Wrath (Faith McMann Trilogy Book 3)

by T. R. Ragan

  As he stood there looking at her, he shook his head as if in wonder. His gaze shifted to the child in her arms, his brow lifting in question.

  They had all been disappointed too many times to assume it was Lara. Faith nodded.

  Colton stepped behind Faith so he could get a better look at his niece. He ruffled Lara’s hair and broke out laughing, causing Faith to do the same, brother and sister sharing in a moment of delirious glee.

  “You two get back to the car, and get the hell out of here,” Colton said, unable to hide his happiness. “Drive straight home, and don’t look back,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” Her insides did somersaults. “Don’t leave us.”

  “Detective Yuhasz is out there somewhere battling it out with a lunatic. I can’t leave him here to fight on his own. He’s practically a part of the family now.”

  “Did I hear you correctly?”

  They both turned toward the sound of the detective’s voice.

  Yuhasz was hobbling toward them, his arm dangling limp at his side. He was a mess. Colton went to him, hooked the detective’s good arm around his shoulder.

  “Did he get away?” Colton asked.

  Yuhasz shook his head. “I got him, but not before he shot me a couple of times. Can’t anyone hit the damn vest? I’m going to call the manufacturer first chance I get.”

  Faith set her daughter on the ground and clasped her hand in hers. Her eyes glistened as they walked ahead of the two men. She looked over at Lara. Her daughter. Surreal. Against all odds they had found Lara.

  She had both of her children back.

  She glanced heavenward, thinking of Craig, wishing he were here.

  The sirens grew louder.

  Lara peeked back over her shoulder. “That man,” Lara said, “helped me get away.”

  “Detective Yuhasz?”

  Lara nodded, her eyes brighter than before.

  “He’s a good man,” Faith said. “A very good man.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Grandma! Grandma! Are you OK?”

  Lilly opened her eyes. Hudson was hovering over her, concern in his eyes, tears dripping off his face.

  She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t manage. Hudson helped her.

  It took only a few seconds for everything that had happened to come flashing back. The panic in Russell’s voice as he shouted her name. Seeing him near the family room door. And then an explosion that sounded like a sonic boom as the ground rumbled beneath them.

  “Russell,” she said as she crawled to the small window. She looked out through the trees with their twisted limbs, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Half of their house was gone. A noise caused her to turn and see that Hudson had vanished. She crawled on all fours to the exit, saw her grandson scrambling down the trunk of the tree.

  “Get back here, Hudson. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Grandpa’s in there. I’ve got to find him.”

  “Listen to me,” she said as his feet hit the ground. “Come back here. Wait for me.” Afraid another bomb might go off, she backed out of the door and started the long climb down.

  By the time she made it to solid ground, Hudson had disappeared somewhere within the piles of debris. Lilly walked stiff-legged over pieces of siding from the house. Her arms and legs trembled as she negotiated a path through the rubble. She noticed fragments of aluminum and plastic from her refrigerator, picture frames, and bricks. How could anyone live through such destruction?

  The thought of losing her husband was incomprehensible.

  She had to find him. He was alive, she repeated over and over again. He was alive. He had to be. He meant everything to her. He was her rock, her world.

  She stopped in her tracks. The center of the house had caved inward, leaving gaping holes. Smoke seeped out of nooks and crevices. One of Faith’s bedroom walls on the second floor was gone, plaster and sheetrock blown to bits.

  “Hudson!” she called, praying for an answer.

  Nothing.

  Her insides twisted. “Don’t you dare leave me, Russell. Where are you?”

  She walked over debris, nearly fell as she tried to get to the spot where she’d last seen her husband. Leaning over to peer into a dark hole, she strained every muscle to lift a section of wall, careful not to cut herself on broken glass. It was no use. The wood and stucco were too heavy. She listened for any sound, wondering how he could possibly have lived through such destruction. Wiping tears from her eyes, she walked to the other side of the house. Her legs stiffened, knees locking. “Hudson,” she called again, her voice quivering with desperation.

  “I’m coming,” Hudson called back. “He’s here.”

  Hudson! Thank goodness! A fluttery feeling rumbled in her belly and worked its way to her brain. She’d misheard her grandson; she was certain of it. A split second later her breathing was suspended as Hudson rounded the corner. “I found him, Grandma. He’s OK!”

  “He’s alive?”

  “His leg looks bad, but I think he’s going to be OK.”

  She followed Hudson, moving as fast as she could. They rounded the side of the house, then skidded, side by side, down a slippery slope of dead leaves and dirt. Her husband was lying on his side, grimacing in pain. Even from a few feet away she could see that he was in bad shape, his leg twisted at an odd angle.

  “I’ll get help,” Hudson told her, and he ran off.

  She hurried to Russell, fell to her knees, and began checking the rest of his body for cuts and bruises. She unbuttoned his shirt. Other than his leg, he appeared to be in good shape. She smoothed his hair away from his face and then leaned forward and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

  She pulled away, her eyes bright. She couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been. “Where does it hurt?”

  He winced. “Everywhere.”

  “What were you thinking running around inside if you knew there was a bomb?”

