She cocked the hammer and through her teeth said, “You raised me to do what has to be done.”
“Beth, don’t do it! You may shoot the plane,” Jake said. “I don’t want to crash again!”
“He’ll finagle a way out of this,” she said in a dull voice. “He could go free, get off without even a fine. They’re all in it with him.”
“All who?” Bill asked.
“All your friends. They’re all making a mint off what you’re doing to those kids. You’ll keep on doing it. You’ll find a way. Unless I kill you. And I can do that. All I have to do is wait until we touch down, then pull this trigger and watch your whole world end. Then it’ll all be over.”
“Let him go to jail, Beth,” Jake said. “Let him see what it feels like to be locked up in a place he can’t leave. Let him see what it feels like to live the way he made you live, Beth.”
“It’s different,” she said. “He’s not a child. There’s no way to show him how much worse it is for a little, innocent kid who can’t defend himself.”
“Then let God teach him that, Beth.”
Bill latched onto that idea. Breathless and beginning to shake, he said, “That’s right, Beth. If I’ve made mistakes, if I’ve hurt anyone, the Creator will deal with me. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ It’s not yours, Beth.”
“Don’t you dare quote Scripture to me!” she screamed. “I’ve heard enough of your filthy distortions and your twisted para phrases. Maybe God will get his vengeance on all those kids through me. Maybe he wants a bullet in your head for defiling his Word.”
“Don’t believe it!” Jake shouted. “That’s twisted thinking, Beth!”
“That’s right, Beth, darlin’. You don’t want to pull that trigger.”
The plane touched down with a bump, and Jake slowed the plane to a stop.
Bill was looking up at her, as though he knew she would never shoot. Her finger trembled over the trigger. She thought of all the ways she’d tried to purify her life, the score sheet she’d been keeping. But all of that meant nothing if she could still contemplate murder for revenge. If she could still hate, after all she’d learned about God, maybe she didn’t have it in her to be a child of God. That reality filled her with choking despair, and for a split second, she thought of turning the gun on herself.
But something stopped her. Some still, soothing voice from the center of her soul: You don’t have it in you, but I have it in me.
She had a quick, fleeting memory of the discussion she and Nick had had about the thief on the cross, and the grace that God had extended to him. For the first time, it made sense.
Beth’s law-keeping was worthless. Her good works were empty. It was only through Christ’s power that she could have any righteousness at all.
Nick was right.
She moved her finger from the trigger, keeping the gun pointed at Bill Brandon. Murder—even if some would consider it justified—would only destroy it all.
“Radio in and tell them I’ve got him. Tell them to come get him.”
In moments, police had surrounded the plane. Nick jogged up just as they helped Bill Brandon, handcuffed, down from the plane’s wing and led him away.
As soon as Beth stepped down from the wing, Nick caught her in a crushing hug. “Are you all right? You’re bleeding.”
“Not much,” she said. “I popped a few stitches, but I’m all right.”
“Don’t be such a tough guy,” he said. “I know you’re in pain.” He wrapped his arms tighter around her, and in a moment, he felt her body quaking with tears. She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms so tightly around his neck that he felt tears burning his own eyes. She was sobbing now, sobbing out her heart and her soul, sobbing in a way he’d never seen her do before.
Somehow, he didn’t have to ask what she was crying for. He knew she was crying for the children in that home who had robbed all night and then studied all day, those children who had been deprived of their ability to trust, those children who would carry the guilt of what they’d done all their lives. He knew she was crying for herself, for the child she had been, the child who’d had no one to protect her from evils such as Bill Brandon. He knew she was crying for a lifetime of loneliness, a lifetime of wishing she could belong somewhere.
And he vowed that, if it was the last thing he ever did, he would give her that place to belong.
He lifted her and began to carry her back, and she kept her face buried against his neck. “Where are you taking me?” she asked him.
“Back to the hospital,” he said. “So they can make sure you’re all right.”
“I don’t want to spend the night at the hospital,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“I have no intention of leaving you alone. I’m going to sit with you all night long.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I don’t think I could tear myself away from you if I wanted to,” he whispered.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Tony burst through the ER doors and bolted to the desk. Someone was talking to the receptionist, but he couldn’t wait. “My partner was brought in here with a gunshot—Larry Millsaps!”
The receptionist shot him an annoyed look. “I’ll be with you in a moment, sir.”
“No, I have to know now! Is he dead or alive?”
“He’s alive,” she said. “Now if you’ll wait . . .”
Tony sank back in relief, feeling as if he could finally breathe. “Alive? You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“I have to see him, then.” He started toward the double swinging doors leading to the examining rooms, and the woman stood up.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you aren’t supposed to go in there.” When he kept walking, she picked up the phone. “I’ll call security!”
Breathing a weary sigh, he turned around and flashed his badge at her. “I’m a police officer, and my partner was shot tonight. I’m going in there, and if security would like to try and stop me, they’re welcome to.”
She sat back down, and he pushed through the doors.
He went from room to room, looking for Larry, hoping that he wouldn’t find him comatose or on the verge of death. His heart pounded as he rounded the corner in the hall, looking into every room—
“Tony?”
