Chosen (18 page)

Mariah never remembered how they made it to the bedroom, or if she took off her own clothes. It was a long time since she’d been in the arms of a man—a long time since she had wanted to. And Thomas James Raphael was probably the most intuitive and sensuous lover she ever had. He seemed to find all the erogenous spots on her body, becoming more impassioned by the sounds of surrender that came from her throat. Her response to his love-making was as much because it was him as what he was doing to her.

Sometime later she lay curled against his side, her body sated, her mind in a numb haze of sexual fulfillment. He pulled her half over him and rested his head on top of hers, occasionally kissing her hair.

Even though she knew she had never had such fantastic sex, Mariah’s unease returned. She felt an emotional bond developing between them; she wondered if he did. She tried to brush away the unwanted negative feelings; her desire for this relationship to work was more powerful than anything she ever wanted in her life. She prayed that she not screw things up with her ever-present anxieties.

She sighed then shifted away from him. Still desiring the physical connection begun earlier, Thomas slid his hand up and down her leg.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, lady? I thought I was good enough to make you forget everything but me!” She grinned at his feigned male arrogance.

Amazed no woman had ever captured this man’s heart, she could not think coherently with his hand gliding from her waist to her knee. Rolling over, she slid out of bed to retrieve a nightshirt from a bureau drawer. Thomas watched her shrug into the garment, disappointed that she left the bed, but understanding why. He swung out of the bed and reached for his discarded shorts.

He caught up with her in the kitchen and gulped a Coke while she drank a full glass of water. Her face wrestled with unpleasant thoughts even as she threw handfuls of M&M’s into her mouth and practically swallowed them whole. His arm around her shoulder, he led her into the living room where the light from the reading lamp chased away the early morning shadows.

The storm had moved on, leaving, in its wake, the relaxed and hypnotic sound of light rain. They sat together on the couch; she talked while caressing his arm and running her fingers lightly over his chest. It was erotic, her serious conversation combined with these sensuous touches. Thomas smiled a few times when he found himself less able to concentrate on her words the more his body reacted. After foreplay, love-making, and cuddling, she still had the ability to make his pulse race.

“I knew the minute I agreed to this taping, my privacy would be ruined. I never believed that the FBI could guarantee its safety, and I was right. I tried to prepare myself for what I knew would happen when the DVD went public. First, the news media; I don’t need to go into details about them. Second, the interest from religious organizations and cults. And third, the lunatic fringe who hope to become famous by destroying me. And what about those who assume I’m an alien or been abducted by them?”

Her voice crested and cracked. “What’s going to go through their mind is ... why? If you look beyond what some believe is the obvious—a gift from God—why is this happening? I ask this question over and over.
Why
me,
why
now? And if it is God, why the hell is He doing this?

“And where is this all heading? I tell you, Thomas, I’ve just about had it. I have no control over my life anymore. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown. Things are happening to me that are illogical and irrational and I’m
this far
”—with thumb and index finger, she indicated a space of a quarter of an inch—”from refusing to do any more
Findings
. So let my heart race out of control. If I have a heart attack, at least it will end this insanity!”

Concerned by the wild look in her eyes, he said, “I can’t tell you that I understand, but I’d feel the same; helpless and frustrated. You’ll just have to take it one day at a time.”

Mariah’s life was going to be a living hell, and she knew there was nothing he could do to stop it: he’d have better luck damming a mudslide. She saw his face wrestling with misgivings. No doubt he was wondering if he wanted this woman enough to get sucked into the media circus that awaited her. She knew he’d be labeled as “Mr. Mariah Carpenter” and he would lose as much of his privacy and freedom as would she.

Her body felt like it was being engulfed by flames; even breathing was difficult. As her lungs drew in the superheated air, a picture of her head in a blast furnace came to mind. Fine sand blew up her nasal passages and down her throat, making her cough. Mariah shielded her eyes with both hands before opening them.

She was right. It was a desert—a scorching inferno with miles of uneven sand dunes, a cloudless blue sky, and nothing else. She scanned the horizon through half-slit eyes: there was something irregular about the sky.

