Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers (10 page)

“
Give it back to me!” she hollered.
“Don't you dare!”

He dared. Even when she picked up Millie's
tea and threw it at him, he only ducked and fended it off before
unzipping and dumping the contents out on the table for all to see.
Millie screamed. The colonel's eyes widened and his mouth dropped
open, while Stella—who had stood up that very moment, in order to
step between the two before they resorted to an out-and-out
brawl—was just in time to catch Gerald before he fell off the
table, onto the floor.

There was an assortment of credit
cards belonging to various family members in the heap, the
colonel's gold pocket-watch the military academy had given him when
he retired, and several of Stella's autographed first editions from
her book shelves. There was also a genuine shrunken head Gerald had
paid a lot of money for on an archaeological dig in the South
Pacific, before his invalid days. But the things that had elicited
a scream from Millie, and got her reaching for her heart pills, was
the notorious
Villa Nofre
jewelry collection that belonged to the owner's last wife and
had been missing for years.

“
Where did you get those!”
the mansion
's former landlady could
barely manage a frightened whisper.

“
In a trunk up in the attic,” Lou Edna
admitted. “When I was looking for things to pawn that you wouldn't
notice. Now, you'll probably never trust me again. None of you
will!” At which point she buried her face in her arms on the table
and gave way to more tears.

“
E-gads—those things are worth a
fortune—we could all go to jail for this. We're accomplices! What
are we going to do, Mil? E.J.'s been a good sport, but I doubt he'd
let us off three times. First the household valuables, then the
paintings, and now the missing jewels! He'd never believe us a
third time!”

“
Oh, I don't know what to do—Mason's
going to hit the roof when he hears this! You couldn't have got
away with pawning those, Lou. The family lawyers have had
detectives and everyone else trying to find them for years. The
lady who owned them was a Russian refugee who came over here after
World War II—some distant cousin to a Czar, or
something.”

“
They're extremely well-documented,”
added Gerald, then grimaced at the very thought.

“
We seem to be going from the frying
pan into the fire every time we turn around, lately,” said the
colonel. “The amount of trouble this incident could have caused
every one of us.”

“
Don't you have any feelings at all
for us, Lou?” Millie implored. “We've shared everything we had with
you, and you do something like this!”

“
I didn't know they were that
valuable—I didn't!”

“
You definitely knew the value of
everything else,” said the colonel. “And a good idea of how to
liquidate them, seeing how fast you were headed back
home.”

“
What did you take us for?” Gerald
pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the beads of
sweat gathering on his forehead. “A bunch of pushovers?”

“
I'm afraid, that's exactly what she
took us for,” the colonel replied for her. “Except considering what
terrible things might backfire in your own life as a result of this
act, makes you something of a pushover, yourself, Lou
Edna.”

“
Now, what am I going to do?” she
wailed. “If my boy ends up in foster care, I'll kill
myself!”

“
That wouldn't help one bit,” said
Stella.

“
I am a horrible person—just like Cole
said! There's no hope for me!”

“
Of course there's hope for you,” said
the colonel. “There's hope for everyone who truly wants it. You
only have to ask.”

“
Nobody will ever forgive me for
this—oh, I could just die!”

“
There is one person who will,” he
replied. “And he already did the dying.”

“
What good would it be if I end up all
alone? None of you will want me around anymore!”

“
Young lady, you would never be alone
in this world, again. That, I can promise you. With only a few
words from you, right here and now, your entire life can be turned
around. But it has to be genuine. You'd be talking to the one who
knows every thought and intent of your heart, yet still loves you
enough to give you a second chance. So... what do you
say?”

“
Stella,” the colonel said later that
evening, without looking up from his laptop. “You haven't read a
word since you opened that book. Is there something bothering you?
Something you'd like to talk about?”

“
I just can't get over how Lou Edna
responded to you. I even think that was a genuine prayer of
forgiveness she prayed. Right in front of all of us.”

“
Well, it wasn't me she was responding
to. I was just the messenger.”

“
But how did you know she was ready to
pray? She jumped at your suggestion so fast, I think she was
actually waiting to.”

“
I didn't know. But since she might
never have a remorseful moment like that, again, I thought I better
press the issue. Seems to have worked out.”

“
It certainly did. Why the change that
came over her was almost instant. It was like you could almost see
some great weight lifted off her. And it was so touching how Cole
came over and hugged her so tenderly afterward. He must have a good
heart, himself, to want so much for her to do things right. Maybe
he was touched by the love of God at sometime in his life,
too.”

He smiled, then gave half a chuckle at the
memory. “That's what really changes people, you know. The love of
God. It's supernatural.”

“
Oh, it is!” she agreed. “In a good
way.”

“
I'd say the love of God can't be
anything but good.”

“
I was talking about the supernatural
part. There are some supernatural things that aren't good at all.
Wouldn't you agree?”

“
Most definitely. But you wouldn't
want anything to do with that sort of stuff, would you? Life is too
short to fit everything in the world into it. And—as long as we get
to choose—wouldn't you rather fill yours up with good
things?”

“
Of course I would. But sometimes we
don't have any say in the matter.”

“
We always have some kind of choice,
Stel. Sometimes it's only a very small one. But if you look close
enough, you'll find it's a way out. Had that happen to me,
personally, many times.”

Stella thought how looking for a way out is
what brought on the worst trouble in her life. But she certainly
didn't want to get into that subject at the moment. The troubles at
hand were more than enough to deal with. “I wish I could be that
sure. I mean, it must be very comforting to have so much
assurance.”

