . . and had been reminded of so much he had forgotten.

There had been a time in his life when someone could find him at the church if he wasn't on duty. He'd been involved with the youth, with the inter-city ministry, with the missions committee. God had blessed him by allowing him to help so many kids come to know Christ, had allowed him to work with them as they grew in their faith.

Then, on a stormy night in the middle of an undercover operation, he'd watched a group of other teens--ones he hadn't been able to reach--gunned down when a drug operation blew up in their faces.

He’d only been trying to help them get out.

In the midst of a nightmare that had followed him--years after leaving the force--Jonathon had never believed he could see past that night.

Now, there was something in his life he couldn't ignore, even though he wanted too, even though he thought he should. His faith, his relationship with his Savior, had been easy to reach for once he’d glimpsed how much he needed it.

Other things were harder to believe in.

He ran the palm of his hand down the cool jacket of his book. He rarely touched one of his own books outside of signing autographs and for publicity, but this one was special. It was the one he'd signed for Erica, the one he should have given back to her on that Sunday weeks ago. Maybe if he'd had the strength then to part with the only thing he could take with him . . . maybe then he could have forgotten her.

Jonathon glanced at his lap top, the only light in the dim hotel room. The story he'd been toying with since leaving Erica that day was stagnate on the page. So was the one he should have returned to working on. He hadn't been able to process much of anything lately.

She'd been on his mind since he lost sight of her as he stepped from the terminal through the gate at the airport. She'd looked a bit lost, much like she had when she'd stood in the middle of the ballroom floor when Emma had introduced them.

And she'd seemed hurt. He couldn't blame her. If things had been different, he could have followed through from that weekend. They'd meet up, both strangers in a big city not their own.

They could easily meet again--with the right maneuvering.

He shut down the word processing program and booted up his Internet. With the right maneuvering, they could see each other again, whenever they wanted. With the right maneuvering, he could keep her away when the time came to finish the job.

* * * * *

Erica's cell phone rang as she stepped off the elevator into the lobby of Winthrope Properties, leafing through the manila folder of information she needed to know for a meeting tomorrow. She would catch a plane, fly from Boston to New Orleans to redistribute and gather paperwork, handle details that her mother had assigned before leaving for Europe, catch her mother up on all the details via Internet, go on to Richmond to begin the work there and finally arrive in Nashville, all within twenty-four hours.

It would keep her from thinking, from remembering, and from wanting to forget.

Please God, she prayed--something that had been easier of late. She could easily remember Jonathon taking her hand during the church service they'd attended together, of talking about the sermon in the little bit of time they'd had over lunch, of being awed by his response and by his faith. Even though she hurt, she could be thankful for her brief time with Jonathon because it had reminded her, shamefully, that she had forgotten her Savior for so many years.

She reached for her cell phone when it chirped for the third time, and stepped away from the thoroughfare.

"This is Erica."

"Erica . . . you're coming home soon."

It was her mother's housekeeper, Stella James. Her woman's voice was a little breathless, and it worried Erica. The Stella she knew could run the sprint of stairs spanning the front entrance up and down all day long. "I'm catching a plane within an hour straight to New Orleans."

"Good, that's what I thought. I--"

"Stella, is it mother?" Erica froze, feeling her gut tighten. What else would cause the housekeeper such panic? "Is mother okay?"

"No, no--we just can't reach your mother--but not because anything is wrong. Different time zones--I can’t get the schedule straight. You're mother's fine. It's just . . . Erica, there's a man here ... an FBI agent or detective or something. He wants to see your mother. Nothing serious, they say, but I can't reach her. And it's important that they reach her."

Erica stopped, feeling the breath rush from her. Another moment in time, many other police detectives, came to mind.

The flashing bulbs of cameras, the intensity of quiet conversations going on in the parlor.

Flashes of white against the dark.

Hiding on the stairs, not understanding, hoping that someone would remember to come up and put you to bed so that they would find you listening and reassure you that everything was okay.

Why hadn't daddy put me to bed?

The question, only a memory rang through Erica's mind, the memory broken as someone pushed passed her in their hurry out of the building.

"I'm coming home, Stella. I'll see if I can reach mother on the plane."


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