If I Live

by Terri Blackstock

Well, there’s plenty I can do. I think of leaping on top of him, strangling him with my bare hands. I could do it.

  And then I pull myself back, draw a deep breath, and send up a prayer asking God to forgive me, because I have no right to hate Keegan the way he hated me. I ask that Jesus will come down on me and grant me the grace to go on.

  I go back to my page. “We all know that you’re a murderer,” I say, “but I want people to know that there’s something wrong in your brain. You are the very definition of a psychopath. You can’t be healed or rehabilitated. It’s only by a full transformation by Christ that you can change at all. But the Bible says there is a point where God turns you over to a depraved mind, and I think that’s what has happened with you.”

  Is he laughing? He’s looking down at his legs now, hiding his grin behind his steepled hands, but his shoulders give him away. My lips grow tighter, but I keep going.

  “I want you to know that while you were hunting me, you underestimated one thing. You underestimated God. And justice does win.”

  I head back to my seat, and I see Dylan looking down at his knees, wiping the tears on his face. I sit there feeling a sense of relief and calm wash over me as Elise stands up and says her piece, and then the others, each of them in turn, one by one.

  When it’s over, the judge pronounces his sentence. “Gordon Keegan, I sentence you to six consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.” A gasp falls over the gallery, but Keegan doesn’t flinch or move. He already expected it. His attorney probably convinced him to accept life instead of death by lethal injection, by pleading guilty.

  I watch as they get him to his feet and shuffle him out of the room. He is still holding his head high, still prideful, daring anyone to cross him. I’m sure there are inmates at Angola who will take that dare.

  When the court is adjourned, I make my way out of the room and go around the back way where I know they’ll be loading him into the prison transport van. I watch as they tighten his shackles and his handcuffs and shuffle him out to the van. There’s media all around, taking pictures and shouting questions as he does his perp shuffle. I watch through a window as he gets into the van, watch as they drive him away.

  It’s not until the van is out of sight that I look away. As I turn, I see Dylan waiting at the end of the hall. He’s got his hands in his jeans pockets, and his eyes are red. He looks at me like he’s worried about me, but I walk to him. Just as I’m about to reach him, he opens his arms and pulls me in, and we hold each other for a long moment.

  Then he takes my hand and leads me to the front doors, where we’ve agreed I will walk outside to the bank of microphones. I’m ready to talk to the press.

  I want them to know that Keegan hasn’t defeated me. I am stronger than I’ve ever been. I have more. I’m loved more.

  I have already overcome.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Do you choose to be miserable? Lately, I’ve noticed that a lot of us do. Our culture divides us, and hatred is at an all-time high. We feed our anger in multiple ways throughout each day. We look for opportunities to be offended and feel slighted. We anticipate that we will be treated badly. We shame and are ashamed; we judge and feel judged; we assign guilt and feel guilty. We blame and assume wrong motives of everyone around us. We are pessimistic, and we mock those who hope. Everything has the look and feel of smoke and mirrors, but we deny reality. We doubt truth when it’s obvious and heartily embrace falsehoods.

  Over the last couple of years, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my grandson Liam, who is four as I’m writing this. The other day we were at the playground, and another child refused to answer him when he tried to make friends. It hurt his feelings, and on the way home, Liam said, “He must not know that Jesus told us to be kind to one another.”

  It hit me that so many of our cultural ailments could be solved by embracing the simplest biblical principles—things that my four-year-old grandson understands. Be kind to one another, treat people the way you want to be treated, rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn, share what you have, don’t judge people for things you do yourself, love one another, put others before yourself, serve others, forgive those who sin against you, pray for your enemies.

  If we applied these things to those who rubbed us the wrong way, our culture would be so different. Instead of slapping each other down for daring to differ, we would respect one another and be willing to listen. We wouldn’t assume people are evil just because we don’t understand them. We wouldn’t let others tell us how to feel. We would investigate things on our own and dig for truth.

  We would never be convinced to trash people over social media because we’re trying to make a point or because we have a cause. We wouldn’t hammer our points home over and over under the guise of enlightening the less intelligent, because we would realize our relationships are more important than our opinions. We would consider others, not target them.

  The Bible tells us many ways to combat misery. Seek God’s kingdom first (Matthew 6:33); love because you’re loved (John 13:34); overflow with hope by trusting in God (Romans 15:13). Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you.”

  Misery is a choice. Sometimes it’s my choice. Is it yours? What if we chose not to be miserable? What if we made a conscious effort to spend less time with the things and people who make us miserable? What if we chose to trust God instead? After all, He loved us enough to send His son to die for us, so that we wouldn’t be stuck in the mire of our sins, but would have abundant life.

  We can trust Him. He knows what’s coming. He’s the one who knows the whole picture. He’s the one who loves us and doesn’t want us to be miserable. He gave us ways to find joy.

  Let’s choose that instead.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A few years ago, I had a dream of writing a series about a female fugitive. I wanted to model it after the David Janssen “Fugitive” TV series from the 1950s. In those episodes, Janssen plays Dr. Richard Kimball, who’s blamed for his wife’s murder. He’s searching for the notorious one-armed man who killed his wife while he was hiding from the investigators catching up to him. In every episode, someone discovers who he is, and he’s forced to flee again. I wanted to pay homage to that TV series by having a female fugitive who has similar issues and has to keep uprooting herself from the communities she becomes part of. From that concept, my mind fleshed out one of my favorite characters ever—Casey Cox.

  From the very beginning, I had support from my team at HarperCollins Christian Publishing, and I owe them special thanks for that. Daisy Hutton, who was the fiction publisher at that time, embraced the story right away, as did Amanda Bostic, my acquisitions editor. During the writing of this last book in the series, Amanda became the fiction publisher, and she continued her support of this series without a glitch. She also allowed me to work with Dave Lambert, who has edited about fifty of my books over the last twenty-three years. My agent, Natasha Kern, was also a huge encouragement as I wrote these books.

  From the cover designs (have you noticed that the three covers make a puzzle?) to the copy on the back, to what goes inside, to the marketing and publicity that got the books into my readers’ hands, every single member of the HarperCollins fiction team—and others outside the HCCP family who helped make these books successful—did a fantastic job. It’s one thing to write a series, but it takes a lot of people to put it into a form in which readers can find it and have a great experience reading it. Thank you to all of you who helped with these books.

  And to my fantastic readers out there who launched the series straight to the USA Today bestseller list, I owe you my deepest gratitude. You make my w
ork so satisfying. God is good, and you are among his greatest blessings in my life.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. How do you feel about Casey’s and Dylan’s future? Do you think they will be right for each other even when things go back to normal?

  2. How do the characters react to things that would make others miserable? Would you react the same?

  3. What motivated Sy Rollins into committing his crimes? What motivated Gordon Keegan?

  4. Discuss God’s role in this series, and how the characters have evolved spiritually.

  5. Although Casey and Dylan still have PTSD when the series ends, how have they helped each other with their trauma?

  6. Discuss Keegan’s capture and whether he got the justice he deserved.

  7. Have you ever been in a situation in which you couldn’t trust anyone?

  8. Imagine the future for Dylan and Casey. What do you think that will look like?

  9. What overriding themes have resonated with you during the If I Run Series?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo by Deryll Stegall

  Terri Blackstock has sold over seven million books worldwide and is a New York Times bestselling author. She is the award-winning author of Intervention, Vicious Cycle, and Downfall, as well as the Moonlighters, Cape Refuge, Newpointe 911, Sun Coast Chronicles, and Restoration series, among others.

  www.terriblackstock.com

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  Twitter: @terriblackstock