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The sadness of our world is not to be believed; The happiness of our world there to be deceived. Two lamb ewes abandoned with the mother dead; Their little legs wobbly, their eyes filled with dread. A piece of the heart lost with every final goodbye; The air is quiet, yet the breeze utters a timid sigh. All the things left unsaid with every word spoken; All the hurtful things said our misery to betoken. The hopes left behind that once our dreams filled; The promises broken that once our minds stilled. A love once flourishing that deadened as love lost; An emptiness to face that our future days accost. The happiness of our world there only to deceive; The sadness of our world we must face and believe. - - - - - -
That day, at the hospital, he wanted to tell her that he understood, that it took time, gathering courage, finding the right words. But what a pity it was that they hadn’t started earlier. What came out instead was this: flutter flutter. A whisper that crumpled in the air half heard. “What did you say, Old One?” “I said you should finish your story. From yesterday.” She nodded to mean yes, yes I really should, but her hands were shaking...
October–December 1941
If Auntie Tin had arrived at our door an hour earlier, I might have found myself married off right before the turn of the year. As it were, her rickshaw driver was new to the island and kept taking one wrong turn after the other. “Honestly, they should know where they’re going, don’t you think?” she whispered as she dabbed her temples with a handkerchief, trying to explain her fluster. I didn’t yet know who she was, or what she was there for, but I was already on her side. Anyone who had to meet my father’s steely silence that day deserved to be pitied. I wanted to tell her that it was not her fault, that she had simply come at the wrong time. My parents had been having the same fight every few months for over a year now. This evening, it had begun as it always did, with my mother brandishing a letter. I heard my father curse under his breath, promising that he would take her earnings away to stop her from bringing any more letters to the letter reader in town. My mother was the only woman in our village who kept the money she made, hiding coins under floorboards and within the hems of her clothes. My father closed one eye to it, and to the fact that the other men in the village mocked him for being soft. “They’re starving,” she cried, “the people in my old town. My home.” It was only when the Japanese captured Shantou that my mother started calling it “home.” Until then, she only mentioned her birthplace occasionally, each time with a voice steeped in relief and guilt. Relief at having escaped the oppressive poverty and the natural disasters that swept through much too often. Guilt, of course, at having left her family behind, and how easily she had done it. When news came through about the Japanese navy’s arrival on the Southern Chinese coast via motorboats, then of the city’s quick capitulation in mid-1939, my mother wept openly and called out for her da ge and er ge, her nai-nai—her two older brothers and her grandmother. I could only stand by and watch, my stomach heavy, churning. Later that day, I went to the outhouse and almost tipped into the hole at the sight of fresh, red blood in my underwear. When I told my mother that I just had my first bleed, her face lifted in a half smile and cracked again into sobs. For many nights after that, I dreamed about ships and blood. All of it silent, backdropped by the sound of my mother’s weeping. I was fourteen. For the next two years, she’d continued talking about her large extended family and the crumbling, gray-tiled building that they shared with a number of other households. The inner courtyard where they would gather to share a pot of tea on a clear day. Her pet geese. How she used to take dips in the river in the peak of summer. Her parents had betrothed her to my father as soon as she was born, and when she was fourteen (and he, eighteen), they got married. My mother moved out of her parents’ home and into my father’s ancestral home in the next village up, only to wave farewell to him a few days later. It was a full day’s journey before he got to the port of Guangzhou and almost two weeks in a junk before it docked in the promised land—Singapore. There, amid the babel of languages (other Chinese dialects he could just about comprehend, plus Malay, Tamil, and English, which he could not) and a quay teeming with bobbing sampans, he stopped, breathing in the hot air, smoky from the exhaust of idling trucks and the long pipes of foremen directing their laborers between boats and warehouses. Even then, through the lingering vestiges of seasickness, my father could smell opportunity in the air, a riotous mixture of rice and chili and tobacco, and realized that he would never again see his family’s roaming tracts of barren farmland. Never again see his mother, though he had promised to return once he had made his fortune. Out of the depths of the ship’s hull and away from its sweating, sickly masses, this simple act of walking across land almost made him break down in regret and gratitude. By the time he arrived at the address he had been given—a Hokkien clan house—he was so euphoric from the bustle and color and temple music coming from every lane and corner of Chinatown that he said yes to the first job he was offered. The next day, he bussed up north to a part of Singapore dense and dark with rubber trees. A different world, he marveled, though he soon realized that he had exchanged the onerous farm work back home for similar work that paid him only a few cents more and required him to rise at two in the morning instead of five. By the end of his first day, his face and arms were mosquito-stung and his hands scored from multiple accidents with his tapping knife. His fellow workers quietly laughed as he stumbled over tree roots. Rubber tapping paid badly but it doesn’t break your back, they reminded him. In a few weeks, his skin had stopped reacting to insect bites and his eyes had grown used to the gloom and depth of the rubber grove. He sent money home every month. Along with the money, my father included a letter inquiring after his parents’ health, and then his young wife’s, in that order. They wrote back, his eldest brother’s slashing script seeping through the paper in spots, telling him that his parents’ health was good but for the usual aches that came and went with the rain; that his wife was readying herself for married life learning to sew and cook; that his six siblings were busy trying to coax something out of the leached soil. It took my father years of scoring veins into the trunks of trees and years of living in an eight-to-a-room dormitory before he could afford a house. A little wooden house in Hougang, a village notorious for the stench of its pig farms, but a house all the same. It was several months before he could send for his wife. By the time she set foot in her new country, they had been apart for four years. My mother was the one who recognized my father. Went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. For in the space between their first and second meeting, she had changed—child to woman—the milk fat on her cheeks had vanished, tapering down to a pointed chin. She was all but unrecognizable. To her blank and unwavering gaze, all my father could say was, “Lao Po, you have changed!” “Lao Po,” my father now said. Wife, old woman. He only called her this during the height of an argument, or when he was trying to plead with her. “We already send money home every Lunar New Year. We can’t afford boat fares for anyone, much less the entire family. Look around us. Do you think we have anything to spare?” I followed the sweep of his arm as he directed it around our attap hut, pointing at the one rattan chair that no one ever sat in because they were afraid to wear it out; at the one bedroom where all of us slept, my brothers and I sharing a single bed, sleeping head to foot to head; at me. I was standing at the dining table, chopping up kong sin vegetables and making sure there were no snails hidden among the deep green stalks when he nodded in my direction. “We can’t even afford to send her to school.” “Are you telling me you’re going to let them starve? Is that what you’re saying?” “I’m saying we are barely making ends meet. I’m saying that the boys can’t read or do their homework after sunset because we’re rationing the candles. I’m saying we have nothing to give. Look, look.” He turned out his empty pockets, flapped the hem of his shirt to show how thin the cotton had become from years of washing.
“One of my brothers is thinking about coming over.” “What are you talking about? You think the boats are running? There are Japanese ships in their harbor. The whole of Guangdong province has been under Japanese rule for two years. What do you think they’re going to do if anyone goes to the port looking to leave? This is madness, this is—” “If no one is allowed to leave, how did this letter get to me? Maybe there is a way, if they travel inland.” “And what then? Even if they manage to cross the South China Sea without getting captured by the Japs. What then? Who’s going to give them jobs?” My father was almost heaving. His back curled like a cat’s backed into a corner. The rubber industry had collapsed a few years ago. With it went the plantation and my father’s job. Now he did what work he could: poorly paid odd jobs for a furniture store in town, and manual labor in the pig farms in our village sometimes, only to make ends meet. “What, do you want to sell one of the children to pay for the upkeep of your family? Maybe the girl?”
