“We could just walk up and knock on the door,” suggested Jeffrey. “Start asking questions about Lily and Mariah.”
“Or try to get in the back?” said Lydia, itching a little to get inside the brown building that tried hard to look like a church. Something about it felt like a dare to her.
Jeffrey shook his head. “Breaking and entering an abandoned building is one thing.”
“Breaking into an inhabited one takes research,” said Dax. They pulled away slowly, Lydia looking at the building until it was out of sight.
They’d headed back to Dax’s place. From the outside, Dax’s Riverdale home looked like a hundred other big Victorian houses in the tony suburb. But the inside was mostly bare of furniture, except for a big leather recliner parked in front of a giant flat-screen television that received about five million channels and a DVD player in the den. There was a giant wrought-iron four-poster bed in an upstairs room, with another flat-screen hanging on the wall.
His basement was a maze of rooms-one a weapons armory filled with enough fire power to equip an army; one with a cruel metal table, complete with five-point restraints; yet another adjacent to a second room connected by a two-way mirror. Lydia never tired of questioning him about these things, but he never gave her a straight answer. But she wasn’t interested in the mystery that was Dax tonight. She Googled.
“Welcome to The New Day,” said Lydia out loud. Dax and Jeffrey came to stand behind her where she stood at the kitchen counter tapping away on Dax’s laptop.
“Damn. I love the Internet,” said Dax.
The screen flashed with the icon they’d seen on the stained glass window of the church. Another image flashed, this one of smiling people, one white, one black, Arab, Asian, dressed in white tunic shirts and blue jeans, arms linked, feet bare. That faded and was replaced with an image of two men holding hands, then two women with their heads together and laughing eyes. A young Latina girl held a baby in her arms and wore an expression of joy. The gallery of images kept fading into one another.
“When did churches start acting like country clubs where only the elite among us are welcome?” Lydia read. “Jesus didn’t judge, nor did Buddha, nor did Allah. So why do our major religions today seem to create so much pain, so much violence? The Middle East, abortion clinic bombings, Catholic priests violating our children: these are all symptoms of institutions that are diseased at their core, institutions created to control, to alienate, to steal, and to ultimately divorce us from God rather than bring us home.
“But there is another way. A New Day has dawned.”
“I’m convinced,” said Dax. “Sign me up.”
“Me, too,” said Jeffrey.
“Don’t you find,” Lydia went on reading, “that no matter how much you accomplish, it always feels like something is missing? That you’re always looking on to the next thing you think will finally make you happy.”
“Well, no, not really,” said Dax.
“Yeah, no, not so much,” said Jeffrey.
“As you accrue your wealth, amass possessions, spend endless hours pursuing your career, obsessing over your physical appearance, isn’t there something deep within that nags at you? Isn’t there a voice that whispers: Is this all there is?”
“Wow. Other people are hearing voices?” said Dax. “I’m so relieved.”
“Dax, will you shut it? This is serious,” asked Lydia without turning to look at him. He made a face at her behind her back. Jeffrey rolled his eyes.
“Do you find that you hold onto grudges and pain year after year? Perhaps you’ve suffered a tragedy, a terrible loss, and you find you just can’t move on. Or do you find that your inner life is a broken record of angry and hateful thoughts, not just about others but about yourself. It’s not your fault. You have been programmed to think that way. From the day you were born, you have been socialized to be dissatisfied. Why? Because as long as you are dissatisfied with your life and yourself, divorced from your spiritual center, you will continue to consume. Because in this society, happiness is always one Mercedes, one face-lift, one diamond ring away.
“But there is another way. A New Day has dawned.”
The website gave the address of the building they’d visited and a phone number to call.
“We have open gatherings every Sunday at five in the evening. Come and listen. You may hear the first truthful words of your life.”
Lydia fell silent and they all stared at the screen for a minute.
“Sounds like we have ourselves a date,” said Dax, clapping his hands together.
“We can’t wait until Sunday,” said Lydia. “We have to find out what goes on there sooner.”
She turned to look at Dax. “Jeffrey and I are too high profile to just go strolling in there looking for our New Day.”
“That’s right. The duo that took ‘private’ out of private investigations,” said Dax. “What are you suggesting then?”
“Dax, darling,” she said, slipping an arm around his waist and looking up at him. “Isn’t there a voice that whispers: Is this all there is?”
Eight
The Samuels family lived well. They weren’t rich, exactly, not in the chauffeur-driven-car, private-jet kind of way. But they were clearly more than comfortable. A late-model black Audi TT and a navy Acura MDV nestled in the neatest and most organized three-car garage Lydia had ever seen. Beside the two vehicles a beautiful Harley Davidson Low Rider preened, parked at a three-quarter angle, so all the world could see its specialty paint job. Delicate white flames on a red gas tank and wheel fenders, polished chrome works and suicide grips.
“Nice hog,” said Lydia as they pulled the Kompressor around the circular drive. It was a gorgeous beach house with weathered gray clapboard, a steep, charcoal-colored shingle roof and white trim. A wraparound porch and a widow’s walk added an air of romance. Lydia could smell the salt from the Atlantic, hear the cry of gulls and the lapping of the ocean on the shore. It almost made the two-hour drive on the Long Island Expressway worth it.
A man she recognized as Tim Samuels from the photographs on Lily’s walls appeared at a picture window. He was even bigger than he’d appeared in the photo, with an aura of warmth and geniality. She imagined he might even seem joyful at other points in his life. But not today. Today he wore his sadness like a cloak. The sun passed behind the clouds as if out of respect for his grief, as he emerged from the front door.
“You must be Lydia and Jeff,” he said, reaching for Lydia’s hand as he approached them.
They could hear the halyard of a sailboat mast clinking in the wind that seemed to pick up.
“That’s right,” said Lydia, shaking his hand. Jeffrey did the same.
“We’ve heard a lot about you from Lily. She’s a big fan of yours,” he said with a smile. He seemed to be searching Lydia with his eyes for a hint of what his daughter had seen in her to so impress her.
“Well, I’m a big fan of Lily’s,” said Lydia. “That’s why I want to see what I can do for her.”
“We appreciate it. Let’s head inside.”
They sat on a plush, champagne-colored couch that was angled to look out onto the expansive view of the Atlantic Ocean. A series of French doors without window treatments looked out onto another wraparound veranda. The outdoor furniture had been stripped of its cushions, looked barren and lonely as if dreaming of summer. The moody sea churned dark with bright whitecaps. A fireplace burned to their right.