Precedent
Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series
Paula Wiseman
Published by Mindstir Media
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Precedent: Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series
Copyright © 2011 by Paula Wiseman. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information, e-mail all inquiries to [email protected].
Some Scripture quotations taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Other Scripture quotations taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Published by Mindstir Media
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ISBN-10: 0-981964-84-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-9819648-4-3
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To Kristi
Acknowledgements
Thank you
To Jon for your unwavering confidence in me and in the story. I would have quit long ago without you.
To Amanda for the endless hours of plotting, and revising. The book is better, deeper and stronger because of your help. And so am I.
To Kristi for your emotional investment from the very beginning.
To Mary for your photos, your comments and your awesome proofreading.
To Brenda for catching all of my typos and misplaced prepositions.
To my fabulous readers for their gracious support.
To J.J. for his enthusiasm for the books and his help and encouragement.
All glory to God, who gives the story, who opens doors, who accomplishes His purposes in all things.
Prologue
Thursday, June 12
Edward Reynolds glanced in the window of Gateway Mission. The kid was there. His grandson. He was sure the boy was Teresa’s son. He had her eyes. For the last twelve years, he had tracked Teresa’s movements across the country. He finally traced her to St. Louis, only to find out he was too late.
The kid was his last chance. He would go in and drop a few hints, make a few pointed comments, and see if the boy reacted. He opened the door of the mission and slipped into one of the chairs close to the door. The kid, Jack, never looked up from his task of straightening chairs, loudly scraping them across the tile floor. A broad-shouldered, sturdily built young man, he had to take after his father’s people. The Reynolds and the Hickmans were both thin and slight. Moments later, he looked up.
“Mister, I’m sorry. They packed up the food already.” He adjusted his baseball cap. “I can get you a sandwich, though.”
Ed cleared his throat to make sure he could speak. “Just coffee, black.”
Jack moved the broom away from the counter and leaned it against the wall so he could pour the coffee. When he brought the cup over, Ed invited him to sit at the table.
“I’m Jack,” he said, extending his hand. “My brother runs this place.”
“I’m Ed.” Teresa just had the one son. Was he mistaken about the boy? Maybe Jack had a half-brother. Teresa never married, so it couldn’t be a stepbrother.
“You need a place to stay?” Jack asked.
“Nah.” Ed slurped the coffee loudly. “You make good coffee, Jack.”
“I learned it from my mom. She’s a big coffee drinker.”
He talked about her in present tense. Ed studied Jack carefully. “You from around here?”
“Pretty much. We bounced around some when I was little, but I’ve been in St. Louis since I was six.”
“Ever been to Baltimore?”
“No. You?”
“That’s where I’m from. I had a daughter. You remind me of her. Thought you might be related.”
“That would be an incredible coincidence,” Jack said.
Chapter 1
Fruition
“How goes it?” Jack Molinsky leaned against the doorframe of the tiny office where his brother crunched columns of numbers on an outdated adding machine.
Brad spoke without looking up. “Slow. I’ve got board summaries and a bunch of filings to finish up before the thirtieth. Did somebody come in?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “An old guy. He just had a cup of coffee and left.”
“He didn’t want anything?”
“No. Said he had a place to stay and everything.” Jack twirled the broom in his hands. “It was strange. He asked me if I’d ever been to Baltimore.”
Brad put his pencil down and looked up. “Your mom was from Baltimore, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah. He said I reminded him of his daughter, even.”
“You don’t think . . . ?”
“What?”
“You don’t think that was Tracy’s dad, do you?”
“Here? After all these years?”
“Did he give you a name?”
“Just Ed, no last name.”
“Tracy’s dad was named Ed.”
“He was, wasn’t he?”
“He couldn’t have gotten far.” Brad headed for the front door.
Jack followed close behind. “He took a right when he got outside.”
Once out on the street, Brad said, “Don’t make eye contact with anybody unless I speak to them first. Got that?” He glanced at his watch. “I know a couple of guys who’ll be transacting some business. Maybe they’ve seen him.”
Jack stuck close to his brother, keeping his head down as instructed. Brad had become very streetwise in his years at the mission. He knew who was just down and out, and who the truly bad guys were. A couple of blocks from the mission, Jack could see a group of six or eight boys in their late teens, maybe early twenties, sporting gang colors. This was their turf. Great.
