Phoenix Falling (47 page)

She set the photo back on the dresser, and headed out into the mountains.

Chapter 37

She'd worried that Tom Corsi would have become a pious, unrecognizable stranger, but his dark hair was still untonsured and unruly and his white robe hadn't changed his smile. He'd always been so patient with his little sister and her friends. Always tall and good-looking, he was now also tanned and serene.

"Am I allowed to hug you?" she asked uncertainly.

"Of course. You're family." He engulfed her in a brotherly embrace. She relaxed against him, painfully grateful for the simple animal warmth.

As they separated, he said with a smile, "Are you here to gather atmosphere for playing a nun? That outfit you're wearing looks like it's trying to be ecclesiastical."

She pulled the hood lower over her forehead. "A priest once told me in all seriousness that the color of my hair was an invitation to sin," she said dryly. "I didn't want to cause trouble."

"The monks here have moved beyond that medieval tendency to blame women for being female," he assured her. "Though the hood might be useful protection against the sun if you'd like to go for a walk."

"That would be great." She fell into step as he led the way through the cluster of adobe buildings that surrounded the church. "Kate suggested I talk to you. Even if you haven't any words of wisdom, it's wonderful to see you again."

He opened a wooden gate for her, revealing a path that wound up the mountain. "Is this a secular form of confession, allowing for the fact that I'm not a priest and you're not Catholic?"

She smiled. "Close enough."

They started up the well-traveled walkway. The monastery property was in the middle of a federal wilderness area, and the scenery was spectacular. When they were well above the monastery, she said, "This canyon is magnificent. Beautiful and rather savage, with a harsh, clear light unlike any I've ever seen. A good place to seek God. Are you happy here, Tom?"

"Yes, I am."

She glanced up at his face. "I hear a 'but' in your voice."

"I love the land, the community, and simplicity and spirituality of the life," he said slowly. "But I'm not sure if what I feel is a true vocation."

"I thought Kate said you'd taken vows?"

"Simple vows only. They can be renewed annually for anywhere up to nine years." He grinned. "If I can't decide if I have a true vocation by then, I deserve to be thrown out."

Rainey was panting when they reached the top of the path. Sage-scented wind whipped her loose garments. Tom gestured to a flat, wide stone in the shade of half a dozen tangy pines. "This is a popular site for contemplation. How about if we sit down and you tell me what's troubling you?"

She settled on the stone and drew up one knee, wrapping her arms around it as she gazed over the rugged red stone canyon. How much could she say, should she say? "I'm very worried about my husband, Kenzie."

When she paused, Tom asked quietly, "What is he like?"

"Forget anything you've seen on a movie screen. In real life, he's a quiet, wonderfully talented man made up of kindness and shadows. Making a movie in England stirred up his memories of a childhood that was... about as bad as a childhood can get."

She drew a shuddering breath. "Now the memories are eating him alive. He can't bear the idea of hashing over everything with a therapist, and he avoids drugs, even legal ones, like the plague, for reasons that are similar to mine. He's in agony, Tom, and I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do
." She hid her face in her hands.

Tom waited patiently until she collected herself before he said, "If he can't talk to anyone, suggest that he write a journal chronicling whatever is tormenting him."

"A journal?" Her brow furrowed. "How would that help?"

"Studies have shown that most people benefit from writing down traumatic experiences," Tom explained. "The act of writing seems to put distance between the sufferer and the original incidents."

"Kenzie is dyslexic, so writing doesn't come easily for him."

"This kind of writing isn't easy for anyone, but there's no need to worry about spelling and grammar and sentence structure. What matters is digging down into the pain as deeply, and as honestly, as possible." He frowned, trying to make the concept clearer. "Words are a way of gaining control over the past. Some people later burn the pages as a way of releasing the pain. Works pretty well, too."

"Have you done this yourself?"

He nodded. "I had a lot of anger after my father threw me out of the house and told me I was no longer his son. In San Francisco, I took a journaling seminar and decided it was worth a try. Amazingly, it worked. I was able to feel compassion for my father, who was torn between what he'd been raised to believe and his love for his only son. Eventually, I was able to get past the anger and get on with my life."

"In other words, confession really is good for the soul, even if it's on paper." Rainey said thoughtfully. "This is certainly worth suggesting to Kenzie. Maybe he can write what he can't say out loud."

"How is he using his time? If he's too depressed to do anything but brood, that could send him into a dangerous downward spiral."

"He's building a labyrinth. It looks sort of like the patterns on the surface of the brain." She tried to remember what he'd said. "It's a classic eleven-circuit labyrinth, the same as one that's set in the floor of Chartres Cathedral."

"A labyrinth? Interesting. He has good instincts," Tom observed. "In the Middle Ages, believers who couldn't travel to the Holy Land made symbolic pilgrimages by walking on their knees around a cathedral labyrinth. There's a labyrinth in the desert garden behind our chapel, actually. It's a very powerful meditative device. A way to find God, and sometimes healing as well."

"But first the pain has to be cleared away."

"The labyrinth can help with that, too. Walking to the center is a journey into oneself. The center brings release, and the journey out represents integration. It's not unknown for people to have intense emotional reactions if they've been laboring under great stress."

"Kenzie hopes his labyrinth will bring him the kind of peace a labyrinth in England did."

