Elly's Ghost (8 page)

“What about the
pilot. What’s his name? I’ll run a full bio on him.”

Beckholm checked
his notes. “His name is Michael Albert Belgrade, age thirty-three.”

“Got it,” West
said.

“Do you have any
ideas on how one could find the door that came off?”

West paused and
then said, “Do you remember a couple years back when a military pilot disappeared
when he flew his A-10 Thunderbolt into a mountain?”

“I remember that.”

“They used a U-2
spy plane to search for the crash site.”

“Do you think
one of those could find the door?”

“The door is
probably squashed like a beer can run over by a semi, but if it didn’t land in
a junkyard or in a lake, I’d give them a fifty-fifty chance they could find it.
We know the flight path. The bigger question is do you have the balls to submit
the request for it, because there isn’t a person with power to grant that
request who wouldn’t tell you to go screw yourself.”

“Yeah, I know.”

* * *

“Three days
ago,” Elly said, as she hid from Jay’s view behind a tree, “I was at a
restaurant in Memphis with the most gorgeous bathroom I’ve ever seen, and now
I’m peeing in the middle of nowhere in a Montana forest.”

Jay laughed. “If
only you had selected our ultra-deluxe tour, you would have had an array of
perfumes to try when you were finished. All we have on this tour is oak leaves
and some birch bark.”

“I’d settle for
having these handcuffs removed. You have no idea how hard this is,” Elly said,
trying to balance as she squatted.

“And I’ll never
know.”

Elly screamed.

“What is it?”
Jay turned off the safety on his rifle.

“No! Don’t come
over here.”

“What’s wrong?”
Jay waited for a response.

“I fell over.
Oh, gross!”

“While you were
peeing?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m wiping the dirt
from my ass if you really want to know. Ugh—make that mud.”

“Is that
something you had to do when you used that bathroom in Memphis?”

“Very funny.”

A few hours
later, Jay carefully selected a spot surrounded by pine trees and shrubs to set
up the tent. He wanted to make sure it was completely out of sight from the air
as well as from the ground.

“You look
tired,” Elly said.

“I am really
tired.” He knew he’d sleep better if he didn’t have to worry about that
helicopter returning. In the end, he decided anyone tracking them would have a
hard time at night. He waited with his rifle ready until darkness set in, and
then he moved into the tent.

“Do you want
your sleeping bag?” Elly asked.

“No, keep it,
but I’ll take my ground mat from you.”

Jay dug out two more
shirts and put them on. Elly struggled with her handcuffs as she moved the mat
from under the sleeping bag. The old tent still smelled like plastic, like
driving by an oil refinery. It held the same smell as when he and Ben used it
to camp out in the backyard.

The tent forced
Jay and Elly close together as they lay next to each other. The awkward silence
was finally broken by a distant, high-pitched squeal, followed by barking.

Elly sat up.
“What was that?”

Jay listened for
a moment. “It sounds like a pack of coyotes.”

“What?”

“Hey, relax.
I’ve heard it a hundred times out here. They’ll stay far away from us.”

Elly lay down
and moved closer to him.

“I can’t believe
how warm it is during the day and how cold it is at night,” Elly said.

“It’s just part
of being in the mountains. It’s a lot like Afghanistan. Have you ever camped
before?”

“Yeah, once with
my family, but it was in the middle of summer in Maryland. And we didn’t have
anyone trying to kidnap us.”

Jay laughed.

“What was Afghanistan like?” Elly asked.

“It was warm
during the day and cold at night.”

Elly smiled.
“Seriously. When did you go there?”

“I was in Kabul on the first day we attacked. October 7, 2001.”

Elly fought with
her handcuffs as she propped herself up on her elbow, facing him. “What
happened?”

It had been a
long time since Jay had the opportunity to talk to a beautiful young woman like
Elly. For Jay, the war was like a wound that was just starting to heal, and he thought
about deflecting the question, but he didn’t want to be rude.

