The Pale: Volume One - Jacob Long (10 ebook reader txt) 📗

visibly taken aback by this revelation. “Oh, I see. What brings you here then?”

“Well, your son does,” Lamont said.

Lena only gave the officer a confused expression, and Lamont showed her the police sketch.

Lena looked the paper over. It amused her. “My son could hardly be your culprit. He was a soldier. He died while on deployment in Afghanistan. I saw his body.”

“I know,” Lamont interjected. “That’s not exactly what this is about. You see, I got this sketch done, and then I came across your son. I learned about him. I learned about his life and the people he touched. I learned about the difference he made. Now . . . I need to know about him. I was hoping that you could tell me the real story, the way only you can.” Lamont finished his piece and didn’t feel revulsion at lying to the woman before him. As a matter of fact, he was more stricken by its honesty.

Lena Rodriguez didn’t answer immediately. She stood with her hand resting closed on her chest. Not a single emotion crossed her face that betrayed her thoughts. Meanwhile, Lamont was suspended in a limbo of uncertainty. He wondered if she would turn him away and what that would mean. She could very well be hiding her son. A mother’s devotion ran deep. Lamont only just recently learned that from experience.

“Sure.” The word landed like a feather on the air. “Please, come inside.” The Rodriguez matron stood back from the portal and held the door open for her new guest.

Lamont thanked Lena and stepped inside cautiously. It wasn’t so much that he was afraid of a demon dropping from the ceiling; he felt somehow past that. It was more like each footstep was supported by a mother’s memory, and he needed to tread delicately, because they were too precious to mishandle. Entering the den, Lamont’s attention was drawn to an entire section of the wall dedicated to a tiered display filled with photos. They showcased the Rodriguez family in various situations, all of them pleasant. Adam Rodriguez featured heavily in various stages of development. Sometimes he was with his ex-girlfriend, Christina, at a party or a bar. Sometimes he was with his father. Here he was receiving a soccer trophy. There he was just posing for a yearly class photo. He seemed to smile often. One person curiously absent from the photos was the boy’s mother, but Lamont soon realized that his mother took most of the pictures. Her family was a treasure, and their memories were made that much more precious in their absence.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Lena asked, “Juice? Water? I have something harder, too, if you’d like.”

“A water, please.” Lamont responded softly. His voice broke amid the delicate delivery of the words.

“I’ll bring it right out. Please, have a seat.”

Lamont watched Lena pass into the kitchen and noticed how fair her skin looked. It was light, especially for a Hispanic woman. She seemed to not go out much anymore. The thought hit a soft place on his heart, but unfortunately, it was none of his business. He was there to find Adam.

While Lamont waited, he perused the pictures again. Seeing Adam in everyday situations made him seem a lot more human. Lamont wished that was what the boy still was. It would be so much simpler, and the boy’s mother wouldn’t be constantly on the edge of heartbreak or jail.

A splash of deep red drew Lamont’s attention. One of the pictures featured a character that the others did not, a young woman. She was white—pale, to be perfectly honest. Her hair was dyed a sort of wine color. She and Adam Rodriguez were caught in a candid moment in the photo that drew Lamont’s eye. Adam smiled, not for the camera as in the other pictures, but just because. Meanwhile, the girl in question shyly avoided the camera by nuzzling into Adam’s neck, but she couldn’t hide her bright smile. Lamont pondered why the shy teen didn’t feature in any of the other pictures, so he scanned them again and came to a realization: she was in most of Adam’s pictures. She was always in the background or very nearly out of frame, but she was there, almost always in the same place Adam was.

Lena returned with clean glasses of water in both hands. “Here you go. Do you like the pictures? I took most of them myself.”

Lamont accepted the drink. “I do. You have a great eye for capturing the feel of an occasion. Some of them make me jealous of the people in them.”

Lamont’s flattery landed with great effect. Lena blushed and smiled confidently.

“This one especially interests me,” Lamont continued, indicating the picture of Adam and the mystery girl. “I’m aware that Adam left behind a girlfriend named Christina, but who is this, another high school sweetheart?”

“Oh, no,” Lena explained. “That’s Téa.”

“Téa?”

“Yes. She and my Adam met sometime in middle school, I think. I don’t know the exact circumstances. I met her when Adam brought her home from school, aww, like a little lost puppy. She was as quiet as a statue at first, but eventually, with patience and charm, I won her over.” Lena winked. “That’s what makes the two of them so unusual. They’re total opposites, but if you talk to one about the other”—Lena sighed—“it was like they could do no wrong. Ohh, she was devastated when Adam died.”

“I’ll bet. Good friends are hard to find,” Lamont said.

“Yes.” Lena took the photo of Téa and Adam from the shelf and gazed lovingly at the two. “Adam was always a complicated child. He had trouble keeping friends.” Lena suddenly smiled. “Just when I was getting worried, he just shows up one day with her. She stayed over all night. So quiet, I didn’t even notice. They were nearly inseparable ever since.”

