Wings Of The Dawn Read online

  “Why? I’m nothing to you. You never knew I existed before the shooting.”

  “I knew someone existed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I knew Grant was deceiving someone, if not a great many someones. I was praying for you even back then.”

  Cheryl looked away and noticed the stream for the first time. With the window down, it was easy to be caught up in the sounds of the water as it traveled over the rocks. “CJ was always praying for me,” she murmured.

  “I know. Curt told me how worried she was about you. See, Cheryl, you can try to shut out the rest of the world and even believe that you’ve accomplished just that, but somehow things are far more complicated than we give them credit for. Did you know that not only is CJ praying for you, but her husband prays for you as well? Then there’s my sister Christy, and Curt.”

  “Please don’t mention his name,” Cheryl said, turning to face Erik’s compassionate gaze. “I don’t want to talk about him. I can’t talk about him.”

  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to talk about him. And not only about him, but to him. He’s not the kind to stand back, and he won’t leave you alone forever. Just because we’ve thwarted his efforts this time is no indication we can do it again.”

  “But if Curt hadn’t started all of this…” She fell silent and bit her lower lip.

  “Curt didn’t start this, and the sooner you accept that, the better you’ll feel. But that’s not what I wanted to say to you just now. I want you to know that God really does love you, Cheryl. He does listen to the prayers of His children, and with so many people praying for you just now, He’s getting an earful.”

  She said nothing, and he continued. “God tells us in His Word that He will never forsake us, and, Cheryl, I believe He will be faithful to that promise. Even when we are disobedient, I don’t believe God stands idle. I believe God uses the Holy Spirit to prick our consciences and teach us that some things are unacceptable, even when they seem our only way out.

  “You gave in to Grant’s demands,” he paused, picking his words carefully. “You gave yourself to Grant in a way that went against what God had in mind, but it doesn’t mean you can’t be forgiven. You trusted a man who was evil and whose actions proved it, but still you can be forgiven. You lived a lifestyle that had no room for God, but He never left—never stopped loving you. He still stands with open arms, waiting for you to see that planning out things your own way will only lead to this kind of misery.”

  “So now all of this is my fault?” Cheryl questioned, struggling with the strange sensation Erik’s words caused within her heart.

  “You are partially to blame, aren’t you? Weren’t you the one who went willingly into the relationship with Grant? Weren’t you the one who gave in to Grant, even when you didn’t want to—even when you knew it was wrong?”

  “CJ’s told me all this mumbo jumbo before. I didn’t buy into it then, and I don’t see a reason to buy into it now. God can’t possibly care about me now, anyway. I’m the scum of the earth, as you so eloquently pointed out.”

  “I said nothing of the kind! I only tried to say that we all make mistakes, and God is willing to forgive us—when we are willing to repent.”

  “I can’t live in a little box,” Cheryl said and then easily recognized that this was exactly how she was living. She shrugged and noted the time. “Don’t you think Curt will have given up on me by now?”

  “Possibly. Do you want me to take you back?”

  “Yes, please.”

  They stopped for fast food on the way back to her house, and Erik insisted that she eat it under his supervision. He drove around Denver until she had managed to finish the cheeseburger and fries. She hadn’t believed herself hungry, but by the time she was halfway through, she felt quite ravenous.

  Erik pulled into her drive, but when he reached for the keys, Cheryl put her hand over his and stopped him. “Don’t.”

  “I thought maybe—”

  “Look,” she began, “I appreciate what you did today, but I don’t want you to worry about me or see me as some pet project of yours. I’m beyond saving, and you needn’t waste your time with me.”

  “I don’t think I’m wasting my time,” he replied.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think,” Cheryl said, rather stiffly. “I’m not interested in buying what you’re selling, and I think it would be best if you don’t come back here again.”

  She got out of the truck without waiting for his reaction or re-sponse. A part of her wished he would come after her and convince her that she was wrong, but an even bigger part wanted to run as fast as she could. Away from Erik Connors and his kindness. Away from Erik Connors and his God.

  five

  One day blended into another, and for Cheryl, very little happened to mark the passing weeks. She spent a great deal of time in her father’s study and bedroom. Sometimes she’d lie down on his bed and try to imagine happier days when she’d been a little girl and her mother had still been alive. The memories, dimmed from the years, were the only thing that gave her the slightest comfort. They were probably the only reason Cheryl hadn’t taken the drastic way out and ended her life.

  She looked around her father’s room, feeling so alone and sad that she had to do something in order to rally herself. Opening first one drawer and then another, Cheryl pulled out clean clothes, undershirts, sweats, and pullovers for working outside. She rubbed the material with her hand, thinking all the while of Ben Fairchild and what his absence meant to her. Her entire world had turned around him, and now he was gone.

  She pulled out the drawer containing his socks and other personal articles and dumped the contents on his bed. Suddenly she noticed that a lockbox had been taped to the outside of the back of the drawer. She peered into the hole where the dresser drawer had resided and found a hollowed-out indentation that matched the size of the box. Her father had intended to hide this box from any casual search, and suddenly it seemed quite valuable to Cheryl.