As usual, she was naked.

I’ve got to get out of here, and fast. If I don’t, I’ll wind up with severe burns
. That unusual sky off to the left drew her attention, so she gave in and headed in that direction, as good as any since it all looked the same.

Something out there was moving independent of the relentless wind. A mirage? She thought they only appeared when a person entered the delirium stage of dehydration. Mariah began to trot, well aware she would run out of energy more rapidly; nevertheless, she didn’t have a lot of time before the heat would cause her to collapse anyway.

The images were becoming clearer: two distinct shapes. And they appeared to be hominoid. Ordinarily, Mariah would have been terrified to finally come face to face with the inhabitants of
Dream World
, but she had a bigger problem at the moment: getting out of this inferno. She would have to trust they’d be hospitable and provide shelter.

One minute she was jogging forward. The next, she was staggering back, nearly falling sideways as she bumped into something that felt like hard Jell-O. Mariah stopped, gasping for air, as she stared at ... nothing. She edged forward, sticking her hand out toward the impediment. It moved sluggishly as her hand sunk in. She pushed harder and met more resistance. Mariah was elbow-deep when she became unable to budge it further.

The shapes on the other side were close. Watching them, she nearly forgot the blistering sun. Her vision became clearer, like her eyes were the focus on a camera.

Click
: No question about it: two life forms on the other side of this soft barrier.

Click
: The two might be hominoid in shape, but they were not human.

Click
: Both were exceptionally tall, maybe seven feet, with two arms, two legs, and oval-shaped heads with defined skin ridges that rotated on elongated necks.

Mariah sucked in her breath and felt her heart race.
So far so good
she thought as she scanned their surroundings. It was a whole lot more hospitable than the pressure cooker in which she was presently boiling. The two were in animated conversation, the darker one waving both arms while the lighter one’s fists were planted on its hips.

The dark one, its skin the color of mahogany, wore a silver jumpsuit that glittered in the sunlight. Emblazoned on the chest was an insignia in deep red, the characters raised off the fabric. A midnight blue metal belt encircled its waist with recessed amber buttons and what looked like a white roller ball on the right side. Below the knees, and conforming to the shape of the calves, were well-worn black boots, more supple than leather. Its large, perfectly oval head was hairless, the sun creating a corona at the crest. Its eye sockets canted at a forty-five degree angle, the ridges above the eyes extending beyond the limits of the face which narrowed down to a small but firm chin, giving its head a triangular shape. She couldn’t see its eyes clearly, but she got the impression that the eyeballs were not white.

The skin of the other alien—
how arrogant
, Mariah thought,
I’m the alien here
—was much lighter, the color of Ceylon cinnamon. Its jumpsuit was forest green, the sleeves ending just above the elbows. The V-neck on the tunic pointed to the same red insignia that appeared on the dark one’s jumpsuit, while the leggings bunched at the ankle over short brown boots. Maybe two inches shorter, this one was not quite as massive as the dark skinned one.

The sweltering sun and the squirling winds made her skin itch as it began to crack from the heat. She prayed those two were going to spot her: reason said if she could see them, they could see her. Mariah was willing to take her chances. At any moment, her body fluids would begin to boil and she might just internally combust.

Just as she began to raise her arms to get their attention, both of them stopped, their heads beginning to swivel in her direction.

She awoke in her bed, Thomas peacefully asleep beside her.

Fully awake, Mariah was grateful this trip to
Planet X
had been short. A great thirst forced her to hop out of bed; she winced from the pain that radiated up from the bottoms of her feet. She slipped into her bathrobe and headed for the kitchen for water.

Her feet were fine now, and her skin temperature was almost back to normal. Fear progressed to excitement: for the first time, she relished another episode on her dream planet. Psychic insight or not, Mariah believed that those two aliens would have the answers she needed to make sense of what was happening to her.

“Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, and children of all ages! Welcome to The Merriweather Extravaganza!” The ringmaster was greeted by the anticipated roar of the crowd, giddy with excitement.

