Deadly Ties (13 page)

“I’ll be here.” After Jane, Mark would never again be anywhere other than exactly where he was supposed to be. He put a bite in his tone. “I’m telling you right now that Dutch Hauk isn’t getting within a mile of her.”

He’d protect Annie as intensely as Lisa would protect her. He’d been loved as a friend—Jane, the guys did that. But the possibility of being loved as a man. He craved it, and he’d do anything that didn’t dishonor God to get it. He had no pride. Not when it came to earning Lisa’s love. She filled his empty heart. Only Annie really understood that.

“You might want to get the judge to sign a restraining order to that effect now, because whether or not you have one, Jeff, if he shows up here, I will keep him away from her.”

“Just don’t kill him, okay?” There was no humor in Jeff’s tone.

“If it can be avoided, I’ll avoid it. But protecting her is my first priority.”

Jeff sighed. “I’ll get the paperwork started.”

Mark hung up. The group of Crossroads Crisis Center friends all started talking at once, rapid-firing questions.

He answered as best he could. Midsentence, he saw the heavy door leading into the ICU burst open. Lisa ran out, tears streaming down her face, and rushed straight into Mark’s arms.

Closing them around her, he held her tight, cradling her head in his hand. “It’s okay, honey. Shh, it’s okay.” He led her away from the others so they could speak privately.

“It’s not okay.” She rocked back, her chin quivering, voice quaking. “Harvey says … I have … to be strong. She … she probably won’t … live through … the night.” A deep sob burst out.

A lump lodged in Mark’s throat. “Lisa, don’t. No. Don’t think it, and don’t believe it.” He swayed gently with her. “Only God knows, honey. You know that. She’s in His hands.”

Her eyes red-rimmed, her face damp, Lisa glared up at Mark. “Well, I hope He’s paying closer attention now than He was when she got beaten to a pulp.”

Mark could have responded to that, but Lisa was hurt and angry and scared. So scared she wasn’t thinking straight, and God made for an easy target. He opened his mouth to say—something. He had no idea what she was ready to hear.

“Don’t.” She lifted a hand. “Just don’t.” Agony dragged at her mouth, flooded her eyes. “She’s struggled her whole life. She’s lived with that monster, put up with all his abuse, and God’s watched.” Lisa thumped her chest. “He’s allowed me to be banished, stuck without her and my dad.” She sniffed. “I can’t figure out what God’s doing or why He’s letting these awful things happen to us, Mark. Every time I think things can’t get worse for us, they do.”

She swiped at her face with a soggy tissue. “Mom and I have been crawling on our knees in a dark tunnel our whole lives. Believing but seeing good things happen to everyone else while we’re stuck, forgotten in the dark. Finally—finally—we see the end of the tunnel, and we’re so ready to step into the light, and then this happens.”

Her frown deepened, turned stony. “So no platitudes. No preaching to me about God’s goodness. He is good and I know it. I see it all around me—I always have. But that goodness is always for everyone else. Not for me, and certainly not for my mother.”

Mark understood. He’d lived stuck in the dark tunnel too. Unforgiven by his family about his mom, having to keep secrets during his time as a Shadow Watcher, which wrecked any chance of a relationship with anyone—when you keep things from women, they know it and imagine all kinds of personal infractions when the secrets you hold are professional but you can’t explain.

“Everything you said is true. I’ve been there too. But we do believe, Lisa. And, okay, we haven’t had the family relationships we wanted, but we’ve had other relationships, and they’ve been good ones.”

“What are you saying?”

“Let’s don’t throw the good out with the bad. You’ve had Nora and the folks at the Center. I’ve had my team and for a while Jane. We haven’t been forgotten. That’s all I’m saying.”

“It just hit me.” She snatched a fresh tissue from a box on a table. “You know what we are, Mark? We’re fumes-of-faith Christians. We go through the motions, trying to hang on. But when you get down to it, we’ve got nothing more than fumes. We get the dirty work, and other Christians get favor and blessings and peace.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Is it so wrong to want favor and peace for us too?”

He rubbed a little circle on her forearm. “No, it’s not wrong. But we don’t see the big picture. Don’t glare at me like that. It’s true. And I guess that’s where faith really comes in. We can’t see it, so we have to choose to have it or—”

“I’ve had faith. I want peace. I see it in Kelly and Ben and Peggy, and I want it so badly, at times I can barely breathe. But I’m not feeling it, Mark. Just more of the same—fumes and do for others. I love serving, but I’m so weary of that being all there is I can’t think straight anymore.”

“Stop it. Now.” He was grateful the others had moved outside the waiting room door to give them even more privacy. Still, he lowered his voice to keep the conversation between them. “You don’t need to think, Lisa. You need to remember.”

“Remember what?”

He softened his expression. “For everything we’ve gone through, Annie’s gone through more. Daily, Lisa. And she still believes there’s a reason and purpose for every season. I believe that too. Okay, so maybe we don’t know what it is. Maybe we are Christians going through the motions and hoping for more, living on fumes of faith. But maybe that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing right now.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. But the Lord does.” Mark squeezed her shoulders. “Listen, if Annie can endure all she does and keep believing, then I can too. One day, all those fumes are going to come together, and then I’ll have what others have. God’s got a plan, and I’m going to trust Him to execute it. Will it be easy? Not for either of us. But we can handle the tough stuff. We’ve trained for it our whole lives.”

Lisa didn’t shrug his hands off her shoulders, didn’t dispute him or fire back a hot retort. She stilled.

A long moment later, she swiped at her eyes with the soaked tissue, and her expression mellowed. “Okay. I’ll try. I really will.” She stepped closer, wrapped her arms around his waist, and sank against him.

