Jivaja (Soul Cavern Series Book 1) Read online

  She passed a green sign that told her Stone Mountain was eight miles ahead. It would be another ten or fifteen miles to the university after that. It was going to be a long night.

  She stopped at the first gas station she found and used the bathroom to clean herself up, glad to get the grunge off her face and the blood off her feet. By then, the first rays of sunlight had peeked over the horizon. Once she no longer looked homeless, she caught a ride from a couple other students commuting in for an early class. That had been a lucky break, especially looking the way she looked.

  Ten minutes after they dropped her off, she stood in the student union, talking to Josie on a campus phone. Twenty minutes after that, she sat behind the wheel of her friend’s blue Toyota, driving north and away from school, wearing borrowed clothes and shoes.

  It had taken a bit of time to convince Josie not to tag along. In the end, Mecca had to promise to call later in the day and check in. At least Josie left her cell phone for Mecca to use. Mecca had tried to call home, but only got voicemail. The same with her dad’s cell. That may have been for the best. She wasn’t sure what she would have said if he’d picked up.

  Sitting at a light, on her way through Little Five to the interstate, she dialed the phone again.

  It was answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Jim? It’s Mecca. Have you talked to my dad recently?”

  Silence.

  A horn blatted behind her. Mecca jumped and hit the accelerator, propelling the car through the intersection. The guy behind her sped into the other lane and flipped her off as he flew by.

  “He was here last night. He’s worried. Where are you?”

  “I’m near school. Where is he? I called the house and his cell.”

  “Are you in your car?”

  “No, I borrowed a friend’s. What’s with all the questions?” More silence. The hair on Mecca’s skin rose and goose bumps covered her flesh. Her right foot throbbed as she slowed down. “What’s wrong? What’s happened to him?”

  Please don’t let them have gotten him. Images of him being restrained in a room just like hers somewhere in that house make her stomach knot.

  “Some strange things have been going on. Do you remember the way to our cabin up north? The one we used to go to in the summer? Could you get there?”

  “Stop it. You’re freaking me out.” Dread set up camp in her belly. If she didn’t puke right down her front, she’d count today a victory.

  “Go up to the cabin,” Jim said. “Don’t go home. I’ll try to get in touch with your dad.”

  Cars zipped past on her left as she slowed further, not able to concentrate on traffic.

  “I swear to God, today is not the day to fuck with me. I haven’t been to the cabin since I was twelve. I have no idea how to get there and I’m not going anyway. Where’s my dad?” She finally reached the interchange for I-75/I-85 and got on the northbound ramp.

  “Look, I’ll try to find him, but you need to be somewhere safe.”

  No shit.

  “You obviously know something’s going on,” she said. At seven in the morning, traffic downtown sat gridlocked. The gas pedal hummed against her ravaged foot. “I’ll be at your place in an hour.” She disconnected just as he began to protest.

  A blue and white taxi crawled in front of her as she wound her way through the streets of the Barrons’ neighborhood. It took each turn she needed to take and slowed further just as she spied the bright red and white tulips that surrounded the red brick mailbox. When the taxi turned into the long driveway, Mecca stopped on the street.

  Why had he called a cab?

  Her curiosity getting the better of her, Mecca pulled the nose of the car into the drive and followed the taxi up. The long driveway meandered and twisted through pine trees for a couple hundred yards before it ended on a small rise. The house stood atop, tall and wide.

  Mecca parked on the side of the three car garage. She got out, her feet sore and throbbing, and stood at the corner of the garage, watching the taxi in front of the house.

  The front door opened, and Jim hefted two suitcases out to the waiting cabbie, who already had the trunk open. Carolyn, Jenny’s mom, came through next, carrying a pumpkin-colored autumn coat. She wore an immaculately tailored, cream Chanel pant suit, her matching purse hanging from her elbow. In contrast, Jim wore a French blue oxford shirt with the first three buttons unfastened. It hung around him, wrinkled and unkempt. His khaki slacks looked slept-in.

  Jim came to Carolyn's side and spoke in a low voice. She nodded, her forehead wrinkled in a concerned frown. She let him kiss her on the cheek before she disappeared into the cab. Jim paid the cabbie and watched as the taxi drove out of sight, into the trees.

  “Where is she going?” she said from behind him.

  “Christ, Mecca, you scared me.”

  And she still scared him, judging from the expression on his face. She knew she looked like a wreck. Josie had flipped out when she’d seen Mecca’s clothes and the condition of her feet. Josie had pulled her shoes off right then and made Mecca put them on.

  Now Mecca stood on Jim’s porch, in borrowed clothes, her hair — her entire body — a hot mess. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into a fierce hug. “Thank God, you're all right.” His breath puffed against the side of her head. He drew back and held her shoulders, looking her up and down. “Okay, we need to get you inside.”

  He fairly pushed her through the open doorway and into the foyer. He paused on the porch long enough to look around, then came in himself and slammed the door behind him.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said, his voice insistent and sad, at once.

  Well that was pretty fucked up. All “I’m so glad you’re okay,” to “you shouldn’t have come.”

  “What the hell is going on? I know you know something. And if you know how I can find my dad, you need to tell me.” She glared.