He swung around and saw Melissa Millsaps, Larry’s wife, looking pale and fatigued, standing in a doorway across the hall.
“Melissa!” he said, stepping toward her. “How is he?”
She nodded without speaking, and led him into Larry’s room.
Larry lay on a gurney, his left shoulder bandaged and his arm in a sling.
“It just missed his heart,” she said as tears came to her eyes—tears that didn’t look as if they were the first she had cried tonight. “Angels were watching over him.”
“Then he’s . . . gonna be all right?”
Larry opened his eyes, and looked up at his partner. “’Course I’m gonna be all right. Takes more than a bullet to stop Larry Millsaps.”
Tony began to laugh with such relief that tears filled his own eyes. Larry reached up to take his hand, and Tony grabbed it and squeezed it hard. “Thought I’d lost you there, buddy.”
Melissa went to the other side of the table and stroked his forehead gently. “Me, too,” she said.
Larry looked up at Tony, his eyes heavy. Tony knew they had probably given him something strong for the pain. “You get Brandon?”
“Locked up tight,” Tony said. “Right where he’s gonna be for a long time. Him and Sheila Axelrod and the good Judge Wyatt.”
Larry grinned. “What about the kids? And Beth?”
“When you’re feeling better, I’ll tell you about how everything happened. But Beth’s fine. They’re still processing the kids, though,” Tony said. “But they’ll be all right. Nick’s looking out for them.”
Larry closed his eyes and smiled, and Melissa leaned over him and pressed a soft kiss on his eyelid. H
e reached up with his good arm and held her face against his. “Sorry I scared you,” he whispered to his wife.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve given you a few scares, too. You owed me one.”
Tony told Larry to get some rest, then went back out into the hall. Emotion overwhelmed him as he realized how close he had come to losing his best friend. And how close Melissa had come to losing her husband.
He felt a sudden urge to talk to Sharon, the woman who had meant so much to him for the past several months. He wanted to hold her and tell her that he loved her, to ask her if they had a future together, to take care of her and her children. There was so much ugliness out there, so much horror—and Tony just didn’t want to stand alone anymore in a world like that. He went through the emergency room doors, picking up purpose with every step.
He got into his car and sat there for a moment, looking up at the sky as he had done months earlier, when he had opened his heart to Jesus Christ. Tony knew that he wasn’t really alone now—his Lord knew all of the weariness in Tony’s soul, all the wounds in his heart—and all the reasons that this man who never committed, wanted to commit now.
Tony began to smile as he cranked his car and headed to Sharon’s house.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Beth slept better than she’d ever slept that night, knowing that Bill was in jail, along with all of those who’d worked with him, including Judge Wyatt, Sheila Axel-rod, and a number of others whose names and fingerprints they’d gotten from examining the warehouse.
When she woke the next morning, still in the hospital, Nick was sitting beside her bed, where he’d been when she’d fallen asleep last night. He looked sleepy as he smiled at her. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said. “You really did stay all night, huh?”
“Right here in this chair.” He handed her the newspaper. “Thought you might want to see this.”
“What?”
“The St. Petersburg Times. Phil did it. He got them to print your article this morning, along with several sidebars about last night, and the arson at the paper, and the bomb in your house, and even Tracy Westin.”
She sat up slowly in bed and read her headline. “I don’t believe it. I had given up.”
“Whatever Brandon and Judge Wyatt may have planned for squirming their way out of this, it isn’t likely to work now—not with all this publicity. I think the media will dive into this story today. Maybe even the national networks. Better get ready to be a hero.”
“I’m no hero,” she said. “I’ll never shake the stigma of being one of Bill’s kids.” She sighed. “What about Jimmy and the rest of them? Will they be punished?”
“Nope,” he told her. “There’s a quote right here by the prosecutor. ‘We have no plans to prosecute any of the children who participated in these crimes, nor any of those who participated as children and are now adults.’ All he wants is for you to be witnesses in the trial.”
She closed her eyes in relief, whispering, “Then they aren’t presuming we’re all guilty until we’re proven innocent?”
“Not at all,” he said. “You’re altogether innocent.”
“Not altogether,” she whispered. “But I believe in the power of Christ’s forgiveness now.”
“Wanna talk about it?” he asked.
She swallowed and tried to sort through her feelings. An image of Tracy, weak and sick, trying to stop the car that was carrying off her children, offering her life in exhange for theirs, overwhelmed her. No matter what Tracy had done in the past, in the end, she had loved her children enough to die for them.
Beth closed her eyes as tears streamed down her face. “I can’t quit thinking of Tracy,” she whispered. “What she did—I think that’s the kind of love you tried to tell me about. The kind that could ransom those little kids.”
“That’s right,” Nick said, stroking her forehead. “The same kind of love that could ransom a woman with a painful past.”
She breathed in a shaky sob. “And no score sheet can ever outshine that kind of love, can it?”
Nick shook his head, and she saw the tears in his eyes. She covered her face as her tears fell harder, as her soul swelled within her.