  Pulling the strips of duct tape off, she held the box at eye level. It was a simple gray metal box, no bigger than five by eight, with a small locking mechanism to secure the lid. She tried to open it and found it was locked tight.

  Setting the lockbox aside, Cheryl searched through her father’s things for a key and came up empty-handed. There must be some way to get that box open, she thought and finally retrieved a screwdriver and pried the lock apart. When the lid flew back, Cheryl could only gasp in surprise. On top, a stack of thousand-dollar bills greeted her like a flag of warning. Carefully she picked up the money and counted out fifty thousand dollars. She shuddered. What was Daddy ever thinking to keep this much money in the house?

  She set the money aside and pulled out two computer diskettes, a set of keys, and several pieces of paper that had been folded neatly together and placed on the bottom. She opened the papers, wondering even as she did if this was the information Curt wanted so desperately. Was this the final shred of incriminating evidence that would forever brand her father a drug trafficker?

  The first page read like a Chinese-encrypted menu. There were symbols and numbers, dollar signs and totals, all given in neat, orderly columns. The second paper gave a list of street addresses, usually followed by some brief, abbreviated set of directions.

  “Third row, second shelf, back. Black/telephone-direct. See J.M.,” she read from one line. What in the world does it mean?

  The more she read, the worse the feeling she got in the pit of her stomach. Surely this information proved more than she was ready to ac-cept. Her father had obviously been involved in something he wanted to keep hidden. After all, he’d gone to all this trouble to put the box into hiding behind the dresser drawer.

  With a sensation that someone might be watching her, yet knowing it was impossible, Cheryl thrust the contents back inside the lockbox and resecured the lid. It was an awkward fit after her work with the screwdriver, but she forced it to close and tucked the box under he
r arm. She would have to hide it away. Hide it where no one could find it. Not Curt and his friends nor anyone else who might have need of what was inside.

  She hurried to her room and looked around for a proper hiding place. She thought first of her closet where the striking emptiness was sure to draw immediate attention to any object left inside. That would never do. Next she thought of burying it in a box of personal items that she’d planned to give to Goodwill. But that, too, seemed a likely place for someone to look. She sat down on the bed and rubbed her hands back and forth across the lid as she thought. It would have to be somewhere where it wouldn’t seem likely to be. But where?

  Then an idea hit her, and Cheryl jumped off the bed and ran to her private bathroom. Her combination shower/tub had a wonderful ledge that had been designed to hold her toiletry items, and for years one end of the tiling had been loose. Her father had put off having it repaired because he wanted to redo the bathroom in imported marble. Now it seemed that his negligence would go one step farther in preserving his reputation.

  Cheryl stepped into the tub and pushed aside her shampoos and bath oils. She studied the situation for a moment, determined to make certain that whatever she did, she wouldn’t draw attention to the ledge. She put the lockbox on the floor of the bathtub and played around with the loose corner of the tile. With a little work it loosened even more, and before long the white caulking came apart altogether and the tile was free. Underneath, Cheryl could see that the entire ledge was nothing more than a boxed framed with waterproof tiling. This suited her purpose exactly.

  Unable to tell how far down the boxing frame went, Cheryl quickly retrieved one of her belts and tied it around the lockbox. It was a tight fit getting the box past the small opening, but once this was done, the box floated freely for several inches before settling with a hollow “thunk” against the bathtub base.

  Cheryl reached her arm through the opening and realized she could easily touch the box, so she let the belt drop into the hole and quickly put the tile back in place.

  Stepping away, she frowned. It was quite noticeable that the tile wasn’t in the same order as the rest of the ledge. The white caulking was shattered, with pieces in the tub and intermingled with her bath articles. She sat down on the tub and considered the situation for a moment. Then a revelation struck her, and Cheryl swung her legs over the edge so quickly she put a stitch in her side.

  Toothpaste! She thought. Years ago when she’d lived in an apartment in California, the landlord had patched holes in her wall with toothpaste. It blended right in with the spackling and looked as though there had never been a nail to mar the purity of the wall.

  Pulling out her toothpaste, Cheryl breathed a sigh of relief to find that the contents were white, just like the caulking around the tiles. She pulled a nail file from one of the drawers and went to work. First she smoothed off the remainders of the old caulking, and then she liberally applied the toothpaste and worked it into the seams of the tile until it matched perfectly with the rest of the shelf.

  Feeling rather proud of her ingenuity, Cheryl replaced her shampoos and bath oils on top of the tile and stepped back to survey her work. Except for the crumbs of caulking in the tub, there didn’t appear to be anything out of order. Cheryl smiled, completely satisfied with the results. Her last order of business was to turn on the faucet and wash the caulking down the drain.

  She’d just walked from the bedroom when the telephone rang. She seldom ever answered it, but from time to time it was one of her doctors or some other matter that refused to be put to rest, and so she was in the habit of letting the answering machine pick up the call while she listened in.

  “You’ve reached the Fairchild residence,” her father’s voice boomed on the machine. “Leave a message at the tone.” That was it. A simple, no-nonsense message. The machine beeped, and Cheryl waited in anticipation for the message that might be left.