“We raided the
Taliban’s government offices and removed everything we could find. The city
seemed to be collapsing from the explosions all around us.” Jay started slowly
but soon found the words came easily. “The whole unit was excited to go on our
first war mission. We got in, did our job, and got out. After that, we were out
on missions every day, sometimes several a day. At first, I was on such a high
after 9/11, wanting to get out there and defend our country, but, you have to
understand, war is awful. Especially when it’s so hard to tell who your enemy
is and who it is you’re there to help.”

“How long have
you been back?”

“I just got
back.”

“Like, how long
ago?”

“The day before
I met you.”

“Some
homecoming.” Elly rolled onto her stomach. “What’s your favorite part about
being in the Marines?”

“Just being with
other Marines,” Jay said. “I’ve never been a part of such a cohesive group of
people. We all trained together before we went over, and we worked extremely
well together, like a well-oiled machine. All those guys, from the general
running the show down to the man running alongside me, I trusted with my life,
and they trusted me with theirs. When the enemy is shooting at you, there’s no
better feeling than being able to totally trust the people around you.”

“Speaking of
trust,” Elly said, “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“Today, when
that helicopter flew over, I didn’t trust you when you pulled me under the
tree. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t … you
didn’t know.”

“It won’t happen
again.”

Jay turned onto
his side to face her. “So, what about you? What made you want to be a singer?”

“Ever since I
was about four years old, anytime I was alone, I would sing. My dad was in the
choir at church, and when I was eleven, he brought me to a practice, and before
I knew it I was standing next to him, singing away every week during the church
service. It was my dad, twelve elderly people, and me.”

Elly rolled onto
her back and pulled at the chain on the handcuffs. “When I was thirteen, a boy
named Alex asked me out on a date. I said yes, I mean he was—and still is—pretty
cute, but we didn’t date for very long. We were better as friends. He
introduced me to Jeremy and Brent, and all three of them wanted to be in a
band. They played together almost every day after school in Alex’s basement. I
remember the three of them could, on command, play any song, I mean anything.
It was amazing. They asked me to sing with them one day after school. I had so
much fun that I started hanging out with them all the time. Soon, I began
writing my own songs.

“We started
playing in local clubs when we were fifteen. We played every venue and contest
we could find. One day, we caught a break. Someone who worked at a record
company heard us play. We had an audition, and they offered us a one-album
deal. It just took off from there.”

“Just think,”
Jay said, “how many people look up to you and admire you for what you do.”

Elly smiled.
“And I used to be one of those people looking up to other musicians. One day at
a concert, one of our fans had a seizure. They took her to the hospital. I
found out after the concert and went to see her in her hospital room.”

“I’m guessing
she was a little excited to see you,” Jay said.

“You have no
idea. Her family had to keep telling her to calm down, but after that we started
talking like sisters. We talked for about an hour. I gave her tickets and
backstage passes to our show in Philadelphia, so I got to see her again. That’s
the kind of stuff that makes it all worthwhile.”

“That’s really
cool,” Jay said.

“There’re some
things I don’t like about it, but I like that stuff.”

“Does the public
ever get on your nerves? Do you get recognized everywhere you go?”

“Yeah. They say
you get used to it, but I’m still not. I want to walk down the street to the
grocery store, by myself, and buy my favorite ice cream, but I can’t. I have to
have someone do it for me. It gets old being recognized everywhere.” Elly
sighed. “I guess it’d be kind of nice if the paparazzi knew where I was now,
though.”

“That’s why I
wouldn’t like being famous,” Jay said, “because of the attention. It’d take a
really strong person to be able to handle it. I don’t know how you do it. I’m
sure you’ve had to deal with people asking for money, people trying to take
advantage of you, invading your privacy—”

“You mean like
when a jerk put a camera in my dressing room shower, and the next day the
pictures were all over the Internet?”

“That sucks.”

“Mmm-hmm, that
did suck. I wanted to murder the person who did that. I cried for two days.”

“It must be hard
knowing who to trust,” Jay said.