“
Well, I didn't get it all at once,
you know. Just little by little, one choice at a time. Small
adjustments, you might say. Life's full of choices—there are dozens
every day. How's the saying go...” He cocked his head and thought
for a moment. “
I have set before you life
and death—oh, that you would choose life!
The more you
practice choosing life, the better you get at it. Sort of a win-win
situation.”

“
I hope Lou Edna discovers that. If
she could only know that choosing to do wrong is what actually
diminishes her opportunities. Not life being harder on her than
anyone else. She's a smart girl, though. So, maybe it won't take
too long for her to realize she can get better options to choose
from each time she makes a good choice.”

“
Well spoken. And that's exactly what
she would hear if she got some good counseling to overcome some of
her past perceptions.”

Stella thought how that was exactly where
she heard it, but she didn't say anything about that, either.

“
However—now that she's asked for
it—she'll get plenty of supernatural help to make sure she
succeeds,” he went on, “as do we all. None of us are much of a
match for the dark side of those spiritual realms. Some of us are
just more susceptible to it than others. More easily taken in, you
might say. Especially considering those dark forces have the
ability to masquerade as creatures of light, for a
time.”

A thought that gave Stella something of a
jolt—how in the world could a person tell the difference?

“
The danger is,” the colonel went on,
“that their purpose is to trap you, not give you a way out of
anything. They can only lead a person to death and destruction. No
mortal is a match for that. Never has been. Which I suppose is why
we get so tossed around between good and evil, in the first
place.”

There was the opening. Stella realized,
right then, that she needed to know how one went about getting that
good kind of supernatural help, in order to escape the bad. Because
it suddenly became very clear that she had allowed frightening
things to rule her life, too. So, she closed her book, took a deep
breath, and jumped in.

“
You know something, Oliver? I think
I've been one of the deceived ones. Before I got my new life, I was
convinced the only future I had was to end up in a good rest home
instead of a bad one. I guess you could say I was a pushover for
the darker side of supernatural, too.”

“
And look at you, now, Stel. Doing
wonderful things a lot of younger people don't even get to do.
You're on the adventure of a lifetime!”

“
Makes me not want to ever look at the
dark side of supernatural, again.”

“
And rightfully so. It's like opening
up a can of worms. Nothing good can ever come of it. Just has some
sort of curious appeal. Especially to people who are searching for
something more than just everyday living. Which we all do, at some
point in our lives.”

“
That's sort of what I meant by not
always having a choice with those types of encounters. Every once
in a while something just... pops up in front of you and you bump
into it. What I'm trying to say is... do you believe in ghosts,
Oliver? Tortured souls that roam the earth for some horrid reason,
or other?”

“
I believe they aren't always tortured
souls.”

“
What are they, then?”

He looked at her for a few moments, then
closed his laptop and came over to join her on the couch. “Oh, I
don't think it matters much, really. I only know there is no form
of darkness that doesn't run for the shadows as soon as a light
comes on. Which is why I make such a point of standing as close to
the one who created light as I possibly can. That way, I'm not so
apt to trip over things. None of us can see in the dark,
anyway.”

“
I've certainly never thought of it
like that before. But it does make more sense to look at it that
way, now that you mention it. Especially since Gerald told me he's
had more trouble since he started delving into those things than he
ever had before that. Did you know he actually used to try to
encounter ghosts? He studied old legends and went looking for them.
Was even thinking of doing his master's on some ghost over in
England. But he says he's never been the same since. Seems to be
plagued with them everywhere he goes, now.”

“
My point exactly. If you ask me, it's
half what's deteriorating his health.”

“
That's exactly what he
said.”

“
Yes, and he's always after some new
incantation to ward them off, too. You know he sleeps with tin foil
over his head? That's why he wears a watch-cap to bed. To keep it
in place.”

“
He's talked to you about it
before?”

“
Oh, we've had any number of talks
about it. I advised it would be better to say a quick prayer and
tell them to buzz off.”

“
You know, that's just what he did
last night when I ran into him in the companionway. He called me
a—a foul spirit—and told me to get away. Thought I was another one
of his apparitions. That's what he calls them.
Apparitions.”

“
I'd say that wasn't far wrong.” Then
he laughed trying to imagine the scene. “Just goes to show you
never know when someone is really listening to you.”

“
Oliver?”

“
Yes, my dear?”

“
I've been seeing some sort of...” She
smoothed a wrinkle out of the rose-colored throw she had over her
lap. “Apparition, myself. A very distinct one, in fact.”

“
Well, the next time you do, say a
prayer, and tell it to buzz off. Better yet—wake me up, Stel—and
we'll face the thing down together!”

“
Really?”

“
Absolutely. '
If one can put a thousand to flight, two can put ten-thousand
to flight
,' as the scripture says.”

“
It does?”

“
Yes. You can always bank on the
scriptures. They're truth in its purest form.”

“
Well, Oliver, I...” Stella looked at
the man she had married barely a month ago, and suddenly felt as if
she had found a rare treasure. And he wasn't even irritated with
her! Now, the thought that he cared enough to walk with her even
through the dark places gave her the most wonderful sense of
well-being she had ever known. “Oliver Henry?” She slid closer and
nestled into that comfortable, always ready, embrace that she loved
so much. “I think you're the most amazing man I've ever
known!”