Flight to Freedom (Flight Trilogy, Book 3) (23 page)

Driving away, he saw the Gulfstream taxiing for takeoff.

* * *

Hardly remembering the drive home, his mind was wrapped around making the transition from deceptive liar to trusting husband—or at least attempting to appear to Keri that everything was as it should be.

Normally, he would be anxious to see Keri and hold her in his arms, but this time it might be better if she were not home when he arrived. He could use the time to collect his thoughts.

He rolled into the garage and saw her car. Before going inside he checked the mailbox, finding it stuffed with mail. He then noticed the Sunday edition of the Orange County Register rolled up in the driveway.

He took the pile of mail and newspaper into the house and placed it on the kitchen counter. The house was deathly quiet.

“I’m home!”

He was not surprised when no one answered. On a Sunday afternoon, the kids were probably with friends and Keri could have taken a walk.

Before he turned to walk away, he unrolled the newspaper to check the front page headline. It was not the headline that caught his attention, but the date: Sunday, June 8, 2003.

Blood drained from his head and his heart raced. It was June, not May.

How
is
that
possible
?

The dream he had at the DoubleTree that morning, before leaving Georgia, must have pushed him six weeks into the future.

How
did
I
go
all
day
and
fail
to
realize
it
was
not
Sunday
,
April
27th
,
but
instead
Sunday
,
June
8th
.

He opened his suitcase and pulled out the statement from the DoubleTree.

I
never
noticed
the
date
,
but
there
it
is
:
June
8
,
2003
.

No wonder John laughed at him when he said he would call him after Mother’s Day.

Mother’s
Day
has
already
passed
!
Father’s
day
is
next
weekend
.
He
must
have
thought
I
was
crazy
!

He tried to replay everything that had happened since he left the hotel at noon.

Something else John had said sounded a bit funny at the time: “Angel said she hoped you would stay long enough to spend a few days at our beach house. She thought it would do you good.”

Do
me
good
?

All day long, John never mentioned Keri’s name when referring to inviting them back to Georgia to meet his wife and family.

He looked around the kitchen. Everything was put away. He opened the refrigerator. There was hardly anything there. He ran around the house looking for signs to disprove his growing fears. The house looked undisturbed, as if their family had just returned from vacation.

Somehow he had disconnected from reality after waking from his dream at the DoubleTree, but being home—in his house—he slowly reconnected. Nausea stirred in his stomach. The kids were not with friends. Keri was not taking a walk around the block.

John’s
caring
embrace
as
he
said
good
-
by
at
the
airport
,
and
his
comment
: ‘
She
thought
it
would
do
you
good
.’

He suddenly realized the reason for his unexplainable loneliness, his hollow depression, his troubled spirit, and the sense that he was frozen and cut off from the world of the living.

The dream he had in Georgia at the DoubleTree had defined the reality that Keri, David, and Martha were dead. The trip he had made to Georgia was not to find Angel, but to bury his family.

CHAPTER 33

Southern
California

Sunday
evening
—
June
8
,
2003

The longer Ryan was home, the more connected he became with his current reality. Removing his clothes from his suitcase, an envelope dropped to the floor. It was simply addressed: RYAN. He opened it and removed a sympathy card.

Life
so
fragile
,
loss
so
sudden
,
heart
so
broken
...
In
the
wake
of
such
a
loss
,
we
are
haunted
by
things
we
don’t
,
and
may
never
understand
.
Yet
the
solace
we
seek
may
not
come
from
answers
.
So
we
look
for
comfort
in
the
belief
of
love's
everlasting
connection
.
May
that
love
lift
you
and
hold
you
close
,
and
give
you
peace
.

Beneath the message were the handwritten words…

Our
deepest
sympathy
during
your
time
of
loss
.
Please
know
we
are
here
for
you
.

With
Love
,
John
,
Mercy
,
Michael
,
Susan
and
Ronald
.

The card had been placed next to his seat in the cabin of the Gulfstream on his flight to Atlanta, Friday the sixth of June.

The house was eerily quiet with only a ghostly remembrance of Keri and the children. Just ten days ago, the sick, deranged lunatic—Samael Janus—murdered his family. There had been no formal ceremony; only a quiet graveside remembrance at Oakland Cemetery, attended by Ryan, John, and Michael. Rex offered to be there to show his support, but Ryan discouraged him from making the trip.

When he called John on Friday morning—June 6th, the week after the tragedy—although John was spending the week with his family at the beach, he insisted he fly out to California—instead of dispatching another plane.

He and Michael departed from Panama City, Florida, and flew direct to John Wayne Airport on Friday afternoon. Ryan was waiting when they landed, and they flew to Atlanta that night. John and Michael accompanied him to the cemetery on Saturday morning.

The grave markers for Keri and the children were located by the MITCHELL/HART tombstone on the MITCHELL side. Markers for Ryan’s mother and father were centered in front of the tombstone. Keri had mentioned how she wanted her marker to be with the Mitchell family, near Martha Mitchell. Keri’s parents, Ronald and Barbara Ann, were buried on the opposite side of the tombstone—the HART side.

Ryan had knelt on the plots where the three markers were installed, opened the three small plastic boxes which contained the cremains of each family member. He tore open the plastic bags within each box, reached in and took a handful of the gray dust from each box and let it fall between his fingers into the grass beside their respective granite markers. He then closed the boxes. He had arranged to have the rest of their cremains properly buried on the gravesite in accordance to Oakland Cemetery’s special rules.