“It can be.
That’s why …” Elly stopped herself.

“What?”

Elly hesitated,
then said, “That’s why I wanted to know … if you knew who I was.”

“Wait, do you
mean you wanted to know if the reason I was helping you is because of who you
are?”

“I—”

“Because that’s
not the reason.”

“I know that now,
and I’m sorry, but I didn’t know then. Like you said, it’s hard to know who to
trust.”

TUESDAY

A ring of men
stood around Ben as he cried out in pain on the Montana forest floor. Ben’s screams
were replaced with the shouting of the father of the armed Afghani boy.

“Hamasa!”

The boy
suddenly yelled and swung the machine gun around to his front.

Jay squeezed
the trigger. The boy’s arms flailed helplessly as he fell backward. “Ben,” Jay
gasped.

The ping-ping-ping
of shots ricocheting off the large rock Jay was hiding behind filled the air.

“Open fire!”
The command was loud in Jay’s earpiece. “This is Alpha team. We are under
fire!”

Everything was
so clear: the convulsing boy, the barking commands from the platoon leader, and
the deep boom that shook the ground as the explosion ripped apart the cave’s
entrance.

The cloud of
dust settled, revealing a group of hunters crowded around Ben as blood poured
out from between the fingers he held against his stomach.

Jay twisted on
his ground mat and bolted up.

“Jay, are you
all right?” Elly placed her cuffed hands on his shoulder.

Jay caught his
breath and lay back down. The darkness didn’t help the image in his mind fade
away. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, and he feared it wouldn’t be the
last.

“I’m okay,” he
said after a moment. “It was just a bad dream.”

Jay turned his
back to her and put his hands over his head. He tried to clear his mind and go
back to sleep.

* * *

A throbbing
headache told Joanna that she was awake. She thought she heard someone calling
Elly’s name, but the room was quiet. Tears formed in her eyes.

The clock on her
nightstand read 3:48 AM. She reached out to touch Mark, but he wasn’t there. Sitting
up, she saw him across the room, staring out the window.

Mark had been an
invaluable support to her since the news first came in about Elly’s plane.
Joanna wondered how she would have survived without him. He had not left her
side the whole time. He’d kept his emotions in check, and for a moment she
replaced grief about her daughter with concern for her husband.

“Mark.” She
wiped her eyes, sniffing.

He did not
respond. Slowly Joanna stood up and walked to him. Together they looked at the
street below. The memorial of flowers and gifts on the sidewalk in front of the
house had grown in size and now covered half the front lawn. Someone had
printed a huge picture of System Override’s latest album cover and outlined it
in a huge heart. The wind had blown out all the candles except for a lone one
that continued to burn deep inside its vase.

“Mark.” Joanna
wrapped her arms around his waist.

“This is my
fault,” he said. “I signed it.”

“Signed what?”

“Elly’s record
contract. I signed it, and it killed her.”

Joanna rested
her head on the back of his neck. “Mark, don’t do this to yourself.”

“She was only a
child, and she needed my signature. I didn’t have to sign it, but I did. This
is my fault. I killed my daughter.”

“I signed it,
too.”

Mark turned to
face Joanna. “Elly would have hated me the rest of her life”— he wiped away a
tear—“but she’d still be here.”

* * *

The cool morning
air made hiking easy. Elly was glad there was a slight breeze blowing their scent
away from each other. She desperately wanted a shower. They hiked for several hours
before stopping to take a break.

“Jay, do you
have any siblings?”

“I have an older
sister.”

“Do you get
along with her?”

Jay nodded.
“She’s five years older than I am, and I’ve always looked up to her. I called
her just about every week when I was in Afghanistan.”

“I wish I could
be close with my brother. I mean, Nick and I are twins, but we hardly speak.”
Elly picked up a twig and rolled it between her fingers. “We were close when we
were younger. I know he doesn’t like having a famous sister, but I didn’t
realize how his life has been affected by my career. I found out how much he
hates it this past weekend.”