Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Laura Scott

  “I’m afraid that I’ll make a misstep and get Liam killed.”

  Shelley stared at her with compassion. “Like your fiancé was killed? That wasn’t your fault. You were cleared of any wrongdoing.”

  “Whose fault was it then? If I had been faster, smarter, Ethan might not be dead. I don’t think I could bear it if Liam died because I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, fast enough to stop it.”

  “What makes you think you’re in control?” Shelley asked. “The last time I checked, it was the Lord who was in control. Not you.”

  A cry on Chloe’s part had Shelley saying, “We’d better go. She’s been here all day while Caleb’s been on assignment. We’ve both had it.”

  Humbled, Paige acknowledged that Shelley was right. The Lord was in control, not her, but Paige had a responsibility to do her best. What if her best wasn’t good enough? What if her best got Liam killed?

  * * *

  Liam drove home, his thoughts centered on Paige and what she had shared with him about her fiancé’s death. Not for the first time, he found himself in awe of her strength and her faith.

  He might never accept or understand her belief in the Lord’s love, but he respected it and even wished he could find it for himself. His thoughts slid to the time when he’d been a believer. He’d been a regular Bible-carrying churchgoer, not just on Sunday but during the week, as well. He’d even taught a youth class, sharing his testimony and praising God at any opportunity. Now he didn’t even own a Bible, much less read from it.

  He rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension that had gathered there. Twenty-four-hour shifts, even forty-eight-hour and longer ones, hadn’t fazed Liam while he’d been on deployment. Action made the difference. Now, as he and Paige had gone over the same information again and again, he was beyond exhausted.

  Rest was as important as any weapon in a soldier’s arsenal. Over the last weeks, he’d skimped on sleep and was now paying for it. He was ready for a bite to eat and then sleep.

  But he wasn’t ready for what he found there.

  Crude writings defacing the front door and sprayed on the windows should have prepared him for the ruin inside. But they didn’t. How could anything have prepared him for the total destruction of his home?

  It was the senselessness of the act that caused him to see red. Why?

  Nails digging into his palms, he walked through the lower level of the house. Pictures of him and Jonah had been torn from their frames and ripped to pieces. Shattered glass littered the floor. Green and purple paint had been splashed over cabinets and counters, the resulting mix somehow obscene.

  Plants had been overturned. Whatever lowlife had done this had mixed water with the spilled potting soil, turning it to mud. That, in turn, had been smeared over the walls and furniture, along with streaks of red that resembled blood. Even Jonah’s artwork had not escaped the destruction, with filthy language defacing the pictures.

  Liam picked up a picture and looked at what had been a drawing of Jonah and himself. He recalled the day Jonah had brought it home from preschool, so proud that he’d drawn the two of them.

  His innocent pleasure in his creation had filled Liam with a rush of happiness and love for his son. There was no way the picture could be salvaged.

  What was he to say to his son? How did he explain the unexplainable?

  Liam clenched his fists as rage poured through him. Whoever had done this would pay. The silently made promise echoed through his mind.

  They’d pay dearly.

  Though Liam rarely cried, tears pricked his eyes now. He didn’t wipe them away.

  TEN

  “Are you all right?” Paige recognized the foolishness of her question. Of course he wasn’t all right.

  Liam had called her right after he’d called the police. He’d told her that she didn’t need to come, but she’d ignored that and raced to his house. If he hadn’t been out at the time, he could have been hurt, but she knew it wasn’t that that filled him with rage.

  It was the knowledge that his son could easily have been in the house when the vandals attacked. If Liam hadn’t had the foresight to send Jonah to his grandparents’, the little boy might have been hurt. Or worse.

  She had arrived to find a police car, lights flashing, outside the house. Inside, one officer was busy taking pictures, while another took notes as he interviewed Liam.

  Paige kept out of the way and did her own survey of the devastation. What she saw caused her gut to clench.

  Vandalism was always senseless, but this took it to a new level. There’d been no need to destroy precious family pictures and a child’s artwork, no need to write obscenities on the walls, no need to overturn plants and smear the dirt into the carpet.

  “What about the rest of the house?” the officer asked Liam.

  “I haven’t looked.”

  “Maybe you’d better do that right now.”

  Liam climbed the stairs to the second floor, Paige right behind him. His bedroom appeared untouched, but when he came to Jonah’s room, he stopped cold.

  She stepped around him. What she saw caused her to gasp. The mattress had been slashed, the bedding tossed on the floor with what looked like blood covering it. She sniffed, confirming her guess. It was blood. Aside from being smeared on the bedding, it had also been used to write a message on the mirror: Back off or else.

  “Liam, you don’t have to look any further,” Paige said quietly. “Let me take care of this.”

  “My son. My home. My responsibility.” Systematically, he went through Jonah’s room, then his own, looking for anything missing.