That was the moment Auntie Tin rapped on the door. I smelled her perfume before I saw her, a floral note amid the deep musk of farm animals and earth around us. “Hello, hello, Mr. Ng, Mrs. Ng. I’m Mrs. Tin,” said the visitor, smiling. My parents, caught mid-quarrel, folded their arms across their chests. The visitor continued smiling and held out a paper bag with both hands. “Pastries. Tangerines.” My mother passed the paper bag to me and said, “Go. Finish making dinner out back.” Out of sight, I tried to eavesdrop on their conversation but they were whispering, their voices drowned out by the cries of children playing outside and the chatter of our neighbors relaxing before their evening meal. The smell of tangerines filled the kitchen as I finished washing the vegetables and I was trying to start the fire underneath the wok when my mother called for me. “Wang Di! Bring us some tea.” Her voice like a crack of a whip, making me wonder what I had done this time. When I brought them the tea, my parents were sitting on the kitchen stools and the woman was deep in our one good rattan chair, making the wicker stretch and creak as she looked me over from top to bottom and up again. The curls in her hair were freshly set and there was gold on her arms and on her earlobes, little yellow hoops that she rubbed every now and then between finger and thumb as if to make sure that they were still there. She nodded as I handed her a cup. “Good girl. Call me Auntie Tin.” Then to Ma, “You have just one daughter, yes?” “Yes, just one.” “And did I hear you say ‘Wang Di’? Is that her official name?” My mother nodded and Auntie Tin turned to me, the perm wobbling on her head as she did so. “Girl, do you want to know what your name means? Would you like a husband? I have just the man for you in mind.” It was only then that I realized that I didn’t know what my name meant. The realization dropped like a stone down my throat, into my belly. Confused, I nodded, then shook my head. Yes. No. My father said nothing but started agitating the spoon in his cup, as if he were ringing a bell. “Wang, meaning hope or to look forward to. Di, little brother.” She turned and gestured outside with her hand, as if she knew that my brothers were out playing and might step through the doorway any moment. “Wise name. And good girl—” she nodded at me “—for bringing your parents good luck. Two brothers, this is something I can tell potential suitors about.”
My father dropped the spoon with a clatter. “She’s too young.” “Oh, it doesn’t have to be today. I’ll just put her name down and you can let me know whenever you’re ready.” She drew out a palm-sized notebook from her bosom, bloodred and pulsing with all the names and potential it held within its pages. “Ng. Wang. Di,” she said as she wrote, the fortune mole above her lip leaping with anticipation. I had never heard my name spoken so many times in one day and I hadn’t seen it written before. I leaned forward to watch the characters appear on paper, admiring the way she did it, as easily as brushing crumbs off a table. 伍 望 弟 “You are, what, seventeen this year?” she continued, pencil hovering above a line. “Sixteen,” my mother corrected. “Ah, good. Just right.” “She’s too young.” “Lots of girls get married at this age.” “We’ll need time to talk about this.” My mother turned toward my father, who looked away, out of the door, as if he were expecting someone else to arrive. “Of course, of course. But don’t take too long ah... People get nervous during times like these—they start to think about families, babies, making a home of their own. A lot of women back in China got married before the start of the occupation, you know, just to make sure that they don’t get taken away to be dancing girls, or worse...” I heard my father muttering below his breath in dialect. “Another one. Another woman who cannot let go.” “Mr. Ng?” My father cleared his throat and switched to speak in Mandarin. “That has nothing to do with us. That war is all the way across the sea.” “You may think that but I’ve heard differently.” My mother was nearly in tears. The letter, I knew, was still tucked up into her sleeve. “What? What have you heard?” The woman now lowered her voice and leaned toward my mother. “Oh, that they’re getting close, spreading out. You know that they’re planning to attack Malaya, right? And once they have Malaya, they will come down south. And then it will only be a matter of weeks, if not days—” “Hu shuo ba dao,” my father muttered. Nonsense. “The British are here. They have ships and planes and cannons protecting our island. A few Japanese soldiers aren’t going to defeat the British.” “Then why do they keep sending soldiers here? Why do they tell us to dig air-raid shelters? To go to the hospitals and donate blood?” Auntie Tin’s voice was low, her matchmaker’s charm put on hold for a moment. She had walked past the bomb shelters, of course. The ones my father had dug one morning along with four other men as the village elder gave instructions from outside the trench, his hands behind his back. For a few hours, the air had been filled with the chink of metal hitting earth and dry rustles as earth landed back on the ground. When the village elder retreated into the shade, the men started to talk, laughing at a joke I couldn’t hear. My father was back before lunch, the shovel tipped carelessly over his shoulder. He didn’t know why they bothered at all since no one was going to use it—it was going to fill up with rainwater, he said as he took a drink of water. The bomb shelters didn’t look fortuitous. They looked like trenches. Like rectangles of carved-out ground, waiting for coffins to be lowered into them. Auntie Tin opened her mouth again, caught herself, and turned her unspoken words into a wide smile. I saw a silver tooth in the back of her mouth. “All I’m saying is, Mr. and Mrs. Ng, all the good matches might get snapped up if you wait too long.” There was something in her eyes that hinted she was prepared for anything that might happen, almost; that it was this ease of adapting, her flexibility, that had given her all she had. Her jewelry, her cotton samfu with its silky knotted buttons. “So yes, discuss this among yourselves. I will visit again after the new year.” Then she beamed, eyes crinkling, patient, like a snake that has just swallowed a fat brown hen. She had gotten what she had come for: tea, a friendly exchange, the beginnings of a guanxi—a connection—to another young woman in the village. “That woman didn’t know what she was talking about.” My father had been bristling all day ever since the visit from the matchmaker, but my mother ignored him as she gave everyone, except him, a bit of the salty radish omelet. “We’re not going to get her—” he pointed his chopsticks at me “—married off just because of some silly rumor. Anyway, we need her at home.” He had said the same thing when I was ten and a teacher from the neighborhood school came to ask if I was going to be enrolled that following term. “It’s brand-new and only half an hour away. Ten minutes, if she has a bike,” she had added, looking around to see if there was one. Her eyes went left and right, right and left, to the open door and the windows until she saw the one my father used for work, the front and back carriage rusted over and strewn with metal parts, a spare bicycle tire. She cleared her throat and sipped the tea my mother had given her. Even the sounds she made drinking were delicate. Her hands were pale, almost white, small and as perfect as a doll’s. “Uncle, please think about it. Times are different. We might still live in the kampong but everyone sends their children to school now—” But my father had simply waved his hands in front of her. “She has two brothers. One is in the third year of primary school, the other will go when he’s older. That’s already two sets of uniforms. Plus the books. The shoes. We can’t afford to...” “Oh, please don’t worry about that. People donate things all the time, I can help you with—” “No. No help. We don’t accept charity.” “Nearly everyone receives an education nowadays, even the girls. She’s already a few years late but we can—” “She’s a girl. What can she gain from going to school that her mother can’t teach her? We need her at home,” he said, pointing into the front yard, where the chickens were, and then into the wild, open backyard that extended into the trees. While my father cycled around the city doing odd jobs for a furniture store (deliveries, mostly, and bits of light carpentry) and my mother went around the village collecting laundry, I went to the market every morning with a basket of eggs and sweet potatoes. Once there, I would lay out sheets of newspapers and spread out what I had. Sometimes all the produce went in an hour, sometimes I had to take everything home again with me, and the weight of it slowed me down so that I arrived home later than normal. I would see my mother watching from the window, knowing that I had made no money that day but she would say nothing and I would say nothing. The feeling of it would pervade all throughout dinner so that my throat closed up and I would have to swallow again and again to keep my food from rising from my stomach. I nodded. When the woman looked at me, it was with a look that made me feel watched—the way an animal might feel watched. She was cautious with my father like that, as if he were a large dog, tame enough, but which could still pounce. “I don’t want to go to school,” I said, even though no one had asked me. My father nodded as I hoisted Meng onto my hip. Look at this, I wanted to say, to shame her, to remind her that there were needful things—and then there were things that people wanted, that anyone could want, but could live without. Meat and fish for dinner more than just twice a year. New clothes. An education. I had stared back at her, unblinking, wanting to sound older than I was, wanting to be on the side of my family because they were the only thing I knew. “I don’t need it,” I’d added, reveling in a sour satisfaction as the teacher got up to leave. My mother, still sore about my father’s refusal to send money to her family, refused to speak to him throughout dinner. Every now and then, as she moved to pick up morsels of food to put into her bowl, I heard the crinkle of paper under her blouse. A few days later, I saw her wrap her jade pendant, a pale green stone that she had always worn on a loop of string around her neck, in cotton and slide it into an envelope. I imagine that the jade was still warm when she brought it to the post office. For the next few months, I would catch her in the middle of reaching for it, her hand going to the dip in her throat, and finding nothing. My father never noticed. I imagine, too, that she was already thinking about sending her family the pendant that evening. The matchmaker’s warning about the war was ringing in my ears but the only thing I could think about then was my future husband—what he might look like, where we would live, whether he would be kind.
