Calculated Revenge

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  “Father God,” Laney started, “I’ve been really angry with You for a long time. But now, I’m at the end of my ro-ope.” Her voice cracked, and Noah pulled her closer. “I think I’ve always known that blaming You for people’s evil actions was silly, so I want You to know that I choose…to forgive You. And I ask You to forgive me, too.” She paused, and her shoulders heaved. “And I forgive my mom. I don’t understand why Gracie’s gone, or where Briana is, but You know. I’m giving them to You now.” Sobs replaced words on her lips.

  “God, You know I haven’t been all that faithful to follow You the way my parents taught me.” Noah took over praying. “I figured doing my best to be a good man was enough. I don’t think that so much anymore. I think I need lots of forgiveness and mercy from You, just like everybody else. So if You’ll have me, I’d like to be Your man now, not just my own.” He took a deep breath. “If little Briana is in heaven with You, then she’s got the best Father already, but if not, I’d consider it the highest privilege if You and Laney would let me be her earthly Daddy.” Laney stirred in his arms and kissed his chin. His pulse gave a kabump. He’d take that as a yes from her. “In that case, we need to find her, and we need Your help. We thank You in advance for Your answer. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Laney echoed. She rose, not releasing his hand, and tugged him after her. “Let’s go find Bree.”

  Laney glanced at the strong profile of the man beside her on the deer track. They’d been searching and calling for another ten minutes with no results but a few more mosquito bites. Noah looked so calm, so confident, while her stomach churned.

  For that brief instant of prayer, she’d felt an incredible release in choosing to forgive and to trust. But with every passing minute, worries and fears battered her emotions. Frowning, she followed Noah up the path. The battle was in her thoughts and feelings, but did that mean she had to give up on faith? No! To preserve her sanity, she had to hang on to God and the man He’d sent her way for a time like this.

  Ahead, the river gurgled, and they emerged on the bank. A figure sat slumped on a rock at water’s edge.

  “George Addison,” Laney murmured.

  Noah led the way over to him. “Happy to see you’re all right.”

  The man stood and faced them. “Likewise. No thanks to me.” His complexion was pasty pale, and his eyes bloodshot, but the strong gaze and firm set of his jaw spoke a sobriety Laney hadn’t seen in him since her childhood.

  “I’m a mess,” he pronounced. “I don’t know how I let myself get this bad.” He lowered his gaze. “Sorry for running off like that, but I wasn’t thinking too clear.”

  “You were also being shot at.” Laney stepped toward him. This man was much more like the neighbor she’d liked.

  George examined his fingers. “Did they get away?”

  “No, they’re in custody,” Noah said.

  George nodded and sighed. “It’s for the best. They had to be stopped. I’m going to visit him, you know.” He looked up at them.

  “Visit?” Laney blinked.

  “In prison. I’m going to see Watts as often as I can. So he turned out to be a rotten human being. Like I should judge.” He snorted. “He’s still my son. And as long as there’s life, there’s hope. Isn’t that the saying?”

  Laney’s chest tightened. As long as there’s life…Was there really any hope of finding Briana still breathing? Noah squeezed Laney’s arm as if he knew what she was thinking. She shot him a grateful look.

  “Maybe you can help us out, George,” he said. “Would you know of any hiding places around here? Somewhere they could stash a little girl?”

  George responded with a blank stare. “The kid’s still missing?”

  Laney’s heart sank to her toes. They’d never find her daughter. Briana would remain close to them only in their memories…like Gracie.

  Then George’s face brightened. “Say, come to think of it, when I bought the property, I noticed an old root cellar marked on the plat map.”

  Laney rushed forward and grabbed the man’s arm. “Where, George, where?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “I’m not too clear on the exact spot, but it was somewhere behind the cabin near the river. I never went looking for it myself.”

  Noah whipped out his cell phone. “I’ll notify the searchers to converge in that area. Laney, we’re going to find that cellar. I promise you.”