  When he couldn’t find anything, Paige knew he felt no relief. Whoever had done this had wanted to make a point that left no room for doubt as to its meaning.

  “We called CSU. They’ll dust for fingerprints,” the older officer said. “Vandals aren’t known for being careful. They might have left some behind.”

  Paige and Liam exchanged looks. They both knew this wasn’t an ordinary case of vandalism. This was a direct warning. There’d be no fingerprints, no evidence of any kind.

  A crime scene unit showed up, dusted for prints. “We’ll need yours and your son’s,” a technician told Liam, “for elimination.”

  “I had my son’s prints taken in an antikidnapping initiative the police held last year,” Liam said. “Mine are on file with the military.”

  “Got it.”

  When the police and CSU techs left, Paige did another survey. Unable to help herself, she picked up a picture of Jonah. It had been ripped from its frame with a bull’s-eye drawn in marker on the center of his forehead.

  Its message terrified her. This wasn’t simply an attack on the house but a personal warning, hitting Liam where he was most vulnerable.

  Liam took the picture from her, crumpled it in one large hand, then smoothed it out and laid it on the one end table that hadn’t been overturned. When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

  He made an angry swipe at them. “That’s the second time tonight I’ve found myself crying. Deltas don’t cry.” He sounded bewildered as well as embarrassed.

  She brushed away the remaining tears with the pads of her thumbs. “But fathers do.”

  He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “Thank you.” As though suddenly aware of what he’d done, he released her hand.

  “Whoever did this, we’ll get them,” she promised. “They won’t get away with it.”

  “How do you know it’s a them?”

  “This took coordination and planning. Someone knew when you wouldn’t be home and made certain this would be waiting for you. This kind of destruction took time.”

  “You’re right. I should have figured that out for myself. Thank you for coming. I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “You did the right thing. Now, what can I d
o?”

  “In the morning, I need to call my insurance agent, get someone out here to take pictures. The whole thing makes me tired and it hasn’t even started yet.”

  “Let me deal with the insurance. And I’ll arrange for a cleanup crew once the agency has had time to assess the damage. I can order replacement furniture online and have it delivered.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to.”

  “You didn’t sign on for that.”

  “I signed on to help you put an end to what’s going on. To my way of thinking, this is part of the job.”

  “Thank you.” His voice choked. “Seriously, thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. It’s all part of the S&J service.”

  That wasn’t true, and they both knew it. But for now, it was enough.

  “There’s something you need to think about,” she said. “This was a direct warning, not only against you but against Jonah. Someone wants you off this case. You can step back. I’ll keep investigating. I won’t stop until I find who’s behind all this.”

  “I’ve thought about it.” The admission came with such reluctance that she longed to remove the burden from him. “But if I back off, I’d never be able to trust myself again.”

  She hadn’t expected anything different, but she’d had to try. “Okay. I think you need to tell your parents what’s going on so that they’ll be extra careful with Jonah’s safety.”

  “You’re right.”

  After getting the name of Liam’s insurance agency, she contacted it and arranged for an agent to be at Liam’s house first thing in the morning.

  She felt his frustration, knew he wanted to be doing something. “I know you want to clean things up, but we have to hold off. The agent will want to take pictures so the company can assess the damage.”

  “I know. It’s not the stuff that bothers me. That can be replaced. It’s the little things like Jonah’s artwork. What am I going to tell him happened to the pictures he was so proud of?”

  “We’ll find a way.” She used the plural we without even thinking about it.

  “Thanks. I don’t think I could have faced this alone.”

  “You would. You could. But you don’t have to. I’ll be here. But there’s Somebody more important on your side.”

  Resignation was heavy in his voice. “You’re talking about God.”

  “And you don’t want to hear it. I get it.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to hear it. It’s that God doesn’t want anything to do with me. He hasn’t for a long time.”

  “Since the accident,” she said.

  “Yeah. Since the accident. Maybe I’d have worked through my feelings about that, but I’ve seen too much, done too much to believe that the Lord even knows I’m alive.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” The harsh order caused her to take an involuntary step back.

  “I’m still sorry. Sorry that you’ve been hurt so much, seen so much, felt so much that you can’t believe anymore.”

  There was more she wanted to say, but an edgy tension shimmering from Liam warned her to hold her tongue. She let the silence settle until she thought he was ready to talk.

  “You can tell me what you’re feeling,” she invited. “I don’t bite.”

  “No. You don’t bite. But you’re probably judging me.”

  “Why would I do that?” Astonishment had her staring at him.

  “Because I’m not a believer.”

  “Wow. That’s pretty insulting that you think I’d judge you for not believing as I do.” A line of heat rode up her spine.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean... I don’t know what I mean.” The impatience in his words caused her to let go of much of her indignation, because she knew it was directed more at himself than at her. He straightened two kitchen chairs and gestured for her to sit.

  “You’re going to say the Lord helps you.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He tilted his head.

