Kennedy Stern Christian Suspense Complete Box Set (Books 1-9)

Turbulence-2-6

Something was changing in Kennedy as she read so many missionary stories. Apart from the inevitable guilt she experienced every time she thought about how many people she wasn’t sharing the gospel with, she found a deeper conviction to try to pray better. She didn’t quite know what that meant, and she was sure she was floundering just as poorly as she ever had, but at least she was more aware now of her own shortcomings and need for growth. She certainly wouldn’t measure up to people like George Mueller, the orphanage director whose entire life was a story of God’s inexhaustible providence coupled with man’s boundless faith. She recalled how he kept a list of unsaved friends. He persevered for decades interceding for dozens, maybe hundreds of different people until they finally came to Christ. A few months after he died, the last person on George Mueller’s prayer list became a Christian.

That’s what Kennedy needed. To pray for Willow. Forget about alienating her roommate by forcing her into spiritual conversations. Pray for Willow and see what God did.

It sounded like a solid plan.

It also sounded like a pathetic cop-out.

Well, she was trying. God must be able to test her heart and see that much, at least.

She looked at her roommate. Willow was gorgeous, with a certain flamboyant style that attracted attention wherever she went. No wonder Ray had sought her out instead of someone like Kennedy, who felt herself about as dumpy as Bob Cratchit’s wife in A Christmas Carol.

In general, Kennedy wasn’t a fan of unnatural hair colors, but there was something so stunning about Willow’s multilayered dye job. The highlights rippled in and out until her whole head was like a box of crayons in all shades of blue. There was an iridescent shine that made her hair glow with radiance.

Yes, Kennedy was definitely Emily Cratchit in comparison. Of course Willow would be the one getting the attention. Kennedy shouldn’t be jealous. It was miraculous that Dominic took enough of an interest in her to invite her out a few times over the past semester. Even so, their few trips together hardly constituted a dating relationship, which she wouldn’t have time for anyway, not with her studies and dual lab classes. Besides, there was something distant about Dominic. Maybe it was just a personality trait, but after a whole semester, she still didn’t feel like she knew him more than she did the first night they met. She’d never seen him angry. Never seen him sad except for one weekend after he had to tell two frantic parents that the investigators had recovered their little girl’s drowned body. Even then, he was mostly stoic as he related the horrible events.

Kennedy’s mom was glad to hear that Kennedy had found someone, even though at first she’d been a little concerned about the age difference. More than anything, Kennedy got the sense her mom was just glad that Dominic didn’t have HIV like other people who’d come into her life in the past.

Sometimes Kennedy wondered why she spent time with Dominic at all. It’s not like she’d be ready to settle down and marry in another year or two. He’d be nearly forty by the time she graduated med school. There was no way she expected him to wait that long, even if he was the kind of guy she could picture one day settling down with.

She caught herself staring at Willow’s new friend Ray, wondering how old he was, wondering what kind of women caught his eye, if he was the kind of teacher all the girls at his school giggled about at their lunch tables.

While she was lost in thought, he stood up and stretched his legs in the aisle. “It’s been great visiting. I wish I could stay longer. I don’t think I’ve seen a Freddie flick since I was a teenager.”

Willow’s smile was as dazzling as always. “Well then, you were long overdue. Come back in a little bit and we can watch the rest.”

“Yeah, sure. If I finish grading these geometry tests before we land, I’d like that a lot.” He turned to look at Kennedy, who hoped he hadn’t noticed her staring. “You can have your seat back now. Sorry I stole your friend for so long.”

Kennedy made some sort of awkward reply and just barely got out of her seat without tripping into him in the process.

“That was smooth,” Willow teased when Kennedy sat down next to her.

Kennedy rolled her eyes. After a year and a half sharing the same tiny dorm, she was used to Willow’s sarcastic sense of humor, but she didn’t have the patience for it. Not right now.

“So what’d you and Granny yak about over there?” Willow asked. “For a while there, it looked like you’d found yourself a new best buddy.”

Kennedy didn’t know why she felt defensive of Grandma Lucy all of a sudden. She did what she could to change the subject. “Ray seems real nice.”

Willow lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He is.” She brushed her blue bangs out of her eyes. “A little bit too nice for my taste, but it was fine.”

Kennedy didn’t know what to say next. She hoped Christmas vacation with Willow’s family wouldn’t be this awkward. On campus, they never had a hard time coming up with topics to talk about. That was because something was always going on. Willow had new plays to rehearse, new theater friends to gossip about. Kennedy was always reading a different classic, and since Willow wanted to be as cultured and literate as she could without actually having to sit down and read anything, she often asked Kennedy for the abridged versions. But now, with half the day left just to get to Seattle, Kennedy was afraid they’d already run out of conversation topics. It wasn’t as if she could talk about people like Gladys Aylward and Hudson Taylor, missionaries who Willow would insist destroyed indigenous cultures with their colonialist zeal and ethnocentrism.

She sighed. How was she supposed to witness when she could barely hold a simple conversation? God must have other plans for Willow. If she was going to hear the gospel message, it would have to come from somebody else. Wasn’t it Jesus himself who lamented that a prophet is never accepted in his hometown? That’s what was going on here. The two girls were just too close. Willow had seen Kennedy at her worst, had walked with her through the most painful moments of her post-traumatic stress flare-ups, through losing her best friend and lab partner last year after making a complete i***t of herself on a live news segment ...