  Laney’s breath snagged. Yes, they had to locate the cellar, but what would they find in it?

  Eternal minutes turned into an awful hour, as searchers crawled like ants over every square inch of the forestation behind the cabin. Noah stamped his foot on the earth beneath his feet, listening for the hollow sound that would betray a cavity below. Nearby, but unseen in the trees, men’s voices called as they cleared brush and checked grid areas. If Adelle and Watts had used the cellar as a hiding place, they had hidden the entrance well.

  A few feet from Noah, Laney made the same stamping motions he did. Her face was drawn, gaze fevered, hope stretched to the limit. They neared the edge of the tree line. Not far away a steep slope led down to the river. Noah approached the lip of the slope, and a sizeable patch of moldering leaves caught his eye. The area was roughly square and shadowed beneath the massive branches of an oak tree. Had someone spread the leaves to mask a spot of earth they didn’t want discovered?

  Noah eased over in that direction, watching Laney from the corner of his eye. She was absorbed in checking an area farther upriver. He didn’t want to get her hopes up until he could confirm that he’d found something. As he neared the suspicious spot, he noted that the leaves seemed raised an inch or so above the other forest floor mulch. His heart rate went into overdrive. He lifted his foot and brought it down on the edge of the leaf mound. A woody thunk answered him.

  Noah closed his eyes, and a hot tear traced a path down one cheek. Thank You, God. Now make us strong to bear whatever we find.

  “Here!” he cried. “It’s here!”

  A feminine shriek announced that Laney had heard. Noah got on the phone and notified the search coordinator as Laney rushed up beside him. She fell to her knees and began sweeping leaves away, saying, “Oh, God, please,” over and over again. Noah closed his phone and helped her remove the debris. Soon, a set of paintless and rotting cellar doors was revealed. The sound of voices said the other searchers were drawing near.

  Laney lunged for the rusty handles, but Noah pulled her back.

  “Let me go!” She wriggled against him.

  “We’ll go together, but we’ll go with caution. The wood is rotten, and we have no idea if there are critters down there that won’t take kindly to intrusion.” Noah beat back a mental picture of a dead or drugged Briana at the mercy of a carnivorous animal.

  Laney’s face went pasty-pale. She was a bright girl. She’d glimpsed the same vision he had.

  “Stand aside!” Burns’s strident tone broke them apart. “This is a potential crime scene. We’ll take it from here.”

  The lead agent reached them, along with a couple of other agents and sheriff’s department searchers.

  Laney marched up to Burns and stuck her face in his. “You’ll have to arrest me to keep me from going down to look for my daughter. And if you do, I wonder how that will look in the newspapers—FBI Jails Distraught Mother of Abducted Child.”

  Burns’s mouth came open but no sound came out. She’d pushed a major hot button, and she knew it. Noah suppressed a snicker.

  “Noah and I are going to see if my daughter is down there.” She poked him in the chest. “If she’s awake and scared all alone in the dark, we’re going to be the first people she sees. After that, you can set up housekeeping in the cellar for all I care.”

  “Miss Thompson,” Burns said with exaggerated patience, “an agent is going down with you. Evidence must be protected.”

  “Send as many as you like, but Briana is not evidence. We’re going down now.” She turned away and marched toward Noah.

&n
bsp; He nodded to her and pulled the handle on one of the doors. It was more solid and heavy than it looked, and the hinges creaked a loud protest. The darkness below exhaled a musty odor, but not the smell of a decomposing carcass. Of course, if Adelle and Watts had killed Briana, she wouldn’t have been dead long enough to stink. A steep and narrow set of wooden stairs led downward, another hazard if any of them were rotten.

  Noah grabbed Laney’s hand. The little member was clammy and trembled. Bold as a lion to the pretentious agent, but petrified of what the next few minutes might hold. He didn’t blame her.

  He brought her fingers to his lips. “Me first.”

  She nodded without a word.

  Noah held out a hand toward one of the searchers who had a flashlight on his belt. “Mind if I use that?”