~~~
A voice rang out, high-pitched, despairing. “They’re not letting us in!” “It’s only for the ang moh,” someone else cried. “It’s no use.”
It was her scream which kept me up. The sound of it spoke of everything no one dared to talk about: what the soldiers were doing, young and afraid and separated from their families. It spoke of the things everyone was to keep silent about all through the three and a half years we belonged to the Japanese, and of the decades after.
~~~
We all watch across the world as violence and wars are initiated by those who decide they want to control more...more of anything they want--riches, land... and... people... There has never been a time in my life when I have been able to accept any reason for war... Except, of course, when we see that war takes two sides...even if one doesn't want to be at war. Take, for instance, Ukraine. They were invaded and had no choice but to fight their attacker.. But, is this really what we as the human race, is all about?
Jing-Jing Lee lives in Singapore, writing in English which I was thankful for, as I started to read this book. It was a war that I had specifically not identified since it was around the time of WWII. Perhaps this war preceded the world-wide war that later spread... In any event, from the standpoint of the characters in this fascinating, yet, terrible book in many ways, war is war when somebody enters your homeplace to take over your lives...
It was at a time when the British was supporting the island of Singapore. So that, when Japan started their move against other countries, those living in Singapore believed that the British would not allow them to overtake their small island. This proved to be incorrect. The story, you will learn, is much more detailed and open in facts. At the same time, the author has proven that her empathy and sympathy for both the story as well as her characters is totally in control. Terrible facts are presented; the result of those facts on the main character, in particular, will be shown to last a lifetime. Kudos to the author for this extraordinary book which, while fiction, reveals the horror that can be worse then death, within those lives affected by war...
May we fight to ensure the United States' present leader will be terminated before more than what is happening now with the military in our streets, will be stopped!
I continue to have mixed feelings related to movement within a book that is not chronological--perhaps when I have become personally invested as I did with this book, it is harder to be in the middle of a dramatic scene and then moved into an entirely different scen-- I want to know what happens quickly! Thus, readers will be moving both into the past as well as into the future of characters, as normal... We begin when the main character, Wang Di is just 16 who has recently gained the ability to consider marriage and beginning a family...
Kevin is another main character, but is much younger so his family drama is quite different and, is the individual who the author creates to bring about the full storyline that is only presented at the very end...
As mentioned earlier, ultimately, the Japanese had moved on to overtaking the small island of Singapore, where Wang Di lives with her family--parents and two brothers... Her mother has been looking toward a meeting with Auntie Tin, the local and rich woman who arranged marriages--her father opposed her leaving home. Auntie was full of doom and gloom sharing what she had learned about the movement of the Japanese and their affect on marriageability... So it was delayed for more discussion...
Which never occurred because the Japanese was now arriving in groups, claiming everything they saw or wanted... And that soon meant the people living on the island... Before her father could even act, Wang Di had been taken away, just as many other young children of all ages. No information was provided to the families as to where they were being taken, even when settled and years past, her family didn't know what was happening to her...
An older Japanese woman soon introduced herself. Wung Di, as many others had been placed in small private rooms, their clothese taken away and they were forced to wear dresses, used... On the first day they were told about bodily cleanliness and showed where they would go each morning upon waking... Small amounts of rice or soup were the only food they were given...
And then they were told why they were there. In helping the Japanese Troups as they fought the war, they needed comforted and the girls would provide that on a daily basis... Even for special serenades...
The average interaction was 30 men a day for each girl, sometimes going up to 40-50 on weekends... This was the part that was terrible to read... Cruelty, violence and even death could be coming through their door at any given time and they had no help from any of the Japanese watchers... One girl of 12 didn't make it... Another teen from Wung Di's community became a close friend, but didn't make it through the four years where their lives was "servicing" soldiers... Slowly each girl lost weight, lost identity and aged daily as their bodies could not deal with what was being done to them... I have to ask, are women better off than in the 1940s??? Not under an authortarian leader who places money and power over people...
Remind you of the Streets in California?!!
Though nobody would talk about it, when the war was won and Wung Di and others left, some chose not to go home. Wung Di had no options; she went back home where even her parents and brother would not speak to her, thinking she had chosen to marry a soldier and lived with him... The Truth, far worse, was to be kept secret no matter what... And then Auntie, who now had few riches came to see if she could be placed on the active list again... She had found a man whose wife had been killed, quite older, but somebody who promised to care for her... It was arranged...
Readers may find it difficult to understand what happens then... The one thing we learn is that Wung Di cannot read or write, and, is afraid to share anything with her new husband for fear he would throw her out... Fortunately he was kind and gentle and willing to wait so that we are soon reading that he had died and Wung Di was being forced to leave their home and she to move into a tiny place for singles--by law!
Kevin was a very special boy, perhaps so special that his parents didn't realize that he was intelligent beyond his age. An inquisitive boy by nature, he oftn found that his parents didn't understand his desire to learn and know more. At the same time he was bullied at school, especially when a neighbor shared that he lived in the same room as his grandmother. This may have been unusual, but it provided a companionship that fulfilled his need to talk and learn... Until his grandmothr was growing old and had to be taken to th hospital where, that time, his parents had gone out for a short while, leaving Kevin, who was the only one there when his grandmother awoke and started talking quickly, incoherently, in a different language that he only came to recognize the words, "forgive me."
Kevin's father had been in a war and came back with PTSD, so that when his mother died, he once again withdrew from the family into a dark place and would not even listen as Kevin tried to share what his mother had said--for he had researched and deciphered the words and created a complete transcript--a confession to her son...
Soon Kevin was finding things that his grandmother had left in their room. And, several times, he had watched her, while dreaming, when she returned to allow him to see where other letters had been hidden. Whether it was her ghost, or that he dreamed seeing her in the secret places at one time or another is not explained. What we do know is that he put together exactly what his grandmother had once done during the war and Kevin began tracking, hoping he could find family that they didn't know about...
