Through the Storm

by Vanessa Miller

  “I know that in theory, but I still could have tried.”

  “You know what, Pastor? You’ve been there for a lot of people. I’m one of the people who benefited from the way you’ve unselfishly given of your time and wisdom. So the way I see it, you’ve more than made up for your neglect of Leny.”

  “Thanks for saying that, Johnny.”

  “There’s something else you should know. Clara, Leny’s mother is also dead. She was killed during a prison riot.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Isaac asked.

  “I wish I was. But it’s true. I’m sorry to have to deliver such news.”

  “You know what this means, Johnny? We’re back to square one on trying to discover who murdered the people I ministered to.”

  “Not exactly,” Johnny said and then asked, “Did Clara have a daughter?”

  After a thoughtful pause Isaac answered, “Yes. Yes, she did. I forgot all about her, but I remember Leonard swearing up and down that the girl wasn’t his. But I’m sure she was his.”

  “What’s the daughter’s name?’

  Isaac turned to Keith and asked. “Do you remember what Clara’s little girl’s name was?”

  “No,” Johnny heard Keith answer.

  “Sorry, we don’t remember,” Isaac told Johnny.

  “Okay, let me make a call and I’ll get back with you.” Johnny hung up with Isaac and dialed Iona’s cell. It rang five times and then he heard Iona’s voicemail. He hung up and tried again. Same thing happened. Johnny hung up and threw his cell in the passenger seat. “I’ll go find out myself,” he said as he started his car and backed away from his father’s church.

  ***

  Nina and Cynda were playing Scrabble with Cynda’s boys when Nina looked at her friend and said, “We need to pray.”

  Cynda looked at Nina for a moment, nodded and then turned to Keith Jr. “I need to go pray with Mrs. Nina, can you make sure the boys get their things together? We will be leaving for home when Iona and your father get back.”

  “All right,” Keith Jr. said.

  Cynda smiled at her son and patted his shoulder as she walked into the living room with Nina. “What’s up?” Cynda asked.

  “I’m sensing danger. We need to pray for God’s protective hand to be over our loved ones.”

  They bowed and began to pray.

  As their prayers went up to heaven, Brogan, Davison, Arnoth, Miguel and a host of other angels unsheathed their swords and lifted them high. Brogan looked at the angels he was about to lead into battle and said, “The time is near. We will soon do battle with the enemy and his demonic forces.”

  Davison said, “We will fight; for all that is holy and all that is right!”

  Chapter 31

  Iona kicked her feet up on top of Vivian’s coffee table as she leaned back on her friend’s sofa sipping hot cocoa. She knew she couldn’t stay long because she wanted to get back to her father’s house before Cynda and Keith got on the road. But since Vivian was still having a hard time dealing with her near brush with death, Iona wanted to spend a little time with her friend. They were both laughing as Iona confessed her attack on JL.

  “Man, I wish I had been there,” Vivian said. “Did he really just lie on the floor like a spineless wimp?”

  “Well, I did have a gun on him,” Iona admitted.

  Vivian roared with laughter. She held her stomach as she just about doubled over.

  “It’s not funny, Vivian, I could be disbarred for this.”

  Vivian waved her off. “Girl, quit worrying. You’re not going to be disbarred. With all the stuff JL was doing, there’s no way he’ll turn you in.”

  Iona took another sip of her hot chocolate and said, “I can’t believe I lost it like that.”

  “I can. Whenever anyone crosses you, you always lose it like that,” Vivian said.

  “Yes, but I rededicated my life to God last week, and I don’t want to continue taking care of things the way I normally would. I want to do what pleases God, but I’m failing miserably.”

  Vivian rolled her eyes at the mention of doing what pleases God and then asked, “Okay, if you wanted to please God, then why did you act like that when you went over to JL’s house?”

  Iona looked at her friend and answered honestly. “I was just so angry, I don’t know if you’ve ever been that angry. But when I had the gun to his head I think I could have killed him.”

