Tying the Knot (38 page)

“C’mon,” he growled. The man before her couldn’t be the same person she’d sat beside in church, the man who had whizzed her around town in his Lexus. She stared at him dumbly.

“Anne, are you okay?”

Anne twisted around, crippled by his hold.

Katie stood in the hall, her eyes huge.

“Katie! Run!”

Anne heard Dr. Jefferies shout. Saw fear cascade across Katie’s face. The gun whisked past her vision.

Katie whirled.

Ran.

When the gunshot shattered the air, Anne went dead inside.

27

The wind slicked Noah’s sweaty skin as he drove down the Gunflint Trail to Deep Haven. His first stop after visiting Darrin would be the municipal pool. He needed a real shower if he intended to live with himself any longer.

He motored into the hospital parking lot and grimaced. Anne’s dog, Bertha, had her massive head poked out of Katie’s Mazda, completely dwarfing the driver’s seat. She barked in hilarious greeting. Noah waved at the dog as he parked his bike, trying to keep his heart from settling into his knees.

Bertha’s presence meant that Anne was still here. He’d have to face her and somehow confess that he’d failed her. He’d sucked her into a project that had burned to ash around them. He didn’t want to think about the accompanying death of their future.

“Here, Bertha.” He freed the dog. She jumped out, then slammed her huge paws on his chest. He nearly toppled over. “Okay, okay, I love you too.” He rubbed the dog behind her ears while she slobbered his chin. “Go, run.” Maybe killing a few minutes watching Bertha torment the seagulls would bolster his courage. He knew Anne wasn’t going to give him the same reception. Not if Katie had delivered his message.

He folded his hands and tucked them behind his head, stretching. Bucko and the kids were probably past Hinckley by now. Their farewells, some with tears, tugged at his heart. He drew in a breath of the pine-scented air and tried to—

“Help!”

Noah whirled.

“Help!” Katie tore out of the hospital as if it were on fire. “Help!”

He sprinted toward her, caught her arms. “What’s the matter?”

“Anne . . .” She hiccupped. Tears streaked her face. “Someone with . . . gun. Inside.”

He didn’t mean to shake her. “What? Is she hurt?”

Katie covered her mouth with her hand, terror in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Go. Call 911.” He raced toward the building.

The utter silence in the hallway made him halt.

Swallow.

Breathe.

He cast a look toward the ER and saw a shadow move against the wall behind the nurses’ station. “Anne?”

“No. It’s Sandra.” A head popped up. Fear emanated from her expression. “I saw him. He took her that way.” She pointed, not steadily, down the hall the opposite direction as she ran toward him. “They went into a room. I don’t know which one.”

Noah grabbed her shaking hands. “Get out of here. Go.”

Sandra tore out the front doors.

Noah stalked down the hall, nerves taut. Every instinct told him to burst into each room and mow down Anne’s assailant with pure fury. He reined it in. It wouldn’t help her if he got shot.
Lord, give me wisdom!

He circled the nurses’ station and ducked behind the desk, listening. He heard muffled voices, one of them Anne’s.

“Is Katie dead?” Anne sat on a hospital bed, hands in the surrender position, staring at Dr. Jefferies. He paced the room from end to end like a caged tiger. She could hardly believe that she’d once thought him handsome.

“I didn’t want it this way, you know.” His tone hovered barely over a mutter. He stopped, looked at her with reddened eyes. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“There are always choices.”

He gave a sardonic laugh. “You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it’s like to be . . . trapped.” His speech started to slur. “I just want him to stop. Hurting. Me.”

She kept her voice soft. “Who’s hurting you?”

He shook his head, his eyes wild.

Anne watched Dr. Jefferies draw into the fetal position and morph as if suddenly a child, a terrified child. “Doctor?” She eyed the door.
Right now. Run!

He snapped up his head, his face twisted. “Don’t. Move.” He smiled, looking like a wolf. “Are you afraid? Get in line, Anne. The world feeds on fear. It’s all around us, pulsating, waiting to devour.” He burst out in insane hilarity.

She gulped back a paralyzing spurt of terror. “And getting strung out and killing me is going to destroy that fear?”

He stumbled, then leaned against the wall. “I’m fine.” He slumped down. “Just fine.” He angled the gun at her; it wavered in his hand. “I’m tired.”

She edged off the bed. “Let me help you. I’ll get you something to eat. You can take a nap right here—”

“You’re so stupid,” he snarled, but his eyes couldn’t stay fixed on her. She noticed the way his grip spasmed on the gun, dangerously close to the trigger.

She swallowed.
Oh, Lord, I am stupid. How did this happen to me again?
Her throat grew raw at the irony. Here she’d been building a refuge and the enemy lived right inside the gates. She blinked back tears.
God where are You?

Here. I am here.

She stilled. Breathed. In. Out. And felt a presence so thick it filled the room and settled in her soul.
Here.
Peace reverberated through her as if two hands rested on her shoulders, holding her down.
I am here.

Her heartbeat slowed. She closed her eyes and words flooded her mind:
“When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea-billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.
’”

It is well with my soul.
God had her soul, was keeping it . . .

Suddenly with a wash of pure, brilliant clarity, she understood.

God hadn’t brought Noah into her life so she could hide in his muscular embrace. He’d brought Noah into her life to answer the pleas from her childhood . . . to show her, indeed, there is safety, peace, in this world.

