The Glass Secret (Chain of Secrets) (20 page)

My heels slid off the curb and into the street, standing on my tiptoes, raising my eyes over the rim of the half-rolled down window; inside I could see, so clearly, the puppy wagging her tail, filled with the same excitement I’d felt.

The seat she jumped on was covered in blue vinyl, smeared with inky-red stains and holes that expelled dirty yellow padding.
Pew
...the smell of old car stench, stale fast food, the exhaust fumes, and cigarettes drifted into my nose, disgusting.

My hand was on the handle of the door, and I could feel my heart pounding rapidly. I was only seconds away from owning a new little puppy.

In a fissure of my mind, I heard Storm rambling on about something. Pure babble if you asked me. He usually did this when I was having fun with someone other than him. So, I did what I normally would do when he carried on as such; I ignored him. I figured that Storm was jealous and had suddenly changed his mind about blessing me with the new puppy.

I also figured Storm probably recognized that the puppy would steal my attention away from his invisible presence. It wasn’t as if I could hug Storm as I could the sweet puppy. The puppy was tangible, and Storm was just a voice. Yep, if I could have seen Storm, I was sure he was a green-eyed monster. Until I had the pup in my lap, tuning him out was the only solution I could think of.

I pulled back on the rusty old door handle. When the car door swung open, the man leaped across the seat at me, nearly grazing my arm. I froze at the sight of him, but something, a powerful force, yanked me backwards. Upon closer glance, my eyes widened, the man in the car was stark naked.

Storm’s voice broke through the barriers of my mind, and he charged into my head like a raging bull, his target—me—the red blanket waving in the wind. Yikes! Storm’s voice swallowed me whole. He had never shown such anger before. Of course, he was not angry with me but, instead, at the situation. I could almost imagine his nostrils flaring with horns on the top of his head, as he roared.

Arghhh, get the hell away from the car, Brielle. Run, run away... fast,
played like a broken record in my mind
.

His voice beat against the walls of my brain.
Run, Brielle, run! Scream at the top of your lungs and run away as fast as you can!

Without hesitation, I jumped into the air and ran as fast as I could. I was moving so quickly that it actually felt as if my feet left the ground. It was almost as if I flew back to my parents. Tears were streaming down my face. I cried for so many reasons, but mostly, because I was empty handed—I wanted that puppy.

My father heard my screams, and raced towards me. He swept me off my feet into his arms, holding me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. The man in the car quickly sped away. As he had vanished, so did my chances to own a puppy.

Storm really scared the shit out of me, almost as much as the naked man did. Storm sometimes had such a potty mouth, and he tended to use curse words when I wouldn’t listen to him. I was certain the use of the
hell
word was inappropriate language for an angel. If he kept this up, he would never get his wings.

My parents immediately called the police. They came to the park and asked me all sort of questions. Still in shock, I could not answer their questions. It was almost like my mind went blank. Storm tried to cue me on what to say, but I was frozen. The police followed us home, they felt like I may remember things if they took me away from the scene of the crime, safe at home, where I’d be more comfortable.

“Brielle, the two nice police officers are still downstairs wondering if you could try again to answer some of their questions now?” My mother’s words were strained, and her fingers knotted together, nervously. “Can you come down with me?” She reached out her hand to me, and I slipped my hand into hers. There was an odd silence in our house that afternoon.

“Hello, sweetie, can you remember anything that happened at the park? What did the man in the car look like? Did he have dark hair or light hair?” the female police officer asked me.

My eyes scanned around the room. Suddenly, all of the details from earlier in the day came rushing back to me.

“He was really ugly and had big yellow teeth like a wolf and squinty black eyes. His hair was all messy, really dark black and, well...” I paused.

“What was he wearing?” the female officered asked.

I hemmed and hawed because I was embarrassed to tell them what he was wearing. “Ah, a black t-shirt, I think. But his body looked like Jesus, kind of.” I sucked in my bottom lip. “You know, like when he was naked on the cross, like that.” I pointed at two bookends in our bookcase. “He had no pants on, it was really gross.”

The officers’ eyes darted to the figurines—replicas of Jesus on the cross. Their faces filled with hidden anger. Dad put me on his lap and held me tightly and my mom paced the room. She always did this when she was upset. My parents were very protective of me, except of course, when Brett was stealing all of
their attention, which might explain part of why this happened.

At the time, I didn’t recognize the magnitude of what could have happened to me. Instinctually, I knew it wasn’t good.

The female police officer consoled me. She spoke to me as if I was a toddler, in very juvenile terms, not recognizing how precocious I was for my age. I was seven not three. She told me that the man in the car was a ‘
very, very naughty man
,’ and that they needed to find him because he had done bad things to other little girls. I told them everything I could remember about the man, including his black mustache and pale skin and deep-set eyes and about the cross that was painted on his arm. I learned that day the sign of a cross was not always a good sign.

“Thank you so much, Brielle. You were very helpful.” The female officer pulled a cherry lollipop from her pocket and handed it to me. My eyes flashed up to my mother.

I regretfully sighed, “Sorry. I am not allowed to take candy from strangers.”

All the way home from the park, my parents scolded and lectured me about never accepting anything, absolutely
nothing
from a stranger, ever again. In my eyes, even the police lady was a stranger.

My mother reassuringly said, “It’s okay, Brielle. You can have the candy this one time.” Dang, adults can be so confusing at times.