Is this fiction based upon some documentation? For me, it really wasn't important. This author weaved a time of pain and sorrow and loss into the lives of an entirely new and different family, decaded later, that renewed a feeling of family that had been slowly destroyed during a war that achieved nothing but death and much worse for those civilians deprived of their lives. Having stories like this is the only way we who have faced the unknown with fear, can find joy and peace that somewhere, perhaps soon or in the future, all that we have suffered will be lost from our memories as those thoughts are replaced with new happiness... This is what Jing-Jing Lee offers to us at a time when most of the world needs to know there is an end and Peace and Joy will surely come in the morning...
Readers: Watch for my next post, a Historical Novel set in Singapore - A Personal All-Time Favorite for Me... Reading Historical Novels can point out exactly what could happen right now across the World! May No Kings begin World-wide! to learn from our Histories and Change the Future!
This song is for my BFF and All Women!!!
This song for my new great-nephew and all boys and men
confused about Truth - God's Truth
God Bless
Gabby
May We Demand Respect!
Today and Always!
God, Hear Our Words In This Time of Trouble, Provide us a Bridge Over the Hate, the violence and deaths, the Lies, the losses due to Power, the Fear that is being caused by Men who want Riches and Power over all who just want Peace!
Is that So Wrong?
We Seek Your Awareness of Those who Seek Help
You are Our Only Truth, Our Only Hope...
And, Lord, touch each of us with the bravery to speak Our Truth, Knowing that Your Love Will be With Us, Always...
It all began because I’d stopped at the grocery store for some carrots. Who would have thought that could be dangerous? It was enough to make me want to stay home for the rest of my life.
I knew he was planning something I wasn’t going to be happy about. It made me mad, but worse was that other feeling I’d been trying to bury under layers of anger. Deep inside where I didn’t want to admit it, I was scared to death.
He started humming along to the radio, and turned up the volume. How someone like him liked country music was a puzzle to me. It just didn’t seem to fit him at all. In an effort to understand, I tuned into the beat and pretty soon I was nodding my head in time with the rhythm. It was an upbeat song, which surprised me. Maybe that was why he liked it. I would have thought a trained assassin would go for the dark, heavy-metal stuff.
Monday morning began rainy and wet, perfect for a funeral. I donned my wig and glasses, but decided not to wear my black clothes even though they were the right color. I was getting tired of black. Besides, I wanted to wear the new clothes I got at the mall. As I drove to the funeral, a sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t care much for funerals in the first place, but I was worried that with my abilities, I would pick up a lot of the family’s grief and sadness. I really didn’t want to cry, but some funerals were sad with all the goodbyes, even when the deceased wasn’t someone you knew. That, along with listening to all those minds, could be disturbing. I mean, wouldn’t most of them be thinking about Johnny? Of course, the murderer probably would be too, and that was what I wanted, right? If I actually heard the murderer, I sure hoped I could figure out who it was in the crowd. I arrived about ten minutes early. Not early enough for the viewing, but hopefully in time to get a good seat in the back. Usually those were the first to go, but if I was the murderer, that’s where I’d sit, and I was hoping the proximity would help me ‘hear’ him. Or her if it was a woman, I mean, who knew? The place was filling up, and there weren’t many seats left. So much for my plans. Uncle Joey and Ramos were sitting up front, but I didn’t want to go up there. I scanned the back again, hoping to find a small space I could squeeze into. Number Five was sitting on a row close to the back, and he caught my eye. He motioned me over, and I happily squeezed in beside him. “Thanks for letting me sit here,” I said, truly grateful. “No problem,” he answered. “I have to admit I am surprised to see you here. I didn’t think you knew Johnny that well.” “Oh, I’m not here for Johnny as much as for Uncle Joey. He was pretty upset about Johnny’s death.” Number Five smiled. “I didn’t know Mr. Manetto was your Uncle.” Oops. “Oh, yeah… on my mother’s side.” My mother would kill me if she ever found out I’d said this. “Ah… I thought you were involved because of other reasons.” He was thinking it was because of things I had no control of. “Oh, I am… I mean… well… you know how it is.” I was trying not to say too much, but if he was a cop, I didn’t want him to think I was really working for Uncle Joey of my own free will. I smiled and he just smiled back. Maybe now was a good time to do a little probing of my own. I whispered, “I think Uncle Joey has a good idea about who killed Johnny.” “Really? Did he tell you?” Number Five was suddenly tense. His whole body tightened up, and he focused all of his attention on me. “No,” I said quickly, hoping he’d calm down. Why was this upsetting him so much? “But he has informants everywhere, even in the police department.” I hoped he took that as a warning. “Oh.” He relaxed, and I let out my breath. I puzzled him. He was wondering why I’d bring up the cops, since he was the one who took care of them. Maybe I didn’t know as much as I thought. Or maybe I knew a lot more than he was giving me credit for. Whatever the case, it was time he did some real checking up on me. Oh great. Now I’d just made things worse. What was I thinking? The funeral services began, and the conversation around us stopped. Everyone stood as the funeral directors brought the casket down the aisle with the family following behind. I didn’t want to listen to any of them, their grief and anger was too fresh. Besides, I already knew none of them did it. After everyone sat down, I got down to business. I tried to pick out individual thoughts, and concentrated on the back row. I figured I’d move forward row by row, that way I wouldn’t miss anyone. At first, all I got were random thoughts, none of them telling me anything important. I scanned up through the crowd, listening for anything that sounded remotely incriminating. There were a lot of people who would miss Johnny. He was a good person even though he was a bad guy. Everybody seemed to agree about that, but I wasn’t sure it made sense. Many were angry that he’d been killed so violently, but that came with the territory. They just hoped Uncle Joey would take revenge. Soon, my mind began to overload. I could no longer pick out individual thoughts because there were so many. It was like being in a crowded room with everyone talking at the same time. I used all of my concentration to pick up those stray thoughts that told me they were glad he was dead, but it was almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. I tried blocking out thoughts and then listening again, but that didn’t make them any clearer. I tried everything I could think of, but all it got me was a pounding headache. The funeral was nearly over when I knew I had to get out of there, even if it was just for a few minutes. I excused myself to Number Five, realizing I didn’t even know his name, and nearly collapsed when I got outside the doors. I found a drinking fountain, and swallowed some aspirin, then wandered around until I found an empty room. I sank into a soft chair, and closed my eyes, grateful for the silence. After a few minutes my headache dulled to something bearable, and I could breathe again. I relaxed and decided I couldn’t go back in there. The stress was too much. I wasn’t sure what I’d tell Uncle Joey, but I’d figure that out later. After a while the voices of people leaving the service reached me, and I knew it was over. I reluctantly left my chair, and searched for Uncle Joey. He would probably want a report, and if I gave it to him here, then maybe I could go home. I wandered into the foyer and spotted Ramos standing beside Uncle Joey in a watchful stance. He looked like a bodyguard, and it hit me that Uncle Joey was a standing target for the killer. If someone took him out now, my troubles would be over. That didn’t make me feel as glad as I would have thought. I didn’t like Uncle Joey, and I hated being in his service, but I still didn’t like the thoughts of him being gunned down in cold blood. What was wrong with me? Was I showing signs of that hostage syndrome thing? I hoped not. It was probably just that I didn’t like to see people get killed. Now if he were holding a gun to my head, it would be different. The crowd had thinned considerably when Uncle Joey spotted me. His smile was friendly, and he motioned me over with an outstretched arm. “I’m glad to see you made it. You look a little pale, are you all right?” “I’m okay now. It was a little stressful in there.” “I didn’t see you come in.” “I sat