  Vivian nodded and then said, “I’ve been that angry.”

  All of a sudden Iona was beginning to feel drowsy. She put her cup down and said, “I still don’t understand why he thinks my father destroyed his mother.”

  “Your father didn’t destroy JL’s mother. She was a junkie long before Isaac met her.”

  Iona turned to Vivian. She was having a hard time focusing, and when she looked at her friend, there were three, no four people that looked just like Vivian floating all around the room. “Huh?” Iona asked.

  “I said,” Vivian began again, “JL’s mother’s name was Debbie. She was a junkie and she OD’d true enough, but your father had nothing to do with it.”

  “H-how d-do you know anything about it?”

  “My mother told me,” Vivian said.

  “But your mother doesn’t know my father. The first time they met was a couple weeks ago at the hospital,” Iona reminded Vivian.

  Vivian said, “That was my aunt. She adopted me when my mother went to prison.”

  Iona thought she heard Vivian say something about an aunt and an adoption, but she couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t thinking straight. All she wanted to do was sleep. So she closed her eyes and let her head fall back against Vivian’s sofa.

  ***

  Johnny was banging on Vivian’s door when the apartment manager came out of his apartment and asked him to quiet down. Johnny flashed his badge and said, “I need you to open this door for me.”

  “You got a warrant?” the manager asked.

  “No. It’s an emergency. I just need to make sure that Vivian is okay.”

  “Ain’t nobody in there,” the manager told him. “They left about five minutes ago.”

  Johnny grabbed the man by the shoulders and demanded, “Who did Vivian leave with?”

  “That lawyer friend of hers.” The man scratched his head trying to pull out a name.

  Johnny said, “Iona Walker?”

  “Yeah that’s her. Prettiest lawyer I’ve ever seen. But she sure can’t hold her liquor.”

  “What are you talking about?” Johnny asked, practically shaking the man.

  “She was real wobbly as they left; had to lean on Vivian. Then Vivian laid her in the back seat of her car and drove her home.”

  “They took Iona’s car?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Thanks, man.” Johnny let him go and ran to his car. He put out an APB on an off white Lexus and gave the dispatcher Iona’s license plate number, then hung up and called Pastor Walker. When Isaac picked up he asked, “Are you still at home?”

  “Yeah,” Isaac said. “What’s up?”

  “Were those emails about the victims sent to your home email address or your church email address?”

  Isaac told him, “They were sent to me at church, why?”

  No time to mince words. Johnny jumped into his car, started the ignition and said, “I think Iona has been kidnapped. Can you meet me at the church so we can see if another email has been sent to you?”

  “What?”

  “Sir, I know this is upsetting, but can you meet me at the church?”

  “I can access the church email from my home computer. I’ll go check it right now,” Isaac told him.

  “Great, I’m on my way, Sir,” Johnny said then hung up the phone and sped up the street.

  He would not let this happen. Iona would not die without knowing how much he truly cared about her. He would not end up an old man with haunted, hollow eyes like his father. Iona would live and he would make amends for how he had deceived her. But
the more he thought about it, Johnny wondered if he had deceived Iona or himself. Were the words of love and adoration he spoke to her true, and he had just been too dumb and blind to know it? “I’m coming, Iona. This is not over,” he promised as his speed increased.

  He made it to Isaac’s house in ten minutes flat. Yeah, he had to turn on the siren in his unmarked car. This was an emergency situation, and he didn’t care who had a problem with it. He pulled into the driveway of Isaac’s house and jumped out of the car. “Did you find a note on your email?” Johnny asked Isaac the moment the door was opened to him.

  “Nothing,” Isaac told him.

  “It’s Vivian, Pastor. Iona’s secretary was Leny’s sister and she blames you for what happened to Leonard, her mother and her brother.”

  Isaac closed his eyes and then said, “And now she wants to destroy me?”

  Johnny nodded. “She’s got Iona, Pastor. I just left her place and the manager verified that Iona left with her, but he thought Iona was drunk – I think Vivian might have drugged her with something.”