“She . . . looks like she might be kind of . . . I don’t know, emo, if I’m using that word right,” Lamont said. “Is she into witchcraft or pagan religion or something like that?”

“Oh, no.” Lena shook her head. “I know it’s easy to look at Téa and write her off as just another shut-in millennial . . . which I suppose she sort of is, but she’s so much more. If you only knew. She’s so smart and inventive. Get her to work with you, and she can bounce ideas off you all day. She is one of the most interesting people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, even to this day.”

“Uh-huh, and Adam is the opposite of her?”

Lena laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She shoved the officer playfully.

Lamont shrugged. “Okay. If you’re being perfectly honest, how would you describe Adam then?”

Lena smiled fondly as she thought back. “I would have to say that Adam’s biggest personality trait was how headstrong he could be. He was . . . resolute. Believe me, once my boy had a job to do, he didn’t quit. That was why he joined the Army and stuck with it. That’s . . .” She sniffled and valiantly resisted a faraway look. Instead, she looked into Lamont’s eyes. “That’s why he made a difference. He knew that there is a right and a wrong in this world, and not just anyone was ready to do whatever it took to make sure that the right always won.”

“You see, that’s the kind of info you can’t get from . . . a memorial,” Lamont said after a pause. “You must miss him a lot.”

Lena nodded. “Every day. I’ve lost a lot of family over the years, Officer Fisher. My husband died not long after my son did, and the quiet they left me with in this house is . . . deep. Christina hardly ever visits because she is so busy with her new career and her new life with her husband. Téa was even worse. She closed herself off from me after Adam died. She finally visited me just yesterday, and it was only to get Adam’s old clothes to donate to charity.”

Lamont was astonished. “What?”

“I know,” Lena said. “I wish she realized how that felt. I mean, maybe giving away something of his is her way of moving on. At least, I hope she gave it away. I hope she didn’t want it for something weird.”

“She picked up Adam’s clothes from you?” Lamont asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“What’s Téa’s last name?” Lamont asked the question without thinking, and Lena was taken aback.

“Uhm . . . I’m sorry. Why do you want to know that?” Lena asked.

“I . . . just thought I might want to talk to her next,” Lamont said. “You know, since she was so close with Adam.”

“Look, sir . . .” Lena set her jaw and maintained a firm composure. “I’m glad you showed an interest in my son. Really, I am. But I think it’s time for you to go.”

In an instant, all of Sergeant Fisher’s careful articulation was undone. He’d alienated his witness and become hopelessly creepy, and she was ordering him out as politely as she knew how. She probably didn’t even believe he was a real police officer anymore. In the fallout of her resultant assertion, only a second passed in which Lamont looked as if he might protest. In that span, the smooth and efficient cogs of his career policeman’s brain considered many alternate solutions in light of the new obstacle. By the time he spoke, he wasn’t even fazed by the little hurdle.

“I get it.” He put one hand on his chest and calmed Lena affably with the other. “I absolutely understand. I’m pursuing this interest of mine a little too hard. It’s my day off, and I decided I was going to learn about this guy today. I got carried away, and I apologize.” Lamont started backing toward the front door. “Thank you so much for all your help. I don’t want to bother you a second longer than you are willing to humor me, all right? So thank you again. You have a great day.”

Lena could only observe bemusedly as the man claiming to be a cop slithered out of her house. She had always been open with people and enjoyed sharing, but for the first time, she thought she might come to regret it later.

Meanwhile, Lamont didn’t spare a moment to dwell on the situation. He was back in his car, on the road, and on his phone before Lena could have possibly called some other cops to come pick him up.

“Scott! I need you to cross-reference something for me.”

21

“Seventy-one . . . seventy-two . . . seventy-three . . .”

It was not easy for Adam to find an apartment that would actually allow someone to check in without a valid state issued identification. He ended up spending the night at a seedy no-tell motel ironically close to where the Custodian of the Wheel of Fate had unceremoniously dropped him in the dirt without a clue. The moon was high before Adam finally had a place to cool his heels.

“Seventy-four . . . seventy-five . . . seventy-six . . .”

To his chagrin, there was no gym, no pool, and really no one else staying there, but at least they had a television and free Wi-Fi. Adam spent hours catching up on five years of American history. A part of him was surprised to find that the US still had a military presence in the Middle East . . . A part of him wasn’t. A nonpolitician celebrity was president for the first time since the eighties, and it was progressing about as well Adam could have hoped. Domestic terrorism and mass shootings sure did seem like they were becoming more popular. In fact, the media focused so much on all the disheartening news a person could be forgiven for thinking there was nothing positive to report. It reminded Adam of the Custodian’s comment about humanity maybe being why the Wheel of Fate was losing track of human souls. Pain was powerful. It twisted the souls of men and drove them from their resting place.

“Seventy-seven . . . seventy-eight . . .”

The wee hours of the morning arrived with Adam still going strong. That would mark the second night without sleep, and Adam grew concerned. He didn’t know the limitations of his new body.