in the back by Number Five, but I got a headache, and had to leave for the last few minutes of the service.” “Number Five?” “Yeah, the guy you saw me talking to in the parking garage, on your surveillance camera. I don’t know his name, so that’s what I call him.” “Oh, yes I remember now. Why don’t we head over to my office? We can order some food, and discuss what you found.” “Well, I really didn’t find anything—” “That’s okay. I have some other things I need to talk to you about.” He held the doors open for me, and I took a breath of fresh air. The rain had stopped, and the sun was shining. A big rainbow hung over the cemetery like a benediction, and took my breath away. “That’s something isn’t it?” I said. “Yes. Somehow, it makes me feel okay about Johnny. I hope he’s in a better place.” I was surprised to hear that coming from a hardened crime boss like Uncle Joey. “I’m not all bad, Shelby.” He didn’t like the look of surprise on my face. “Oh…no, of course not.” “You can come with us, my car’s over there.” “No, wait. I brought my car. I might as well meet you at the office.” He looked around until he spotted it. “I know you went car shopping over the weekend, did you have any luck?” Did he know everything? “No, not yet.” “I know someone who can get you a good deal. You can have anything on the lot for less than half of what they’re asking. I’ll call him, and tell him you’re coming. I just got a new car myself. It’s right over there.” He pointed it out, and we started walking toward it. “Oh, you mean that black one? Now why doesn’t that surprise me? You know, you really should try a different color some time.” “But I like black. He’s got another one on the lot just like it that you could get. It’s a great car with all the bells and whistles. It even has a remote start. Ramos, show her how it can start from here.” Did he really think I’d want a car just like his? I had to admit, however, that it looked pretty sleek, lots more fun to drive than a van. Ramos pulled the keys out of his pocket and pushed a button. The engine sputtered for a second, and then sprang to life with a huge unnatural roar. Why did it sound so strange? Suddenly, the car exploded in a fiery blast of shattering glass and metal. The blast threw me to the ground, and I cringed as showering sparks and metal fell around me. Ramos and Uncle Joey were beside me, and before I knew it, Ramos pulled me under him, shielding me with his body. We stayed like that until the last of the flying debris came to rest. For a fleeting second Ramos’s eyes met mine, then traveled to my lips. I could feel a rush of pure desire pulse through him before he quickly jerked to his feet. He turned to Uncle Joey, checking to see if he was injured. “I’m all right,” Uncle Joey muttered. Ramos helped him to his feet. “Check Shelby.” Ramos dutifully took my hands and pulled me up. I was shaking so bad it was hard to stand without his help. “Are you okay?” he asked. My mouth didn’t seem to be working so I just nodded. What was going on? What had happened? We all stood there in shock, watching flames shoot out from the car. The black smoke billowed up, and the air was thick with the smell of burning rubber and gasoline. Soon people were gathering around us, and I heard a siren in the distance. Someone asked if that was our car, and Uncle Joey nodded. His hair was sticking up on one side, and there was a smudge of dirt on his face. A trickle of blood ran down the side of Ramos’s face, making him look more dangerous than ever. His hair was sticking up too, and I panicked, hoping my wig hadn’t blown off my head. I frantically reached up and let out my breath to find it was still there. It seemed a little crooked so I straightened it the best I could, and caught a fleeting smile from Ramos. He nodded, then quickly turned away, puzzled and uncomfortable with the protective feelings I aroused in him. I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. It was good he felt that way, wasn’t it? At least it would make it harder to kill me, and that was a plus. I inspected my new skirt and cardigan and gasped. Not only were they spotted with something black, but covered with charred holes where the material was burned away. That’s when it hit me that I’d almost been killed. Again...
~~~
In many ways, this book reminded me of my one and only long-time favorite movie not to be replaced, yet... that I saw over a decade ago! The main character is a homemaker who gets involved--with other things! And throws her family into confusion and fun for readers! Colleen Helme has taken this basic concept of a Mom and, during the midst of accomplishing her daily meal preparation--today will be chicken soup--for which she needs carrots--because nobody's heard of soup without carrots, right--so decides to stop at a local store...
Which happens to include a branch bank...
Which happens to be robbed during her visit...
Which happens to include the robber shooting two people...
As she stands there watching him do the shooting!
Confusion immediately reigns, but the shooter had the chance to also see the woman watching and he took a shot at her! She is hit, the bullet enters her skull...
Shelby Nichols, in this first book of her adventures, is a delightful mix of innocence and a recognition of how her life has become somewhat boring... That is, after she gets shot... And after she discovers that she can hear what other people are thinking...
And, of course, one of the things that changes is that she has become involved with Dimples (a cop who is in charge of th bank robbery/shooting and she knows and remembers only as the delightful dimples that he happens to reveal on his handsome face. So, while the police encourage her to be alert and contact them if she sees anybody following her, she goes back to her regular life, which becomes confusing as she hears what her husband and two children plan to say, and answers--before they actually speak...
Shelby begins to see what her new skill is, but is afraid of what that may mean to her life (as she should be!).
Because the very first time she is out walking, she is confronted with the guy who shot her... That is, until he is shot and killed, saving her life (2nd near-death experience)... The shooter quickly comes to see if she is alright, and explains what she should do: Call the cops as soon as he leaves, explain that he was about to shoot her and somebody nearby shot him instead... Most importantly she did not see who murdered the murderer...
Enter the "genteel" mob boss that owns a legitimate business, but was interested in knowing who had robbed the local store/bank. His "fixer" figured that guy was going to ensure there was nobody still living who had seen him--and had already entered the hospital and killed the other witness--so had decided the easier way to find the thief was to follow his other witness... Thankfully he was correct and Shelby was saved by the mob's paid assassin...
If you haven't guessed by now, while this is a great mystery, with some suspense on multiple levels of the plots, it really is a fun and humorous story as well... So, sit back and enjoy! Because what happens next is not a return to her normal life...
Ramos, the fixer/assassin is one of my favorite characters in additiion to Shelby... Because, having saved Shelby, he seems to have noticed just how charming a woman she is and easy and fun to talk to. Shelby never flirts because she does love her husband, which will be demonstrated several times in a little side hustle happening at her husband's law offie, she does both resent his need to be there all the time, but, also that she feels, interestingly, safe with him...
Until she is being called in to give her report to the mob boss, as to how and why Ramos had killed a man in her presence... Ramos was asked to leave during that interview and we learn just how the man has become so successful in his business. Because when he starts questioning what had happened at th bank as well as later, his probing led to a slight revelation from Shelby, which he quickly pursued... Shelby in the past had never needed to lie. Now she was having a hard time with all of the events... When she was then threatened that something might happen to her family, Shelby explained that based upon her head injury, she had become able to read people's minds...
And that, if you even have to be told, resulted in her becoming the unwilling personal assistant to the mob boss. Her job was to sit, listen and report back what the other individual had actually been thinking during any meeting! Having to explain all this to her husband was taking her skills of lying to a whole new level...
Especially, when she learned that her husband had a new lawyer in his office, who Shelby quifkly saw that he was after her husband for personal attention... but, even worse, later learned that she had a personal relationship to the mob boss! In other words, Shelby was caught in the middle between her husband's colleague and her forced relationship with a new boss that was demanding of her time with her new job in his company!