  The man gave it to him. “Good luck.”

  Pointing the beam down onto the steps, Noah tried the first one. It groaned but held, and he descended another and another. Laney followed so close behind him her warm breath feathered against his neck. He glanced over his shoulder at a third set of footfalls on the stairs. Burns himself, scowling as dark as the pit below them.

  Noah proceeded and, a few steps later, reached a packed earth floor. He panned the flashlight around the area. Empty shelves lined the walls, some of them broken and tumbled into splintered junk, but others intact. Laney gasped and clutched his arm as he halted the light on an odd-shaped mound on the floor in the corner. Burns darted ahead of them, holding a forestalling palm in their direction. They crept forward anyway.

  Noah stared down at the forlorn heap of bones and hair clothed in moldering jeans and what might once have been a red shirt.

  “Gracie!”

  Laney’s soft wail melted his heart.

  “We found you. Oh, we found you at last.” The words tumbled from Laney’s lips. She should be sad, but a fierce joy blazed through her blood. Then ice chilled her veins. “Briana!” She whirled, staring wildly around the room.

  Noah’s arm came around her, clasping her tight, steadying her. The light streaming from his hand darted here, then there, then the far corner beyond the steps. There lay another mound, small and oddly shaped, like the one they’d just found. As one, they rushed forward. At the last second, Noah inserted himself in front of her and held her back.

  “It’s Bree!” She swatted at him, but he caught her hand.

  “Let me check her first.”

  Chest heaving, throat nearly closed, she managed a nod. He turned and knelt beside the little girl in pink princess pajamas who lay motionless in a fetal position in the dirt. Briana’s thick brown hair spread in a cloud around her head. Her sweet profile, pale as glass, was angelically peaceful. In death or sleep? Laney held her breath as Noah leaned over her daughter and touched her throat under the jawbone where a pulse should be.

  Had to be!

  Then Noah looked at her, and his face burst into a brilliant grin. He scooped Briana up and thrust her into Laney’s reaching arms. “She’s okay!” His triumphant laugh filled the dark pit.

  Laney cuddled the warm body of her slumbering daughter and laughed and cried as Noah’s arms came around them both, cradling Briana between them. Her daughter stirred, and Laney looked down to find the little eyelids fluttering.

  “She’s waking up. Oh, thank You, Jesus!”

  “Amen!” Noah bent and placed a kiss on Briana’s forehead.

  The child’s eyes flipped open wide, but she didn’t focus on her mother. Instead, Briana’s groggy smile was aimed at Noah.

  “I knew my daddy would find me.”

  TWENTY

  “Stop that fighting, boys!” Laney stepped between two fourth grade hooligans who had taken swings at each other on the playground. “It’s barely a week into the school year, and you’re not getting off to a wise start.”

  They glared at each other, then scowled up at her.

  “We’re headed straight for the principal’s office.” She wagged a finger at them, and their gazes dropped. “March!”

  “Aw!” One of them protested, as she herded them toward the door.

  Laney ushered them inside, up the hallway, and into the outer administration office.

  Miss Aggie looked up from her work and sent the youngsters a strong stare. “You two again?” She looked at Laney. “I’ll get Mr. Ryder.”

  The boys studied the toes of their sneakers.

  A moment later, Noah strode out of his inner sanctum, stern gaze fixed on the pair of would-be Rocky Balboas. He crooked a finger in their direction, and they dragged their feet toward his office. The principal ushered them inside, then, hand on his doorknob, turned and winked at Laney.

  She blew him a kiss, and a beam of sunlight from the window behind Miss Aggie’s desk sent sparks dancing from the rock on her left ring finger—right next to the wedding band that had been a fixture for the past five weeks.

  “I saw that.” Ellen Kline’s voice came from over by the teacher mailboxes.

  Laney laughed and hooked arms with her friend. As they headed out the door, she waved at Miss Aggie. The woman’s understated smile radiated a blessing.

