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

Straightened-21

CHAPTER 29Kennedy knew Carl must be as exhausted as she was, but he did a good job hiding it. His tired eyes had softened into pools of deep compassion as soon as Vivian entered his office. If anybody’s appearance could incite so much sympathy, it was Wayne Abernathy’s widow. One of her earrings was tangled in her hair. Smudged eyeliner circled both her eyes, reversing any effect she may have expected from the heavy concealer she’d layered on. Her blouse was tidy and unwrinkled, but she had forgotten to tuck it in in the back, and her tailored skirt was twisted a full forty-five degrees off center.

She sat down. Kennedy wondered if Vivian even noticed her there.

“The detective called and showed me the surveillance footage, that woman who came last night. He wanted to know if I’d ever seen her before. I hadn’t.” She turned as if startled and looked straight at Kennedy but didn’t pause before continuing. “At that point, I didn’t care how she killed my husband or why, I just had to know if he was being unfaithful.” She tilted up her chin. “And before you go and tell me all about how jealousy is a sin, let me finish my story, because it gets a lot more complicated than a simple affair.”

Carl was leaning forward in his chair but didn’t interrupt.

“I had to know the truth, so I went and checked Wayne’s emails. The detective took his personal computer, what was left of it after the fire, but I had his passwords on mine. We didn’t keep secrets, you know.” She wore a haughty look, as if she were daring Carl to suggest her husband had anything to hide.

“It took a little bit of digging, but I finally found these. I printed them all up. I was planning to drive them straight to the detective, but I just ... I don’t know. I needed to come to you first.”

Carl hadn’t touched the papers yet, and Kennedy wanted to scream at him to hurry up. She didn’t feel like she could find any real rest, any real peace, until she got some answers. Answers that were sitting six inches away from her in a bundle that Carl refused to handle.

“Go ahead.” Vivian pushed the stack toward him. “It’s all in there. This will explain everything.”

Carl frowned. Why was he waiting? Didn’t he want to know the truth? Was there something in the pile he was afraid of reading?

Vivian rummaged through the stack. She pulled out one of the middle papers and set it on the top. “Let me show you. Last week, my husband received an email from this unknown account. Look at these attachments.” She fanned out a few more pages and pointed with a blood-red nail that was slightly chipped at the end. “These are emails that my son sent to Marcos Esperanza. And over here ...” She spread out another bundle. “These are his replies. Conversations from the past five months. Conversations where my son divulges some very personal, very private ... Well, you know all about that side of it.”

Carl nodded. “Yes, I do.”

Vivian pulled out a page from the bottom of the stack. “See here, all these download attachments, I clicked on one. It was a tape recording of Noah’s phone call with this counselor. I didn’t listen long, just enough to know it’s something my son would never want exposed.” She shook her head. “From the day my husband entered the public arena, I prayed to God our kids would be spared from the scandals that so often fall on families like ours. Last year we went through everything with Jodie ... I thought that was bad.” She let out a discordant chuckle. “Anyway, three days ago the person writing from this email address demanded a hundred thousand dollars from my husband to keep these records private. I know it’s a sin for me to say so, but anyone who would betray my son’s confidence and try to extort my family like this is a villain who deserves worse than death. I’ll ask God to forgive me tomorrow, but today, I’m not at all ashamed to say it. I’m glad Marcos Esperanza is dead. And I hope right now he’s suffering every imaginable torment for the way he destroyed our family.”

CHAPTER 30The gentle rebuke Kennedy expected from Carl never came. He sat silent for a moment, watching Vivian before he finally took one of her hands from across the desk. “I’m so sorry for what your family’s going through.”

Vivian was dabbing her face with a tissue when Woong’s screeching voice sounded at the door. “I’m hungry.”

Kennedy glanced at Carl and then forced herself to her feet. She could watch Woong for a few minutes so Carl and Vivian could have a little privacy. She shut the office door behind her.

“What’s your mom doing?” she asked Woong in Korean.

“Talking on the phone. That’s all she’s been doing the whole time we’ve been waiting.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

Woong kicked at the church carpet with his shoe. “Sometimes I just pretend so she leaves me alone. I didn’t think I’d have to sit in the car and listen to her blab for two hours. I’m still hungry.”

“It hasn’t been two hours. It’s only been about twenty minutes.” Kennedy tried to remember where in St. Margaret’s they kept the vending machine. By the youth room, probably. She led Woong down a side hall.

“But she just talks on and on and on.” Woong dashed forward the second the vending machine came into view, which also happened to be the same second Kennedy remembered she didn’t have any money with her. She was about to tell Woong they’d have to wait to eat, but he squatted down in front of the machine and flipped open the snack slot. Adroitly, he snaked his hand in and pulled out two bags of potato chips. “Here.” He tossed one of them to Kennedy.

She was so impressed he’d thought to share with her she decided not to chide him for stealing. “Thank you,” she said, making a mental note to give Carl the change she and Woong owed the machine as she popped a salty chip into her mouth.

“No, I just wanted you to open it for me.” He snatched the bag out of her hands.

She wasn’t all that hungry anyway. “Hey, does your mom know you came in here? I don’t want her getting worried.”

“She’s too busy blabbering.”

Kennedy thought back to the way her own mom used to hog the house phone for hours at a time. “Well, sometimes moms are like that. They’re so busy taking care of you that sitting down and talking to a friend makes them happy.”