What a mess! But when one of the second in command to the boss was murdered, along with his son, talk of a possible takeover attempt came to the front. Especially, when at the funeral of his friends, there was an attempt to blow up the boss' car when they left the funeral home... And since Shelby would have been in that car, she was quite ready to seek out and share as much information as she could find to help discover who had committed the latest murders and attempted murders! But, I have to say, that the climax was more funny with chaotic confusion rather than an exciting adventurous conclusion... Loved it!
...She had no piercings, and only a single tattoo around her wrist. She glanced down at it, rubbing at the long sleeve of her sweater. The tattoo was visible just beneath the cuff, looping her wrist like a handcuff or a manacle. The words of the tattoo read:
Take captive every thought...
“Vicarious resolution to trauma,” Ilse murmured softly, answering the thoughts reverberating in her mind. “Projecting interpersonal control on tangential issues.” Dust and dirt crunched beneath her feet as she took the trail, following it along the old concrete barriers lining the nighttime road. “Stupid,” she added at last, channeling her inner Agent Sawyer. “Really, really stupid.” The streets were empty; the night stretched above and stared down, watchful of the vacant trails. Ilse rubbed at her arms, feeling a chill seep through the soft fabric of her baggy hoodie. This was not a good idea. How had a quick trip for a bite to eat turned into something so stupid? And yet, even as she thought it, she continued marching on, eyes ahead, taking the portion of the dirt road that ran parallel to the highway itself, on the other side of the concrete barrier. A trained psychologist. A licensed therapist. And yet, still, she ignored her own counsel—maybe she’d been too hard on some of her patients over the years. The ones who’d ignored her completely and beaten their own path. She shivered, remembering how some of those stories had ended. But still, she marched along the old dirt road, arms at her side now, swinging like pendulums. It had been a while since she’d gotten some decent cardio in. She picked up the pace a bit, speed-walking and breathing in slow, steady patterns. Fear was a liar. Fear was her enemy. Sometimes, it seemed, even more than her history, her father—even more than Hilda Mueller’s memories. Fear was the true threat. Stupid though this was, a small part of her felt like this was the only way… No more cowering behind locked doors and shuttered windows. No more double- and triple-checking locks… well, perhaps that would be a harder habit to break. But she refused for fear to be the motivator now. Refused to allow it to control and manipulate as it so often did. As she stalked along the old road, the same road the killer had been hunting, the same road where two women had been killed, where Samantha had been kidnapped, she could feel the fear rising like a cloud over her. Despite her best intentions, despite her desire to face it head on, fear was stretching across her like a blanket, weighing her movements, suppressing her thoughts, strangling the life from every moment of natural vitality, trying to drown her in sheer panic. “No,” Ilse said, simply. “No!” she repeated, louder into the dark. Headlights suddenly flashed over the top of the hill, moving down past the concrete barrier. Ilse’s heart skipped a beat. She waited, breathing heavily, watching as the car slid past. For a moment, it almost seemed to stall, the engine grumbling loudly in the night, echoing and reverberating off the concrete barrier. But then the headlights shifted, and the vehicle picked up the pace again, growling and speeding away. Ilse breathed a bit easier, watching the taillights blink back toward her like the red eyes of some sentinel demon. Where had the other bodies come from? She stopped moving for a second, standing on the old dusty trail, frowning to herself. The FBI was tracking down the identities of the other victims they’d found in that basement. Ilse shivered. Where had they come from? This road too? More hitchhikers? More unsuspecting victims? Ilse gritted her teeth and shook her head, marching forward again. Take captive every thought… She mouthed the phrase, picking up her pace until she was jogging now, kicking up dust and darting under the splayed branches and shivering shadows across the dusty road. Another car’s lights flashed behind her, this one coming from the opposite direction. Again, the vehicle seemed to slow… Ilse paused, looking back. Her heart skipped a beat, watching as the car moved through the gap between the opposite highways. It paused beneath a clearly marked No-U-turn sign. A cop? Not a cop. No, a truck. An old, flatbed truck. It came across three empty lanes, pulling from the sheer opposite side of the highway and coming to a crunching halt next to the barrier. The headlights illuminated her, shining bright, and Ilse could feel the oppressive cloud of fear now turn into a cold trickle rattling down her spine. For a moment, breathing heavily, she came to another halt, facing the bright lights, squinting against the glare, listening to the steady rumble of the truck’s engine. A second later, the lights clicked off, and a hand waved out of the front driver’s side. “H—hello?” Ilse said, hesitantly, staring toward the waving, fluttering hand. “Need a ride?” a voice called from inside the truck. A faint, gravelly voice, like a smoker’s. Hard to make out, though. Ilse could feel her feet rooted to the spot, could feel the familiar chill rising up her spine. Her mind flashed with images of basements and postcards and dead pigeons. Her teeth set and she stared at the greasy windshield. The fear was slowly met by a rising sense of sheer fury. Righteous indignation that went as deep as her bones. The man’s outline was hard to determine through the windshield. Though it looked like he might have been wearing a baseball cap. For a moment, Ilse thought of Agent Tom Sawyer. For another moment, she felt a shiver of surprise at how much she missed the lanky, silver-haired BAU agent. Missed him, and especially his gun. Alone on the open highway, witnessed only by the moon, Ilse forced one frozen foot forward. Her hands trembled horribly as she did, but she refused to back down now. She was here for a reason. No more postcards, no more haunting memories. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. “Hi,” Ilse said, finding her voice surprisingly steady despite her inner turmoil. “Can I help you?” The same road. The same road the killer had been hunting. The same road. Ilse blinked and watched as the man in the baseball cap gave a soft little chuckle. It smelled, perhaps, like cigarette smoke wafting from the front of the vehicle. “Thought maybe I could help you,” he called back. Ilse shivered, rubbing her elbows through her thick sweater. She shifted uncomfortably on the road, feeling trapped for a moment. Her hand went to her pocket, where she’d placed her keys, and she felt the comforting, hefty weight of the ring of metal. She paused, though, hesitant. Where was her pepper spray? She glanced down, frowning. The little plastic container was missing. Where had it gone? She froze now, double-checking her pocket, then her keys. The pepper spray was missing. Panic began to set in. Her sheer exhaustion weighed heavy, and the momentum of her choices up to this moment pressed on her. Abort. She needed to abort. This was a terrible idea. Unarmed, defenseless… Her hand tightened around the keys, and she took another step