“Oh, Jesus, I believe you,” she prayed aloud through her tears. “Ransom me. Not just from Bill, but from myself. From all the lies I’ve believed. From all the pain I’ve hardened myself to . . .”
Nick held her hand tightly as she prayed, encouraging her prayer with words of his own.
When she opened her eyes, she was smiling, but the tears continued nonetheless. Nick was crying, too. For a moment, they just looked at each other and laughed through their tears. When Nick took in a deep, cleansing breath and began to wipe her tears, her smile faded. “I just thought of something,” she said. “You remember how I compared Tracy to my own mother?”
“Yeah,” Nick said.
“Well, I wonder—would she have done what Tracy did? I mean, if Tracy had the capacity for that kind of love in her, maybe, in the end, my mother could have cared, too. If she’d been put to the test—who knows?”
“God knows,” Nick said. “That’s why you’re thinking of it right now. Maybe God can help you forgive her.”
A light of realization dawned behind Beth’s eyes. “Yeah, I think I can,” she whispered in wonder. “I think, if God can forgive me for all that I’ve done—yeah, I can forgive my mom.”
Nick pulled her up into his arms and held her as tightly as he could without hurting her. For the first time in her life, she belonged. Right here, in his arms. Together, they cried and clung together until there were no more tears, and laughter joined their hearts.
When he let her go, she reached out and touched his stub-bled jaw. “I guess you’ll be getting Sheila Axelrod’s job, huh?”
He looked thoughtful. “I’ve had a lot of time to think tonight—about my job, about all these problems we’ve seen, about how hard it’s going to be to place those kids. And I think I’ve come to a decision.”
“What?”
“I want to apply to take over the home. I want to give those kids a chance to see what God’s grace is like. I want to bring them to him—to the real Lord, not some perverted version like Bill had. I want to be a father to all those kids.”
Her heart burst. “Oh, Nick, you’d be wonderful at it, and you have such a heart for them.”
“I’d need helpers,” he said. “I was thinking about that nice couple, the Millers, who wanted so badly to be in the foster parent program. Maybe they could be cottage parents, and I can think of other retired couples who’d be good, too. And I thought that, well—maybe you could help.”
“I’m too young to be a cottage mother.”
“You’re not too young to be my wife.”
She stared at him for a long moment, stricken with disbelief. He took her hand, kissed it, and set her palm against his jaw. “What do you think, Beth? Would you make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife? Have my children? Let me be your family, and then we can be the family for all those kids.”
Beth threw her arms around his neck, too choked up to answer. Somehow, Nick was pretty sure that she was going to say yes.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Two weeks later, Lynda bought Lisa a new bathing suit and got special permission to take her and Jimmy out to the beach that morning. But Jimmy and Jake were cooking something up, and they were late arriving.
“What do you think those two boys are doing?” she asked the little girl.
“I don’t know,” Lisa said. “Can we build a castle while we wait?”
“Of course we can. Come on. Let’s go down to the water.”
“But we’ll get wet.”
“It doesn’t matter. A little water never hurt anybody.” Lynda got down on her knees just out of reach of the waves, and began helping the child pile the sand into a castle.
“When I grow up,” Lisa said with a self-conscious smile, “I want to live in a castle.”
Lynda l
aughed. “I thought that, too, when I was a little girl. And when I grew up, I got something just as good as a castle. But you know what? It didn’t make me happy.”
The little girl hung on every word. “What made you happy?” she asked.
“People,” she said. “People I love. People who love me.”
“I have people who love me,” Lisa said. “Jimmy loves me. And my mom.”
Lynda’s smile slowly faded. “Do you remember your mom, Lisa?”
She shook her head and looked across the water. The breeze blew her hair back from her face. “Not really,” she said. “But Jimmy’s been telling me about her. He told me how much she loved us.”
“She did,” Lynda agreed.
“She died, though.” Her wistful eyes focused on the half-formed castle, and she started patting the sand again. “Do you love Jake?”
Lynda grinned. “Very much.”
They heard a plane overhead, and Lisa looked up as Lynda dug up more sand.
“Look, Lynda! What does it say?”
Lynda looked up. It was a skywriting plane, and it was writing something across the sky. Lisa stood up and waved, jumping up and down. “It looks like . . . M-a-r-r-y . . . Marry . . . me . . .” Lisa read. “L-y-n—”
Lynda got to her feet and shaded her eyes as she stared up in disbelief. “Marry me, Lynda.” She caught her breath. “It’s Jake, Lisa! He’s asking me to marry him! What should I say?”
Lisa began to dance and wave her arms with delight. “Tell him yes! Hurry!”
The cellular phone in Lynda’s beach bag rang, and she pulled it out and, with a big grin, answered, “Yes, I’ll marry you!”
Jake laughed out loud. “Will you, really?”
“Of course I will! Now get down here so I can kiss you!”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
That night, after they had taken Jimmy and Lisa back to the home—which Nick was already running on a temporary basis until the state approved him to take it over permanently—Lynda and Jake sat out on the swing in her backyard, moving slowly back and forth.