John and Michael flew back to Panama City that night to pick up Angel. They had just returned to Peachtree DeKalb Airport on Sunday when Ryan arrived for his trip back to California.

As Ryan had approached the Mercy Flight hangar, the woman he passed driving away in the large Mercedes Benz must have been John’s wife—the same woman that he now believed was his Angel.

Seeing John with a Rudolph nose and rosy cheeks made perfect sense, considering he had spent the entire week at the beach.

With each new dream, Ryan began to question what was real and what belonged in his
other
, constantly-changing life. Because of his dream regressions, time had become a jumbled mess in his mind.

He was perplexed why the death of his family had not affected him emotionally like he thought it should. The ugly monster called Grief was very familiar, but for some strange reason, he had not yet shed a single tear, only a general sense of malaise. Grief had ravaged his spirit for months after the death of his mother, but with his family, it was not the same. Perhaps he was in denial or shock, or even worse—losing his mind.

He needed closure. He needed to return to the grave site again. He would call John on Monday and accept his invitation to return for a visit. After he visited Oakland Cemetery and saw their names etched in stone and touched the ground where their ashes had become one with the earth, maybe then he would believe it.

Although Keri was dead, if John’s wife, Mercy, was in fact
his
Angel, a final dream regression—the seventh dream—might give him one last opportunity to make choices that could turn his present painful reality into tomorrow’s
other
life—bringing Keri, David, and Martha back.

CHAPTER 34

Atlanta
,
Georgia

Friday
afternoon
—
June
13
,
2003

Ryan’s spirit lifted when he heard John’s voice on the phone. He and Michael were in Dothan with the family when Ryan called, but John sounded eager to fly out to California and shuttle Ryan back to Georgia to join his family for Father’s Day.

After dropping Ryan in Atlanta, John and Michael planned to fly back to Dothan, spend the night, and then return to Atlanta Saturday morning with the entire family.

The Gulfstream touched down at Peachtree DeKalb Airport at three o’clock Friday afternoon and taxied to the Mercy Flight hangar.

John left the cockpit and stepped into the cabin to open the entry door for Ryan. When the door swung open, a hot wave of summer heat overcame the climatically-controlled cabin. The invading humid air rushed in carrying the faint smell of jet fuel.

“Ryan, I’ll meet you at the foot of the stairs, but first I need to talk to Michael about the fuel load to Dothan.” John returned to the cockpit.

Ryan exited the cabin into the sauna-like heat. He squinted up at the gray canopy of thick haze masking the normally-blue sky. To the west, the sky was ominously dark.

Descending the stairs, beads of perspiration began oozing from his pores—the temperature rising with each step closer to the heat-soaked, black asphalt.

Several minutes passed before John finished his business in the cockpit and joined Ryan on the ramp. “Ryan, your car is parked out front…the keys should be in it, and you have a room reserved at the DoubleTree for tonight.”

“So you’re planning to bring the family back home tomorrow, right?”

“As soon as we get refueled, Michael and I will zip down to Dothan and spend the night with the family. We’ll all be back in the morning—should touchdown at approximately ten o’clock. I’ll pick you up at the DoubleTree at eleven .”

“John, I hate to be any trouble.”

John gave him a hard stare. “What did I tell you when we first met?”

“I know, but…”

“But…nothing. We are thrilled you are here to spend Father’s Day with our family. I’m just sorry you have to stay in the DoubleTree tonight. When you called, we were all in Dothan, but now that you are in town, we can easily move the party to Buckhead.”

“Well…all I can say is I’m honored. Thank you, and don’t worry about me tonight. I’ll be fine. Before I go to the hotel, I think I’ll drive down to Oakland Cemetery.”

John looked at the sky to the west. “Just so you know…on arrival we had to circumnavigate a nasty line of thunderstorms moving in from the west. Depending on traffic, you should have time to make it to the cemetery before the weather hits. I hope you don’t get wet.”

Ryan held his arms out. “I feel like I’m already soaked.” He laughed. The back of his shirt and underarms were sopping with sweat.

“Welcome to summer in the South.”

“Yeah, I’d almost forgotten how hot and humid it gets down here.”

“So, I’ll swing by and pick you up at eleven tomorrow,” John said.

“John, are you sure it wouldn’t be easier if you just give me the address where you live and let me meet you at the house?”

“It’s no problem. Angel has her car, and I actually have to drive right past the DoubleTree. Plus, I don’t want you getting lost looking for the house. We’ll leave your car at the hotel and pick it up on Sunday afternoon on the way back to the airport.”

Ryan’s legs were beginning to sweat. “Okay, I’ll be ready at eleven.”

The rental car—a full-size Ford sedan—was parked in the same spot as before. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he saw the gravesite. The summer days were long and the sun didn’t set until almost nine o’clock. Depending on traffic on I-85 through the city, he should be able to drive to Oakland Cemetery within thirty minutes.

He opened the rear door on the driver’s side and put his roller bag on the backseat. He closed the door and then opened the driver’s door. When he sat in the driver’s seat, he made the mistake of grabbing the hot steering wheel. “Ouch!”

The key was in the ignition. He cranked the car and switched on the air conditioner, adjusting it to MAX COLD. After an initial surge of hot air from the vents, the chilled air began to flow. He closed the driver’s door and backed out of the parking space. He was heading south on I-85 within five minutes. For a Friday afternoon, the traffic was not too bad.

After exiting on MLK/STATE CAPITOL, he turned left onto Oakland Drive and drove 300 feet before turning right into the narrow gate at the main entrance to the cemetery.