  “I couldn’t find you, couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.” He reached out a hand.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she told him.

  “Never again,” Russell told her. “I promise.”

  “Help is on the way,” a neighbor called from their driveway. She could see Hudson was there, too.

  She waved a hand, then turned back to Russell. “We’re going to be all right. Everything is going to be OK.”

  Beast hung up the phone. He’d just talked to Faith. Lara was safe.

  He plopped down on the edge of his bed, unable to wrap his mind around everything that had happened. If not for Rage’s list. If not for her courage, determination, and perseverance, they would never have found Faith’s daughter.

  Rage had found Lara.

  She’d accomplished what she’d set out to do the moment they met Faith McMann.

  A bit of time passed as he sat in silence before he noticed the letter from Rage on his nightstand, reminding him of her plea that he read the letter from Sandi Cameron. He came to his feet and retrieved the letter from the top drawer. Turning the envelope over, he peeled it open.

  Dear Mr. Ward,

  I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but none so awful as the one I made the day I took the lives of your wife and daughter. I never should have turned down your request to speak to kids about texting and driving, but at the time, the thought of standing in front of a roomful of my peers and telling them what I had done seemed worse than being burned at the stake. I was a socially awkward child and teenager. The boy I was texting that day had asked me to meet him. I was beyond thrilled to receive his text since I had a feeling he might ask me out. Turned out the joke was on me. Had I made it to the yogurt shop instead of slamming into the car coming the other way, I would have merely had my heart broken when I arrived and realized he and his friends were having fun with a prank.

  It wasn’t my heart that was broken that day, but yours. I don’t know why I felt the need to tell you the whole story. I’m not asking for sympathy. Maybe I just need
ed to get it all off my chest, let you know what happened, why I was stupid enough to text when I knew better. The truth is, within days of turning down your offer, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t follow through with your request. For the past few years, I have been traveling from city to city, school to school, talking to classrooms and auditoriums filled with people, sometimes only ten, sometimes hundreds. And I tell them what happened that day. I talk about the little sister who used to look up to me. I talk about my parents and the relationships they lost and how my mistake affected so many. I talk about your wife and your little girl, and I talk about you, Charlie Ward. Nothing I could ever say or do can bring them back. I’m not writing you to ask for forgiveness, because the truth of the matter is I’m not sure if I could forgive someone for taking my sister or my mom or dad because of their lapse in judgment. But I can tell you how very sorry I am.

  Sandi Cameron

  His chin fell forward, and once again he let the tears come.

  These tears were for his wife and daughter, the two people he’d loved most in the world. Two people he’d lost and yet never mourned because anger had shut off his emotions. Anger, he realized, had in a sense crippled him. No matter what he did, he hadn’t been able to find a way past or through the fury and resentment that were always there. It was a teeth-clenching, aching, heated, skin-prickling sensation that had turned into an impenetrable brick wall and refused to budge. Until this very moment he’d never felt responsible for his anger. He’d put the blame solely on society’s shoulders. War and death had framed his life, made him who he was. Anger had lived heavily in his heart for too long.

  He was done.

  It was time to forgive . . . not past or current circumstances, not Sandi Cameron or any other person who had crossed his path. It was time to forgive himself. He inhaled a cleansing breath and then slowly exhaled, letting it all go.

  Could it be that simple?

  He folded the letter, slipped it into the envelope, and then put it back into the top drawer of his dresser.

  There was a soft knock on the door before his dad stepped inside. “Are you going to stay in your room all night?”

  Beast looked at his dad, glad his old man was still around. His emotions clogged his throat, preventing him from saying anything.

  “Are you all right?” Dad asked.

  “No,” Beast said. “How about you?”

  “The same,” Little Vinnie said matter-of-factly. “How are we going to go on without her?”

  “We’ll figure out a way,” Beast said, pulling himself together. “We always do.”

  He went to his dad’s side, put an arm around his shoulder, and ushered him from the room. “I love you, Dad.”

  Little Vinnie stopped outside the bedroom door, long enough to give him a hard look.

  Beast lifted an eyebrow. “What is it?”

  “Should I be worried?”

  Beast walked into the kitchen ahead of his dad and said, “I’m going to help you make dinner tonight. So yeah, you should probably be worried . . . very worried.” He looked to the living room next, where he saw Miranda glance his way. “Are you just going to sit there doing nothing?” Beast asked her. “Or are you going to make yourself useful and give us a hand with dinner?”

  “Since you put it that way,” she said, pushing herself to her feet, “I guess I’ll help. I make a mean liver pâté,” she said with a devious smile. “Maybe we could make that tomorrow night.”

  Little Vinnie and Miranda laughed.

  Beast ignored them both as he opened drawers and cupboards in search of a pan. He knew Rage would be his first thought in the morning and his last thought at night, as she had been for so long now. But her memory would bring him happiness instead of sorrow, and he would never forget what she’d done for him. She’d given him life. He would not squander it.

  THIRTY

  Faith’s entire family gathered at Jana and Steve’s home in Rocklin, awaiting the limousines that would soon take them to the cemetery.