“We both will.” He rubbed circles on her back, planted a kiss at her crown, and prayed hard that God would spare Annie and help Lisa through this—whatever in the end this turned out to be.

Fumes of faith. Like the mustard seed.

She shuddered, her whole body quaking, then pulled back and looked up at him. “I’ve got to get back in there. Will you be here—?”

“I’m here for as long as you need me.”

She swiped her hair back from her face and licked her lips. “I’ve accepted a lot in my life, and I’ve tried to ask only for what I had to have, never for what I’ve wanted. But I want something, and I’m asking you for it.”

“What do you want?”

“Find him, Mark.” She lifted her chin. “Find him and make him pay for doing this to my mom. This time, I need justice.”

Dutch. She didn’t have to say it. No good would come from mentioning Dutch might not be guilty. There would be a time for reason, but this wasn’t it. Not with Lisa facing the news that her mother could die tonight. “Jeff and my team are searching for him.”

“No, you find him. You’re better than anyone at this.”

She still had faith in him? Humbling, especially considering he’d just failed to protect her mother. “Joe and the rest of the guys and Jeff and his crew are on it. They’re exceptional. My place is here with you. Dutch will be found. You have my word on it.”

“Thank you.” She sniffed, pressed a kiss to his cheek, then moved toward the door where everyone stood grouped in the hall. “Thanks for being here, guys.”

“We’re with you, Lisa,” Kelly said.

“Whatever we can do.” Ben patted her shoulder.

“Don’t you give up on Annie, dearie. She’s a fighter.” Nora elbowed Clyde. “Isn’t that right?”

Clyde flinched and rubbed his ribs. “That’s right.”

“Absolutely right,” Harvey agreed, keeping his distance from Nora.

Mel snorted. “She survives the creep, she can survive this. Believe it.”

“I’ll hold those thoughts.” Lisa’s expression turned tender.

Mark felt more than saw her love for them all and how much their support meant to her. And they were right: Annie was a fighter. But even the best fighters lose sometimes and can’t defeat death. Through Christ, yes, but not the physical act of dying.

God would give them the strength to handle whatever came, but Mark hoped it wasn’t borderline unbearable.
We’re not perfect, God, but we try to serve. Please, please let this be once when Lisa is served. She’s in spiritual crisis and needs Your mercy and grace. Help her out of that dark tunnel
.

Lisa went back inside the ICU, and the big wooden doors swung closed.

Mark swallowed hard. God would do whatever He deemed best. And Mark feared that would require he and Lisa to combat Dutch’s worst.

Mark dialed Joe. “What do you think?”

“I think I picked a lousy time to try to quit smoking.”

Keeping one eye on the ICU door, Mark darted a glance at the others. “If Dutch did this …”

“Of course he did it.” Peggy Crane said what was on all their minds, her chunky jewelry clanging. “He’s the only one who would ever hurt a gentle soul like Annie. What we have to figure out isn’t
if
but
how
—and then nail him for it.”

“That’s right.” Kelly nodded. “The only places Annie goes without him are church, the grocery store, and to have her hair and nails done. Who there would do this to her?”

“What about brunch at the club with Miranda Kent and the church ladies?” Clyde Parker asked.

“Where have you been, man?” Nora slid Clyde a sidelong glance. “Dutch Hauk put a stop to those outings years ago.”

Peggy sniffed. “Making the victim totally dependent on the abuser is common, Clyde. Annie has no typical friends anymore.”

“Maybe Dutch didn’t do it. This could have been a random attack.” Ben shrugged. “Sorry, Kelly, but it’s true. Your attack was deliberate, and I still believe random attacks are the exception not the rule, but it is possible.”

“Random doesn’t work for me,” Kelly shot back. “If I were in that hospital bed, it’d be because Karl Masson put me there, not because of some random act.”

Kelly slid Ben a look Mark totally understood, considering her experience with Masson, NINA, and Gregory Chessman’s goons. Only Masson was still on the loose. Having gone through that and fearing Masson’s return every minute of every day, how could Kelly relate to a vicious personal attack like this being random?

“Okay, yes, I think Dutch did it,” Ben said. “But until we can prove it, we have to keep an open mind. Otherwise, the person guilty of attacking Annie could go free.”

“Logical and reasonable, but I’m with them.” Harvey motioned to Kelly, Peggy, and Nora. “Dutch has been building up to something like this for a long time.” Harvey leaned against the door frame. “It’s way past time he paid the piper. Annie’s been his prisoner for twelve years. So has Lisa. Does anyone here deny it?”

No one did.

Mark felt like the rest of them, but his gut warned him there was more going on and Annie’s incident wasn’t as simple and straightforward as it seemed. “Ben’s right. Odds are Dutch did this, but we need hard evidence to prove it or he’ll walk. He’s as slippery as a snake.”

“As slimy too.” Nora hitched her purse up on her folded arm. “Bless his heart.” Scots but southern woman to the core; they made bluntness an art form. “All the more reason we need irrefutable proof.”

“Well,” Clyde said, slow and easy, rubbing his arthritic shoulder. “As Christians, we should give the man the benefit of the doubt.”

Nora smiled sweetly. “The law calls for benefit of doubt, dearie. I’m opting for using the gift God gave me—common sense. Dutch did it, I’m thinking, and that’s the view I’ll be holding until I know I’m wrong. If I’m right and Annie survives, he’ll be back to finish what he started.” Nora pursed her lips. “It’s safest for Annie—and I would remind you she’s not able to protect herself right now and she’s a Christian too.”