  “Yes, Ms. Fairchild, this is Anthony Zirth with the Denver Post. I’m doing a feature to honor your father and to award him the posthumous honor of—”

  Cheryl picked up the telephone. “Hello, Mr. Zirth? This is Cheryl Fairchild.”

  “Ah…Ms. Fairchild,” he said in a hesitant voice, “I didn’t think you were in.”

  “I screen my calls very carefully,” she replied rather coolly.

  “I can well understand. You must surely receive a great many calls. May I say, first of all, how sorry I was to hear of your father’s death?”

  “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”

  “He was a great man, and we here at the Post have planned to name him our man of the year. I was hoping to interview you and get your perspective on what it was like to be the daughter of such a man.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cheryl said, trying hard to soften her voice. “I don’t do interviews. I’ve been through too much of late.”

  “Of course, that’s understandable.” The man positively oozed sympathetic concern. “I can do the story without your insight, but of course, it would make it much better with some type of personal touch. Say a photograph or some other bit of information you’d like the world to know about him?”

  Cheryl thought for a moment. Mary’s scrapbooks came to mind. Not the most recent one with all the black details of their lives, but earlier ones. Albums with comments about the awards he’d been given and copies of programs from gatherings given in Ben Fairchild’s honor.

  “I might be able to provide some of those things,” she finally answered.

  “If you could, I want you to know it will make this story truly great.”

  “Well then, Mr. Zirth, I realize tomorrow is Saturday, but if you can come by then, I’ll have a few things put together for you.”

  “Tomorrow would be just fine. Would one o’clock suit you?”

  “Yes, that’s good for me.”

  She hung up the phone feeling another bit of elation. Someone wanted to honor her father. Someone still thought of him as a good man and not an evil drug-ring master.

  She went to her father’s study and found the albums she wanted. Next, she pulled down a family photo album and took out a picture of her father. It was her favorite one. He looked young and dashing in his three-piece suit. The photo had been taken for his company literature, but Cheryl thought it captured his personality better than any family photo they’d ever posed for. His look was determined, intelligent, and driven, and all of those things were the things she loved most about her father. He had taught her to be self-sufficient and confident. He had taught her to stare adversity in the face and come out swinging.

  “Oh, Daddy,” she murmured and tears filled her eyes, “what a disappointment I must be to you now.” She continued talking to the photograph as if her father might really be listening. “I tried to be strong about all of this, but I just can’t. I can’t be that strong. There’s nothing left. You’re gone. Grant’s gone. I just can’t go on without you. There’s nothing left. Nothing worth living for.”

  She broke down and cried with great painful sobs that wracked her body. From deep inside came a stark, hard hurt that would not be released with the simple deluge of tears. She pushed away from the desk and the photograph and thrust her father’s office chair across the room as best she could. Next she picked up the trash can and threw it, too. Before long, nothing was safe. She threw books, bric-a-brac, awards, trophies. Nothing mattered. Nothing was sacred.

  When her anger was spent and the rage calmed within her, Cheryl surveyed the mess she’d made. It would take some doing to clean it all up, but at least it would give her a sense of purpose. Picking up the trash can, she sighed. At least this will keep me from thinking.

  six

  Guilt hung over Erik like a shroud, and he knew that he had to come clean with Curt about his outing with Cheryl. The O’Sullivan family barbecue at his sister’s house hardly seemed the appropriate time or place, but Erik hoped that the setting and the fact that CJ and her husband were present would keep Curt from going bal
listic.

  “You did what!” Curt yelled when Erik tried to explain having gone to Cheryl that day.

  “Just listen for a minute, Curt,” Erik said, trying to explain his ac-tions. “I only went there to offer her moral support. I thought if I came in on my own, she’d see that I was on her side and that I only wanted to help.”

  Curt was seething, and Erik could tell by the flushed color of his face that this was no minor issue that would be passed over with a brief justification. By this time, everyone else had stopped to see what the matter was. Christy was just approaching the two when Curt spoke.

  “Inside, now!” he told Erik between clenched teeth.

  “Curt? What’s wrong?” Christy asked, stopping short of touching his arm.

  “Your brother and I need to talk. Please try to understand, and explain to CJ and Brad that we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Is something wrong?” she asked again.

  “You could say that,” Curt said and stormed off toward the house.

  Erik shrugged and added, “It’s all my fault. I’ll explain it later.”

  He followed Curt into the stately Victorian house and made his way to the one room he knew Curt would seek refuge in, his own private study. Coming through the door, Erik could easily see that Curt was trying to get his emotions under control. He paced in front of the window and glanced up at Erik when he entered the room, but he clenched his teeth together even tighter and turned to look out the window rather than speak.

  Erik felt terrible. He knew it was no more than he deserved, but he hated the fact that Curt was angry at him, and he hated even more that he deserved that anger.

  “Before you start in on me,” Erik said, “I want you to know that I take full responsibility for my actions. I know I was wrong, Curt, and I’m asking you to forgive me. It won’t happen again.”