"Maybe it will. But suggest the journal, too. It might be the only method private enough to help him now." Tom regarded her gravely. "Stay close to him, Rainey. Powerful tools release dangerous emotions. Some therapists carry twenty-four-hour-a-day beepers so that patients who are journaling can reach them at any time if they have a bad reaction."

"In other words, 'Kids, don't try this at home.'" She stood, feeling a little lighter at the prospect of being able to offer Kenzie something that might help. "Thanks so much, Tom. I'll let you know if your suggestions work."

Tom stood also, his body a protective barrier against the wind. "Is he going to stay your husband?"

"I surely hope so." Hope had been left in Pandora's box, which was why it sprang eternal.

* * *

Kenzie laid a final circular paver to complete a rosette at the heart of the labyrinth. He had the odd thought that the earth welcomed the stone, as if the ancient pattern he'd created in the desert expressed a profound natural harmony.

Muscles and joints protesting after hours of kneeling, he stood and stretched, mentally preparing himself to test his creation.

He stationed himself at the entrance of the labyrinth, his gaze tracing the pattern. Eleven concentric circles, with the pathway turning back on itself as it swung unpredictably through all four quadrants of the labyrinth. As in life, sometimes one seemed to be nearing the center only to have the path swing away to an outer circle. The road must be walked with attention and diligence.

Breathing deeply, he relaxed muscle by muscle, then took his first step onto the walkway he'd laid with blood, sweat, and care. Three steps in, the path swung sharply to the left.

He'd never believed in God. His childhood hadn't included religious education, and later he decided that no decent God could allow the atrocities that were commonplace in the world. If a divine being existed, it had created the world, then abandoned humankind to pursue more interesting projects.

A labyrinth worked for more earthly reasons. The mind was a drunken monkey, he'd once heard. Movement could channel off that restless energy, allowing the mind to slow to a meditative state.

Yet instead of calming, his emotions intensified. Tennyson's words echoed in his mind again.

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter,

The thoughts that arise in me
.

Though his tongue couldn't utter them, the emotions were flame bright, searingly real. Despair. Grief.

Most of all, anger. Rage at the pimp who'd destroyed hapless Maggie Mackenzie, then dragged her son into degradation. Fury at the uncounted men who'd chosen to believe that a child was willingly selling his body. Loathing of those who'd known better, and enjoyed feeding on a child's pain.

He wanted to confront his mother, who'd loved him but hadn't the strength to care for him. He wanted to curse Trevor, who'd saved his life but damaged his soul. He wanted to strike out at the men who'd abused him, teach them what it was like to be terrified and alone, but there was no one within reach of his vengeance.

Most of all, he raged against himself, despising his pathetic weakness. He could have walked up to any kind-looking woman on the streets and begged for help and been saved years of horror. Yet because he'd believed that he deserved pain and degradation, he remained a passive victim.

He wavered, then forced himself to continue. At some point he would have to hit bottom, and then the tidal wave of pain would begin to ebb.

But it didn't. The wave continued to build until Jamie's sobs echoed in his ears, Jamie's fear choked him, and Jamie's hopelessness stood revealed as the foundation of his whole misbegotten life.

Despairing, he stumbled into the center of the labyrinth and fell shaking to his knees as he gasped for breath. Kenzie was Jamie and Jamie was Kenzie and he could no longer separate the two.

The midday sun blazed like hell's own fire as he slumped onto the newly laid stones. He'd worked so hard to build a life, but nothing he'd achieved, not success, not money, not fame, could heal the primal wound at the center of his soul.

Ashes to ashes, dust unto dust...

* * *

It was dinnertime when Rainey arrived back at the ranch, but there was no sign of Kenzie. Maybe he was close enough to finishing the labyrinth that he'd decided to work on until he was done.

As Honeybunny and Gray Guy leaped around her, she read Alma's instructions for how long to heat the barbecued ribs the older woman had deposited in the refrigerator. Rainey read the note fondly, amazed at how natural it seemed here to leave the house unlocked so a neighbor could drop in and leave dinner.

She'd fed the kittens, poured a lemonade, and started for her bedroom when the phone rang. She picked up the call in the living room. "Hello?"

"Raine, I've got two pieces of great news," Marcus said with rare excitement.

She flopped full-length on the sofa. "Speak. I'm up for great news."

"Val's hunch paid off. One of our London researchers found a death certificate for the James Mackenzie that Nigel Stone claimed was really Kenzie."

Rainey gasped, wondering how that could be. "How old was he when he died?"

"The poor kid died of a beating when he was twelve. Assailant unknown, probably a trick who turned violent." Marcus sighed. "After I got that call, I went out and hugged the first grandchild I could find."

Trevor's friend, the intelligence officer, must have created a false death certificate to sever all connection between Jamie Mackenzie and Kenzie Scott. "What is Nigel Stone saying?"

"He's issued a public apology to Kenzie, saying that obviously he hadn't done enough research and he'd made a mistake. The unofficial word is that he was told by the
Inquirer
to grovel or find a new job. Kenzie is very popular in England, and a lot of people were unhappy when someone so widely respected was attacked by a mudslinging tabloid. Val's brainstorm about producing other men who looked like a young Kenzie wounded Stone's case mortally, and this drives the final nail into the coffin."