Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (9 page)

Lately there were
times when she thought she was being watched. Not by Shoe Clerk but by her
mother. In spirit. So real she could almost reach out and touch her. This was
one of those times. She felt comfort in believing that someone watched over her
in her time of need, guiding her, loving her. She knew she had been blessed
with a gift, not cursed with an evil obsession. And she began to trust in the
gift, finally, but she still didn’t understand how it worked. If a person’s
spirit left their body, wouldn’t it seem the body was near death? Or can you
just wish yourself to be close to someone and fly there as if in a dream? Could
she be there with her mother or father just by willing her spirit there?

“Mom, Dad, somehow
I will find you!” she said as she climbed into her bunk to rest from a long,
stressful day, a day that wasn’t yet over.

Tina and her
father had made their move quickly, packing light and then suddenly flying to
the east coast. It felt so unbelievably good for Tina to be with her father
again, even in this bizarre situation. Still, attempts to talk to him were
awkward.

“Daddy,” she said,
as she enjoyed the flight. “Look out this window! It’s like a quilt down there!
Like Momma’s quilt.”

She knew her
father brought the only quilt her mother had ever made. She wondered if he had
brought pictures.

“It’s nice, Maria,
er, Tina. Sorry. This is hard. Probably for you, too.”

Tina sensed that
he was choking up.

“We’re together.
We’ll be O.K.,” she said, determined to create a new home, a new life with him.
“You can call me ‘Kid’, if it’s easier. It’s easier for me because I call you
‘Dad’ and ‘Daddy’. ”

Her father was a
policeman. The job skills and street knowledge had helped him assist the FBI in
finding her. Now he had suddenly been relocated. Having a new identity was an
adjustment he would struggle to get used to. He would be starting a desk job,
very different but safer than his street beat.

Tina and her
father talked very little for the remainder of the flight. They took a taxi to
their apartment.

After they
arrived, her father went straight to the police station to meet people he would
work with and to get situated at the desk that would soon be his. He left before
unpacking or picking up little necessities.

Tina, alone,
looked around. There was very little to unpack for herself or her father.
Nothing of Tina’s former life as Maria could be brought with her, although she
smuggled one stuffed animal, Pooky Bear. She looked forward to relaxing now,
hoping to peel off the layers of filth and guilt like an onion, but first there
was something she had to do, something Miss Shoe had stressed as urgent.

The apartment,
unfurnished except for a cozy little dining set in the kitchen, was small but
had a balcony with enough room to grill out, something Tina looked forward to. The
freedom and fun of cooking her own food! Right now there was no food in the
apartment. She had eaten a sandwich at the airport but her stomach needed more.

“There’s already a
landline here,” her father had said before he left. “Call me if you need
anything.”

I need a lot of
things, Tina wanted to say.  I gotta have food. That would be a good start. And
there’s nothing here! Where am I supposed to sleep?

It would be
getting dark earlier because of the time change. That would be another
adjustment for awhile. Tina decided to take off on her own to get some food and
the help she needed before the sky turned completely dark.

She studied the
address Miss Shoe had given her and called the taxi company to find out how far
she would have to travel. It sounded like a walkable distance but it could be a
long walk in unfamiliar or unsafe surroundings. She decided to use some of Miss
Shoe’s money to get a taxi, find some food and get to that address. Maybe she
would walk back.

Tina arranged for
the taxi. Although she didn’t trust anyone to drive her, she tried hard not to
be afraid. Miss Shoe wanted her to get to the address she’d been given. She
picked up her apartment key and took out the notepad from inside her handbag.
Before the taxi pulled up, Tina wrote a note for her father explaining what she
was doing.

Tina gave the
driver the address and said, “I want the safest walking route so that I can
walk back on my own. You can just drop me off at the nearest corner. I’ll find
the place.”

“Sure,” the driver
said. He started up the street.

Using her notepad,
Tina methodically wrote down the street names and all the turns. Before long,
the taxi pulled up and let her out near a street corner.

