Without Faith Read online

  Detective Fields took my notepad and started flipping through the pages.

  “Wait, that’s confidential information. I keep notes of all of my clients in there.” I reached for it. Fields hesitated but then returned it before standing.

  “We’ll be back with another search warrant, Ms. St. James. I wouldn’t go too far today if I were you.” Everyone was filing out of the house.

  I did not like the way this was going, the way he looked at me.

  Neither did Leon.

  “Sienna St. James is as clean as they come.” The mere sound of his voice was a comfort as he stood next to me in the doorway. “We are not sure why she is being targeted, but I can promise you she has nothing to do with this situation.”

  We.

  He had removed any thought I’d had about feeling alone with any of this.

  The detective studied Leon for a few moments, his head cocked to one side. “Officer Sanderson, you used to work on homicide before you took up the kid gig, right?”

  “Police Athletic League,” Leon corrected. “I work at one of the PAL centers when I’m not working my other shifts.” Recent department cutbacks had forced Leon back on part-time patrol duty. “Sorry that I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, Detective . . .”

  Fields did not bother to introduce himself to Leon. He merely grunted. “I would suggest that your girlfriend here examine every corner of her life and past if you really think she is being targeted.”

  “I am not his girlfriend,” I said, maybe a little too forcibly.

  “I will let you two work that out, but we’ll be back with another search warrant. If you think of anything else you’ve ‘forgotten,’ Ms. St. James, you have my card.”

  The door closed and I had more to clean. Muddy footprints on my carpet, some knick-knacks knocked over and broken. A couple overturned houseplants.

  Leon’s fingertips were on my shoulder, and this time I gave in.

  “I’ve got you, Sienna,” he whispered in my ear as I melted into the folds of his arms. “Everything will turn out okay.”

  Whether or not it would, I did not know. What I did know was that the warmth and strength I felt leaning my head against his chest was the most genuine, comforting, safest place I’d been in a long time.

  And then his cell phone rang.

  I felt his body stiffen as he fumbled to check it, then turn it off.

  “I’ve got to go, Sienna. I’m still on duty.” The hug was over, and he was looking away from me.

  “That was your phone, not your radio.”

  “Yeah, but . . . but I have to go.” He reached for the door handle. “There’s an unmarked car out there that’s watching you, so don’t worry about your safety. I will be back as soon as I can. Everything will work out okay.”

  I watched him run down the steps, pause at his car, and then take off.

  In all the vulnerable moments I’d had over the past two years, Leon had never left me standing alone to face them, even if I had not been welcome to his presence.

  One unanswered phone call had done just that.

  Taken him away.

  Chapter 17

  Roman SJ

  R StJames

  RoRo Man

  Manny James

  Nothing was working.

  Sitting in front of Roman’s laptop, I tried every combination of names, nicknames, and otherwise I’d heard Roman call himself over the years. Facebook was turning up nothing. I’d checked his computer history and it had been cleared.

  “Roman, what are you hiding?”

  Hiding.

  I wasn’t hiding anything, and yet there were police officers and other authorities combing through my history and affairs at that moment. That thought stirred a recollection. Earlier in the morning, Brother Laz Tyson had said he knew something about my past. Maybe he could help me figure out some things about my present.

  My mother had called to tell me there were no new updates about Roman. Really, she was calling to see if I still was in my right mind, I knew. My mother, the respected elementary school principal, was a nurturer by nature; she simply did not show this side of herself through frilly words.

  Despite my many calls, there was nothing new the Vegas police could share with me. And Roman’s cell phone was of no help. I regretted not putting him on my cell phone plan. When he took initiative last fall to get his own prepaid phone with his part-time job money, I was thrilled at his use of economy and independence. Now, the cheap, cut-rate phone provider he’d chosen was living up to my low expectations. I wanted someone to track down his phone’s whereabouts, but the customer service phone number repeatedly only led to a web of computerized messages that redirected me to e-mail addresses that led back to more phone numbers that led to nowhere.

  I just wanted to speak to a real human being who could help me.

  I just wanted my son home.

  It was too much going on at one time. And I was all over the place.

  The lion’s head ring.

  That was the one thing I could hold, the one thing I could control. It was still safe in my purse. The e-mail about it was still safe out in the virtual world.

  I pulled up my e-mail account. Within seconds, my breathing was easy, steady. I was in control again, the e-mail with the translation of the letter from two years ago on the screen.

  My name is Beatriz. I spoke to you yesterday by phone to tell you that a package with your husband’s ashes is coming. My brother does not know that I am writing you, and he will be very upset if he finds out, because we promised not to tell, and we needed the money.

