by Karen Ball
When he didn’t say anything, Annie went on. “Would you like to know what was stolen?”
“Does it matter?”
“I think it does.”
Against his better judgment, he inclined his head.
“They cleaned out the shelves of cold medicines. Diet pills.” Annie scrutinized his face as she listed each item. “Drain opener. Epsom salts. Rubbing alcohol. Matches. Duct tape …”
Dan’s interest was piqued, in spite of himself. “Supplies for a meth lab.”
At Annie’s nod, rage smoldered deep in Dan’s chest. Was Jayce mixed up with Brumby somehow? Had he been involved in the meth lab behind Brumby’s home?
Had he been involved …?
Dan stopped breathing. Every sense focused on the question now slamming into his mind, his heart.
Had Jayce been involved in the shootings?
Dan almost came off the couch. Almost roared out a denial that it could be possible. But he didn’t move. Didn’t give any sign that he was being torn apart inside.
Kyla laid a hand on his arm. “Avidan, Shelby called because Jayce needs your help.”
He froze. “My …” His throat closed, choking off the word. When he could speak again, his voice was rough. “Why me?”
“You know why, Danny. Because of your relationship with Jayce. Because you know he’s not a bad kid.”
Enough. Dan shoved at Kodi, sending her scampering off his feet, then stood, walking away. But his sisters didn’t let go that easily. Quick footsteps behind him warned they were right on his heels. Through the kitchen. Out the sliding glass doors. Onto the patio.
Annie closed the sliding doors, keeping Kodi inside. The dog sat, staring. Clearly of the opinion she should be out there with the rest of her pack.
Trade you places, Dan thought.
Kyla stepped in front of him. “Avidan, you have to talk with us about this.”
“Why? Because Sister-Mommy says so?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “You told us yourself you were called to help Jayce.”
“That boy is not my problem.”
“How can you say that?”
He glared at Annie. “Leave it! This doesn’t concern you!” Then he aimed his glare at Kyla. “Either one of you. It’s none of your business!”
“Yes, it is!” Kyla sounded as heated as he. “It’s about you. Doing what’s right. And that concerns us because we love you!”
He pulled back. “Then leave me alone. If you love me so much, leave me be!”
“Why?” Annie took a step closer. “So you can bury yourself in your anger, your grief? So you can shrivel up inside until there’s nothing left?”
“Avidan, please. This boy’s own family has let him down all his life. You know how he feels about you. How he looks on you like a fath—”
“No!”
The denial exploded from him, fueled by a desperation so intense it hurt. His chest ached, burned—like someone was shoving a molten spear right through him. “I’m not that boy’s father. He isn’t my child!”
His trembling hands gripped the rail, digging into the wood, his voice raising as he spat out each hateful word. “My children are dead! Or had you forgotten that?”
Annie didn’t turn away. She faced him head on.
When Dan and the girls were kids, they used to fight all the time. Their parents often despaired of their reaching adulthood without doing one another in. But they did so, and discovered siblings made the best of friends. Since that auspicious discovery, they seldom exchanged angry words. In fact, Dan couldn’t remember the last time either of his sisters got truly mad at him.
Well, he wouldn’t have trouble remembering this.
Annie wasn’t just angry. She was furious. Hurt. Devastated. All these emotions played on her features as she stood there, mute, shaking like someone coming out of hypothermia. Tears slipped from her glaring eyes, ran down her usually smiling face, but she didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t rub them away.
Dan had a flash of the look on Shelby’s face at the funeral. Was he going to alienate everyone who cared about him?
Regret pierced him.
“Avidan Timothy Justice, you’re being an idiot.”
And vanished as quickly as it came.
He squared off with Kyla. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you’re being an idiot. To say something like that to Annie … to even dare suggest we’ve forgotten about Shannon and Aaron.” Now her voice matched Annie’s body, trembling so she had to speak through clenched teeth. She clamped her mouth shut, a muscle working in her jaw. Dan flinched as one lone tear escaped Kyla’s eye, drifting down her cheek.
Kyla never cried. Not even when they were kids.
“Yes,” she finally managed. “I think idiot pretty well sums it up.”
He couldn’t argue with her. After all, he’d just managed to hurt his sisters so profoundly, they’d both cried in the space of two minutes. And all they’d been doing was trying to help.
Oh yeah. Idiot worked.
Words swirled through him, a vortex of confusion and anguish. He longed to tell them, to try and explain all that was trapped inside him. To spew out the unbearable tangle of emotions, then beg them to help him sort it all out.
Help it make sense.
But how did he voice things he didn’t even begin to understand? Things he felt but couldn’t describe?
How did he explain what he knew but couldn’t believe?
That he was in hell.
A powerful need to scream, to strike out and hurt as he’d been hurt, took hold of him, making him shake so bad inside that he wondered if he’d break into a million pieces.