Waiting for his cue, The Professor eyed the rabble with distain. The contempt he felt for these simpletons in the audience would remain hidden throughout his performance. Being a consummate professional, he would give them the show they paid for. Besides, the white make-up covering his face and the idiotic smile painted thereon would hide any real emotions were he to give in to the facial distortions of his negative emotions.

The sudden blaring of horns was his cue. The Professor left the darkness of the stage wings and waddled out into the glaring lights of the center ring, his toes pointed out, his long white coat flaring away from his black and red striped silk pantaloons. The auguste clowns, those of lesser rank and identified by their lack of white face paint, tumbled and rolled after him. They were there to do his bidding. Clown history, dating back to a time before Christianity, dictated the rank and role of each jester by the color of his face and his costume.

The act was for him to be the stern teacher, these pranksters his pupils. His failure to control them, and his own gaffes made the audience howl. The crowd loved the practical jokes they played on their teacher. He became as hilarious as they when he tried and failed to bring about order.

The Professor appeared once more during the course of the show. This time he was in a laboratory, his objective being to transform Bloopy the Clown into a dog. As Bloopy stood inside a fixture that pulsed with colored lights, The Professor pushed a button, causing a massive amount of smoke to billow out of the fixture, allowing the clown to escape through a trap door in the floor, replacing himself on the platform with a dog. As the smoke dissipated, The Professor proclaimed his experiment a success with wild and exaggerated gestures.

The Professor had memorized the eight clown commandments and the clown code of ethics. His new profession demanded he behave in good taste, never embarrass anyone, and provide good clean clown comedy entertainment. He also knew that, while in costume, he could not do anything that would jeopardize the profession of clowning.

Long after the crowds were gone and the circus performers had retired for their well-deserved rest, The Professor sat at his make-up table, slowly removing the last vestiges of his alter ego, exposing the face of his true identity—Gregory Sinclair.

When he had entered clown college was unclear. There were gaps in his memory, beginning with the morning his well-ordered life had ceased to exist. It was immaterial: what mattered was the driving force that had sent him into this nightmare world of clowning.

Gregory wore a key on a chain around his neck. It opened a storage unit that housed the detritus of his past, what remained of the man he used to be. There were racks of suits costing thousands of dollars each, and long white coats of the finest organic bamboo cotton. Cartons, lining two walls, held equipment from his former profession as an organic chemist: a Meiji MT6000 Epi-fluorescent microscope, a Buchi SpeedExtractor E-916, and several dozen boxes containing centrifuges, analytical balances, calibrating baths, and an assortment of stirrers, beakers, shakers, and mixers.

He had closed the storage unit, leaving everything behind. Some day he hoped to claim this former life and the place in society he had cultivated and earned. However, at this moment in time, he had a mission to accomplish that required total freedom of movement and anonymity. What better than a circus that traveled approximately ten thousand miles a year in fifty-five railroad cars, with an average staff of three hundred people? A place where he could hide behind a painted face and a fabricated past that no one questioned.

Why
he had become a clown was obvious. The details of his suffering were clear and constant. As he sat before the mirror, the paint of his clown’s mask gone, he stared into eyes that used to be filled with power and joy.

Each second of his pain suddenly became alive in crisp, concise details that never wavered, never varied. And he lived the torment again.

There was an investigation, of course. Due to the irregularity of the case—Everett’s heart attack and Estella’s statement that the lady had “pushed the bad man and he fell over”—the La Mesilla PD completed all the preliminary work then demanded to talk to Mariah Carpenter. Two detectives were sent to California to conduct the interview. They wished to keep this as quiet as possible, to forestall the mob of people who they knew would be at their airport or police station.

Since her arrival at the Precinct had been kept a secret, few people wandered through the main lobby. It was, therefore, easy to spot the two detectives from New Mexico, their expressions as wooden as the bench they sat on. When she entered, they rose and nodded to her, their introductions terse and not quite friendly. Neither extended their hand to shake; likely they were afraid to touch her. Without further ado, she was escorted down a short corridor which ended at a door labeled: “Interview Room 1.”

