The Protector (28 page)
He pushed his hands into his back pockets as he walked down the path to join her. “It’s trashed but he didn’t get as far as the kitchen dishes or my closets.”
“This is personal.”
“Very.”
She looked down, shifting her booted feet on the walkway stones. “Can you leave for twenty minutes?”
He could see Rachel was clearly hesitant to ask. “What do you need?”
She glanced up at him. “Breakfast.”
Rachel saying she needed something… She was saying he needed something but was suggesting it in such a way that it was her need. He smiled as he dug out his keys. “Let’s go to breakfast.”
W
ould you relax?” Rachel was still very ill at ease with him and Cole didn’t like it. He handed her the sack with breakfast burritos. He wasn’t into bacon and eggs for breakfast when he could have something more substantial.
“I don’t like eating breakfast in the car.”
“Sorry, but I’m not dressed for the public. I’m not planning to share you with a crowd, and at least the car is warm.” He was too tired to be anything but frank with his answer. He handed her the carrier with two coffee cups, then turned to get his change from the drive-through clerk.
“I hear echoes of my mother over the propriety of eating in the car.”
Cole smiled at the comment. “I grant a waiver. I stop here for breakfast most mornings, and while you can quibble the nutritious value, I can vouch for the fact the food at least tastes excellent.”
“I don’t mean to criticize the food. This is fine.”
“No offense taken. And like I said, please relax. It’s not yet 6
A.M.
If there was ever a time for going with the flow it’s now.”
He took them to the community park where he could park and they could watch the dawn come up without the morning rush-hour traffic flowing around them. He occasionally came to the place to have morning devotions, for it was a peaceful place to walk.
Rachel handed him the first breakfast burrito he had ordered. Cole unwrapped it and picked up a napkin. He closed his eyes and took thirty seconds out of a day that had not ended for him.
Lord, I’m exhausted. Rae needs something or she wouldn’t have sought me out. I’m hardly equipped to give it at the moment. Later today I have a case to work and a home to try and repair. I could really use some energy.
The emotions of the night flowed out in the quiet words. Cole opened his eyes. He reached for the coffee and considered the odds if adding sugar to the caffeine would keep him awake when he finally found somewhere he could sleep. It wouldn’t be his own bed for the foreseeable future. He opened the coffee and drank it black.
Rachel nibbled at her breakfast burrito; he ate his.
Cassie had been right when she said Rachel was gracious. She allowed him to eat in peace, passed him the hash browns when he finished the burrito, and when he was done with them handed him the second burrito.
The food helped. He leaned his head back against the headrest as he wadded up the napkin.
“What do you pray for when you bow your head?”
He was surprised with her opening question. “In one word? Comfort.”
“Someone to listen and care.”
“Yes.”
“I need to ask you something.”
He turned his head toward her. “I’ll do my best to answer.”
“Jennifer is coming to town Saturday. Tell me how I can find the strength to smile and not cry when I see her.”
It was very hard to get handed such a question, to know the door was open to the basis of her doubts about Jesus, and yet know he was at his lowest ebb for constructing a coherent answer.
“If Jennifer needed a bone-marrow transplant to heal her cancer and you matched—you’d jump to do it.”
Rachel nodded.
“You’d do whatever was in your power to help her because you love her.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus loves her too.”
He waited for that loop to circle, hoping she’d draw the obvious conclusion and make it simpler for her to hear him.
“Rae, unlike us, Jesus can do something about it. He had the power to come and lay down His life for her. He chose to do so. He opened the door and gave Jennifer the opportunity for eternal life. As the Bible says it, He took away the sting of death.”
Cole tried to sort out some way to answer the contradiction Rachel had presented him a few days ago what she thought was present about God’s love.
“I don’t see a contradiction in God’s actions. People die physically from things like cancer, but we’re dying in a more fundamental way from sin and the evil that pervades the world. Jesus knew that. He chose to lay down His life to save us. And God the Father let Jesus make that choice, not because He didn’t love His Son, but because He had decided in turn to express His own love for His Son and raise Jesus from the dead. God honored the sacrifice His Son made.”
“But Jesus didn’t just die,” Rachel whispered. “He was crucified and abandoned by His Father.”
“Rae—Jesus made a huge sacrifice. But I think God the Father actually made a larger one. He let the one He called His beloved Son be humiliated and murdered. Can you imagine how hard it was to sit on His hands and allow that to happen? He wasn’t being contradictory. God was in agony, but He loved us enough to allow it to happen.”
“The Bible says that?”
“Look at the anger God feels against anyone who rejects what His Son did.
Hell
is a mild word for the reality. Based on what Revelation says, when God the Father acts at the end of time it is going to be unlike anything mankind has ever seen. Men will beg to be spared that wrath. God loves His Son, and He’s going to call the world to account. Every knee in heaven and earth will bow to the fact Jesus is Lord, and if they don’t do it by choice, they will do it in judgment.”
Cole tried to focus on the emotion he knew Rachel was struggling to cope with as she faced the fact Jennifer might be dying. “Please understand. I’m not saying don’t cry. I’m not saying don’t be sad. I can’t and don’t minimize what it is like to face losing someone you love. For the rest of your life that void will be there. I’m saying cling to hope. Grab hold of it and brace yourself against it. It is the only way you are going to get through what is eventually going to come, whether it is months or years away. Jennifer has that hope in Christ. Claim it, Rachel. I don’t know how better to package it for you. It’s waiting there for you. Christmas is all about hope.”
She was crying.
He pressed a napkin into her hand and didn’t say anything else as the sun came up.
“He’s changing behavior, which suggests new triggers are arising,” Rachel offered.