The memory of Noah’s song infiltrated her thoughts.

For me be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live.

If Jordan above me shall roll.

No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,

Thou shalt whisper thy peace to my soul.

God had been with her as she bled on that bedroom floor, present in Noah’s song, in Noah’s strong hand holding hers.

God, there, watching over her bereft, terrified soul.

Keeping it safe, on both sides of eternity.

God had heard her prayers and answered—through Noah and his song. God had brought Anne to 2135 Franklin Avenue for a reason—to teach her that, yes, whether in death or life, even when storms and sea billows roll, all was well with her soul.

Tears fell in a torrent.
Yes, Lord. It is well. It is so well.
She may be a doomed hostage at the business end of a pistol, but Dr. Jefferies couldn’t kill her soul.

Whether in fear or in triumph, God was with her. Just like He’d been a year ago in the soft song of an unnamed hero. And before, in the protection of her parents and their heritage of faith. God never left her.

She’d left Him. Katie’s voice returned to her:
We will find God if we turn to Him. And in that surrender, He’ll turn it into something both for His glory and your eternal good, according to His will.

Anne had taken her eyes off her only source of healing. Her source of hope.

“For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better. Yet if I live, that means fruitful service for Christ. I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: Sometimes I want to live, and sometimes I long to go and be with Christ.”

Anne comprehended for the first time what her father had meant. The fullness of Philippians 1:21-23 swept through her, taking with it the final residue of grief. The joy of her faith didn’t come from living in safety on earth. It came from living in safety in her Father’s hand, wherever He put her, among the living or the dying.

Anne couldn’t construct a world without pain. But she could trust a big, capable God who would be there, holding her when trouble invaded her world. God’s grace was sufficient to hold her in any circumstance. And in this—this reality, this character of God—dwelled the joy of her faith.

Joy wasn’t a reaction to God’s blessings. It was a state of being because of salvation through Jesus Christ.

She stared at Dr. Jefferies—his brown hair askew, his eyes drooping, his gun hand quivering—and a wave of pity swept through her. A cleansing flow that left peace in its wake. Fear lingered at the recesses, but in the deepest place of her soul she felt the touch of the Almighty.

The embrace of grace.

The caress of eternity.

She began to laugh, a hysterical wonder that, even to her, felt just on the lee side of lunacy. But it bubbled out until she had to cover her face with her hands. Then the laughter turned to tears.

Only God could make her face her worst fears and, in that moment, heal her of her wounds.

“What’s so funny?” Dr. Jefferies’s eyes were half closed, but somehow he made it to his feet. “What’s so funny?”

She stared at him. “Nothing is funny,” she answered honestly. “I’m sorry that you won’t let me help you.”

He laughed, a sickly, throw-his-head-back puff of disgust. “Yeah, you can help me. C’mon.” He staggered toward her and dug his fingers into her arm, causing her to wince.

“Where are we going?” Her voice came out surprisingly calm. God was holding her tight.

“Outside. Home. Away.” He wobbled toward the door, then pushed her in front of him, curling his arm around her neck. “No fast moves, honey.”

“I’m not your honey.”

That endearment belonged to Noah.

“Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

Anne’s angry voice drilled into Noah. He gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to tear her assailant apart like a grizzly.

“Let go. It won’t help you to kidnap me. They’ll catch you.”

“No they won’t. Not if they want you to live.”

Her quick intake of breath dittoed Noah’s gasp. He remained behind the nurses’ counter, watching the duo shuffle by.
Good girl, Anne. Fight him. Distract him.
Noah’s legs tensed as he crept around the side of the station.

Sirens blared, a low moan in the background piercing the air.

Dr. Jefferies? Noah recognized the man from church, and a streak of white-hot fury shot through him. What kind of deceiving rat posed as a doctor one moment and took lives the next? It was like watching himself, only inside out. Dr. Jefferies looked like a man people could trust with their lives. Noah looked like the local thug down the street.

Well, a thug might be just the person Anne needed at the moment. Like Pastor Dan had said, God had made him exactly the way he wanted him.

Noah moved quietly. Swiftly.

He sprang like a cougar, arms out toward his prey. When he landed on Dr. Jefferies, they went down in a bone-cracking tackle. Pain spurted into Noah’s shoulder. Dr. Jefferies rolled and jabbed an elbow into Noah’s chest.

“Anne, run!” Noah grabbed the doctor by his shirt as the man bounced off the floor. “Run!”

He saw Anne turn, stand transfixed. He thought he heard his name. The physician wriggled out of his grip. Momentum propelled Noah off the floor, and he tackled the slimeball again. “Run, Anne!”

Dr. Jefferies roared in anger. Manic in his fury, he slammed his knee into Noah’s ribs. Noah shoved his forearm into the man’s neck. “Calm down!”

The man’s eyes bugged out, his breath rasped. Noah pushed harder. Where were the cops?

“Noah, look out!” Was that Anne? His every muscle zeroed in on pinning the doctor to the floor. Arm across his neck. Knee in his gut.

“You!” Dr. Jefferies grunted, as if recognizing Noah for the first time.

A pistol knifed into Noah’s ribs. Noah pressed harder, praying for precious time. The doctor’s eyes dimmed. Rolled. His body stiffened.