  I am a pottery maker in Portugal. This is our family business, and we are not doing well. A few weeks ago a man came to view our wares. After quietly studying our best work, he paid us great money to craft an urn. He came back for it yesterday, and then after inspecting it, he put a small box inside of it and told us that he would pay us twice the amount he’d given us for the urn if we would only call you to tell you that your husband’s ashes were coming and then mail the urn to you. My brother agreed, because we greatly needed the money, and to make the story more authentic, my brother used the address of a crematorium in a neighboring town for the delivery. When you asked for the phone number during my call to you, he meant to give you the one for that crematorium, to keep you from finding us, but he instead accidentally gave you our number. I took that mishap as a sign from God that it was meant for you to know the truth, especially with what happened last night.

  Late last night the same man who asked us to mail the package was found unconscious in a hotel room near our town. The news media here put out a story to try to get more information about him, since he appeared to be traveling in this country alone and illegally. I do not know his name, but a link to the newspaper article can be found at this Web site. There is a picture on the Web site of the man.

  I do not know what was in the small box that the man put inside the urn. If it is truly your husband, I am sorry for your loss. What I do know is that I cannot live a life of dishonesty, no matter how much money is offered, and I have not had peace about staying quiet regarding this.

  Please do not try to contact me. I do not want my brother angered, as he does not usually get involved in such affairs. I am telling you all I know.

  The words “Web site” were hyperlinked. I remembered from before that the link was to a Web site that had a picture of an unconscious Kisu, RiChard’s best friend, who was supposedly murdered years ago. At least that was the story RiChard gave Kisu’s family and me. He’d had the blood on his hands—revenge of his best friend’s death—to prove it.

  But Kisu had been found unconscious in Portugal two years ago, according to that picture I’d clicked on back then. He was the one who’d sent the ring, claiming it to be RiChard’s ashes. It was too much to figure out back then, and I’d left it alone. Really, it was too much to figure out right now, but the idea that some detective might soon stumble on my connection to RiChard made me want to g
et a head start.

  I clicked on the link and my heart sunk.

  “Where’s the picture?” I blinked, trying to make sense of the blank screen. Only a few words filled the screen.

  Desculpe a página Web solicitada que você está procurando foi removido.

  “Great, here we go with the Portugeuse again,” I groaned, but then I realized I had an option I had not considered last time.

  Google Translate.

  I copied and pasted the sentence into the translation Web site and saw what the problem was:

  Sorry the requested Web page you are looking for has been removed.

  “Great.” I threw myself back in the seat, ignoring the squeaks and squeals Roman’s old desk chair made under the weight of my heavy hips. “I should have followed up with this back when I first got it.”

  Oh well.

  I guessed I had reached the end of the road as far as getting answers about Kisu and his connection to RiChard. I shut down the computer, disgusted that I’d failed on two missions, two attempts to find answers about the two males in my life who had walked out on me.

  RiChard and Roman.

  I looked around my son’s room. His bed was made. His stuffed NUMBER 1 pillow, a prize he won at the state fair last year when we went with Leon, was perched perfectly on top. The theme “number one” continued throughout his room as he had actually picked up, sorted, and arranged various trophies and certificates with the “number one” moniker on his desk, bookshelves, and windowpane. Was my son conceited, or was this his way of hiding some insecurity?

  His clothes, which usually covered his floor like a patchwork quilt, were folded and put away out of view, or hung up in his closet. There were no empty cereal boxes or crushed soda cans.

  How had I missed all of this?

  I hadn’t seen my son’s floor since the day we’d moved in, I think. Not only was his carpeted floor cleared, but it looked like he had even vacuumed, as no crumbs were sticking to the bottom of my socks.

  I should have known that he was up to something the day he left.

  I sat down on his bed, and tried to smooth down the single lump that kept his baby blue comforter from sitting flat. Years ago, among RiChard’s many deliveries to our delicate family unit, he’d sent a mola quilt, handmade in Panama. I’d used the colorful quilt to wrap Roman up as an infant, and Roman had used it to decorate his room since then. Thrown across his bed, rolled into a ball on his desk, hanging off a hook on his wall . . . He always had the bright and colorful patterned quilt somewhere in view.

  It occurred to me that I had not seen the quilt since we’d move to our new house. Indeed, I had not seen the quilt or the other little treasures from RiChard that Roman had held on to from his toddler years anywhere since taking up our new address.

  I should have followed through with finding out what happened to RiChard. I had been so busy staying numb to avoid feeling pain that I’d neglected to address Roman’s take on his father’s absence.

  As I thought about Roman’s feelings—and my lack of attention to them—a thought occurred to me. The e-mail that hyperlinked to the now defunct Web page had been typed up and sent by that helpful Portuguese teacher I had sought to assist with translating.

  But the original letter that came after the urn showed up would have had the Web site written out. The teacher simply had not bothered to write out the full name of the Web site in her translation, choosing instead to hyperlink to it using the words “Web site,” to make it easier for me to click it open at the time.

  Like a newborn babe inhaling to take its first breath, new wind filled me with enough hope to continue on the journey for answers.