Cole nodded. “The suggestion was made that it’s not the fire that he’s impassioned about as much as the message in the words he is leaving.”
The sun was rising on the horizon and shining through the side windows of the car with a gold cast. Rachel had retreated to talking about the arson cases and Cole had accepted it. She needed time to think about what she had asked him, and he knew the value of time to let questions settle and to let God work on her heart. He was relieved the tears had ended.
He knew she had a headache, but she was doing her best now to turn her focus to what he was dealing with. Rae’s sense of fairness wouldn’t let her talk about her situation without talking about his.
“Why did he go after you?” Rachel asked.
“If I had some idea of a suspect maybe I could figure it out.
Murderer. Cowards. Liar.
Possibly
chicken
although that’s suspect. He’s being extremely blunt.”
“He’s going after authorities.”
“Fair conclusion.”
“Any idea on why he changed to vandalism?”
“An arson fire in an arson investigator’s home—there is not enough sting to it, I imagine.” He finished his coffee. “Give me your opinion. He goes after the man responsible for public safety and calls him a murderer. He goes after the men responsible for facing down fires and calls them cowards. Finally, he goes after the man, me, whose essential job is to discover the truth and he calls me a liar.”
“Questioning integrity,” Rachel concluded.
Cole nodded his agreement.
“You also know he’s setting fires at the edge of the district,” Rachel added. “He doesn’t want you to be able to respond in a timely fashion to what he is doing. You know he’s watching the scene. So he feels some responsibility for the results of his actions. You’ve got a contradiction in front of you. Cassie said she saw a thoughtful man. Trashing your place—that’s the action of a man in a rage and out of control. For those to be two sides of the same coin…it’s a man who has snapped and is fluctuating like a pendulum between two extremes.”
“How do I stop him?”
She didn’t give him an immediate answer. He looked over at her.
“Cole, you’ve got one slim hope. He’s escalating. That’s being caused by something. Everything revolves around this district so the trigger is probably here as well. If that can be removed you’ve got a chance to change his behavior, slow down his escalation in time and type of fires. That might give you the time you need for the investigation to give you enough information to identify him.”
“How are the holidays going to affect him? Christmas, New Year’s?”
“The season is a stressor even for people who otherwise have happy lives—the pace, the financial pressure, the people pressure. And I doubt this is a man with a stable family with whom he spends the holidays. He’s probably alone. If you haven’t found him by Christmas—” She shook her head. “He’ll hurt someone, Cole. There will come a point where he doesn’t care.”
J
ack paced the terminal waiting for Jennifer and Tom’s flight to arrive. The O’Malley family was assembling from all corners of the country and he was the designated chauffeur. For the fifth time he glanced at his watch. This was going to be tight. He had an errand to run after he took Jennifer and Tom to the hotel, and then he had to get back here to meet his brother Marcus and his fiancée Shari.
Since the family gathering had grown from seven to fifteen with the addition of spouses, fiancées, and dates, they had decided to make it easier on Jennifer and arrange the whole event to be at the hotel where she and Tom would be staying. They had been able to reserve a block of hotel rooms and had hired the hotel to cater the gathering.
Jack knew it was the best compromise. They’d hopefully be able to keep Jennifer from overextending her energy and get her to agree to call it an early night if she knew everyone would still be at the hotel and around for breakfast.
The relief that she was able to come was intense. That decision hadn’t been made until early yesterday morning, the twenty-second. Jennifer hadn’t wanted to leave her puppy behind, but other than that, when he talked to her yesterday she’d been eager to get here.
The family had taken her fall as a warning of what was coming. They were eager to have this weekend as a full family celebration of not only Christmas but also New Year’s. All of them realized that the next time the family gathered as a group it might be around a hospital visit. Jennifer was going back on chemotherapy in January. She’d pleaded for the extra week before it began. She had been so wiped out last time that her doctors had agreed a few more days of recovery before she was hit again with toxic drugs would mean she’d have a better chance of success.
Jack checked the wall clock to confirm his wristwatch time was correct. If this flight was late, he would have to track down Stephen and see if he could handle meeting Marcus and Shari. Jack did not want to be late picking up Cassie. She was nervous enough about the idea of coming with him to the family gathering that he didn’t want to give her any excuse to back out.
Jack knew Cassie had to be tired. They had spent most of yesterday and part of this Saturday morning at Cole’s helping him deal with the mess the vandalism had created. They had rebuilt the back door yesterday, then replaced the last windowpanes this morning. Cole had hired a professional painter to come in because it would take a blackout paint to cover the glowing spray paint and not have it show through the next coat of white paint. Jack knew he’d have to make it an early night for both of them. He didn’t want Cassie walking away from tonight with anything but fond memories.
The flight finally arrived. Ten minutes later people began to flow from the gateway. Jennifer and her husband Tom appeared at the end of the first group.
Jack had been braced to see her looking ill, to have lost weight, to look tired, as she had during the hospital stay. Instead she looked wonderful—her color was good and she’d gained a little weight since being released from the hospital. She dropped her bag at Tom’s feet and raced toward him. Jack caught her.
“Jennifer.” He took care with his hug knowing how injured her back was. “Hi.”
She hugged him back. “Oh, it’s good to see you.” She’d turned into a bubbly blonde with the choice of the wig to deal with the loss of her hair. She caught his tie and tugged it as she laughed. “You dressed up for me?”
“Cassie actually, but you get the benefit of it.” A suit jacket and dress slacks were not what he would normally wear to an O’Malley gathering but he knew Cassie. She was going to be dressed up, and he wanted something that at least felt like a comfortable middle ground.