by Gregg Stutts
Max finished his coffee, rubbed his eyes and tried to grasp what he was hearing. Trying to beat Bergen Catholic suddenly felt like child’s play. He couldn’t even come up with a question to ask.
“Since 9-11, many on our team, at least the ones who are still alive, have been re-activated.”
“Re-activated? By who? To do what?”
Willy pulled the phone from his pocket. “Rose texted. She needs me.” He stood up to leave. “I’m sorry, but I have to get home.”
Max had a thousand questions that weren’t going to be answered, at least not now. He paid the check and walked Willy to his truck.
Willy started the motor and rolled the window down. “Max, I believe the events we’ve seen in Lakeside this summer are a part of something bigger.” He glanced at his phone. “I’m sorry, Rose really needs me. We can talk more this weekend. After you beat up on that team from New Jersey.”
Max got in his truck. In the quiet of the cab, he tried to process what he’d just heard. He looked at his phone, expecting to see a text from Willy that said it really was a joke. But there was no text. Willy had been serious.
And Max felt it in the core of his being that Willy was right, that something bigger was going on and that he and his family were being pulled into it.
Chapter 99
With only three days until they kicked off the season, Max didn’t get home until almost nine o’clock. He kissed Michelle and then looked in on Carrie who was sleeping peacefully. The last thing he’d eaten was fourteen hours ago at breakfast with Willy. Whatever was on the stove smelled delicious and was already making his mouth water. “Mmmm…what are we having?”
“Chicken and sausage jambalaya,” she said. “With a salad. So why don’t you go sit down and relax a minute while I finish up? We’ll celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” He panicked while trying to remember what occasion he may have forgotten.
“I guess you didn’t hear. The Freedom Protection Act was overturned. It was close, something like fifty-two to forty-eight percent, but it got voted down.”
“I voted after meeting Willy and then completely forgot about it. I guess we dodged a bullet on that one.” He hadn’t intended to make a pun, but he thought it was clever anyway.
He turned the television on and flipped through the channels to find an episode of Seinfeld, but stopped on a news station just as the anchor was cutting to a reporter outside the White House. “The president today announced the resignation of his chief of staff and wasted no time in naming a replacement. Ethan Faraday will fill the role effective immediately. Faraday has served as a special assistant to the president and has built a reputation in Washington for getting things done.” In the upper right corner of the screen, they displayed a picture of the president’s new chief-of-staff.
The remote fell from his hand and clanked against the coffee table. “It’s him.”
“Who?” Michelle called from the kitchen.
He stood up and pointed at the screen. “Him. The guy. It’s him.”
Michelle tried to see the screen from the kitchen. “I can’t see. Who are you talking about?”
“That’s the guy who we saw having dinner with Blair Morgan.”
She hurried into the living room.
“It’s him. It’s the same guy who killed the cop.”
“The president’s chief-of-staff?” she said.
Max sat back down, the strength drained from his legs. They watched as the president put his arm around his new chief-of-staff and the two men posed for pictures.
Max turned the television off and walked to the window. “The president’s chief-of-staff is a killer. A murderer. He murdered a cop.”
“I...I don’t even know what to say.” Michelle covered her face. “You don’t think the president knows, do you?”
He looked at Michelle and said, “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. But I know.”
What’s Next?
I hope you enjoyed this third book in the series. Can I ask you to leave a review? It helps me reach other readers like you.
The fourth book will release in 2020. If you’d like to be notified when it comes out, then follow me on Facebook by CLICKING HERE.
About the Author
Robyn and Gregg Stutts
Go down the coast about sixty miles from New York City and sixty miles east of Philadelphia and you’ll find my hometown of Brick, New Jersey. It was a great place to grow up and play football! After high school, I attended Cornell University where I met my wife Robyn. We got married on June 8, 1985 and have four wonderful children (three daughters and a son) and four (soon to be five) grandsons.
Now we live in Fayetteville, Arkansas where Robyn leads the ministry of Young Life in this area of the state. Whether it’s through writing, coaching or speaking, my passion is to help people believe God, not their circumstances, negative emotions or the voice in their head that tells them they’re not good enough or that God won’t come through. My other passion is to help couples build amazing marriages. If you’d like to know more, please check out my website: GreggStutts.com
