Finding Eden(78)

I sighed. "I have no idea. Yeah, it sounds kinda crazy, but that doesn't mean it is, you know? I don't have a better explanation. Unless he planned to kick over my system and I just coincidentally happened to do it for him."

"Or that all the factors came together in just the right way. Coincidence all around—the rain, the eclipse . . ." She bit her lip not looking convinced. She turned around in her seat and looked out the window. "I guess we'll never truly know."

"No, we won't. And somehow, I guess, that has to be okay."

Eden sighed. "Yeah, that's the hard part. I still can't believe they exhumed his body." She shivered.

We were quiet for another minute. Eden turned to me again. "You know what else I wonder about?"

"Hmm?"

She bit her lip. "Well, Hector always proclaimed that the foretelling said I would become his only legal wife. But at our marriage, I never signed anything. And I didn't even know my last name at that point. He couldn't have made it legal. Could he?"

I thought about that. "I don't know a lot about the laws of marriage, but, no, I can't see how he could have made it legal considering the fact that you were a missing kid." I paused. "One of the council members was a judge in Arizona, though. Could he have planned a way to forge documents?" Something came to me. "Or, maybe it was just a way not to have to marry Miriam or Hailey. He was using a false name. He couldn't really marry anyone. Maybe he used the gods' foretellings as a way around things that just wouldn't fit in with his lies."

Eden's eyes looked sad when I glanced at her. "So many lies," she whispered. "It's so hard to differentiate sometimes."

I grabbed her hand. "We know what's true and what's not, Morning Glory." I paused. "It sounds like something between a feeling and a whisper. Remember?"

Eden smiled softly at me and squeezed my hand.

After a minute, I said, "On a more casual note," I grinned over at her, "guess who I caught making out on the side of the house when I went around to the garage to get your mom's suitcases?"

Eden's mouth opened and she stared at me for a minute before her eyes opened wide. "Bentley and Molly?" she said excitedly.

I frowned. "How'd you know?"

"I knew it! I had a feeling. Did they see you?"

"No, I ducked back around the house. I felt like a peeping tom. I've only met the guy once."

She laughed, but then her face went serious. "Wait, are you sure he wasn't taking advantage of her?"

I glanced at her, smirking. "If a woman being accosted wraps her leg around a man's hip, then yes."

She laughed, throwing her head back. My heart flipped over. Just laughing with her, talking about casual things felt like a small miracle. In one sense, I hoped that feeling would lessen, and in another sense, I hoped it'd never go away.

After a minute, Eden mused, "There are stories everywhere, aren't there?" She leaned back, looking happy about that.

We arrived in French Lick, Indiana, at about eight o'clock that evening and followed the directions we'd written down to the resort where we had reservations under Molly's name, along with her identification.

"Oh wow," Eden whispered when we pulled through the gates and drove up a long, winding road toward West Baden Springs Hotel, just up the road from the French Lick Hotel and Casino.

Even though it was dark, I could see the grounds were landscaped perfection, featuring shaped shrubbery and flowering bushes, and an abundance of huge, ancient trees.

We were silent as the hotel came into view, a massive, historical resort painted a soft yellow, with a circular building in the center featuring a colossal, glass dome. All the tourist sites we'd looked at said the building was fashioned after the most luxurious spas in Europe. I'd never been to Europe, but I could agree with the luxurious part.

I pulled into a parking lot just down the hill and parked in the corner, next to some large shrubs. We got out and I retrieved our bags from the trunk and took out a baseball cap and stuck it on my head. Eden got some kind of hair band out of her purse and put her long, blonde hair up in a tight bun at the back of her head. We walked hand in hand the short distance to the hotel.

"Oh," we both said when we'd stepped through the main doors. I looked over at Eden and we both laughed softly. From the inside, the dome was even more breathtaking. We walked through the large atrium with our heads swiveling in every direction. There were hotel room balconies surrounding the perimeter of the dome with wrought iron gates to make them look old fashioned. The huge open room had large sitting areas sprinkled everywhere, a bar, and a couple shops on opposite sides. I'd never seen anything like it. I felt like we were in another world altogether, or at least another country. This was exactly what we needed.