  “The Lord doesn’t just help me. He carries me through it, because He knows that I’m not strong enough to do it on my own.”

  “He carries you?”

  “He holds me in His arms and gives me of His strength until He knows I can stand on my own.”

  “Your faith never wavers, does it?”

  “Are you kidding? My faith wavered plenty when my fiancé died. But then I realized that the Lord understands my weaknesses and forgives me. He knows the end from the beginning. I can’t know that, but I do know that He is always there, ready to catch me when I fall.” Her lips curved in a tiny smile. “Which is plenty.”

  She sat, rested her hands in her lap.

  “You sure you want to hear this?” The doubtful look he sent her way had her hackles rising once more.

  “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.” She made no effort to keep the tartness out of her voice.

  “I was a believer when I was a child. My mother had the whole family going to church every Sunday. We did the whole thing—Sunday school, Bible study on Thursday evenings, bazaars to raise money for a new roof for the church, to help a family who’d lost everything in a fire. It never occurred to me to not believe.”

  “And then the accident happened,” she finished for him.

  “Yeah. That changed everything. I started questioning God, asking why He let five innocent kids die because of a stupid mistake.”

  “Did you get an answer?”

  “Not that I could tell. All I got were more questions. Finally, I decided that God either didn’t care about His children or that He didn’t exist at all.” The despair in his voice reached down and squeezed her heart so painfully that she nearly cried out.

  “Sometimes the Lord answers in ways that we don’t immediately recognize.” Even as she said the words, she called herself a hypocrite. Hadn’t she asked the same questions when first Brett and then Ethan had died? Hadn’t she doubted the Lord and His love for His children, especially for herself?

  Once the shock had passed and grief had settled in, she’d done some weighty soul-searching. Railing against the senseless accident that had caused Brett’s death and the ATF sting that had taken Ethan from her had achieved nothing. Rather than dwell on her anger, she had looked for and found a true testimony of the Savior—not the one of her childhood, but one she’d won through tears and self-examination.

  Liam held up his hands as though to ward off any more words. “You’re pretty remarkable, and I admire you for your belief. I just don’t happen to share it. Not anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to go on like that.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for your beliefs. They’re refreshing.”

  “Some people would call them naive.”

  He shook his head. “No. You believe out of conviction. That’s not naive. That’s strong. Incredibly strong.”

  “If we’re not careful, we’re going to have a mutual admiration society going on before long.”

  He gave her a steady look. “I can think of worse things.”

  Warmth suffused her, and she pulled back. Not physically, but emotionally. Her feelings were getting messy. Messy wasn’t good. Messy wasn’t good at all. Especially when she found herself growing more and more attracted to Liam.

  An attraction she couldn’t afford. She’d do well to remember that. Her schoolgirl crush on Liam was long over. And then there was the undeniable factor that the feelings she was experiencing were likely brought on by danger-fueled adrenaline, an emotional response that couldn’t be trusted. When the case was over, the attraction would fade, and she and Liam would go their separate ways.

  Which would be for the best.

  She wondered why she was having such a difficult time convincing herself of it.

  * *
*

  Paige’s testimony both humbled and annoyed Liam. He couldn’t share it, nor could he understand it. She was probably the smartest person he’d ever met, but she had the simple faith of a child. The two should have been a dichotomy, yet, in Paige, they fit together in perfect harmony.

  The problem was that he didn’t want to hear about the Lord’s goodness. At one time, he would have been ashamed to admit that, but he couldn’t reconcile a loving God with what he’d witnessed over the years.

  “You’re the strongest person I know.” That was the absolute truth. He’d known plenty of heroes in his time in Delta, but Paige topped them all with her quiet belief in the Lord.

  “No. I’m probably one of the weakest. But I keep going because I know I’m never alone. God is always with me.”

  Liam desperately wanted that belief for himself. He wanted to be able to pass it on to Jonah. But how could he? How could he, with any honesty, say he believed in God’s goodness when he had seen so much, too much, of the world’s ugliness?

  It was a sore point between him and his parents. They held to their faith with a passionate intensity that he admired but didn’t understand.

  “You can have that faith for yourself. All you have to do is ask.” Paige shook her head at his silence. “It’s all right. I can’t make you believe any more than you can make me not believe.”

  She left sometime after midnight. Her belief remained unshaken, while his disbelief had taken some hard knocks. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep, he looked through the detritus of his home, trying to decide if any of the pictures could be salvaged. Probably not.

  Fortunately, he had backups of the photos on his computer, but that didn’t help with Jonah’s artwork. Those drawings couldn’t be replaced. Jonah’s pride in each piece had been palpable. Once again, Liam wondered how to explain to a five-year-old child that someone had destroyed his work.

  Somewhere after four, he drifted to sleep, only to be woken by a phone call a few hours later. “Mr. McKenzie. This is Officer Mackie from last night. The lab put a rush on the blood we found in your home. It was pig’s blood.”