“My lovely.” They stood before him, touching. Steele glanced around the room and realized that all of them could see what he was looking at, and that scared him. While he’d never done this before, brought two people together, he knew that he could do all sorts of things that others couldn’t. It wasn’t his mind playing tricks nor dreams getting the better of him. It was two people who had lost each other. The two older people were as real to them all as the other men in the room were to him.
“What the hell did you do?” He shook his head at Ray’s whispered question, telling him without words he had no clue. “They’re here. I mean, right here.”
“I can see that.” As the couple turned and looked at him, Steele stood up. “Do you know what happened to you both? Anything at all about how you’d come to be gone?”
“Murdered,” the woman said with a sad smile. “We were murdered, young man. Both of us were. It was our sixtieth wedding anniversary…I’m not sure what timeframe this is. Could you tell us, young man?”
Steele told her the date and year. “We found all this stuff in a building that was to be torn down. We’ve been trying to match the….” He wasn’t sure what to tell her about the trophies, but she seemed to know.
“I would imagine that he took something from each of us. A souvenir, I think they’re called.” She laughed when he nodded at her. “I did watch television, my dear boy. But to answer your question, we have been apart for nearly fifteen years. And we have children, not that I think they’d miss us overly much. They had their own lives to live and rarely had time for us. But we’d like for them to know that we’re gone.”
Steele nodded to her. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to know that we’ve found out where you are. They can have some closure as to what might have happened to you.” She nodded but said nothing more. “We have your names as Stanley and Opal Carter. Is that right?”
“Yes. Our children are Stanley Junior and Memphis. I think that is why he’s never called much. A mistake in calling him that. More so when we told him that was where he was conceived…we were young and silly then. But that’s their names. I wonder…do you suppose they’ve moved into our home or sold it for the money?”
Steele told her he didn’t know but wrote down the names and where they were all those years ago. He watched the couple, wondering what would happen to them now. Stanley smiled at him and nodded.
“We’re going to leave you now. I know you’re a good man, but I wanted to tell you that the woman in your life, she will die without your attention.” Steele stood up, but before he could ask him what he meant, they were both gone.
“What just happened?” Steele looked at Hugh, feeling as if he’d been hit between the eyes. “Did you just summon a couple so they could…I don’t know, be together?”
“I think so.” Steele was more concerned with what he’d been told by Stanley than about what he’d done or not done. “He said that Kari would die without my attention. Did you hear that?”
No one had. He asked them twice more and no one had heard the man say anything but that he loved his wife. Steele tried to think about what that might mean as he pulled out file after file. By the time he was notified that the chopper had landed, they still had a huge stack to review, but he had to go. Ray told him to have fun. Steele didn’t say anything because he wasn’t sure what he could say.
She was here. His mind kept saying that over and over. As he moved into the big rental car that they’d been using, he felt as if he might owe her more and stopped by the rental place again to get a limo. He wasn’t sure what she’d think of it, but he wanted her to have something special. Even if it was only to relieve himself of the guilt of hurting her.
Chapter 5
Kari listened to her instruction on how to exit a helicopter. She was terrified beyond belief that she might chop her head off, but the pilot, Chad, said that she’d be just fine. As she picked up her duffle bag and started out, he stopped her again.
“Miss Kari, it was a pleasure to have you ride with me.” She nodded, sure he was kidding. She must have asked him ten thousand questions on the short ride over. “I’m serious. Most people new to this kind of flying would have white-knuckled it all the way over, not saying a word. You made it fun and enjoyable. Thanks for that.”
Kari smiled at him and got off, keeping her head down almost to her knees. When she was cleared of the fast-moving blades, she took another few steps before turning to wave goodbye. He waved back and took off again. She knew that he had to get back to the house because of something that had gone wrong at the airport where he’d picked her up.
The lobby where she entered was small. Not that she had a lot of experience with airports, but this one seemed tiny compared to all the ones she’d seen on television. Going to the counter, Kari told her who she was.