“In my SUV.”
“Which is where?” The officer stayed neutral, but he was moving in closer, and Jackson could sense the tension in his shoulders and back, the nervous energy that wafted through the darkness.
Jackson rattled off Raina’s address, and the officer nodded. “I’m going to have to take your firearm until your permit can be verified.”
Apparently the officer also had to handcuff Jackson and stick him in the back of the police cruiser while he looked around, because that’s exactly where Jackson found himself. Sitting on a cold leather seat, the smell of urine and vomit filling his nose. He’d been in worse situations, been in a lot more danger, but he still didn’t like it. Not when the guy who’d tried to run him down was making his escape.
He would have been happy to tell the police officer that, but the guy was a few feet away from the cruiser, speaking into his radio as he scanned the parking lot.
An SUV pulled in. Not just any SUV. The brand-new one Jackson had purchased to replace his old Chevy truck. Chance must have called Stella. She got out of the vehicle and stalked to the police officer’s side, her close-cropped hair barely moving in the wind. Used to be, she’d had shoulder-length hair. That was before she and Chance had called it quits. Seconds later, Raina exited the SUV and opened the back door. Samuel slid out, an old wooden crutch under one arm, a giant coat wrapped around his shoulders.
He was tiny for ten, his cheeks gaunt from illness, his jeans hanging loosely, one pant leg rolled up and pinned beneath his stump. Seeing him after so many months had only made Jackson regret leaving him in Kenya more than he had the day he’d flown home. He’d left hundreds of dollars for the young boy’s care, and he’d planned on keeping tabs on Samuel, making sure that he got what he needed to survive and thrive.
Raina had stepped in first, making phone calls from her hospital room, transferring money, doing everything a mother might do for a child stuck in a foreign land. Jackson had heard all about it, had followed the news stories about Raina’s fight to get a medical visa for Samuel, about the offers from medical experts in D.C. who’d promised surgery and state-of-the-art prostheses for the child if he could be brought to the United States.
Raina put a hand under Samuel’s elbow, but the boy shrugged away, determined, it seemed, to make his way across the still-slick parking lot himself. The police officer moved toward them, said a few words that Jackson was really desperate to hear.
Raina nodded, then gestured to the church.
Seconds later, she and Samuel were moving toward the building. She opened the church door, allowed Samuel to walk in front of her. The door closed, and they were gone, lights spilling out from tall windows and splashing across the parking lot.
Jackson wanted to follow. It was impossible to know if the church was empty. If it was always left unlocked, anyone could be inside, sleeping in the sanctuary on a pew, hiding in a restroom until dawn. Lying in wait for a victim.
The cruiser door opened, and Stella peered in, her eyes gleaming with amusement. “I see you’ve found your way into trouble again.”
“I didn’t find it. It found me.” He glanced at the officer standing behind her. The guy seemed more focused on the notebook he was writing in than on the crime scene.
“That’s always your story, Jack.” Stella sighed, grabbing his arm and tugging him from the car. “Hear you lost your Glock.”
“I had it confiscated, and I wouldn’t mind having it back.”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing exactly why you decided to fire it,” the officer responded without looking up. “I found two bullet casings. You forgot to mention that you’d fired shots.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“You’ve got one now.” He finally met Jackson’s eyes. “Want to explain what happened?”
“Someone tried to run me down. I tried to stop him.”
“By putting a bullet in him?”
“By putting a bullet in his tire. Which I managed to do. You should find a late model Jeep with a blown tire somewhere nearby. There’s a photo of it on my cell phone.”
The officer nodded, but didn’t look as though he was any closer to letting Jackson out of handcuffs.
“I don’t suppose that it occurred to you to do what the pastor of this church did when he heard gunfire—call for help?”
“It occurred to me, but I was occupied with trying to keep myself from being crushed by a Jeep.”
That got a smile out of the guy. “Fair enough. I’ll call in an APB on the Jeep, see if we can find it and our guy. Want to show me that photo?”
“Want to get me out of these cuffs?”
“Sure, but don’t get the idea you’re going anywhere. I have some more questions for you.” Jackson nodded his agreement and stood still while the handcuffs were being removed. What he really wanted to do was go into the church and make sure Raina and Samuel were okay.
As he handed the officer his cell phone, he glanced at the building. Its pretty white siding and colorful stained glass gleamed in the darkness. A beautiful little building that had probably been standing for generations, but that didn’t mean it was safe. One thing Jackson had learned in his time in the military and with HEART—the places that should be safest were often the most dangerous of all.
* * *
It had been nearly four years since Raina had last stepped foot in River Valley Community Church. She hadn’t stopped attending because her faith had been shaken after Matt and Joseph died. She hadn’t stopped because her best friend had invited her to a new church in town. One that had lots of young people and plenty of upbeat music and was designed to make people feel good about their lives and their faith.
She’d stopped attending because it had been too hard to keep going.
Too hard to sit in a pew and listen while Pastor William Myer preached. Too hard to listen to his wife play the piano Raina had once played. Too hard to be there and not remember the years she and Matt had served together.
Too hard, and she’d been too weak, too sad, too destroyed by what had happened. Too overwhelmed by her guilt and her inability to forgive God and herself.
She touched the vestibule wall, remembering the way she and Matt had laughed as they’d painted sunny yellow over the mud-brown that had been there since the 1960s. They’d wanted to see the old church shine again, and they had. Matt would say that was a blessing. To Raina it was just another memory that she’d rather forget.
Water ran in the sink, the door to the church’s only bathroom still firmly closed. She wanted to knock and make sure that Samuel was okay, but she didn’t think he’d appreciate it. He hadn’t seemed to want her help, hadn’t wanted to talk. He’d been traveling for thirty-six hours, and he was tired and ill. Stella had said he’d been running a 103-degree fever, and that the wound on his stump was seeping and infected. All those things needed to be dealt with, but first Raina had to get him home.
That’s where she’d wanted to go.
Straight
