Read an Excerpt
A drunk driver, a deadly accident, a dream destroyed..
The scene seemed to unfold in slow motion, and from the diner where she stood, there was nothing Rae McDermott could do to stop it. The two vehicles careened toward the intersection, then collided. The impact was so explosive it was surreal, like something from a violent action movie. The Explorer spun off the ground in a cloud of dust and glass and shredded metal, and Rae watched it sail across the street and wrap around a utility pole a hundred feet away.
"Dear God," she whispered. She dashed across the diner, grabbed the telephone and dialed 9-1-1.
Only Jenny saw it coming. There was no time to scream, no time to warn the others .. One moment she was looking at Alicia, asking her about Mrs. Watson's English class, and the next, in a mere fraction of an instant, she saw a white locomotive coming straight at them, inches from Alicia's face.
There was a horrific jolt and the deafening sound of twisting, sparking metal and shattering glass. Jenny screamed, but it was too late. The Explorer took to the air like a child's toy spinning wildly and twisting unnaturally before coming to rest.
Then there was nothing but dark, deadly silence.
That night, somewhere between lying awake and falling asleep, Hannah moved her leg and in the process slid her foot under a section of the covers that was weighted down with a heavy book she'd tossed there earlier. Still, for an instant the weight wasn't a book at all. It was Tom, his leg comfortably stretched across the sheets just inches from her own. Hannah stirred and the weight remained. She enjoyed the feeling of Tom's leg on hers, heavy and warm. Suddenly a realization pulled at her. If his leg was here, that meant -
"Tom?" She sat straight up in bed and breathlessly peered through the darkness. Then slowly, as she had at least ten times before, she realized who she was and where she was and what her life had become.
She was a woman alone who had lost everything.
And tomorrow was Christmas.
Jenny narrowed her eyes and studied the stack of sweaters on the closet top shelf. She spotted Alicia's sweater almost immediately and took it gently from where it lay near the bottom of a stack.
She held it up and she could see Alicia, grinning and challenging her to a foot race at Winter Camp last year. Jenny took the arms of the sweater and pulled them around her neck. She held it that way for a while, desperately wishing that Alicia still lived inside it. Her fingers brushed over the soft blue cotton, and she felt the tears again. She folded the sweater gently, tucked it under her arm and moved quickly for the door, suddenly motivated to get to school and log onto the Internet. Her mind traced the electronic paths to the suicide web sites she'd found earlier. Information that would help her resume the most important task of her life.
Finding a way to join Daddy and Alicia.
The bottle was more than half gone, and Brian felt himself losing consciousness. The room was spinning faster, and he closed his eyes. Suddenly a loud noise pulled him from his stupor. This time when he opened his eyes, he saw something that sent a surge of bile into his throat.
Right in front of him was the blond girl and her father, their car wrapped around the utility pole. Only now the girl was crying and Carla was standing over her, trying to help her breathe. In an instant they all turned on him, glaring at him, hating him.
"Go away!" Carla shouted and she ripped the gold hoops from her ears. "You're a murderer and a liar and a loser. I hope you rot in prison."
As quickly as they'd come, they faded away and he could see more clearly. . There was a strange noise, like air leaking from a rubber tire. He tossed the bottle aside and looked up.
Demons filled the room before him.
Dripping blood and spewing venomous taunts and accusations, they crowded in around his face. He swung at them, shouted at them to stay away, but they drew nearer still, hissing and smelling of death and sulfur. They were carrying something, and Brian saw that it was a rusted, black chain. Before he could get up or run away or close his eyes, the demons bound his wrists and wrapped his arms tightly against his body.
He was utterly trapped, and the demons began hissing one word, over and over. Brian's heart beat wildly and he struggled to break free. What was the word? What were they saying? The nose grew louder, each word a hate-filled hiss.
Finally Brian understood.
Forever. Forever, forever, forever.
He was trapped. The demons had him and they would hold him forever.
He wanted to break free, to scream for help and chase the demons away before they killed him. But instead he felt his insides heave. Once, twice, and then a third time, until it seemed his stomach was in a state of permanent convulsion.
Brian woke up, face down in a puddle of pasty vomit, his entire body shaking violently from fear and alcohol poisoning. The room smelled like rotten, undigested food and urine. He noticed his pants were wet, and he realized he must have soiled them. His head throbbed and he recoiled as he touched his hand to his hair. It was matted with crusted vomit. Suddenly he remembered the hissing creatures. Using only his eyes, he glanced from side to side.
The demons were gone.
But they would be back. He knew with every fiber in his being that it was so. He struggled to his feet, wiped the vomit from his eyes and nose so he could breathe better, and staggered toward the phone.
It was time to call the Bible lady.
Matt faced the jury squarely and slid his hands into his pockets. His voice was strong, but Hannah thought his eyes looked damp as he continued. "What happened to Hannah Ryan could happen to me - " he met their eyes - "or you. Any day. Anytime. Anywhere. .It's time friends, please. Find Brian Wesley guilty of first-degree murder, and let's put an end to this madness now. Before it's too late."
The judge finished giving instructions, and the case was handed over to the jury. After just two hours the foreman notified the clerk.
They had reached a decision.
Read a Sample Chapter
Chapter One
I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed.
Lamentations 1:20a
Sunday Evening
They were late and that bothered her.
She had been through a list of likely explanations, any one of which was possible. They’d stopped for ice cream; they’d forgotten something back at the campsite; they’d gotten a later start than usual.
Still Hannah Ryan was uneasy. Horrific images, tragic possibilities threatened to take up residence in her mind, and she struggled fiercely to keep them out.