  “Come with me.” He led her through the expansive living room and to the kitchen, then started down the stairs to the basement game room. The only windowless room in the house. “I’m going to give you directions to the cabin. The key is in the flowerpot near the back door. You’ll need to pull the plant out of the pot in order to get it.” He’d already gone halfway down before he realized she hadn’t followed him.

  Mecca stood in the kitchen, at the doorway, and crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted to pull her hair out. Or maybe she wanted to rip his hair out; she wasn’t quite sure.

  “I don’t have time to goof off in the woods. If you’re not going to help me, I’m out of here.” She turned away and heard him scramble up the stairs.

  “Mecca, wait. I’m trying to help you.” He grabbed her arm. “Come down and I’ll tell you what I know, but you probably won’t like it. You have to promise me, though, that once I tell you, you’ll go out to the cabin while I try to get hold of your dad.”

  Mecca allowed herself to be led down the stairs. “Is he okay?” she asked. “At least tell me that.”

  “The last time I talked to him, he was fine. Pissed, but fine.”

  Chapter Sixteen: David

  David opened his eyes and a sunbeam nearly blinded him. Light knifed into the room through the partially opened curtains, illuminating dust particles in the air. The Batman clock on the wall told him it was a little after ten. Five hours sleep. Maybe.

  He'd found the hidden key to Sara's door and had fumbled his way inside and onto the sofa before passing out. Even with everything he had to think about, he couldn't keep his eyes open once he'd laid down last night.

  Grit clung to the edges of his eyelids. He rubbed them, chasing the sleep away. The front door opened with a quiet squeak. He tensed and pulled himself to his feet. Sara peeked around the corner from the front door.

  “Oh good, you're up. I wasn't sure whether you would be.” She came into the room and tossed a backpack onto the recliner across from the sofa. “I had an early class, and I figured you needed your beauty sleep. You'
re looking pretty rough around the edges.” Her grin, a little lopsided, shone with genuine cheer. “Did you get to see her?”

  “Not Mecca, no.” David dropped back onto the cushions. “It's a big property. There were guards.”

  “Oh.”

  As she watched him, he realized how surreal the conversation was. Then the weird moment was gone.

  She flopped down onto the chair across from him. “Well, I think I might have found something for you. I went through some of the e-mails on that drive. I found a separate, hidden folder that I must have missed the first couple times. It took a while to crack, but I came across several e-mails in there pertaining to a kidnapping at the university.” She wrinkled her nose. “I didn't hear anything on campus about anyone being kidnapped though.”

  “You wouldn't have. I doubt it was reported.” Weariness made his limbs heavy. Not physical weariness, but the emotional weariness that comes from being on a high wire for days.

  “How does that even happen?” She stared at him the entire time he wasn’t answering her. She shook her head. “There was another one about a councilman setting up another man to be captured. In both e-mails, she was adamant about the men not touching either person’s skin: the woman at the university, or the man drugged by the councilman.” She left off with an expectant look.

  “Is there more?”

  “Yes. The councilman’s daughter. The woman sending the e-mail said that he would play much nicer if they had his daughter in hand. I tracked down our guy’s reply. He said he had people over there and would make the arrangements.”

  “When was this?”

  “Dated a couple days ago.”

  A knot formed in David’s gut. They planned to pull Jenny into this. Jim thought he’d kept her safe by sending her away. He'd said as much in his office. In truth, he’d only isolated her and made her an easier target.

  “Where is she?” Sara asked. “The daughter. I’m guessing you know whose daughter this is.”

  “England.” At that moment especially, David wished Teresa were still alive. He needed help working out what to do. He could always count on her level-headedness, and he needed it right now. She could find her way out of any problem. Mecca had inherited that trait from her mother. “I have to call him. I may not be able to do anything for her, but I can at least warn him.”

  “Anything you want me to do?”

  “Was there more in those e-mails?”

  “You can look through them. I don’t know what’s going on, so I may have missed something you would consider important.”

  He knew she wanted him to give her some details. The danger he would put her in didn’t balance with the benefit he might get by bringing her fully into the situation. He stood. “I’d like to look at them. I need to call Jim right now. I’ll be down in about ten minutes.”

  Sara nodded and took the hint. She stood, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and turned away. Her stiff jaw told him she was angry as she headed downstairs.

  He initially tried Jim’s office, but his secretary said that he wouldn’t be in until after noon. David pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think. It was probably just as well; they most likely had taps on all Jim’s phones. It occurred to him that using a land line might not be a good idea. David headed for the basement.

  The room looked deserted.

  “Sara?”

  “Yeah?” Muffled.

  “Where are you?”

  “Under here.” A hand waved from beneath the big desk. “I’m connecting a new machine. Playing with the new Linux OS.”

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  Her head popped over the edge of the desk. “Duh.”

  David laughed. Mecca would have answered the same way.

  Sara crawled out. She pulled the phone from a dock on the desk and tossed it to him. “Cool, huh?”

  The screen flashed a colorful Celtic knot. “Cool,” he said. “Thanks.”

