Prophet (83 page)

RACHEL FINALLY RELAXED.
Two minutes. Well . . . okay. He did okay.

SHANNON AND HER
folks got up and went to eat dinner. They knew better than to expect any more than what they had just seen, but they were satisfied. They had to give John Barrett credit for saying as much as he did.

DEANNE LOOKED AT
Max, trying to fathom his brooding expression even as the kids got up and babbled in excitement.

“I saw both of you!” said George.

“
I
wanna be on TV!” said Victoria.

“Well, sugar, aren’t you going to say something?” Deanne asked.

Max drew one long, slow breath and looked at his wife. “Well . . . it wasn’t much.” Then he broke into a smile. “But it wasn’t bad!”

They embraced.

THE RHINOCEROS STORY
ended, and NewsSix went to a commercial.

Susan the director swiveled around in her chair and let out a quiet cussword of amazement. “How come I never heard about this before?”

Tina stood against the back wall, staring at John Barrett’s face on the Camera Three monitor. “Heard about what?”

“This thing about Slater’s daughter!”

Tina seemed to ignore the question and addressed Rush. “That story took too long. We hardly had room for the rhinoceros video.”

Rush glanced at his script. “Yeah, well, you might want to drop it from the Seven O’clock.”

“Oh no, you don’t—drop the rhinoceros!” said Susan.

“You just do your job!” Tina snapped. “
I’ll
decide what gets dropped!”

Susan closed right up, knowing better than to say another word. She took a deep breath, swiveled back to the console, and went back to doing her job. “All right, Camera Two, head-on to Ali. And, Camera
One, you’ll be doing Barry’s commentary . . .”

JOHN COULD FEEL
the chill coming from Ali’s side of the news desk, but he stayed professional, getting ready for the next section. He’d delivered the story, but the adventure wasn’t over yet. There was still the rest of this newscast, and there was still the Seven O’clock.

CHAPTER 34

GOVERNOR HIRAM SLATER
said good evening to Bryan the chauffeur and went in the back door of the mansion, carrying his coffee-stained overcoat over his arm.

He found Alice the maid busy in the kitchen, putting dinner together. She was a very sweet older gal, a widow. She and her late husband had been friends of the family for years.

“Hi, Governor.”

He didn’t look her way when he said, “Hi, Alice.”

She noticed his sullen mood. “Oh, tough day?”

He stopped and softened enough to chuckle at his own misfortune, unfolding the overcoat for her to see. “Spilled coffee on my coat . . .”

She immediately took it from him. “Well, don’t you worry. You just let Alice take care of it.”

“Where’s Ashley?”

“Oh, out shopping for plants and bulbs, I think. She should be home any minute.”

The governor almost felt stupid asking the question, but he had to ask. “Uh . . . where’d she go—Warren’s Nursery?”

“Oh, right. That’s what she said. They’re having a sale right now.”

“So she . . . well, she wasn’t going anywhere else—to buy clothes or shoes or anything?”

Alice laughed. “Oh dear, I wouldn’t know, Governor.”

“Mm. Any mail?”

She pointed to the kitchen table where all the mail was routinely placed for his perusal. He could see there were no packages of any kind.

“Have any packages come today—anything from UPS?”

“No. The mail on the table is all there is.”

He felt better. “All right . . . Good enough . . . Well, I’m going to take a shower and close my eyes until dinner.”

“I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

He hurried through the big house and up the stairs to the bedroom, feeling his nerves starting to ease. Ahhh. His own home, his safe haven, his castle the public—and the prophets—could not enter. What a feeling.

He took off his suit jacket and tossed it lazily onto the bed, then started removing his tie as he went into the master bathroom, humming a little tune. A good hot shower, yes sir, that was what he needed.

Oh no. What was that by his vanity sink?

He stood staring at it, afraid to approach it, unwilling to believe it really was . . . a shoe box. Only when he finally decided it had to be a gag, an elaborate hoax, did he approach the shoe box and remove the lid.

Sure. Of course he found navy-blue running shoes inside.