“That was fast!”
Tina said. Nothing seemed particularly dangerous.

“Take care now,”
the taxi driver said, looking at her. “Nice neighborhood. Should be an easy walk.”

“Thanks!” Tina
said. She paid him.

            Tina held the address
in her hand to make sure she was in the right place before getting out of the
taxi. She stepped out, but suddenly a blue mini-van appeared and slowed to a
stop, parking along the curb behind them. Tina quickly pulled her foot back
into the taxi.

“Can you wait just
a minute, please?”

“Sure,” the taxi
driver said. “But just for a minute. I have another run. Did you want to go
somewhere else instead?” the driver asked.

A loud argument
broke out in the blue mini-van, so loud that the taxi driver could hear it and
commented.

He asked, “You
know those people?”

            Tina had to get away!
She listened hard and thought she had heard a voice from the recent past,
somewhere a long way from here. She slid down in the seat. Her heart pounded.
She couldn’t go back. She’d rather die.

            “Do you?” the taxi
driver asked again.

            “No!” Tina asked. “Get
me away from here. I don’t feel safe.”

The taxi driver
revved his engine.

            “Want me to take you
back?”

            If someone in the car
knew who she was, or where she lived now, she could never hope to have a good
life. She didn’t dare look at their faces. If she saw them, they would surely
see her.

            “No! Just go! Can I
ride with you for an hour?”

            He pulled away from the
curb. “I can’t do that.You’re in trouble, aren’t you? Where do you want to go?”

            “Away from that car!”
she said. “They’re bad people. They would hurt me.”

            “They’re not your
family?”

            “NO! Just lose them and
get me back to where you picked me up. Please.”

            “That shouldn’t take
long,” the driver said. He seemed to like the challenge.

            The thrust of the taxi
threw Tina back in the seat. The safety of it was like a cocoon. This time she stayed
low and didn’t try to watch where she was going.

What would her
father think if he saw her fleeing this blue mini-van? Would he think she was
afraid of everything? She knew that was true. Tina also knew she needed more
help than her father could give her. He seemed more distant to her after her rescue--smiling,
but hollow, not quite accepting what had happened to her or what she had done.
He also seemed to resent what she had put him through, the change of identity,
relocation, new job. All of it. She couldn’t change any of that. 

This taxi driver
provided her a safety net, if only for a few minutes. They soon pulled up at
her apartment.

“Did we lose them?”
she asked.

“They’re nowhere
around.”

“Please don’t let
anyone know about me,” she said as she looked around for the blue mini-van.

She reached up to
pay the driver again.

“No charge,” the
driver said. “That was fun. I was driving past here anyway.”

Tina laughed.

“Well, that was
very nice of you!” she said and put the money away. Then she closed the door. “Thanks!”

“Now you take
care,” said the driver, and he drove off.

Tina started to go
into the apartment and then decided, since it was still fairly early in the
day, to do what she had set out to do. Before she started, she listened
intently. There wasn’t much traffic. Mature shrubbery in this area could
provide a cover if she needed it.

She quickly tried
to memorize her route and began walking, trying hard not to look scared. She
thought of Miss Shoe who had looked so self-assured even in the face of danger.
That’s how Tina wanted to be. She raised her head.

After only two and
a half blocks Tina found the corner where they had parked. Her destination was
just two doors down. Tina kept on walking. What she saw was a yellow, two-story
brick building.

When she stopped
in front of the house, she double-checked the address. This didn’t look like a
place of business and she wondered why Miss Shoe would send her here, but Miss
Shoe had put her life on the line to free her. This had to be a safe house.
There was a tiny nameplate by the door. Yes!

Tina took a deep
breath and was about to go up to the building when she heard the same car
approaching and could hear the same loud voices of the argument. She ran to a
bush, one near the side of the house next door, and there she waited, hidden
from view of the street.

She huddled there
and thought about ways to change her looks, starting with changing her hair
color. Maybe cut it. Not too short. The tattoo on her neck stood out like the
neon sign at that nasty cantina.

