Point Blank
Page 17
Dad cut in. “We’re going to Mrs. Wilton’s inn first, right?”
“Yes, yes.” I looked up the street and spotted workers setting twin posts along the embankment. “Looks like Mrs. Wilton is getting a sign put up. Good for her.”
We turned onto the long cobbled driveway and Dad stopped the car in front of the walkway leading to the front door. By the look of things, Mrs. Wilton had been busy. The overgrown landscaping was pruned and reworked with new shrubs and flowers planted along the sidewalk. The lawn was greening up with the help of a wide-fanning sprinkler. The house itself hardly resembled the foreboding structure I remembered.
I was half out of the vehicle by the time Dad shut off the engine. “Would you look at this?” I exclaimed. “She’s getting this place really spruced up.”
I dashed up the walkway and bounded the stairs while Dad and Hope climbed out to stand beside the car. Rapping the door-knocker, I stood in breathless anticipation.
A middle-aged woman in paint-spattered coveralls opened the door. Beyond her, the lion head atop the stair post gleamed with fresh polish. I recalled the times I had patted its head.
“Hello,” I said. “My name’s Penny.”
“Hello.” She smiled brightly. “You must be the interior decorator. I’m Janet.”
“No.” It came out sounding more like a question.
“Oh?” Her brows arched. “You’re not here about the wallpaper?”
An uneasy feeling crept up my spine. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Wilton. I just stopped by for a quick visit. That is, if she’s home.”
“I’m sorry. Are you sure you have the correct address?”
“Oh yes. I was here in January.”
The woman’s expression changed. “I’m not sure how that’s possible. This house was closed up last summer after the owner died. No one’s been here until we purchased it last month.” She called over her shoulder. “Lonnie? What was the previous owner’s name?”
A man came to the door, wiping his hands on a rag. “Hi there.”
Janet brushed at some sawdust on his shoulder. “This girl is looking for someone. Perhaps a relative of the previous owner. What was the old man’s name again?”
“Let me think…” His mouth twisted as his eyes skimmed above the doorframe. “I’m sure it’ll come to me. It was … Wilton Burgess.”
Janet looked at me with surprise. “Didn’t you just say ‘Wilton’?”
I swallowed. “Yes, uh…” But what did this mean? I glanced over my shoulder at Dad and Hope, still waiting by the car. Had Mrs. Wilton been some figment of my imagination? Gloom formed a lump in my chest. “Thank you for your help.” I swallowed again, but the lump remained. “I think you’re right. It seems I’ve made a mistake.”
I trudged back to the car while watching Dad’s gaze shift from expectancy to confusion.
Hope put on a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Mrs. Wilton doesn’t live here.”
She pulled back. “Oh no. Did she die?”
“I don’t think she ever lived here.”
Dad moved to open the car door. “Let’s go. You can tell us about it on the way to the café.”
I wasn’t sure what I could tell them. They’d already heard the full account of my journey and how I’d relived so many memories during my coma. Mrs. Wilton was an essential part of those memories, and everything I experienced had lined up with fact … except her.
Hope guided me to sit in the backseat next to her. “So, what did they say?”
“They just bought the house from the estate of an old man named Wilton Burgess. They’ve never heard of Mrs. Wilton.”
“That’s odd.”
“There’s more. They said the house was closed up all winter, but I know I stayed there—two nights. I saw the carved lion’s head inside the door.” Anxiety was turning to frustration in my voice. “It’s no figment of my imagination. I was there.”
Dad stopped at the end of the driveway and looked at my reflection in the rear view mirror. “You told me she claimed to be an angel.”
“I know, but she said lots of strange things. That was only one of them.”
“Even so…” He pulled onto the road. “For weeks, you’ve been telling me how each part of your journey seemed to happen by God’s intervention. Should it surprise you that Mrs. Wilton was God’s intervention too?”
As he pulled into a parking space in front of the café, I had to agree. Whether real or not, she had been a Godsend. A quirky, funny, irreplaceable reminder that He cared for me. Still, if she wasn’t real, how had I been inside that old house?
We entered the café, which cheerfully buzzed with customers. Its familiar charm warmed me. I took comfort in the fact that at least this part of my time in Dalton was just as I remembered it.
While taking our seats at a vacant table, I pointed out the scenic landscape paintings on the walls around the room. “The owner here sells her artwork. Isn’t it—” My eyes stopped at the booth directly across from us. A large round doily framed under glass hung on the wall above its rustic table. “What’s this? It looks like…”
I got up and leaned into the other booth for a closer look. The sight of Mrs. Wilton’s intricate stitching made my heart quicken. Her lacey work in fine ivory thread was displayed over a soft pink velvety background. Just like the lace-draped pink parlor with the piano and harp.
Two lines of embroidered script arched over the top of the doily with the words, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. All my days were written in your book before one came to be.” And in the bottom right corner, a stitched signature read, Wilton.
A familiar voice behind me caught my attention. “Welcome to Café du Louvre. I’m Cassie.” There, greeting Dad and Hope, stood the same waitress who had served me in January. She saw me, and her eyes lit up. “Hi. I remember you.” Then she noticed the framed doily and her eyes swept back to mine. “Wait, are you Penny?”
“What?” I was still tongue-tied over Mrs. Wilton’s framed handiwork.