“What’s going on in that brain of yours, genius?” Willow asked.

Kennedy was glad she didn’t have to answer truthfully. “Nothing really. I guess I’m just tired.” She looked over at Willow, who didn’t respond. Kennedy tried to figure out who she was staring at. “What are you ...”

“Shhh.” Willow grabbed her arm and didn’t let go. “Quiet,” she hissed.

“What is it?” Kennedy whispered.

Willow leaned in until their heads touched. “That guy there. The one with that gaudy Hawaiian shirt.”

Kennedy stared. “What about him?”

“Lean over this way.”

Kennedy didn’t see anything out of the ordinary besides the fact that he was so overweight. That and the way his teenage daughter sat so close to him. Still, Kennedy had flown internationally at that age and probably fell asleep on her dad’s shoulder half a dozen times or more.

“That is so wrong.” Willow reached up and turned on her alert light.

Tracy was stocking a snack tray behind them. “I’ll be right there.”

“What is it?” Kennedy asked as unease crept up her spine like a hairy tarantula.

The flight attendant bent over toward Willow and turned off the light. “What can I do for you?”

“That man in the Hawaiian shirt.” Willow nodded with her head.

The woman frowned. “What about him?”

Willow’s penciled eyebrows narrowed dramatically. “He was pulling her hair back. Like this.” She snatched Kennedy’s ponytail and gave it a half-hearted tug. “Like he was threatening her.”

The woman paused and glanced at Kennedy. “You saw it, too?”

“No, but I ... Well, the angle’s different here, and it ...”

Tracy let out her breath and donned a plastered smile that only slightly concealed her annoyance. Or maybe she was just tired. “Well, if you see anything else suspicious ...”

“Something’s not right.” Willow shook her head. “Something’s definitely wrong over there.”

Tracy gently touched Willow’s shoulder. “I’ll tell the other attendants to keep their eyes open, ok?”

Willow ran her fingers through her glossy hair. “There’s got to be something ...”

The woman leaned a little closer. “Thanks for bringing it to our attention. You did the right thing.”

Kennedy couldn’t tell if she was saying what she needed to say to end the conversation or if there was genuine concern behind her voice. How many people did these flight attendants come across each day? She’d never thought about it before, but it seemed like it must be one of the grossest, most thankless jobs imaginable. Cleaning up used barf bags, listening to squealing babies, reacting during any number of medical emergencies ...

“Oh, before you go,” Kennedy piped up.

“Yes?” Now the exhaustion in Tracy’s voice was unmistakable even though she still tried a winning attempt at a smile.

“How’s the patient doing? The one who needed the extra oxygen earlier? Is he ok?”

The smiled warmed for a brief moment. “I can’t discuss that, but I can tell you that if we thought he was in any danger, the pilot would have diverted the flight a long time ago to get him to a hospital.” She straightened her crisp uniform. “I’ll be around in just a few minutes with drinks.”

Neither girl answered. Willow continued to stare at the fat man and his teenage daughter. Kennedy tried but couldn’t pinpoint anything abnormal or suspicious about either of them.

After a few more minutes, Willow pulled out her phone. “How about a game of Scrabble?” she asked.

Kennedy felt like she must be letting God down every minute of the day. She couldn’t talk to her roommate about Jesus. She couldn’t tell her about the way to salvation or the price he paid so her sins could be forgiven. But she could play a Scrabble knockoff on her roommate’s smartphone and wrack up three or four hundred points by the time the score was settled.

Kennedy smiled even though she knew her expression would be even less convincing than the flight attendant’s.

“Sure. You go first.”

CHAPTER 7T minus 11 minutes

“I don’t even know why I bother to play you.” Willow sulked dramatically.

Less than half an hour after they started their game, Kennedy was declared the winner by fifty-seven points. Her highest word, quench, had surged her score ahead. Willow never had the chance to recover.

Kennedy wadded up her pretzel bag and shoved it into her empty cup. Why hadn’t she thought to pack a few snacks to take with her on the plane? They would touch down in Detroit soon, but they wouldn’t get off until Seattle, where she hoped they’d have time to grab some real food.

“I’m going to use the bathroom.” Kennedy unbuckled.

“You’ll have to go up front,” Willow told her. “That guy in the Carhartts locked himself in a few minutes ago.”

“Again?” Kennedy asked, remembering how backed up the bathroom line had grown earlier in the flight. Oh, well. It would be a good idea to stretch her legs anyway. What was that her dad was always worried about? Embolisms midflight or something like that. Kennedy seriously doubted she was in any danger of developing blood clots at her age, but she’d end up with a whole body full of sore and achy muscles if she didn’t move around a little bit.

She glanced across the aisle where Grandma Lucy still slept with the cowboy handkerchief covering her face. She hadn’t joked when she said she’d earned herself a nap. In front of Willow, BO Dude was busy chewing his pencil and working on a crossword puzzle that only had four answers filled, with a glaring spelling mistake in the top row. Several seats ahead, Ray leaned over a stack of papers and was so busy with his quintessential red pen he didn’t even notice her pass, or if he did, he didn’t acknowledge her. The girl in the Bon Jovi shirt sat in front of him, and Kennedy slowed her pace so she could observe her longer without getting caught staring. Her father in his Hawaiian shirt had an arm around her, and the girl seemed a little squeamish, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. How many teen girls did Kennedy know who wanted to be affectionate with their dads in public?