As they got closer, a black SUV with tinted windows turned onto the street and drove slowly toward the group of boys, toward Brad and Jack. “This is wrong,” Brad whispered, and Jack raised his head. He watched the boys closely, but they weren’t reacting. Brad’s eyes darted b
ack to the SUV, and Jack turned to see the passenger side window inching down. Even from half a block away, Jack could make out the glint of metal.
The same instant Jack’s brain processed what he was seeing, the shooting began. The group of boys dove for cover behind parked cars while one or two returned fire. Paralyzed by shock and fear, Jack felt Brad’s strong hands dig into his shoulders, and then he hit the sidewalk hard, feeling the burning scrape on his knee, hands, and cheek. But in that split second, Brad left himself exposed.
Jack heard a strange thud, unlike anything he’d ever heard before. He rolled over in time to see Brad splayed against the brick building, and then he crumpled awkwardly to the sidewalk.
“BRAD!”
Jack crawled to his brother and rolled him onto his back. Brad clutched Jack’s shirt but didn’t speak. “I think you’ve been shot, Brad! It’s gonna be okay!” Brad lifted a trembling hand to his chest, to the spreading red stain soaking his shirt. As soon as he saw the blood, his own blood, on his hand, Brad seemed to relax.
“Brad, hang on! Hang on. I’m calling for an ambulance, right now. Just hang on.” Jack fumbled with his cell phone, trying to check Brad’s pulse as he dialed. Then he held the phone against his shoulder while he worked to take his shirt off. “My brother’s been shot!” he yelled as soon as the operator picked up. Holding his wadded shirt against the wound in a desperate attempt to slow the bleeding, he quickly relayed all the details he could, and waited the eternal minutes for the paramedics. “Brad, they’re coming. Hang in there.”
* * *
Bobbi Molinsky heard the phone ring, but when she saw her husband, ashen-faced, steadying himself against the wall, her breath pressed from her lungs.
“Jack, wait,” Chuck pleaded, then he looked at her. “He hung up.”
“What happened? Is Jack hurt?”
He shook his head and reached for her hand. “Not Jack.” In his effort to stay calm, stay in control, he sounded mechanical. “Brad. Brad’s been shot. They’re taking him to University Hospital.”
She heard “Brad” and she heard “hospital.” This was just like when his appendix ruptured when he was a sophomore in college. That’s all it was. Nothing serious, right?
“Shannon!” Chuck called. “We have to go to the hospital! Brad’s been shot!”
“Wait!” Bobbi grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “What did you say?”
He looked into her eyes and spoke with patronizing clarity. “Brad . . . has been shot.”
“What?”
“Shot. With a gun. We have to get to University Hospital.”
“That’s impossible.” He was just there with them a few hours ago. The aroma of the roast and homemade bread from his birthday dinner still hung in the kitchen. He couldn’t be . . .
“Bobbi, we need to go.” He pushed her toward the front door, flipping off lights as he went. She could hear Chuck talking, but his words weren’t registering with her.
“Mom?” Shannon met them in the entry hall, terror in her eyes. “What happened?”
Bobbi shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“But he’s gonna be okay, right?”
“Of course.” Of course he’d be okay. He was young and strong. And shot. That had to be a misunderstanding. Shot at, maybe. That she could believe. That had to be what happened. In the car, she reached her right hand back between the seat and the door, and Shannon immediately seized it.
Chuck drove like a maniac, but she knew better than to say anything to him. At every red light, he made another phone call. Their son Joel. Her sister, Rita. Their pastor, Glen. He kept saying, “Brad’s been shot. I don’t know any details.” It was so bizarre, so unreal to hear her son’s name and “shot” in the same sentence. People she knew didn’t get shot. Shootings were for the eleven o’clock news.
Jack ran to them as soon as they bustled through the automatic doors to the emergency room. Bobbi immediately noticed his shirt was inside out. Why . . . ? He threw his arms around her neck and sobbed. “I’m sorry . . . Mom, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?” Bobbi asked gently. There was a policeman against the wall. Was he here because of Brad?
“We thought it was . . . Brad thought so, too . . .”
“Thought what?”
Jack took a deep breath. “An old man came in the mission. . . . Just . . . some of the things he said . . . we . . . We both thought he could’ve been my mom’s dad . . .”
“Reynolds?” Chuck asked. “Edward Reynolds was in the mission? Did he threaten you?”
Jack shook his head. “No, it wasn’t like that. He just asked a bunch of questions, like if I’d ever been to Baltimore.”
“Your mom was from Baltimore.”