  “You know what I think,” Ellen said as they proceeded up the hall. “Noah puts kids up to those antics so he can catch a glimpse of his new bride.”

  “Oh, you!” Laney giggled, cheeks warming.

  The school board had been relieved that their star principal decided to continue serving the district, rather than returning to his former career. But like Noah said, private investigator was no occupation for a family man. Approval of their marriage had been universal on their return to Cottonwood Grove in safety and triumph—except for a few jealous looks from several single women in the area. She sympathized with them. Noah was quite a catch, but he was all hers. Well, not quite.

  She smiled as she returned to playground duty. She knew a little girl who couldn’t get enough of her new daddy. Laney could almost be jealous if she weren’t so deliriously happy.

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you had to hang on to your seat throughout the thrills and chills of mortal danger with Noah Ryder, Laney Thompson and little Briana.

  I enjoyed setting the tale in localities of rural Minnesota. As a resident of such a rural area, I’m familiar with the idiosyncrasies of our unique subculture. The Pantry Café is a real institution in my hometown (yes, the pancakes are bigger than the plate), as are people like Mr. Bingham. And it is not uncommon to see empty vehicles left running in the grocery store parking lot in the dead of winter.

  The subject of child abduction, or child abuse of any kind, is dear to my heart. I have a passion for teaching, training and protecting children, much like the main characters in the story. If you have an opportunity to support programs that protect children, as well as those that seek the lost, I urge you to do so. You can find more information at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (www.missingkids.com) or the National Child Safety Council (www.nationalchildsafetycouncil.org) and other fine child protection groups.

  As always, Dear Reader, you are invited to visit me at www.jillelizabethnelson.com for ongoing book giveaways, updates, and excerpts of current and coming releases.

  Abundant Blessings to you and yours,

  Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  Laney’s past comes back to haunt her in the form of her sister’s backpack. Have you ever had the unexpected appearance of a physical object or person carry you back to a significant moment in your past?

  A past trauma spurred Noah to make a drastic career change. Name a pivotal moment in your own life and what changed.

  Guilt haunts Laney and Noah. How are their reasons for feeling guilty similar? How are they different? Are their reasons valid?

  What methods are Laney and Noah using to deal with their guilt? When you experience guilty feelings, how do you deal with them? Name healthy ways to deal with guilt—real or perceived.

  Sometimes we encounter difficult people. At
times, these are the very people we would expect to provide solutions rather than obstacles. Who is this person in Laney and Noah’s lives? If this has ever happened to you, how did you deal with the issue?

  Briana’s innocent faith provides encouragement to the adults in her life. Can you name a time when a child provided the inspiration you needed to get through a problem?

  Laney instinctively trusts Noah and is drawn to him romantically, even though Pierce seems a more sensible choice. Has your instinct ever argued with your intellect? Which voice did you listen to, and how did the situation turn out?

  Noah is a strong, decisive man, but the death of his fiancée devastated him. When Laney’s situation arises, does he revert to self-sufficiency or acknowledge his insufficiency and call upon God? Are you a more self-reliant or God-reliant person?

  The Thompson family had decided not to tell Briana about her murdered Aunt Grace until she was older. Have you ever faced a situation when you had to decide how much or what to tell a child about a difficult issue?

  Laney’s parents keep a major secret from their daughter. If the secret had not connected to the threats on Laney and Briana, do you think such knowledge about a parent should be shared with the offspring? Why or why not?

  Our sin can have far-reaching affects on others. Can you name a time when a wrong thing you did impacted someone innocent? Or a time when something someone else did negatively impacted your life? How can these issues be addressed?

  Why did George and Adelle’s marriage fall apart and Roland and Loretta’s heal and grow stronger?

  Bitterness twisted Adelle into a woman capable of doing anything to get revenge. Does retribution bring permanent satisfaction? When have you been tempted to “get back” at someone? Did you follow through? Why or why not, and what was the result of your choice?