The one on her right opened the door and she entered. The room was a box, the walls painted in a cheerless, faded yellow, the beige-painted wood trim in desperate need of cleaning. Standard issue metal chairs had scratched legs as did the oblong metal table. There were no pictures on the walls.

This room was obviously done by an inferior decorator,
Mariah thought as she tried to maintain a neutral expression.

Directly ahead, a welcomed sight; Frannie Manzetti. She was accompanied by a not-so-welcomed sight; Gabriel Winters, the black agent who was at the viewing of the Sophie Duval
Finding
. He rose (
uncoiled
) and extended his hand. “Nice to see you again, Ms. Carpenter.”

His handshake was dry and abrupt. Mariah glanced at Frannie and was not surprised to see her scowling. Frannie told her she was against this whole questioning bullshit by the New Mexico PD. Everyone knew Mariah was innocent, she had fumed at Osterman: she’d been in California
Finding
Estella when Hinckley croaked! And the autopsy proved conclusively that he died of natural causes. Their report should have been sufficient ... and under normal circumstances, would have been.

However, Bartholomew Chemosh, an attorney who smelled fame and wealth, had approached Hinckley’s mother and convinced her that the Carpenter woman violated Everett’s civil rights. Furthermore, he declared, he could prove that she was a menace to society. Dangling a lucrative settlement before her for “mental anguish,” he persuaded Mrs. Hinckley to sue in civil court. Moreover, Chemosh had received an accounting of the donations that flowed into the church like an open faucet, and knew Mariah Carpenter was worth millions.

Frannie further told Mariah that she had been “beside herself” when she learned about Chemosh. Mariah had to hide a smile as Frannie flamed on about “frivolous law suit” and “slimy ambulance-chaser.”

Introductions were made; however, Mariah noted that no one included the petite, white-haired woman who sat at the end of the table behind a stenograph machine. Deducing this to be the court reporter (and feeling mischievous) Mariah left her spot at the table and sauntered toward the sweet-faced lady.

“We haven’t been introduced. My name is Mariah Carpenter.” Smiling, Mariah extended her hand as the woman rose. Behind her, she could feel four pairs of eyes drilling into her back.
Too bad
, she thought,
I’m tired of behaving myself
.

Flustered, the woman clasped Mariah’s hand and said, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Pearl Gates,” and mentally held her breath. From as far back as she could remember, Pearl had gotten teased about her name, with things like, “Where’s Saint Peter?” or “Seen God lately?” She was resigned to this inanity: married for forty years, she had stubbornly refused to change her maiden name.

When she saw the sudden gleam in Mariah’s eyes, Pearl sighed inwardly in anticipation of the inevitable.

“Any relationship to Bill Gates, the Microsoft guru?” Mariah said. Her grin informed Pearl that Mariah Adele Carpenter was not about to join the crowd with the same silly rejoinders Pearl had heard all her life.

Pearl beamed. She gave Mariah’s hand a little squeeze before she relinquished it. After her “No such luck” comment, she settled in front of her stenograph machine. Two thoughts chased each other through her mind simultaneously: first, this was a classy lady; and second, the police were
not
going to get the better of her.

Sheesh, what a tough audience
, Mariah thought and flashed her most brilliant smile at the two stone-faced detectives from New Mexico.
I’d get a better response from the Queen’s Guard outside Buckingham Palace.
She saw Frannie’s mouth twitch. She could always count on Manzetti to appreciate her attempts to lighten the mood.

She took a seat across from Gabriel Winters and caught a speculative look in his eyes. It was gone quickly, his expression now neutral. Had she imagined it? A sudden chill made her shiver. She chalked it up to nerves.

Previously coached by Frannie, Mariah waited before she answered each question posed by the pair from New Mexico until Winters gave her the nod to answer. Prior to joining the FBI, Winters had been a criminal lawyer, so the Bureau took advantage of his legal talents.

He stopped her from responding several times: the San Francisco Bureau did not want Mariah Carpenter to say anything that might be incriminating. While aggravated that she needed a “mouthpiece,” she knew they were right. She had seen enough courtroom trials on television to know that a few misspoken, innocent remarks could get a person a one-way ticket to jail.