He slipped off his dress shoes and tried on the running shoes. Great fit.

“Hello,” came Ashley’s voice in the bedroom. “Did you find something?” She had that teasing tone she always had whenever she surprised him with something.

He was not pleased as he strode out of the bathroom, the shoes still on his feet. “What’s the meaning of this?”

She
was pleased. “Oh, looks like they fit!”

“Yes, they do!” Slater replied angrily. “Perfectly! So where did they come from?”

She was taken aback by his angry tone. “Well . . . Hiram, they didn’t cost a thing.”

He was yelling now. “Where did they come from?”

And now she was starting to yell back. “From Wade Sheldon!”

“Wade Sheldon!” The governor was shocked and perplexed. Wade Sheldon and he had worked out together at the health club for a few
years now. “Where’d
he
get them?”

Ashley was indignant and defensive. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Just answer the question!”

“He got them from a mail-order catalog. They didn’t fit him, so he thought he’d give them to you. I got them this morning when I went to see Marcy.”

Marcy. Wade’s wife. This wasn’t making sense. Did the Sheldons know John Barrett? Did Ashley get the shoes from Marcy before John Barrett gave his little prophecy or afterward? How did John Barrett know Ashley would be visiting Marcy? How did he even know Wade had ordered the shoes?

“What time did you go visit Marcy?”

“About 10. Why?”

Slater sat on the bed. He kicked the shoes off as if they were his enemies. “I’m just . . . I’m just trying to figure this out, that’s all. There’s an explanation! There has to be!”

Ashley had had her fill of abuse for now. “It might be because Wade is your friend, or is friendship that foreign a concept to you?”

“It’s not that simple!”

“So what do you think the shoes are, a
bribe
?”

“Not a bribe . . . Maybe a trick . . .”

“Hiram Slater . . .” She told him where he could go and fled from the room.

6:50 P.M.

John rechecked his makeup in the makeup room, standing all by himself in front of the huge illuminated mirror and taking some deep breaths just to steady himself. It was getting tough to maintain his professional edge when such conflicting feelings raged inside him.

One part of him—the professional, go-with-the-flow part—was lashing out at him, chastising him, screaming at him that he was doing a monumental disservice to his profession, to the people he worked for, to the whole industry that had made him a household name.

At the same time, one steady, unshakable voice from somewhere else inside him—probably his heart, but right now his feelings were too scrambled for him to tell—kept him standing firm on this chosen
path, with no other assurance than the knowledge that he was doing the right thing.

The overall effect of this inward battle was a twisting, wrenching, nauseating conflict that closely resembled a coronary, and he couldn’t wait for the whole miserable experience to be over.

He was glad Leslie wasn’t here right now. She’d be getting herself in trouble for sure, and he could just imagine how much harder it would be with her stirring things up.

He was wondering why Ben Oliver was nowhere to be seen. Had he gone home? Had he ducked out the way Loren Harris had? Aw, Ben, you helped get me into this—the least you could have done was walk me to the gallows and say good-bye.

Why do I even stick around?
he wondered.
If I’m as good as dead as a news anchor, why don’t I just walk off the job right now instead of prolonging the pain?

Oh, but there came that voice again:
Press on, press on, you’re doing the right thing. Finish it.

Oh, I’m going to finish it, all right. I’m probably going to finish
everything,
including myself.

“It’s hard, son,” came a voice from his memory, “to have God show you things and tell you things and then not know what to do with what you’ve been given.” Oh great. Just what I need. Another emotion. John leaned on the counter in front of the mirror as his face turned hot and his eyes flooded with tears.

More of Dad’s lamentation came to his memory. “ ‘Eat the scroll, John.’ That’s what the Lord said. ‘In your mouth it will taste sweet, but it will make your stomach bitter.’ And He was right. Up front, when you hear things and see things and God entrusts you with knowing things, you think of how privileged you are, how wonderful it is to see Truth parading right in front of you. And then . . . when you try to speak it and nobody listens . . . and you see people heading for a cliff and you just can’t turn them back . . . and when you find out things you would have been happier not knowing . . .”