The Three Wise Guides Read Free Page B

who were trapped in a minivan that had
been pulled into the raging waters.   He
was able to get them all to safety when a large tree limb swept by and pulled
him under.  
    Ordinary people who did extraordinary things. She was honored
to be considered one of their group ; although she
really didn’t think she deserved it.   She
nearly died saving her brother and, besides, she was a cop. What else could she
have done?
    She paused
in her thoughts when she noticed the room was getting colder.   Blowing softly into the air in front of her,
she was amazed that she could actually see her breath.   “Hello,” she whispered.
    “I heard you
can help me,” a voice came from a darkened corner of her room. It was a man’s
voice with a slightly Hispanic accent. “Can you help me?”
    Mary took a
deep breath and concentrated, just like she had in the park.   The air seemed to shimmer, but whoever the
ghost was, he was still in the shadows.
    “Come
closer,” Mary said, unwilling to leave the safety of her bed. “I can’t see
you.”
    “I need your
help,” the voice took on a desperate tone. “Tell me you will help.”
    He stepped
forward into the illumination from her small bedside lamp. Mary gasped, clapped
her hand over her mouth and shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t
help you.”
    Jose
Martinez took a step closer to her bed.   His body was riddled with the gunshots holes he received from the other
police officers on the scene. His hair was still mottled with blood and his
eyes still held the desperate look of a junkie high on crack. “Lady, listen,
you gotta help me,” he pleaded.
    “No. No,
don’t you get it. You shot me.   You were
going to kill my brother,” she quietly seethed. “You think you can do that to
me, to my family and I’m going to help you? Sorry, but I will not help you.”
    “But you’re
the only one…”
    Mary dropped
down in her bed, pulled up her blankets and covered her head. “Go away,” she
ordered. “Just go away.”
    She held her
breath and waited, her heart hammering in her chest, listening to the soft
sobbing on the ghost beside her.   But she
was not going to move.   She was not going
to change her mind. She could not help this man.
    There had to
have been some mistake.   Surely God
didn’t want her to help the very man who had shot her.   Surely he would realize it was too much to
ask.   Besides, this guy was a junkie and
a murderer; he deserved whatever he ended up with.
    The room
became quiet and Mary realized that she could no longer see her breath.   She sat up in her bed and look around,
concentrating to make sure there was no one lurking in the shadows. Finally
satisfied, she placed her head back on her pillow and went to sleep.

Chapter Six
    Mary woke up
suddenly and sat up quickly in bed.   Her
instincts told her she was not alone.   She reached for the nightstand next to her bed in order to pull open the
drawer and get the gun she stored there.
    “Hey, calm
down there Mary. You don’t need to shoot me, I’m already dead.”
    She turned
and saw Gabe floating at the foot of her bed. “You scared me,” she admitted,
releasing a sigh of relief.
    “Hey,
sorry,” he replied. “I just wanted to see how your night went.”
    She
shrugged. “There must have been some mistake,” she said. “There was no way I
could help the guy that showed up. It was Jose Martinez, the piece of garbage
who shot me and tried to kill my brother.”
    “So, you got
Martinez as your first case,” Gabe replied. “And it didn’t go so well.”
    “I’d say it
didn’t go at all,” she said. “I told him I couldn’t help him. It was pretty cut
and dry.”
    Gabe nodded
and crossed his arms over his chest. “You know, as a teacher, I used to tell my
students that often things aren’t as obvious as they seem.”
    “Well, as a
cop I can tell you this is an open and shut case,” Mary insisted. “I saw
Martinez point the gun at Sean.   I saw
the intent