The afternoon was cooling, so she flipped off the air conditioning and opened windows at either end of the house. A hint of jasmine wafted inside and mingled pleasantly with the pungent scent of Pine-Sol and the warm smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
Minutes passed. Hannah folded two loads of whites, straightened the teal, plaid quilts on both girls’ beds again, and wiped down the Formica kitchen countertop for the third time. Determined to fight the fear welling within her, she wrung the worn, pink sponge and angled it against the tiled wall. More air that way, less mildew. She rearranged the cookies on a pretty crystal platter, straightened a stack of floral napkins nearby, and rehearsed once more the plans for dinner.
The house was too quiet.
Praise music. That’s what she needed. She sorted through a stack of compact discs until she found one by David Jeremiah. Good. David Jeremiah would be nice. Calming. Upbeat. Soothing songs that would consume the time, make the waiting more bearable.
She hated it when they were late. Always had. Her family had been gone three days and she missed them, even missed the noise and commotion and constant mess they made.
That was all this was…just a terrible case of missing them.
David Jeremiah’s voice filled the house, singing about when the Lord comes and wanting to be there to see it. She drifted back across the living room to the kitchen. Come on, guys. Get home.
She stared out the window and willed them back, willed the navy blue Ford Explorer around the corner, where it would move slowly into the driveway, leaking laughter and worn-out teenage girls. Willed her family home where they belonged.
But there was no Explorer, no movement at all save the subtle sway of branches in the aging elm trees that lined the cul-de-sac.
Hannah Ryan sighed, and for just a moment she considered the possibilities. Like all mothers, she was no stranger to the tragedies of others. She had two teenage daughters, after all, and more than once she had read a newspaper article that hit close to home. Once it was a teenager who had, in a moment of silliness, stood in the back of a pickup truck as the driver took off. That unfortunate teen had been catapulted to the roadway, his head shattered, death instant. Another time it was the report of an obsessive boy who stalked some promising young girl and gunned her down in the doorway of her home.
When Hannah’s girls were little, other tragedies had jumped off the newspaper pages. The baby in San Diego who found his mother’s button and choked to death while she chatted on the phone with her sister. The toddler who wandered out the back gate and was found hours later at the bottom of a neighbor’s murky pool.
It was always the same. Hannah would absorb the story, reading each word intently, and then, for a moment, she would imagine such a thing happening to her family. Better, she thought, to think it through. Play it out so that if she were ever the devastated mother in the sea of heartache that spilled from the morning news, she would be ready. There would be an initial shock, of course, but Hannah usually skimmed past that detail. How could one ever imagine a way to handle such news? But then there would be the reality of a funeral, comforting friends, and ultimately, life would go on. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; wasn’t that what they said? She knew this because of her faith.
No, she would not be without hope, no matter the tragedy.
Of course, these thoughts of Hannah’s usually happened in less time than it took her to fold the newspaper and toss it in the recycling bin. They were morbid thoughts, she knew. But she was a mother, and there was no getting around the fact that somewhere in the world other mothers were being forced to deal with tragedy.
Other mothers.
That was the key. Eventually, even as she turned from the worn bin of yesterday’s news and faced her day, Hannah rel-ished the truth that those tragedies always happened to other mothers. They did not happen to people she knew—and certainly they would not happen to her.
She prayed then, as she did at the end of every such session, thanking God for a devoted, handsome husband with whom she was still very much in love, and for two beautiful daughters strong in their beliefs and on the brink of sweet-sixteen parties and winter dances, graduation and college. She was sorry for those to whom tragedy struck, but at the same time, she was thankful that such things had never happened to her.
Just to be sure, she usually concluded the entire process with a quick and sincere plea, asking God to never let happen to her and hers what had happened to them and theirs.
In that way, Hannah Ryan had been able to live a fairly worry-free life. Tragedy simply did not happen to her. Would not. She had already prayed about it. Scripture taught that the Lord never gave more than one could bear. So Hannah believed God had protected her from tragedy or loss of any kind because he knew she couldn’t possibly bear it.
Still, despite all this assurance, tragic thoughts haunted her now as they never had before.
David Jeremiah sang on about holding ground, standing, even when everything in life was falling apart. Hannah listened to the words, and a sudden wave of anxiety caused her heart to skip a beat. She didn’t want to stand. She wanted to run into the streets and find them.
She remembered a story her grandmother once told about a day in the early seventies when she was strangely worried about her only son, Hannah’s uncle. All day her grandmother had paced and fretted and prayed.…
Late that evening she got the call. She knew immediately, of course. Her son had been shot that morning, killed by a Viet Cong bullet. A sixth sense, she called it later. Something only a mother could understand.
Hannah felt that way now, and she hated herself for it. As if by letting herself be anxious she would, in some way, be responsible if something happened to her family.
She reminded herself to breathe. Motionless, hands braced on the edge of the kitchen sink, shoulders tense, she stared out the window. Time slipped away, and David Jeremiah sang out the last of his ten songs. Lyrics floated around her, speaking of the Lord’s loving arms and begging him not to let go, not to allow a fall.
Hannah swallowed and noticed her throat was thick and dry. Two minutes passed. The song ended and there was silence. Deafening silence.
The sunlight was changing now, and shadows formed as evening drew near. In all ways that would matter to two teenage girls coming home from a mountain camping trip with their father, it couldn’t have been a nicer day in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Bright and warm, a sweet, gentle breeze sifted through the still full trees. Puffy clouds hung suspended in a clear blue sky, ripe with memories of lazy days and starry nights.
It was the last day of a golden summer break.
What could possibly go wrong on a day like this?
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