  While Jana dressed in the other room, Faith held the newest addition to their family, Landon Adam Murray, in her arms, enjoying the feel of his warm body cradled against her chest as she sat in the rocker in the corner of the family room.

  Unlike her brother, Lara pretended everything was OK. But Faith knew otherwise. Faith had been staying by her daughter’s side at night until she drifted off. She heard the cries for help, and she saw the way her daughter jumped at every noise. Lara had insisted they dye her hair back to blonde immediately, which had left her with an orange tone. It might take a few weeks, but her own color would return, and her hair would grow long again, if that’s what Lara decided she wanted. Like Hudson, her daughter had lost a lot of weight. Unlike Hudson, Lara was talkative, in a nervous sort of rambling way that seemed forced at times. Her tattoo would be removed in a few days, and her first session with Kirsten Reich was set for the end of the week. It would be a long road to recovery.

  Mom and Dad were living here with Jana and Steve and the new baby. Dad’s leg had been shattered in dozens of places. He would be in a wheelchair for a while. But he was alive, and after seeing the devastation at their parents’ home, every one of them knew they were lucky Dad was still around.

  Lara wasn’t ready to go back to the house on Rolling Greens Lane, so the three of them—Hudson, Lara, and Faith—had agreed to live at a hotel while they decided whether or not to sell the house. Colton had said they could come live with him, but Bri and the kids would be coming home soon, and Faith didn’t want to intrude. They needed time alone.

  Since Lara’s return, Faith had found herself thinking only of Craig. It wasn’t forced. It just was. She cried at night, every part of her feeling the loss of him. But during the day, Faith left her tears behind and did her best to be strong for her children, encouraging them to say whatever was on their minds, letting them know they were safe and that she would be with them every step of the way while they all found their bearings in this new, strange world they lived in.

  “There,” Jana said as she came to stand before Faith, reaching out for Landon. “Look at that. You got him right to sleep.”

  “I still have the magic touch,” Faith told her.

  Their eyes met. “If I can ever be one-hundredth of the mom you are, I will consider myself lucky,” Jana whispered in her ear.

  Faith said nothing as she held back tears.

  “Let it go,” Jana said. “Today is for Craig, and Rage, too. If you want to cry, you should cry.”

  Faith nodded.

  “I want you to know that Steve and I talk about Craig all the time. He will not be forgotten. He was truly a brother to both of us. It will never be the same without him. Everyone who knew him feels the same. He deserves this day.”

  Tears fell freely from both of them. Jana took Landon in her arms and carried him to his bedroom down the hall.

  Faith wiped her eyes, then came to her feet. It was time to get ready. On her way to the bedroom where she’d left her clothes, she heard Lara and Hudson talking in another room. The door was ajar.

  “Did you really stab a nail into the bad guy’s eye?” Hudson asked.

  “I had to,” Lara told him. “I would have done anything to get away.”

  “I don’t even know if I could have done that. Did he hurt you?”

  “No. He just scared me.”

  “After they took you away, I couldn’t stop thinking about one of them hurting you.”

  “We’re lucky we had family to come find us,” Lara told him.

  “Yeah,” Hudson agreed. “A lot of the kids I met had no one. Joey’s family sold him and his brothers to those people. I never once believed them when they told me Mom and Dad didn’t want me any longer.”

  “I didn’t believe them, either.”

  Faith swallowed the lump stuck in her throat, glad they had each other to confide in, and then she proceeded to Jana’s bedroom and dressed quickly. It took her only a moment to slip into her black
sheath dress and heels. She brushed her hair back into a French twist and then applied lipstick. Mom joined her just as Faith was about to leave the bedroom.

  “With everything going on, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the money I found in the tree fort.”

  The statement surprised Faith. “That’s trafficking money,” Faith told her. “That money is the reason we’re getting ready to attend Craig’s funeral. It’s what destroyed our entire family. I’m going to use it to open a shelter for victims of trafficking. There are so many women who need a place to live, a place where they can get the help they need while they figure out their next step.” Faith looked at Mom. “You didn’t move the money, did you?”

  “Of course I did. You can’t just leave two million dollars in a tree fort. But don’t worry—Colton has it in a safe place.”

  “I’m sorry about your house,” Faith said, not for the first time.

  “It’s just a house, Faith, and none of this was your fault. I’ve been badgering your father for years to remodel the kitchen. Now I get to live with Jana and be close to my newest grandson while the house is redone. It’s a win-win,” she said. Mom placed her palm on Faith’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, honey. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I know you miss him.”

  “I do.”

  “You’re stronger than I ever was,” Mom told her. “You didn’t think twice about journeying into a world of darkness, a world nobody wanted to believe existed. You fought them all and took back what was yours.”

  Faith gazed fondly at her mom, knowing how lucky she was to have her love and support. “I know you as well as anyone,” Faith said, “and I know you would have done the same.”

  Mom smiled. “Come on. It’s time to go.”

  Together they exited the room and joined everyone outside where they would pile into the line of vehicles waiting to drive them to the cemetery.

  An hour later, Lara stood to Faith’s right while Hudson stood to her left behind a podium facing a large crowd of people—friends, family, and many she’d never seen before and might never see again after today.