“I know. That’s what Brad said. So we tried to catch up with him. We weren’t three blocks away before . . .” He blinked back tears. “There were these guys on a street corner. And this big, black SUV cruised in. Brad said something was wrong. He threw me down, and that’s when he . . .”
Bobbi hugged him tightly and smoothed his hair, the way she did when he was a little boy. “It will be okay,” she whispered.
Jack sniffled, glanced at the policeman, and took the tissue she offered him. “He’s in surgery now. I haven’t heard anything else.”
“Where was he hit?” Chuck asked.
“Once in the chest,” Jack said, “but he was conscious and everything when the paramedics took him.”
“That’s good, right?” Shannon asked. “Conscious is a positive thing.”
Bobbi squeezed her hand. “Of course it’s good, baby.” Brad. Once in the chest. Your heart was in your chest. But if he was conscious, he couldn’t have been shot through the heart. So, he’s okay. He’d be okay.
Moments later, Rita and her husband, Gavin, arrived. Chuck got directions to the surgery waiting rooms and the six of them headed for the elevator. Chuck filled the silence with details for Rita and Gavin. How many more times did she have to hear it?
“I called Danny,” Rita said. “He’s gonna drive straight through so he can get here.”
“I hate for him to do that,” Bobbi said. “His little ones . . .”
“They were gonna get here tomorrow anyway. There was no arguing with him.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
Rita managed a smile. “He’s not due in Norfolk until July first, so they should have a good visit.”
“Brad’s looking forward to seeing him. Joel’s not on call this weekend, so it’ll be like old times. Joel’s . . . where is Joel, Chuck?”
“He’s waiting on a delivery.”
“A delivery?”
“A baby. He’s doing the newborn exam. He’s got a call out for another pediatrician, so I’m sure he’ll get here as soon as he can.”
Good. She’d feel better with Joel here. But if Danny was driving through the night . . . Was it that bad? She felt Shannon slip an arm around hers, and when the elevator doors opened, she felt the teenager’s grip tighten. Bobbi took Shannon’s hand and followed Chuck and Jack to the waiting room. Another policeman stood in the hallway. They were everywhere. Were they protecting Brad? Or Jack?
“You had Brad’s birthday tonight?” Rita asked.
Bobbi turned her head slowly toward her sister. That was this evening, wasn’t it? “Yeah, Shannon teased him about being middle-aged now.”
“At thirty-five? I don’t want to know what that makes me.” Rita smiled and patted Shannon’s arm.
“We laughed because Joel got called out, so that meant Brad had a fair shot at the pie. Then he and Chuck talked about the mission’s board meeting next week . . .”
A man in scrubs walked toward them. He slowly pulled his scrub cap off and smoothed his hair. His face was drawn, his eyes weary. He had bad news. “Are you Brad’s family?” he asked quietly.
Chuck extended a hand. “We’re his parents.” Bobbi slipped her hand into Chuck’s, and she felt Shannon’s hand fall away from her
s.
The surgeon surveyed the room, all the anxious eyes on him. “Mr. Molinsky, Mrs. Molinsky, I’m very sorry.”
A dark heaviness enveloped Bobbi. She knew the surgeon was talking, explaining to them what efforts his team had made to save Brad’s life, but he sounded distant, as if she were hearing him from underwater. As her heart and mind reeled, trying to comprehend the reality that her son was dead, she caught random words—aorta, bleeding, rare. She was vaguely aware that Chuck and maybe Jack were trying to steady her, and then everything went black.
Chapter 2
Catalyst
Chuck shuffled down the long corridor to the waiting area and his family. What he wanted to do was collapse the way Bobbi had, but the crisis management part of his brain had taken over. It tapped some unknown storehouse and it pushed his feet forward, one step at a time.
In the waiting area, he surveyed the emotional devastation gripping his family. Shannon perched in a chair, her knees drawn tightly to her. In the opposite corner Jack held his face in his hands. Glen and Laurie Dillard were there sitting with Gavin while Rita paced. The policeman was gone.
Shannon saw him first and hopped up out of her chair. “How is she?”
“She’s okay.” He hugged her close, wishing he could squeeze the worry and grief away. Even as he ended the embrace, he kept an arm around her. “Everything checked out okay, heart, blood pressure, sugar. They gave her a sedative and they want to keep her overnight. I’m going to stay with her.”
“I’m staying, too.”
“I know you want to—”
“Dad . . . I need . . . I need her.”
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