Rooms - James L. Rubart [62]
Micah turned and left. The only sound behind him was Julie’s door slamming shut and Jake swearing at him from behind it.
He staggered down the steps and nearly crumbled face-first onto the sidewalk. As he dug his keys out of his pocket, he steadied himself with one arm on the roof of his car. Once inside he let his head smack against the steering wheel. He gripped the wheel to keep his hands from shaking.
There had to be an explanation.
After a few minutes he glanced up at Julie’s house again. Jake stood in the window with his finger pointing down the street. Micah pulled away from the curb.
||||||||
Heading back to his condo, it took three tries before he succeeded in dialing the right number on his cell phone.
“Hello?”
“Rick, it’s Micah.” He swallowed hard. “We gotta talk.”
“What’s going on?”
“She’s gone!” He slammed his fist into the steering wheel. “Julie is gone.”
“You mean she moved? She’s leaving the company?”
“I went to her house to touch base, and she acted like we’ve never met.”
“Was she joking?”
“No way.” Micah rubbed his face hard as he took the Mercer Street exit off I-5 and screeched up to a stoplight.
“How do you feel?”
“Feel? Are you kidding? She was an intricate part of my life for six years. We built an empire together. Talking to you right now is the only thing convincing me I’m not going insane.”
A horn behind Micah blared. He glanced at the green light and crunched the accelerator.
“God is in this.”
“I’m on the edge, Rick. I’m right on the edge here. During the past four months I’ve accepted a lot of weird scenes, but this one takes the cake and swallows it whole.”
“God is in this,” Rick repeated.
“In what? Systematically stripping me of my entire life?”
“You can make it stop.”
“How?”
“You know how.”
“I don’t need cryptic clues right now. I need hard-core answers.”
“Then choose which world you want to live in.”
“What?”
“You’re living two lives, Micah. God is showing you what is and what could be. Not in your imagination but in real life. Your choices in every moment affect both worlds. You can’t step into freedom in Cannon Beach without it affecting the world of slavery back in Seattle.”
“Slavery? What are you talking about? Seattle represents more freedom than most people will ever imagine.”
“So why not stay there?”
Seattle Center blurred by, and Micah glanced at his speedometer. Twenty-five over the limit. He stomped on the brakes. A conversation with a cop wouldn’t be good right now.
“Both worlds can’t survive,” Rick continued. “At some point you’ll have to fully embrace one or the other.”
“Why can’t I have both?”
“When will you be back down here?”
“I have to meet with my senior VPs tomorrow morning,” Micah muttered. “So tomorrow, late afternoon,”
“Fine. Take the evening to settle back in, and we’ll meet first thing Wednesday morning.”
Micah hung up and tried to smother the turmoil that pinballed around his stomach. His mind spun—not only from the terror of what had just happened but also with chaotic scenarios of what else he might lose. Sure, he’d secured his stock with the stop order, but if he’d lost Julie, why couldn’t he lose his entire company? Could God simply wipe RimSoft out of existence?
Of course. Micah snorted. With God all things are possible.
His meeting in the morning to address the Federal Trade Commission quandary shouldn’t take more than an hour. The instant it was finished he’d head for Cannon Beach. No matter how evasive Rick was, Micah would get answers.
CHAPTER 25
The instant Rick sat down Wednesday morning at the Fireside, Micah fired his first question. “What is God doing to me? I’m trying to follow Him, trying to change, and then yesterday I lose my temper like I’ve never done in front of my entire team of VPs.”
“You did?”
“At one point I took off my shoe and hurled it against the window.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I was over the edge and halfway down the cliff.”
“What about getting some