  My bedside table drawer.

  That’s where I had put the letter after I’d scanned it to e-mail to the Portuguese teacher two years ago. When I moved, tired as I was, I’d kept the drawers intact, not seeing the point of boxing up a bunch of loose ends only to dump them back into the single mahogany pull-out. Without hesitation, I nearly ran to my room, pulled open the drawer, and poured the entire contents of the drawer—loose change and all—onto my bed. However, whatever wind had filled my sails slowly began leaking away, leaving me to feel like a two-day old party balloon.

  The letter was gone.

  Where else could I have put it? There was nowhere else, I was sure of it, just as I had been confident that I’d put the lion’s head ring in my father’s safe, and now in the corner of my purse.

  My head dropped into my hands as tears fought to come out again.

  “I’m sorry I failed you, Roman,” I whispered, “I should have pursued what happened to your father for your sake, to make sure you could come to terms with him abandoning us.”

  Roman wasn’t there, but I went back to his room anyway, my maternal instincts leading me to believe that sitting in his personal space was the best way to be close to him at this time.

  Maybe that’s why he had run away. He was angry at me for not finishing the course and finding his father. I sat back down on the bed, and tried again to smooth down the one lump at the foot of his bed that kept his bedspread from looking catalogue perfect.

  I now knew the boy had it in him to keep his room clean. I shook my head.

  I smoothed down the bedspread again, but the lump was not going away.

  “I’ll help you this one time.” I smiled sadly, as if Roman were there to hear my offer of assistance. “Let me show you how to make up a bed.”

  I peeled off his pillows, pulled back his sheets, ready to tuck them all back in more tightly.

  But the lump . . .

  What is this? I snatched the comforter and the top sheet off and then grabbed the top of his neighboring desk chair to keep from falling.

  The letter from my drawer.

  Roman had it, had hidden it.

  But why?

  How’d he even find it? How’d he even know about it?

  I had a million and one questions, but I had to stay focused—focused, I realized, to help both of us finally get 100 percent full closure.

  I plucked up the wadded envelope from under his bedspread, pulled out the yellowing letter, picked out the Web address from the sea of foreign words, keyed the first part of it into Roman’s waiting computer, and held my breath.

  A newspaper.

  The root site was a newspaper and although the entire Web site was written in Portuguese, I made out enough of the contact information at the bottom of the screen to pick up my cell phone. I was hopeful that someone at the other end of the international phone number would be able to speak enough English to help me.

  Someone picked up on the first ring.

  “Olá?”

  “Um, hello,” I responded, realizing I had not planned a script for the call. I had not been expecting an actual answer. Here goes . . . “I need to speak to someone about an article you ran on your Web site two years ago.”

  There was a long pause. I held my breath, wondering if the words to come would be in a language I could understand.

  They were.

  “Uh, what was the article about?” The responder stumbled with her English, but was understandable nonetheless.

  “An unidentified man who was found lying unconscious in a hotel. There was a picture of him on your Web site.”

  “I don’t recall that, but I’ll transfer you to our archival department. Perhaps someone there will be able to help you.”

  The phone was transferred three more times before I got through to someone who was able to help me.

  “I remember the story because I covered it,” a man with a thick accent responded. “The file with the photo was corrupted not too long after we put it up online. That’s why the page is gone. The man in the photo was never officially identified. He was taken to the hospital, but apparently woke up on his own and left without notice.”

  Kisu is still out there.

  “You said officially identified. What do you mean?”

  “The story was a non-story. Nobody came forward
to claim him and the link to the story only got a few hits before it became corrupted, so when he was identified, it was never posted in our paper, or anywhere else as far as I know.”

  “So he was identified?”

  “The hotel eventually found a photo ID that had been left between the pages of a book in the room.”

  “Do you . . . Can you say what name was on the ID?”

  “Sure. His name was RiChard St. James.”

  Couldn’t be. I did not even bat an eye. The man in the picture clearly was RiChard’s best friend, Kisu, and not RiChard. Is Kisu going around using RiChard’s identity? I tried to make sense out of that revelation, but knew the speaker on the other end of the phone had no reason to continue with the conversation. Or lie.

  “You have a good memory.” I was amazed at how quickly the man recalled everything.

  “Oh, that is only because it came up recently.”

  “What do you mean?” I felt my heart quicken a beat.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of weird actually. You’re the third person in the past several months or so to call and ask specifically about that picture.”

  Third.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that either. I only knew that I needed to keep this man on the phone while I figured out what else to ask.

  “When—who?” I could not form a single logical question.

  “Huh?” The man turned away from the phone. I could hear another voice talking in Portuguese and the man laughed. “Um momento,” he spoke away from the phone before turning his attention back to me. “I have to go. Was there anything else I can help you with?”

  Think, Sienna, think.