  Isaac pulled at the hair on top of his head as he let out a war cry that vibrated against every wall in his large house. “Not my baby, Lord! Not my baby!”

  Nina ran into the room. “What’s wrong?” She watched her husband go into melt down. Isaac couldn’t answer her as he fell on the ground and continued moaning out to the Lord. Nina looked to Johnny as Cynda joined her in the foyer. “What did you tell him? What’s wrong?”

  Johnny looked at the two women who’d filled the role of mother in Iona’s life. How could he tell them that a murderer had just kidnapped their child? He hoped they were as strong in the Lord as they appeared to be, because this wasn’t going to be easy. “The person that murdered those three men and tried to frame Pastor Walker has just abducted Iona.”

  Cynda put her hand to her mouth as tears ran down her face.

  Nina said, “Oh my God. Who? Do you know who took her?”

  Keith came into the foyer with their bags, “What are you screaming about? Are you that upset about us leaving?” Keith jokingly asked Isaac.

  “Put the bags down, Baby. We’re not going anywhere,” Cynda told him.

  Keith’s eyes took in the tears on his wife’s face, Isaac stretched out on the floor calling out to God. Keith turned to Johnny and asked, “What’s going on here?”

  “Iona’s secretary is Leonard and Clara’s daughter,” Johnny began.

  “The one Leonard always said didn’t belong to him?” Keith asked.

  “I don’t know whether she belonged to him or not. But I believe she is the person responsible for the recent murders that are being pinned on Pastor Walker, and she just kidnapped Iona.”

  “What? Aw, don’t say that,” Keith said with his hands on his head.

  Nina took action. She told the group, “We need to pray. We need to get God in on this before we go doing anything on our own.” She looked at Keith and pointed at Isaac. “Bring him into the prayer room and let’s all go before God.”

  ***

  There was a lot of moaning and groaning going on in the prayer room. Everyone in the room was devastated by this last turn of the hand. They called out to God and prayed that He would guide them, point them in the right direction, and show them how to bring Iona home safely.

  When they were finished praying, Isaac wiped the tears from his eyes and went into his home office right across from the prayer room and checked his email. The same email address that had appeared in his inbox after Vinny and Dwight were murdered was once again in his inbox. The subject line simply read, “Iona.”

  Nina pointed at it and jumped up and down. “There! That email is about Iona.”

  Isaac clicked on the email and read it with his prayer warriors standing behind him.

  Isaac,

  Do you now understand how it feels to have something stolen from you? Because that’s what you did to me. You, who could not tolerate a thief, stole from me when you took my father from my mother and left me and my brother with a broken woman.

  You can run from your sins, but one day they will come back to bite you – today is your day. I will now take from you, just as you took from me. That is, unless you are willing to trade your life for Iona’s.

  If you are that brave, then meet me at the spot where you last saw Leonard Styles. You won’t miss it. There is a big X in the spot where you left his body. Be there at 6:00 p.m. to take Iona’s place, or you can pick her body up from that spot one minute later. Think I’m playing with you? Be late and see.

  Nina backed away from the computer. Her hand was against her mouth as she cried out, “No!”

  Isaac got up and held his wife. “I have to do this, Baby,” he said against her ear.

  “I know,” she said through tears.

  Isaac released her and rubbed her growing belly. “Iona is coming back home alive, and I will too, Nina. I won’t leave you alone to raise our baby.”

  She nodded but said nothing.

  Isaac walked out of the room, grabbed his coat and headed toward the door. Keith and Johnny grabbed their coats and said, “I’m coming.”

  Cynda gently touched Keith’s face and said, “Go get my baby.”

  He nodded.

  Nina told the group, “Don’t worry, we will be here praying.” She and Cynda clasped hands and held onto the faith that is able to move mountains. “God will come through for us.” Nina placed a call to Louise Jordan, the intercessory prayer warrior at the church. She told her the situation and asked her to begin calling the saints to get a prayer chain going. Then she and Cynda went back into the prayer room.