  He went back up to the kitchen and tapped Jim’s cell number into the phone. He counted five rings before it rolled over into voice mail. He didn't leave a message. He redialed. He called a total of four times, until the line clicked before the voice mail kicked in.

  “Yes?” Jim barked.

  “Are you alone?”

  The silence on the other end lasted for a good twenty seconds.

  “Yes.”

  “I need to talk to you about something very important. Meet me where we spent our first Fourth of July, the place Jenny and Mecca got dirty. One hour. Be alone.”

  Another moment of silence. Finally, “All right.”

  The line went dead.

  David drove the van along the winding road of Wildwoods State Park. He’d made it to the park fifteen minutes early. He wanted to check the area out before meeting with Jim.

  Sara had tried to get him to take her car, since he’d stolen the van from the “bad guys.” He didn’t want to tell her that the bad guys probably had the cops in their pocket. If he got caught here, they’d trace the car back to her. And that was unacceptable risk. So he bounced along in the van, bad shocks and all.

  Wildwoods had been named appropriately. Tucked away in the hills north of the city, the park spanned one hundred and twenty acres. A quarter of it had been plowed out and landscaped into a beautiful family park, complete with small lakes, picnic areas and the occasional playground for the kids.

  The rest of the park was for hikers and campers of different varieties. RV’ers could find sites to set up their roving homes, and tent campers could choose pre-cleared sites to set up their gear. More adventurous folks could camp out in the woods.

  He turned down a narrow dirt roadway that went off into the woods. Every turn brought memories of Teresa, and he missed her with an intensity he had trouble harnessing. This park had been her choice for their first Independence Day with the Barrons.

  “No time for that.” David shook his head, pushing memories away. “Focus on what’s at hand.”

  The van jolted along the uneven roadway, and David slowed. He took a final turn and pulled over beside a hard-running little creek. He didn’t bother locking the van when he got out, but he closed it with care. The less noise he made, the better.

  He did a quick walk around the area, staving off memories of better times. His nerves, already frayed, couldn't handle thoughts of a smiling Teresa or a laughing Mecca. It hurt too much.

  There didn’t seem to be anything unusual around. When he heard an engine approach, he realized that he’d been anticipating seeing Jim again. Not an angry anticipation, but an honest, glad anticipation.

  Jim pulled up in his wife’s silver Jaguar convertible, top up, windows closed. He cut the engine and stepped out. He approached David with a slow stride.

  Jim's usual pressed-and-creased clothes looked as if he’d slept in them. An untucked shirt fell over deeply wrinkled khaki slacks. He sported a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. His shoes, though, shone with their usual polished sheen.

  “You look like hell,” David said.

  “Yeah, thanks. You’re looking like Brad Pitt yourself.”

  David chuckled, then nodded toward the creek. “Remember when they slid down that embankment? What were they, eight?”

  The corner of Jim's mouth lifted. “Seven or eight, yes. God, they came back filthy. I thought Carolyn was going to trounce me for letting Jenny play in the mud.”

  “Teresa did trounce me.”

  This time they both laughed. The tension between them lightened.

  “I’m sorry, Dave. I didn’t feel like I had any choice—”

  “We’ve got more important things to worry about. Let’s walk.”

  They started on a tight pathway into the woods. A blanket of pine needles crunched underfoot and shadows hid beneath bushes. David got an odd feeling of déjà vu, but shook it off.

  “You need to bring Jenny home,” David said.

  Jim stopped walking and stared at him. Then he shook his head. “No. I won’t br
ing her here and put her in danger.”

  “You’ve sent her away and put her in danger. Do you think they can’t get to her over there?”

  “She’ll be safer than if she was here.”

  “Are you willing to bet her life on that?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I found an e-mail from Emilia Laos to whoever your contact was when you set me up.”

  Jim lowered his eyes for a moment before meeting David’s again. David wondered how things would be between them when this was over. If this was ever over.

  “Go on,” Jim said, brushing his palm over the stubble on his chin.

  “She directed him to send someone to get Jenny. They want you more easily controlled. I don’t know whether they’re actually going to snatch her, or if they’ll only keep tabs on her until they need her.”

  Jim’s step faltered and he slowed. “I just sent Carolyn over there.”

  “Bring them both home.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t protect them here.”

  “You can’t protect them an ocean away, for Christ’s sake.”

  Jim stopped and leaned against a tree. His face had gone grey. When he looked up at David, he said, “Why did you come here to tell me this? You’re putting yourself in more danger.”

  “Because Jenny is Mecca’s best friend. At least, she was before college. I don't know what they are now. But either way, it’s not her fault you got involved in something completely fucked up. You need to take care of your daughter.”

  “Like you took care of yours?”

  The words smashed David in the gut like an iron mallet. Bitterness coated his tongue. David looked at Jim one last time, then turned, back stiff and straight. He stalked down the path, toward the parking lot. Jim followed on his heels.

  “I’m sorry, Dave. I didn’t mean that. It was a shitty thing to say. I know there was nothing you could do, just like there’s nothing I can do. Stop. Dave, stop.”

  David didn’t even slow. Fire burned in his veins, and he fought his instinct to turn, grab Jim and drain him of every last bit of energy in his sorry little body.