When the Dead Speak

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Since Jake's head wasn't up to exercising, he took a quick shower instead and slipped into a pair of jeans. The early morning rays were already heating up the patio. The chaise lounge was cushioned, comfortable. Jake stretched out and smelled the new morning dew.

He thought back to last night. He and Sam had talked for an hour. After Sam had gone to bed, Jake spent some time thumbing through the photo albums in the study. The smiling child with the sun-bleached hair had tugged at his heart. There were pictures of Sam with her adoring father, a handsome man with curly blond hair. The woman in the photo he assumed was Melinda Casey. She was barely five feet tall with milk glass skin and brown hair. Many of the pictures from Europe and Asia were only of Samuel and Melinda Casey.

He guessed Abby to be about nineteen or twenty in most of Sam's infant pictures. Sam's olive complexion seemed a sharp contrast to Melinda's milk glass skin. Sam's cheekbones were well defined even at such a tender age. There was a secrecy that seemed to pass between Sam and Abby that only the camera caught. If he were a betting man, he'd say that Melinda Casey was NOT Sam's mother.

What Jake found strange was that there were no pictures of Sam after 1977. That, Jake remembered, was when Samuel and Melinda Casey had died in the car accident.

"I thought I smelled coffee." Abby poured herself a cup. She checked his bandage. "How is it feeling this morning?"

"Better, much better, thanks." Just like in the pictures Jake found himself drawn to Abby's features. She hadn't changed much from the pictures in the album other than adding a few pounds and smile creases around her eyes. Time had not been unkind to Abby. Jake smiled at her.

"What?" Abby gathered her skirt around her legs before taking a seat.

"Why didn't you tell me you were Sam's mother?"

"I guess I assumed Sam had told you."

Jake shook his head then told her how he looked through some photo albums last night. "But, Melinda was his wife, right?"

"Yes. It really isn't too complicated. Samuel and Melinda picked me up just outside Chamberlain, South Dakota. I was hitchhiking. Going...anywhere." She took a sip of her coffee. "They helped me through some rough times. They brought me back here to live. I insisted on working for my keep. I cooked, did laundry, helped Melinda mail out invitations to a variety of social events."

The picture Jake was formulating in his mind of Abby and Sam's father having a torrid love affair just didn't fit the woman sitting in front of him whose integrity seemed above reproach. Luckily, he didn't have to ask the question.

"When Melinda discovered she couldn't have children," Abby continued, "I agreed to be a surrogate mother. It was the least I could do to thank them."

"It must have been difficult for you, having Sam call another woman Mommy."

"There was a bond between Sam and me that no one could come between. When she was old enough to understand, I didn't have to tell her. She just knew."

Jake thought back to Hap's body, how Sam had touched it, touched the pin. How the words lightning strike seemed to have popped into her head. Jake always dealt in logic. And what Sam supposedly did was not logical to him. She seemed to know things that defied logic.

The sprinklers bordering the patio turned on, spraying a fine mist over the geraniums, irises, and lilies. Abby gazed lovingly at nature's pastel colors, as if seeing them for the first time.

"Tell me something, Abby." He told her about Hap Wilson and some of the revelations Sam had come up with. "How does she do this little mind-reading act of hers?"