Spinning on his heel, he pushed the sliding doors open and strode past Kodi, whose watchful gaze followed his every step. Grabbing his jacket off the coatrack, he pulled the front door open. He had to get out of here.
“Where are you going?”
He paused, hand on the door, unable to look at his sisters. “Out. I need …” What? What did he need? He let his hand fall, forced himself to turn and face the two women he knew loved him deeply. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Either of you. But this thing with Jayce—”
Emotions crowded his words out, shoving them to the back of his throat. It took a couple of deep breaths before he could continue. “You’re both convinced God is calling me to this. To help Jayce. Fine. Whatever. But it’s not your place to make me believe it.” He slipped his coat on, his tone turning hard. “That’s God’s job. So here’s the deal. If He wants me in this, let Him tell me Himself.”
He jerked the front door open, then paused. “If He has the nerve, after what He’s taken from me.”
Dan could tell, from the silence behind him, that the low words had shocked his sisters. So be it. It felt good to finally speak what he hadn’t allowed himself even to think over the last several months.
His wife was dead. His children were dead.
God had a lot to answer for.
Silence.
That’s what met Dan’s exit.
Pure, stunned silence.
Then, as though she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, Annot started for the door. But Kyla reached it before she did, barring her sister’s way.
“I’m going after him, Kylie.”
The desperate edge to her words tugged at Kyla’s heart. At the place that wanted to join Annot, to run after Avidan, throw her arms around him, and weep. “No.”
“No?” Annot’s word rang with astonished frustration. “No?”
“No.”
“Do you really think you can stop me?”
Kyla started at that. “Probably not. You are, after all, a runner, and you have a runner’s muscles and strength.”
“Exactly.” Determination filled Annot’s words and features. “So move, before I move you.”
“If you do that, you’ll be making a serious mistake.”
Her sister’s laugh showed she was unamused. “Oh, really? Wel
l, let me tell you something, big sister—”
“Shut up!”
Annot’s mouth fell open, and she stared at Kyla like she’d suddenly grown fangs. Kyla grabbed her sister’s arm and tugged her to the window. Together, they caught a last glimpse of Avidan walking with quick, hard steps into the engulfing night.
Annot sagged beside her, and drawing a calming breath, Kyla encircled her sister’s shoulders. “Don’t you see? He’s got to do this alone. Just him and God. They have to wrestle this through, or it will never be settled.”
Annot lifted a hand, laid it against the cold glass, as though she could reach through it, touch Avidan’s heart and spirit. “Are you sure?”
At the soft, pleading question, Kyla nodded. “I’m sure. I don’t know why, but I’m sure.”
Annot gave one, tremulous sigh, then turned to bury her face in her sister’s shoulder. Kyla held her as she wept, whispering gentle assurances to her little sister.
And to herself.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“There will come a time when you believe
everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
LOUIS L’AMOUR
“God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me.
Darkness is all around me;
thick, impenetrable darkness is everywhere.”
JOB 23:16–17
SHELBY COULDN’T SLEEP.
She tossed and turned, punching the pillows into submission. But nothing worked. Finally, she threw the covers back and got out of bed. Shoving her feet into her slippers, she padded to the kitchen.
Maybe some chamomile tea would help.
She’d just put the pot on the burner when it started. The gnawing sense that something was happening. And without thought, her mind flew to the one person she’d been thinking of almost nonstop for the past five months.
Dan.
Forget it! Haven’t you spent enough time thinking about him, praying about him? Haven’t you given enough of your time, your heart, to him?
You’d think so, wouldn’t you?
Five months. Twenty-one weeks. Roughly 150 days. 3,600 hours. 216,000 minutes …
Well, a lot of time. Time she’d had to accept Dan was out of her life. To move on.
Instead, she spent all those months, weeks, and days, doing pretty much one thing.
Thinking about Dan.
Oh, she was pathetic!
Why couldn’t she get over him? After the way he hurt her, she should be able to write him off in a heartbeat. But those pesky heartbeats just kept whispering his name. Even though the way he looked at her now—when he looked at her at all—tore her apart. All tenderness, all connection was gone.
She might as well have been a total stranger. In fact, he’d probably treat a stranger with more care.
So why waste your time thinking about him?
Shelby pulled the tea bag out of the box. Why, indeed?
Well, there was Jayce. He’d been so lost, sitting in that jail cell. It had taken all of Shelby’s control not to grab him and run for the nearest exit. But then, she’d be little help to him if she was in a cell of her own. When it came down to it, there was only one person right now who could help Jayce.
Mr. Personality. Dan Justice.
She dunked her tea bag. There was, of course, that one other reason to think about Dan.
She was in love with the jerk.
Pulling the tea bag up by the string, she grabbed it, ready to toss it in the disposal. Then she yelped when it burned her hand. Quick tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, darn you, Dan! Now look what you’ve done!”