Tina listened
intently as the blue mini-van slowed and then went on by. She waited for its
return, knowing it would. She stayed hidden. It seemed like a long wait, and
her stomach was already growling, as if it could digest itself.

From where she
hid, she could see the front of the building. So close, but the walk up to it
seemed so hard to do. What would she say? Now she wished she’d waited until her
father could be with her. The trauma of the past two months had given her an
everpresent fear of every shadow, touch, sound, car, and of every person.  She
huddled under the shrub and cried.

A car horn sounded
and reminded Tina of the Mariachi band that would play on the weekends and the
awful, groping, dirty men. She had to leave. She had to get back to the safety
of the apartment, with or without food.

A slight touch brushed
Abbi’s arm. She opened her eyes. When she did, she felt refreshed and looked to
see if anyone was there. No one. Again. This kind of experience happened frequently
when her parents were gone, but more than usual recently. Abbi had given up
trying to know how it worked. It needed no scientific explanation. The touch
was simply real.

When she moved the
desk chair over by the window to study the folders, she saw a girl outside on
the sidewalk, a tall, thin, strange-looking girl. The girl stood there and stared
at the Pelletier house.

“Look here! Is
that a friend of yours, Louise?” she asked when Louise slipped in with bowls of
popcorn.

“No, I don’t know
her. She might be the new girl, a friend of Lowell’s. I don’t know much about
her,” Louise said. “Here, have some popcorn. I thought it might help you feel
better.”

“Thanks! Just what
I needed!” Abbi said, grabbing a buttery handful.

She couldn’t pull
her eyes away from the window. She wondered about the girl who came to stare. She
watched as the girl turned and walked away.

Abbi said, “That
was weird, gives me the feeling I’ll meet her someday but I’m not sure I feel
good about that.” Abbi made a mental picture of the tall thin girl, maybe not
much older than herself, with a large distinguishing mole under her left eye. “Very
odd behavior.”

“It is. Makes me
wonder if she’s mentally disturbed.”

Abbi
absent-mindedly ate handfuls of popcorn, allowing some to fall on the floor,
and then turned on some music and grabbed the folders from her mother’s
briefcase.

“I’m going to take
a short break and then get onto these folders. I can’t wait to find out what’s
in them. Dance with me, Louise,” she said, seeing that the girl was no longer in
sight. “Just through one song.”

Abbi turned to
dance.

“I’m relieved that
you’re not doing that dreadful contest!” Louise said with a dramatic flare.
“Oh, it could be a wonderful dance! But no. Maybe in another life. On the other
hand, if you still want to work on your looks, I would simply love doing your
make-over!” Louise whirled around for emphasis, not really dancing, just being
theatrical.

Suddenly, Louise saw
something out the window and actually ran downstairs, something Abbi had never
seen her do. She locked the door and called to Abbi, “That blue van is out
front again and going by way too slowly!”

“Is that girl in
it?” Abbi asked as she peered out the window to see better.

            The land line rang
again. Louise yelled upstairs that she didn’t see the girl and picked up the
phone.

            “It’s Shoe Clerk for
you!” she said and brought the phone up to Abbi. They both peered out the
window.

            Abbi immediately started
gushing to Shoe Clerk, wanting more answers.   

“You know my
mother’s been kidnapped. Don’t you? [pause] Don’t you!!!?”

            “No one knows that for
sure, but we’re following up on it. We have an excellent team in that area.
This may take time.”

            “Wait. Don’t hang up!
There’s a blue van, and whoever broke into my house is probably in this van! I
saw a face. And…oh, my gosh! There was this girl!!!”

            “Whoa. Stay inside,”
Shoe Clerk interrupted. “We’ve got a lockdown on that vehicle. It’s stolen.
Police are doing surveillance. Call them if it stops again. Continue to keep a
low profile. And, by the way, it’s Mrs. Hightower who will be calling you, just
so you know. I know you want some answers right now, so we’re going to start
pulling you in if that’s what you want.”