  Chapter 32

  Even though her head was pounding when she woke, Iona noticed two things right away. Her hands were tied tightly in front of her, and her legs were criss-crossed and bound together at her ankles. Actually, she noticed three things; Larry the contract killer was standing over her pointing a gun at her head. Iona tried to think. Where was she? Some place cold and dirty and full of trees. This lunatic had her outside in the woods in snowy March weather.

  But how did she get here with him? And where had she been. Vivian, Iona thought. She had been at Vivian’s house. She frantically looked around, searching for any sight of her friend. Larry noticed and asked, “What are you looking for? A way out? There is none.”

  “What did you do with Vivian?” Her voice rose. “I swear, if you hurt her I’ll kill you. Do you hear me? You will regret what you did.”

  Larry laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Iona demanded to know.

  “You,” he told her as he pointed to the ropes that held her bound. “You’re all bound up and you still act like you’re Rambo or somebody.”

  “Where is she Larry? Please tell me you didn’t harm Vivian?”

  “Why would I harm her? She’s the one who paid me to kill you.”

  Disbelief crossed Iona’s face. “You’re a liar. I knew you were behind all this mess. Only a sick, twisted person like you would murder people you don’t even know just to pin it on my father.”

  Larry kicked her in the chest. “Shut your mouth. When I need you to speak, I’ll let you know.”

  The pain of his kick went through Iona’s body like the blade of a fisherman cutting through his bounty. She wanted to hold her chest but her hands were bound.

  “Keep your smart mouth shut and you’ll just get this bullet in your head when it’s time. Say something else out the way to me and I’ll torture you before I kill you.”

  Iona was breathing hard. Inhale-exhale, trying to relieve the pain in her chest. Finally she said, “I just want to know where Vivian is.”

  “Here I am, Iona,” Vivian said as she walked up behind her.

  Iona swiveled around on the ground, getting more dirt on her pants and shirt, but she didn’t care. She just needed to make sure her friend was all right. “Thank God,” she said when she first caught sight of Vivian. But then she noticed the gun in her friend’s hand and wondered aloud,
“You did this to me?”

  “Of course I did this to you. I bailed Larry here out of jail and put him on my payroll. And before you get all teary about our friendship, I did give you fair warning.”

  “What are you talking about?” Iona asked, confused by her friend’s bizarre behavior and that weird psychotic look in her eyes.

  “Are you going to tell me that you don’t remember me telling you that you couldn’t trust your own strength to save you from an attacker? That you weren’t as invincible as you thought you were.”

  Iona remembered the conversation a little differently. Vivian had come back to work on a Thursday after just getting attacked on Tuesday – Iona told her to go back home and Vivian claimed to be afraid of being at home.

  “I watched the news last night, Iona. So I know that Clarence is dead. All night long I kept imagining that psycho sneaking into my apartment and finishing the job. I had to get out of there.” Vivian had told her.

  “You’re a martial arts expert, Vivian. If someone breaks into your house, break his arm.”

  Pure terror swept across Vivian’s face at the mention of someone breaking in on her. “That’s just it, Iona. I know how to defend myself, but this guy was still able to sneak in my house and knock me out. Things like that just make you realize that you’re not invincible after all.”

  “You weren’t pretending,” Iona said as the idea struck her. “You really were hurt. My father prayed for you – I saw the whole thing with my own eyes.”

  “Yeah, I handed Larry my inhaler and he hit me much harder than I had instructed before he left the house to go kill Donavan.”

  Iona blinked once and then again. Her voice caught in her throat as she asked, “You murdered my brother?”

  “Naw, Larry here can hit a girl and knock her unconscious, but he claims some supernatural being scared him off of Donavan. Do you believe that mess?” Vivian asked with a sneer.

  Yes, Iona did believe it. Her family always talked of how angels helped God’s people in their time of need. She looked to heaven, hoping that the Lord could see that she was in need.