“A sweet elderly lady came in months ago and left this here. She said a young woman named Penny would be by to pick it up someday.”
I stared at the framed doily again. It was true. Mrs. Wilton was real. Whether or not she was an angel, she was real. The waitress had seen her, and she had left this keepsake for me.
Cassie lifted the framed doily off the wall and I clasped it to my chest with joy before holding it out for Dad and Hope to see.
Hope took the picture as Dad scooted his chair over and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “She knew you’d be back, looking for her.”
I swiped away a tear at the corner of my eye. “And she must have known I’d wonder if she was real.”
Hope laid the picture on the table and traced a fingertip over the wording. “It’s so quaint, and what a sweet sentiment.”
I leaned forward to study the stitches again. “It might be the same doily she was working on in January. I only wish you both could have gotten to know her.”
We ate our lunch, complete with pie, though it wasn’t because anything needed to be fixed. In fact, everything was just as it should be. Even the unknowns that lay ahead were not outside God’s view. They were already written in His book.
Let the future come. I was safe in my Heavenly Father’s hands.
A Message from the Author
People often ask authors about the origins of their stories. They’re curious to learn details about the process of bringing a book to life, and certainly these questions get a wide variety of responses.
Point Blank’s origins are three decades old. Back then, it lingered as a solitary chapter tucked into a file folder along with a variety of other snippets of ideas that I hoped might one day find their way into my storytelling aspirations.
Eventually, as my publishing dreams got swallowed up by day-to-day life, that folder ended up in a box subsequently tucked away during one of our moves. It could have easily been pitc
hed, but instead, it waited, unseen and nearly forgotten.
Though years passed, my dreams of writing never waned. When the time came that I felt ready to pursue a novel-length project, I didn’t initially consider that folder of snippets, or even wonder where it had gone.
Fortunately, God always knew where that chapter was. He knew what sort of story should be developed from it. When the time was right, the folder came to light again, and I picked up the faded, typewritten pages and read Chapter One for the first time in at least a couple decades.
It still took a great deal of time and effort to complete Penny’s story, of course. The plot didn’t miraculously spring onto the page. I’m convinced, however, that the story you see today is one I could not have written all those many years ago. Not while I kept my own traumatic memories under lock and key.
I hope his story will encourage those who have experienced deep wounds and fears. For others, I hope they might get a glimpse into the Father-heart of God, who finds a way to put the right people and circumstances into place at the right time when we need them. Though this story is purely fiction, it was shaped as I considered how God had showed me his faithfulness in the midst of my own needs.
Here’s the confidence I extend to you, dear reader: God has always known where you are. You’ve never been tucked away or forgotten. He has never lost track of his dreams and desires for your life and your future. You are much more than just a snippet of a life that might have been. You have a future and a hope (see Jeremiah 29:11).
My prayer is that readers might see how that theme has played out in Penny’s story. How she took the steps that she could, and how her father completed what she was unable to do herself, and stood in the gap for her.
In spite of a separation that may seem impossible to mend, God is still watching for us and his son, Jesus, is still the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Blessings,
Acknowledgments
No book is ever the work of one person. Any story planted in the heart and imagination of an author is shaped by a long process that involves input from many sources.
I’m greatly indebted to the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) organization and especially my fellowship of local authors with the chapter in Colorado Springs. These marvelous people have provided a wealth of knowledge, and I’ve had the privilege of their consistent input and feedback while Penny’s story took proper shape. My critique partners have been an essential part of this process, as well as beta readers and many others too numerous to mention individually.
Special thanks go to fellow author, Bryan Canter, who generously assisted with formatting the book’s interior layout using his Vellum program. Thank you for saving me so many hours of tedious labor!
I’m grateful for the unwavering support of my husband, Jim, who has not only been a faithful encourager, but a tireless supporter of so many of my creative endeavors over our more than four decades together. In the case of this particular story, he also served as a technical advisor with regard to law enforcement procedures and legal issues. What a wealth of information to have at my fingertips! I guess I’ll have to keep you.
Likewise, my sister, Jan Harlow, provided tremendous assistance with some of the medical aspects of the story, helping to insure that Penny’s dad and the hospital environment would be authentically portrayed. You spent precious time for me on this assignment—and in the midst of a global pandemic. A thank you seems hardly enough.
Most of all, I’m grateful to God, who gave me wonderful parents and a loving home to grow up in. In spite of the fact that I was initially religious out of a sense of obligation, He continually demonstrated His kindness toward me, ultimately guiding me to just the right place at just the right time, to discover the real depth of His amazing grace. I owe Him everything.
About The Author
Diane M. Campbell has always been a daydreamer. As a child, she'd concoct far-away adventures while perched in the crook of a tree on her family's farm in rural Minnesota. Though tree-climbing has since been traded in for hammock-swinging, idle hours in the forest continue to be a source of inspiration for Diane’s tales of mystery and adventure. It’s no wonder the great outdoors is frequent setting in her stories.
She and her husband reside in Colorado where they enjoy spending their free time RVing and traversing remote mountain trails on their UTV.
In 2017, Point Blank received ACFW’s (American Christian Fictions Writers) Genesis award for best suspense/thriller novel by a debuting author.
Contents
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
A Message from the Author
Acknowledgments
About The Author