Flipping on the faucet, Shelby held her hand under the cold water. As she did so, the urging came back. And this time, it was stronger. And clearer.
Something was happening. With Dan. He needed her.
Not in person, but in prayer.
She rummaged in the drawer and pulled out a washcloth, which she soaked in the cold water. Pulling some ice from the freezer, she wrapped it in the washcloth, then used that as a compress for the burn on her hand.
Thus patched up, she went into the living room and plopped down in her oversized chair, pulling her knees close to her chest.
“Okay, God. I’ll pray for him. Because You’re asking me to.”
But as she bowed her head, she knew that wasn’t the only reason. No matter how often she got burned because of Dan Justice, she’d always be drawn to thinking of him, praying for him.
It was like that when you loved someone with all your heart.
Whether you wanted to or not.
The dam broke.
Beneath a black sky, where any light was muffled by low-hanging clouds, Dan’s hardened heart melted, and words flowed.
“I spent my life serving You! Serving others! And this is my reward? My wife dies in my arms. My children are murdered. Their killer gets away scot-free. What kind of reward is that for living a life devoted to God? To almighty God?”
He spewed the bitter words. “Tell, me, Jehovah Jireh, where’s the justice in that?”
Curse God.
He wanted to. His lips itched to throw God’s failure in His face.
“Suffer the little children, You said. They’re precious to You, You said!”
Curse God.
Bile rose in his throat, and he raised his fists to the sky. “Why? Why Aaron? Why my boy, when he was so close to being a man? A man after Your heart. That’s what You wanted, wasn’t it? And God …God! Why Shannon? When she loved life so much? Loved You so much?”
He wanted to weep. And to laugh. To punch God in the face. And throw himself on God’s mercy. He wanted answers. And sweet, comforting silence.
The conflicting emotions writhed within him, and he stopped walking, pressed his hands to his temples. Was this what it felt like to go crazy?
Curse God! Curse God and die!
He wanted to die. To join his love, his sweet children beneath the ground. To dwell with them in silence. Away from this pain.
Dan opened his mouth, willed the curses to come. But his mouth would not move. And what filled his mind wasn’t curses, but his mother’s voice.
Singing.
“Be not dismayed whate’er betide, God will take care of you.
Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you.”
He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for his mother’s voice, for the love and comfort it embodied—even if he had to endure lyrics he no longer believed. Dan listened, but instead of comfort, the words of this once-beloved song took the sharp blade of conviction and plunged it deep.
“No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you;
Lean, weary one, upon His breast, God will take care of you.
God will take care of you, through every day, o’er all the way;
He will take care of you, God will take care of you.”
As the echo of his mother’s voice faded, Dan longed to believe, to rest in the song his mother sang to him all through his childhood. But how could he?
How can you not? How can you doubt what you know is true?
How can you think for a moment it’s true when your wife, your children lie beneath the ground? How could a loving God let that happen?
Dan pressed his hands to his ears, the questions so heavy they drove him to his knees. As he hit the ground, one last plea broke free. He didn’t know if he spoke it, thought it, or prayed it. He just felt it push through the cordon of confusion, scattering the last of his defenses like twigs before a surging flood.
Help me!
In that moment, it came—a rushing, sweeping stillness. All sound, all light, all awareness … everything was cloaked, enveloped. And though silence reigned in the night around him, a cacophony of words poured through him. Words he’d read all his life.
Words he now admitted he hadn’t even begun to understand.
“I Am.”
Trembling overtook Dan. He couldn’t bear the inten
sity of those words, of the voice that seemed to speak them. Terror, wonder, shame, relief—one emotion after another coursed through him.
“The Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
Death and Hades. The companions Dan had embraced, taken within himself. Nurtured with bitterness. Sheltered with anger.
Companions that settled around his heart and spirit, forming the shell he thought protected him. Now he saw it for what it was.
Deception. Destruction. His death, even as he lived.
Spiritual death.
He could no longer abide these things, and yet he couldn’t release them. He wasn’t strong enough to let them go. Not by himself. So he lifted his face to the heavens and stretched his arms out at his sides.
He was ready.
For death.
For life.
Whatever God chose.
Because he had nothing left. Nothing within to anchor him. Nothing around to hold him fast. He was shaken and cast atop ocean swells, carried away from all he’d ever known.
“Take me. Please … set me free.”
No sooner had his words whispered into the night than he heard the response.
“It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”
His son. God’s son. Like Jesus, God’s only begotten son.
God knew what it was to lose a son. To watch Him grow from infant to toddling child, from toddler to teen to tall, strong adult. Knew what it was to see that Son taken, beaten, the very skin torn from His frame.
To watch that beloved Son die an agonizing death. To have a part of His heart torn away by the very ones His Son died to save.
This is real love, my son.
The whisper came from nowhere—and everywhere. And Dan understood. Yes, he’d served God. Yes, he and Sarah and the children had loved God. But so, too, He had loved them.