My Soul to Keep
Authors: Melanie Wells
Praise for
My Soul to Keep
“My Soul to Keep
, the third and best Dylan Foster thriller, again demonstrates Melanie Wells’s wit, intelligence, and knack for telling a swiftly paced, complex story. Through a wonderful network of plots and subplots—and the ruminations of the ever-complicated Dr. Foster—the novel reveals the helplessness and fierce love at the heart of parenting, as well as the way that each of us is responsible for children, our own and others. Wells takes kids seriously—their fears, their vulnerabilities, their spiritual wisdom and resiliency. Written with passion, a good dose of humor and, dare I say it, soul, this novel reminds us that we all, with grace and good fortune, bumble our way toward salvation.”
—K. L. C
OOK
, author of
Last Call
and
The Girl from Charnelle
“
My Soul to Keep
is a rich and meaningful story. Like water rising to a boil, its suspense sneaks up on you—before you know, you’re in the thick of a frightening drama. This is a story painful to witness but a pleasure to read. Superbly crafted.”
—R
OBERT
L
IPARULO
, author of
Deadfall, Germ
, and
Comes a Horseman
“
My Soul to Keep
is a great example of gritty reality colliding with spiritual questions. Melanie Wells proves to be one of the most consistent writers around, threading mystery and supernatural intrigue around memorable characters. I’m a huge fan.”
—E
RIC
W
ILSON
, author of
A Shred of Truth
and the novelization of
Facing the Giants
“
My Soul to Keep
is a marvelous book. Lyrical and moving, the story and characters will stay with you long after you turn the last page. I can’t wait for Melanie Wells’s next novel.”
—H
ARRY
H
UNSICKER
, Shamus Award-nominated author of
Crosshairs
“In
My Soul to Keep
, Melanie Wells delivers tightly-woven mystery and profound drama with nail-biting intensity and a light touch. The struggles and triumphs of the wry and delightfully-flawed Dylan Foster allow us a glimpse of God’s mercy at our worst and His best.
My Soul to Keep
is Melanie Wells’s best book yet and one not to be missed. I can’t wait for the next one.”
—K
ATHRYN
M
ACKEL
, author of
Vanished
“One moment,
My Soul to Keep
will have you laughing out loud, and the next you’ll be under the covers with a flashlight, questioning unseen things, and hoping the ride never ends. Melanie Wells has one of the freshest, most uniquely readable voices in fiction. A few pages will have you hooked.”
—C
RESTON
M
APES
, author of
Nobody
P
REVIOUS
N
OVELS BY
M
ELANIE
W
ELLS
When the Day of Evil Comes
The Soul Hunter
M
Y
S
OUL TO
K
EEP
P
UBLISHED BY
M
ULTNOMAH
B
OOKS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Melanie Wells
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any forms or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
M
ULTNOMAH
and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wells, Melanie.
My soul to keep : a novel of suspense / Melanie Wells. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56155-8
1. Psychology teachers—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Children—Psychic
ability—Fiction. 4. Texas—Fiction. 5. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.E476M9 2008
813′.6—dc22
2007037278
v3.1_r1
For Dot and Ron, who inspired me
He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.… He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.
—S
CREWTAPE TO
W
ORMWOOD IN
T
HE
S
CREWTAPE
L
ETTERS
BY
C. S. L
EWIS
1
W
HEN DID
I
GIVE
up on certainty?
At what hour on what day did I realize that you never get to know the answers? Especially not the juicy ones?
It was a misguided affectation, I realize, my little preoccupation with verity. One that served no more purpose than a set of wisdom teeth or a manual typewriter—fitting, perhaps, in some other millennium, but out of place if not archaic in a postmodern world of news cycles, reality shows, and million-dollar half-minute Super Bowl ads. I never saw it as dangerous, though. Of course, that was back when I was young and dumb and blissfully wafting through my days as though nothing sinister was sharing the air with me.
But the air is indeed crowded. And the other inhabitants rarely announce their presence, much less their intentions. Which sends the rest of us spinning around in unexpected directions, bumping into invisible barricades and teetering off into unseen ravines.
Eventually, of course, if you have any spunk at all, you right yourself and find your bearings. But just when you think you’ve spotted the lodestar, you discover that what you thought was true north is neither. That truth in the universe is the most elusive of the elements. And that if you’re dumb enough to go looking for it, you’re liable to get smacked in the face by one of the legions of liars you’re trying to outwit.
My own personal liar—the one assigned to me by some force out there in the ether—is named Peter Terry. He’s a nasty, ratfink bottom-dweller—a mind-stalking, soul-dissing prevaricator of the first degree. He lies, cheats, and steals, amusing himself by shoplifting, pickpocketing, breaking and entering, or outright armed robbery.
I thought I’d seen the worst of him. But with beings like Peter Terry,
I’ve learned, low expectations cannot possibly be low enough. And where Peter Terry is concerned, I have lowered my expectations all the way down to the black pit of hell.
This time it began on a sunny Saturday in May. Graduation day. My favorite day of the academic year.
I teach psychology at Southern Methodist University. Like most professors, I experience a powerful surge of enthusiasm every August when classes begin. In those first moments standing at the blackboard, chalk smudges on my fingers, my students’ faces aglow with curiosity, I swell with the intellectual and spiritual stimulation of my craft. I love a fresh roomful of unsuspecting minds, the smell of new school supplies, the squeak of the freshly waxed floors of Dallas Hall, the sound of the crowd at football games (a small crowd since 1987, unfortunately).
Of course, that sentimental nonsense lasts about forty-eight hours. And then, like the rest of my colleagues, I spend the following nine months wishing the little darlings would quit bothering me and go home. The students are equally sick of us by May, however, which is one of the reasons graduation is a uniformly glorious occasion on campuses around the world. It’s one of the few Hallmark holidays about which everyone involved is truly unconflicted.
On this warm summer Saturday (the solstice comes early in Texas, whether we want it to or not), I found myself hooded and tasseled, wrangling a roomful of rowdy degree candidates. Technically, they would not be graduates for another hour or so—which ensured my last, tenuous thread of authority over them. Our caps and gowns gave us all an impressive, if misleading, air of credibility, at least until you glanced down at the wild variety of (mostly tasteless) footwear on display.