toward the truck despite her thoughts. “Just saw your car back that way,” the man said, waving a hand over his shoulder. “Did you break down?” Ilse swallowed once. “Yes,” she lied. Leave! Get out of there! But she ignored her subconscious. She’d come too far. She was too tired to try again. Sometimes risks were necessary. Besides… she had a plan, didn’t she? She swallowed, hand tightening further around the keys. Where had she lost her pepper spray? “Tough luck. Well, wanted to be a good citizen. Need a lift anywhere? I’m in no rush.” Ilse exhaled slowly. What sort of folk were in no rush at midnight? Most, perhaps. But on the other hand, what sort of folk pulled over to the side of the road at midnight for a stranger? The man seemed friendly enough, though his voice came muffled from the front of the cabin, and his hand—which still dangled out the window—seemed limp. But still… Ilse hadn’t come here for fear. Just five minutes. Always five minutes. What could it hurt? The keys were good enough, weren’t they? She’d defended herself with far less as a child. She could only imagine the absolute gold strike a set of keys would have been back in that basement. “Unknown… Brown eyes… Six victims…” “What was that?” “Nothing. Yeah, I could use a ride. Thanks!” She’d said it. She’d committed. Damn it. Ilse circled to the passenger side of the truck. Before she could reach the handle, she heard the click of locks, and the driver reached across, shoving the door open. His smile flashed beneath a baseball cap, his features wreathed in shadow as he waved at her, gesturing for her to get in. A very pronounced smile. Almost an intentional thing. More a leer than anything. Ilse, though, refused to allow her feet to command her actions. When they again seemed intent on rooting to the concrete, she forced herself up the small metal rung into the front of the truck, and slid into the passenger side. Inside the cabin it was surprisingly clean. She detected the faint scent of air freshener, trying to hide the odor of cigarette smoke. “Mind shutting that?” the man said. Ilse nodded numbly. Stupid! Don’t be stupid! Stupid! Don’t be stupid! She ignored her own thoughts and shut the door. A second later, the lock clicked. “Sorry,” the man said. “Locks are finicky.” He brushed off any chance at anxiety with a wink and another smile. “Where can I take you?” he asked. The man’s chin was covered in stubble, and he smelled of smoke and lavender from the air freshener. Two little dice dangled from his mirror, cottony, fluffy things. In the rearview mirror, Ilse noticed two strange canisters sitting on the back seat and… there, tucked beneath the canisters, she spotted what looked like the hilt of a bowie knife. She swallowed, glancing toward the locked door, her fingers trailing down the cool glass, touching against the metal handle inside the cabin. But she’d come this far. No backing out now. The same road. Don’t be stupid. The same road. Don’t be stupid. She ignored the thoughts again. “Oh, just to Three Lakes,” she said. “That work for you?” “Dandy,” the man said with a nod and a wink. “Buckle up.” He waited expectantly, a sort of hungry look in his eyes as she reached with a quavering hand toward the buckle past her shoulder and then pulled it, locking it in place. Alone, trapped, watched by a stranger with just a bit too much eagerness. She felt like a specimen, the way Dr. Mitchell sometimes made her feel. But where Donovan’s attention was on her behalf, examining to help, to aid and care for, this man’s attention seemed of an entirely different and far more selfish variety. Once she was buckled, the truck began to move, heading in the exact opposite direction it had been going before, taking her back toward town. “Kinda late to be out on your own, isn’t it?” the man asked in a light, airy tone. Ilse’s eyes fixed on the road. “Wanted some fresh air,” she murmured. “Know what’s wrong with your car?” “I’m not really a car person.” “Oh… Well, I am. I can take a look if you’d like.” Ilse swallowed. “No… No, that’s fine. If you could just take me back to town.” “Sure, sure, whatever you want.” He shot her a sidelong glance, his eyes lingering on her face for a moment and then shifting down, taking more of her in. Ilse stiffened in her seat, locked in place, feeling like an animal in a zoo, trapped in a cage. “You know, I don’t do this for just anyone,” the man said, still conversationally. “I had somewhere to be—the opposite direction actually. But, you know, I suppose I can help a fellow citizen out.” He reached over and patted her on the leg. His hand lingered for a bit longer. She glanced in the rearview mirror again, her eyes on the hilt of what she was certain was a bowie knife. She pictured the way he’d smiled, leering as she’d entered his truck. A smile on the top of a note paper. A smile of corpses. A smile from a driver who picked her up on the same road where two women had been killed. Though she felt like she was doing something monumentally stupid… And it was that. Stupid. She also wasn’t an idiot. She knew when a coincidence became more than that. She shivered as his hand trailed from her thigh. “Thank you for the ride,” she said, stiffly. “You know… Maybe if you just let me off here, I can walk.” “What? No, don’t be silly. All sorts of strange guys are out this time of night. A pretty little thing like you? It’s just five minutes that way. I’ve got you.” The easy, carefree tone had grown sort of strained now. The man was breathing a bit heavier, his eyes hooded beneath his cap as he stared at the road. Ilse’s fingers pressed against her ring of keys, holding them tight, bunched up in her hand nearest the door. Her thigh felt slick and oily and gross from where his fingers had trailed. Maybe he was just being friendly? Maybe he was just a bit too touchy… Was it all in her head? The man was whistling softly now, fiddling with the radio, turning the station to a crooning love ballad. It came crackling and low over the car’s janky speakers. “There we go, that’s the right mood, yeah?” He chuckled a bit as the love song echoed in the cabin. A prickle spread along Ilse’s arms. She glanced toward the locked door again. “Where you from—you never even told me your name,” he said, speaking a bit louder now. Instead of friendly and curious, it came across as demanding. She shifted. “Ilse,” she said. “Ilse. My ex was named Ilse, you know.” He let out a little shuddering breath accompanied by a wiggle of his thick shoulders against seat leather. “She had a mouth on her, I’ll tell you. A real, real pretty mouth. If you catch my drift…” He glanced at her, his eyes lingering on her lips. This time, he didn’t even try to look away, but instead met her gaze and winked. “Hey,” he said suddenly. “I gotta take a leak. You can watch if you like.” He gave a grunting little laugh. “Just hang tight one sec, all right?” He pulled the truck sharply over to the side of the road, moving to a rest stop with a blacked out safety light. The truck trundled over asphalt and loose gravel, crunching in its path behind a low grove and against a metal rail blocking the rest stop from the rest of the road. “What are you doing?” Ilse said, quickly. “I gotta piss,” he replied, waving a hand dismissively. “Won’t take but a second. I never do. Sit tight, won’t you?” And then they pulled to a full stop in the darkest, most hidden section of the rest stop, shielded by a metal railing and low trees from the rest of the highway. The man put the vehicle in park, and—for a moment—it seemed like he was double-checking the doors were locked. Then, smiling, he turned to face her...
