Water Walker

The Full Story | Episodes 1-4

Ted Dekker

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Ted Dekker

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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EPISODE ONE

Prologue

My name is Eden and this is my story. I know that on the surface it may seem different from your own, and on one level that’s true. After all, you may not be a blond-haired girl like me and I doubt very many people have faced or will ever face the particular trials that I have.

And yet when you get right down to it, we’re all the same—rich, poor, old, young, fat, skinny, white, brown, or purple—pick your costume, none of it really matters too much. What does matter is whether or not we take offense when we think we’ve been wronged, regardless of who we think we are or what costume we’re wearing.

That’s what I learned. The way I learned it might shock you a bit. You might laugh at some of it or cry at times . . . it all depends on who you think you are, which may not be the real you at all. You can only learn who you really are by getting to the end of who you think you are; I learned that too.

So don’t feel sorry for me, or cry too much because it was the only way for me. And the same goes for you.

My story began the night I discovered that I wasn’t me.

1

Day One 7:34 pm

“YOU CAN’T wait any longer.” Wyatt heard Kathryn take a deep, controlled breath on the other end of the line. He imagined her standing in their small kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, hand trembling by her side. “You’ve been watching the house for two days—they’re bound to see you if they haven’t already. You go in there and you get my daughter, you hear me?”

“I hear you, sugar.” He stared through the truck’s window at the brick house. “But I can’t just walk in and take her without—”

“Yes you can! And you won’t have to take her. She’ll come. You tell her who you are and she’ll come. Tell her that she doesn’t need to live in a foster home one more day because her mother’s been looking for her for thirteen years and she’ll come.”

“What if she doesn’t remember right away?”

“I’m her mother, Wyatt! Her mother! Blood doesn’t forget blood. And you’re her father, don’t you forget that. Maybe not by blood, but she’ll know the moment she sees you. There’s nobody in the world that loves that child the way we do. One look in your eyes and she’ll see that.”

“She’s not alone in there. The mother’s home and the father will be home soon.”

“Which is why you have to go in there and get her alone!” Kathryn snapped. “And don’t use that word—that woman in there’s an imposter, not a mother. Don’t you dare use that word.”

“I know, sugar.” He felt her anxiety work through his own bones. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

“How it’s supposed to go is for you to rescue my daughter and bring her home to me. We always knew she wouldn’t just walk out and get in the truck with you—the poor girl’s been subjected to only God knows what.”

“I was supposed to get her alone and talk to her first.”

“And that’s exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to walk up to that front door and tell whoever answers that you have an important message for Alice—remember to call her Alice because she won’t know her real name. And you make sure no one else hears what you tell her. No one can know that her birth mother came to save her.”

Kathryn sniffed.

“I don’t care what it takes, Wyatt.” She was on the verge of tears, voice strained and weak. “We talked about this. If those snakes find you out, we may never get another chance. You have to get her before the man gets home. Now, Wyatt. Go tell her that her mother’s waiting. She’ll come.”

She’d been obsessed with finding her daughter for years, and that need had risen to a fever pitch a month earlier when they’d discovered that Eden was alive and living in South Carolina with foster parents. She’d been taken against Kathryn’s will by the legal system, so recovering her had proven to be a matter of careful planning, and it all rested squarely on his shoulders now. Problem was getting her out of that house without causing a fuss.

And the problem with getting her out without causing a fuss was that Eden wouldn’t come without some convincing, no matter what Kathryn said. In her desperation, she wasn’t thinking clearly now. Not that he blamed her—he was nearly as eager as she was, if only to make things right for all of them, most of all Kathryn.

He’d spent the last two days looking for any opportunity to catch Eden alone without any success. Kathryn had a point—sooner or later the neighbors would call in the blue pickup truck with a camper shell. He’d been careful to duck down behind the steering wheel when cars approached and he’d spent a good amount of time in the back among all the blankets he’d brought, so he was sure he hadn’t been seen. But there was no way to hide the truck, not if he wanted to be close enough to intercept her if she ever left the house alone. Which she hadn’t.

“Zeke went to a lot of trouble to set this up, Wyatt. All you have to do is get to her. I lost my daughter once, I’m not about to lose her again.”

“Okay, sugar. I’ll go.”

“Tell her that her mother’s waiting.”

“I will.”

“Make sure no one hears you.”

“I will.”

“Hurry before the man returns. Do it now and call me the minute you’re back in the truck.”

“Of course.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise, sugar.”

Wyatt waited for the line to click off before removing it from his ear. He gave the cab a once-over. The old Ford had a black vinyl-covered bench seat, worn shiny and cracked in a couple places. At Kathryn’s direction he’d cleaned the interior when he’d collected the truck and taken care not to leave any junk on the floor.

He turned the rearview mirror for a look at his face . . . two day’s growth—not too shabby. Ran his fingers through his hair. Wavy blond, maybe could use a wash. Blue eyes. A kind face, Kathryn said—the kind any girl would find comforting. The thought of Eden seeing him for the first time was a bit unsettling, only because she would see a stranger when in reality he was her father.

He slipped the keys into the front pocket of his tan work pants—cleaned proper. Blue shirt tucked in neat.

Had to get this right. Had to or Kathryn would likely die of grief. And Zeke wouldn’t approve.

With a quick look up and down the quiet street, he stepped out of the truck and eased the door shut. The man of the house had come home between seven thirty and eight both nights . . . it was seven thirty-five now.

He crossed the street, angled up the sidewalk, and headed for the front door, heart thumping like a fist in his chest. He’d seen Eden six times in the last two days. Twice through binoculars when she’d had the curtains to her room on the second floor pulled open. Thin, with pale skin and straight blonde hair that fell past her shoulders. A spitting image of Kathryn at that age, he imagined. And when he’d described Eden to her, his wife had wept for joy over the phone.