The following day, the two police officers returned to our house. My mother instructed me to go to my bedroom, but instead, I hid in the shadows of the stairwell so I could hear what they were saying. I peeked around the corner and noticed one of the officers was holding the same little puppy that I had seen in the bad man’s car. My heart skipped a beat.

The policewoman smiled as the puppy licked her face. The male officer said that terrible man was in their
custody
. I wasn’t sure what the word
custody
meant; however, I could tell from their faces it was good news.

Apparently, the police had found the wolf-looking man several hours later. After he left the park, he crashed his car somewhere on the North Shore of the island into a big oak tree that was, ironically, in the middle of an open field. The man broke both of his legs rendering him paralyzed for life.  

That’s what he gets for being mean to little girls
, I thought.

Both officers and my parents agreed that the odds of the man’s car crashing into the tree in the middle of an open field were virtually impossible. To them it made no sense. They called it a freak accident. However, it made perfect sense to me; I knew the angels caused the accident. It was an act of revenge. They were the ones who put a stop to this man so that he couldn’t hurt little girls anymore. Paybacks sucked for him. Fortunately, the puppy was not hurt.

The male officer spoke in a quiet tone. “There is something else...a young girl was in the trunk of the car. She didn’t have a scratch from the accident, but we are afraid she may be scarred forever, at least she is safe with her family now.”

“Oh, Lord. Thank God,” my mother exclaimed as she petted
the top of the puppy’s head. She really loved animals.

“So, do you want to hold her?” The female officer asked my mother.

“I—I don’t think that’s a good idea. I am curious, why on earth did you bring this puppy to our home?” My mother grasped onto my dad’s forearm. “Mitchell, this could really upset Brielle if she sees her.”

My dad replied, “You are absolutely right—officers are we through? We really appreciate that you have updated us, but—I am sure you can understand, we have been through enough already.”

The male officer glanced at his partner. A confused expression crawled over his face. He said to my parents, “I’m really sorry, we certainly do not want to upset your family. We thought it was okay to bring the puppy along. Someone called the station and said that you wanted to adopt—”

Dad interrupted him. “Why would we do that? We didn’t even know you caught the guy. Sorry, but no one called from here. That just doesn’t make sense.” Dad rubbed his jaw. “Your mother wouldn’t have—would she?” he asked, turning toward my mother. The muscles in his jawline flinched.

“No, of course not. My mother may do a lot of odd things but she would never do anything like this,” my mother answered with certainty.

The male officer had a surprised look on his face. “We are very sorry for the confusion.”

I clearly heard the female officer say, “That’s fine, but if you don’t want the puppy, we will have to take her straight to the pound, poor thing.”  She rubbed the top of the puppy’s head.

This frightened me. Without missing a beat, I ran down the staircase and begged my parents if we could keep the puppy. The female officer helped plead my case.

“It would be a nice—a reward for helping to capture the bad man. Of course, that is only if it is okay with you both?” The officer’s eyes darted between my parents. My mother was strictly against the idea.

“I can’t believe you would bring the puppy here without our permission first.”

“Again, someone called and told us to bring her here. It’s okay if you have changed your minds. Honestly, we were told…”

“It’s alright officers. Please, let us have a minute to talk about this.” Dad seemed to be riding the fence.

“It’s not the puppy’s fault that the bad man did horrible things to little girls,” I stammered, but my argument was not working.

Mom suggested that we could go to the pound and rescue a nice puppy.

Relentlessly, I continued to beg them for this puppy. I was almost spastic. Honestly, I went as far as dropping to my hands and knees, making a real spectacle out of myself. God, I should have been an actress.

“I don’t want another puppy,” I screamed. “I want her. I want this puppy!”

I was determined to have
this
puppy. It was no use. My tears were not getting me anywhere, except for into more trouble once the police officers would leave. How could they hold me accountable for acting out of control? After all, I had been traumatized by the incident. Still, my plight was of no use.

I heard Storm whisper in my head.
“Brielle, stop acting like a baby if you want the puppy you need to out smart them.”
Of course, I couldn’t reply to him with everyone around. “
Think about what happened last time you acted out of control.”

What I could remember about the last time I was so called, out-of-control—I was sent to my room without dessert. Then it dawned on me—my mother had told me fake tears are cheap and my temper-tantrums would not get me anywhere. Storm was right. I needed a different approach. I didn’t know what to say.

“I am sorry,” I said, sniffling between my words and wrapped my arms around my mother’s waist. This was a good start.

“It’s okay, Brielle. We know that you’ve been through a lot,” my mother replied, smoothing down the back of my hair.

“Well...” I paused to think, and just in the nick of time Storm told me what to say. “Mommy, maybe the puppy is a hero.”

“Now look up at her with your little red teary, puppy dog eyes,”
Storm said, directing my act of manipulation. I wondered if all angels were so deceitful when it came to helping their host?

“How is that?” she asked.

Storm, what do I say now?
I asked inwardly, knowing it was no use because he could not hear my internal thoughts.
You got me into this. I hope you know what you are doing?

I stood there staring into space not knowing what to say to my parents and the police officers. I must have looked like an idiot, or that I had a sudden attack of stage fright. I was so worried Storm had left the conversation. How could he have left me hanging in a time of dire straits? At least, that is what it felt like at the time to me.

“Brielle, are you okay?” my mother inquired.

I just stood there with my mouth gaped open.
Suddenly, Storm chimed in, “
Sorry Doll, I had to check on something, but I am back now.”
I wanted to ring his neck for a minute.
“Tell them this
...”

He better have something good up his sleeve,
I thought.