~~~
Sawyer tapped Ilse on the arm. Before he could indicate she follow, though, she stepped past him and quickly moved ahead. Then, without looking back, she beckoned him with a crook of her finger. He blinked after her for a moment as she strode away, the photo clutched in one hand. Despite himself, a small smile crept across his lips. He hid it in a cough, though, and then followed Dr. Beck out of the precinct. Was she right after all? What were the odds? Had she remembered Samantha Wright’s words correctly? Had Ms. Wright remembered the past correctly? Somewhere out there, Samantha’s time was running out. They didn’t have another lead. Maybe there was a chance… a chance of a chance. Maybe, just maybe, they had a chance at finding this old abductor’s address. Active for twenty years… Sawyer shivered, frowning as he did. He wouldn’t make it personal. Couldn’t allow it. But even for him, the thought made his skin crawl. He could only hope Dr. Beck was right. Otherwise, things were looking grim for Samantha Wright. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The gloomy, overcast weather marked the horizon as Ilse watched Agent Sawyer drive through the narrow roads south of the city. At least this time, he’d allowed her a seat up front, though he’d seemed reluctant to do so. Ilse’s eyes kept darting from the printed photo in her hand to the road ahead of them. The GPS from Agent Sawyer’s phone kept chirping. His eyes were fixed on the road. As they traversed beneath gray skies, Agent Sawyer murmured, “Tell me again why we can’t use your phone’s GPS?” This was the first he’d spoken to her in the nearly twenty-minute drive south from the station. She cleared her throat delicately, glancing toward the lanky form of the BAU agent. “I have a dumb phone,” she murmured. “It doesn’t have GPS.” She pulled out her old flip phone to show it to him. He glanced over, then returned his attention back to the road. A few moments passed, but then, to her surprise, he spoke again. “You’re not a drug dealer, are you?” It took her a second to realize he was joking. “Umm, no. I just like the phone. Not a big fan of technology. I have a wood-burning stove back home, actually.” She wasn’t sure why she’d volunteered this last part. But for some reason it seemed to prompt a ghost of a smile on Agent Sawyer’s normally dour lips. “I see,” he said. They drifted off into silence again, and Ilse did her best not to shoot glances in his direction. A strange case study, Agent Tom Sawyer. Named, it seemed, after a character from a novel. A novel written by an author who’d hidden his name. Samuel Clemens to Mark Twain. Not too unlike Hilda Mueller to Ilse Beck. Maybe the two of them had something in common after all. However small though it was. “There we are,” Sawyer murmured, nodding through the windshield to an old, dead field a second before the GPS chirped, Arriving at destination on your left. Sawyer piloted the vehicle smoothly onto the dirt road, past the broken, dusty field. The car jolted and bumped. A branch had fallen, forcing Sawyer to veer off into the dirt and then back onto the road, kicking up a cloud of dust which wafted to meet the gray, glaring skies. In the distance, through the dust and past the low-hanging, arching boughs, withered much in the same way as the surrounding fields, a creepy scene confronted them. A vacant, abandoned farm. The fields were tell-tale, but the rusted, overgrown tractor and combine added to the desolate scene. Old farm equipment piled against the side of a large, red barn. Ilse glanced at the photograph in her hand, then tracing a finger, she pointed off behind an overgrown patch of forest. “The old shack should be back there,” she murmured in a faint voice, feeling a chill rise along her spine. The trees seemed larger, darker than they had from the main road. Now, as they trundled along toward the old barn, and the weathered farmhouse on the flat land, facing the dead field and the abandoned farm apparatus, Ilse could feel her mind flitting, sifting through the basement of her memories. Her fingers gripped each other, hard, and she swallowed, shivering against the rising thoughts. Agent Sawyer glanced at her. “You okay?” he said, quietly, his voice oddly gentle and gruff at the same time. “Fine,” she murmured. “The shack should be just past there.” No movement from the farmhouse. A flutter of birds who’d hidden out behind the rusted tractor scattered toward the sky as they drew nearer. A crackling, cracking sound arose from old sticks and dried boughs across the road as the sedan moved closer to their target. Suddenly, a loud bang. Then the car jolted to the left. Ilse yelped, but Sawyer cursed, slamming a hand to the top of the wheel and immediately bringing the car to the side of the road and throwing on the brake. “What was that?” Ilse demanded, her heart pounding as she glanced around, her eyes on the farmhouse, tracing to the barn, then back to the very edge of a weathered, but hidden building behind the overgrowth. “Flat tire,” Sawyer replied, kicking open his door and sliding his lanky legs out onto the dusty road. “Wait inside.” Ilse paused, then huffed. “Hang on,” she said, firmly, “I’m not staying here.” Sawyer looked through the window at her. “You’re not coming with. Stay in the car.” “Oh? And what if the killer sneaks up on me while you’re off searching the farm?” Sawyer paused for a moment, tongue in his cheek, but then sighed, gesturing at her. Ilse wasn’t sure if she’d wanted to win this particular battle. Locked behind the car’s doors seemed a safer location than anywhere on the farm. But she had to remind herself why she was here. Who she was here for. She pushed out of the vehicle, her eyes on the old, creepy fields, feeling suddenly very alone and isolated. She stepped delicately out onto the dirt road, exhaustion weighing heavily on every movement. She circled the front of the unmarked sedan and approached where Sawyer was on one knee, grumbling and poking with a pale finger at the front left wheel. “What happened?” Ilse said. “Nail,” he replied. He tapped a finger on a jutting metal spike in the tire. Already, the thing was deflated beyond use. “Damn it,” he growled, slapping a hand against the hood of the car. He turned, glancing along the trail, and then his frown deepened further. “What is it?” Ilse said, reading his expression. Instead of answering, he began to move carefully toward a portion of the road they’d passed. He pulled up short, staring down. One of his hands twitched toward the holster on his belt. “Agent Sawyer?” she pressed, peering in closer. Ilse looked past Sawyer’s form, his looming shadow cast as a dark streak against the gray road. There, dull and scattered across the ground, she spotted more nails, as well as screws and small jutting pieces of metal. They’d been left in a line across the dirt road...
~~~
I found myself intrigued by the title of this book--and still am. I think I understand, but I'm not quite sure who the "Us" is supposed to encompass... It could be the two lead characters who will clearly continue on in the series, or it also could related to the villains as well... I wish I knew for sure. It affects my own personal perspective of how I read the book... But, as they say, "It is what it is..." What I can tell you is that this author is set to keep readers guessing from the very first page. Even as you know a little about the background of Ilse Beck, the story does not lend regular clues that will confirm whether a reader is moving in the right direction. In fact, I thought the book was over, concluded, the FBI got their man... But the book was not finished yet...
I was stunned, even as I read... Be prepared because there is no way I'm even going to hint at the full scope and breadth of this suspense thriller. It can only be called one thing--Extraordinary!
At the same time, I sense a budding friendship or romance between Ilse Beck, who has become a renowned expert on serial killers and looks at her job as a psychologist to help those whose lives have been affected by these individuals in some way... In this book, she has already gained the respect of the local FBI Agent Sawyer, who seems to have connected by caring little about the work clothes they wear, if that makes sense... Both of them, however, are very interested in doing their job and when it connects, each takes the initiative to grab the lead for their respective expertise and won't back down from anything or anybody working to stop them... A dangerous dilemna for Ilse...
The local police are already involved with the disappearance of several women. However, it is only because Ilse has taken on a new client as recommended from her long-time teacher and mentor that she begins to think about serial killers... Samantha had been attacked 20 years ago, but has grown fearful that her attacker at that time is now looking for her again. Her fears, her memories--everything is coming back and she has sought out a psychologist to help her through her fears... Sam and Ilse have met for two sessions, but during the second meeting Ilse had realized that she was doubtful that a 20-year-old killer would still be looking for old victims so she found her own history coming into the picture much more than it should as Sam was describing where she had been held, what had taken place, and more...
So, it was quite a shock that at some time during the night, Ilse took a call from Sam. She was running, being followed and knew it was the same man who had attacked her... She was calling for help! Ilse immediately went into action, calling the police, getting dressed and drove directly to where Sam had last been when she'd lost contact. Of course, Ilse became ashamed that she had not given much concern that something was really happening, so there was no other choice, Ilse was going to work along with the police until Sam was found!
The book describes the basic methodology of building a case history on clients which I found fascinating, even if I could never hope to figure out how to use it... In any event, Ilse never kept records, which is one of the reasons she has so many clients come to her--less fear of their secret lives being exposed... However, now that Ilse was being asked for possible clues, perhaps based upon what information Sam had disclosed during the two sessions, she had to build up to accessing the few things covered thus far. Ilse used a rather strange method for calming herself. She would pick a serial killer and then review the basic statistics of that particular individual she had studied and set to memory. But, this time she was so upset that her mind was going over her own life, Sam's life, and the awareness that Sam could now be dead because Ilse had not paid her routine diligent attention to what the client was saying... A stress that just made everything more distressful... Readers will watch as she pulls herself together and proceeds to gain confidence again--perhaps with the helpful support she was being given by the FBI Agent?
Finally she remembered where and how Sam had been captured and held and with computer assistance, they began to discover possible locations where Sam was now being held... But would it be too late?
This novel is both informative and entertaining re the unfortunate number of serial killers in the world... It is clearly character driven with characters you will be watching closely as the series proceeds... Highly recommended