“She didn’t sound happy.” Woong’s mouth was stuffed with chips so Kennedy could hardly understand him. “She was crying when I left.”

Crying? That wasn’t a good sign. “Who she was talking to?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Kennedy looked around. Maybe it was good Sandy got a little privacy. But what were she and Woong supposed to do? She could take him to the youth room. He might like the pool table there, and if she remembered right there was an air hockey setup too. Or they could go to one of the children’s church rooms. What kind of toys did a kid Woong’s age like to play with? Did they even play with toys still? The nursery was out of the question. Too babyish. Nothing but stacking blocks and board books.

That was it.

“Hey, do you like books? Do you want to go to the library and I’ll read to you?”

“Ok.” There was no excitement in his voice, but at least he didn’t argue.

At first, Kennedy thought she could translate some of the simpler kids books into Korean, but she’d been exaggerating her language skills and underestimating the jetlag-induced mental fog. She settled with a Bible story book and read it in English, answering Woong’s questions in Korean when he posed them.

“Why’s he got that knife?” Woong placed a grubby finger on the picture of Abraham.

“He thinks the knife is to sacrifice his son.”

“What’s sacrifice?”

“It’s back in the Old Testament, when God asked people to kill animals for him. It was the way their sins were forgiven back then, back before Jesus came and died on the cross.” She could tell by Woong’s face she’d lost him.

“They’re killing animals?” he asked.

“Well, Abraham didn’t bring an animal. Remember? God told Abraham to take his son up on the mountain and sacrifice him there.”

“So what kind of animal are they going to use?”

“No animal.” She was beginning to wish she’d chosen a less complicated story. “Just Isaac. God told Abraham to go kill Isaac.”

“He said to kill him?” Woong’s eyes widened.

“Well, that’s not what ended up happening, see.” In the back of her head, Kennedy was wondering if Sandy would be upset she’d read Woong such a disturbing story. Why couldn’t she have stuck with something better suited for kids, like Noah’s ark or the talking donkey? She knew she was doing a poor job explaining and would have to start from the beginning. “God wanted to test Abraham to see if he’d obey, so he ...”

“I never knew God let people kill each other! That’s so cool!” Woong jumped off Kennedy’s lap and started making pretend machine gun noises, holding his imaginary weapon. Well, at least once Sandy learned what Kennedy taught her son, she’d never call on her to babysit.

Woong ducked away from some sort of pretend explosive. “I wonder if God will let me kill somebody one day!”

Kennedy shut the children’s Bible and promised herself never to volunteer for children’s ministry at any church at any point in her life.

Woong had just emerged from behind a desk to launch a grenade toward Kennedy when Sandy walked in. “There you are. I was wondering where you were hiding.”

Kennedy blushed and slipped the Bible onto the table behind her.

Sandy grabbed Woong’s hand. “Come on now. Daddy’s done with his meeting, and we’re going to have a picnic out on the back lawn. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Woong’s countenance brightened significantly at the word picnic.

“Don’t run ahead now,” Sandy chided as they made their way down the church hall. “Remember last time when you knocked over those communion trays.”

Woong didn’t seem to hear. Sandy grabbed his hand again and managed to hold onto it for a full five seconds before he yanked himself free and sprinted ahead to his dad’s office.

“God’s gonna let me kill you one day!” he was shouting. Kennedy was glad he was speaking Korean so his parents wouldn’t hear his bizarre proclamation.

When they got to his office, Carl gave Sandy a small kiss and then frowned. He wiped her cheek with his thumb. “Have you been crying, princess?”

Sandy’s eyes scrunched up into a radiant smile that spread crinkle lines across her entire face. “Yes, but it’s good news. At least, I hope you’ll think so. Come on. Let’s get this picnic spread out, and I’ll tell you all about it while we eat.”

Carl slipped his arm around her waist. “Honestly, honey, I don’t think I can handle one more surprise. Could you just tell me? Any other day ...” he began, but Sandy cut him short.

“Of course. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that.” She looked over her shoulder as if she’d lost something. “Oh, dear. Maybe today isn’t the best time for this at all. I really should have prayed about this first. Now I ...”

“Just tell me what it is, woman.” Carl’s tone was tired.

“All right.” Sandy twisted up the handles of her floral canvas bag that held the snacks she’d bought for them. “Ok.” She took a deep breath. “While Woong was napping, I made a phone call. It was to someone we haven’t heard from in ten years.”

“Skip the guessing game,” Carl sighed. “Please?”

“Ok.” Sandy braced herself. “I was talking with our foster son, Guy. He says he’d like to get together.”

CHAPTER 31“You’re mad now, aren’t you? I can tell you’re mad.” Sandy passed Carl his lunch from the restaurant and pulled out a few other snacks she had picked up during their shopping spree.

“I never said I was mad.” Carl’s voice was expressionless as he unwrapped his sandwich.

“Yeah, but I should have talked with you about it first. It’s just that I was telling Kennedy about Guy in the car, and I was thinking about Wayne and Noah never having a chance to reconcile before ... But still, it wasn’t right for me to jump in full-speed and start making ...”

“It’s not that, hon.” Carl reached out to stroke her cheek. “I’m just tired, that’s all. Tired of the hatred, the hypocrisy, the broken relationships. And I just can’t help feeling like somehow this is all my fault. Maybe if I’d talked about how we need to love each other more, accept one another where we’re at, maybe Wayne wouldn’t have been killed. If I’d preached more on the importance of grace in our lives, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” He shook his head.