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

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

The closest parking spot Willow could find was four blocks away, so she, Kennedy, and Othello got out of the car and started to walk. Kennedy was glad for her new trench coat, a cute birthday present from her dad last February. A spring chill had settled in the air as soon as the sun set. She could hear the crowds several streets away. She strained her ears, searching for any hint of anger or potential violence. Her abs were already quivering. Another reason she was thankful for her coat.

Willow sided up next to her. “Still doing ok?”

Kennedy nodded even though she already regretted letting Willow talk her into coming here. How big of a crowd was there going to be, and how many of them would be sick and contagious? How long would Willow and Othello want to stay? What did anyone hope this mass undulation of human bodies would accomplish?

The crowd spilled off the sidewalks and onto the side streets. At first, Kennedy thought someone must have brought in searchlights, but then she realized the glow was coming from the hundreds of lit candles the people were holding as they stood in front of the courthouse steps. Someone was praying into a loudspeaker system. There was something familiar about his cadence even though Kennedy couldn’t place the voice. “Father God, gracious Savior, we come before you as a humbled people. We come before you as a society that is broken, that is riddled with injustice and oppression. We come before you as individuals who are sick, sinful, enslaved to all kinds of depravity. We confess that we don’t deserve your mercy. We confess that we don’t deserve your kindness towards us. But you are a God who delights in his people. You are a God who delights to extend forgiveness. So forgive us, Father. Forgive us our trespasses, our prejudices, our bigotry, our chauvinism, our selfish ambitions. Forgive us our hatred, merciful Lord. Show us once again had to love one another. Heal our society.”

Kennedy frowned. The crowd of candleholders was far too thick for her to hope to see the speaker. She didn’t just know his voice. She recognized the way her soul burned while he prayed. Where had she heard prayer like that before?

Dominic?

She was so upset over everything Reuben was going through, she had almost forgotten how Dominic prayed with her that first night they met. He was an enigma. How could a Christian with such passion for God serve in the same police force that had imprisoned her friend? Was he just here to assuage his guilty conscience?

The prayer continued, and the crowd grew quieter with each refrain. “Calm our spirits, Lord. Where there is fear, grant us your peace. Where there is anger, grant us your mercy. Where there is hurt, grant us your healing. Heal our relationships. Heal our justice system. Heal our broken families. Heal our society. We have no hope other than you, Father.”

At first, Kennedy found it strange that he hadn’t even mentioned Reuben. But on the other hand, he had addressed more in those few minutes than she could have ever hoped to cover if she’d spent an hour in prayer by herself. It was the difference between a nurse wrapping up a gushing wound and a surgeon going in and cauterizing the source of the bleed. Dominic was a powerful man of prayer, but that still didn’t explain what he was doing on the speakers’ platform. There were far too many people for this to be an open mic night at the prayer vigil. Was he here as a member of the police force? What would his superiors think?

“Thank you very much, Reverend,” announced an unknown voice. “That was Pastor Dominic, Protestant chaplain for the Boston Police Department.”

Chaplain?

The noise increased exponentially. Whatever sense of peace had rested on the crowd during Dominic’s prayer, it was gone now. There was no shouting or anything Kennedy might have expected from a protest like this, only the rustlings from several hundred fidgeting people. Coughs and murmurs threatened to drown out the soft-spoken Episcopalian minister who was the next to offer up her prayer.

“Come on.” Willow tugged on the belt of Kennedy’s trench coat. “Othello went up ahead. Said he saw some of his friends up there.”

Before Kennedy could respond, Willow began her complicated weave through the crowd of candleholders. Kennedy wondered what the fire chief would say at the sight. She pictured the sidewalks covered in candle drippings tomorrow morning. Is that all that would come from this prayer vigil — dried wax and litter? Was any of this doing any good at all?

All we can do is pray. Sure, this was better than the rioting and looting that had accompanied other accounts of police hostility across the nation, but would it help Reuben in the end? If God wanted Reuben saved, shouldn’t he have done it already? And what about all the people praying who weren’t even Christian? This was an ecumenical event. What if a Muslim went up front and lifted up a prayer to Allah, or a Universalist prayed to some great cosmic being that sounded more like the Force in Star Wars than the God of the Bible? What would the Lord think of all this? Was he offended to have his name plastered alongside so many other religious deities, or was he just happy that people came out to pray at all?

It was only a few seconds into the Episcopalian’s prayer that Kennedy lost sight of Willow. Oh, well. She’d catch up with her and Othello later. It wasn’t worth coming into bodily contact with a hundred different strangers carrying who knew how many billions of germ cells just to keep up with her roommate. She was surprised Willow had come to a prayer vigil at all. Willow claimed to be agnostic, and she usually took every chance she could get to blast the evils of organized religion, convinced as she was that the vast majority of the world’s problems throughout history could be blamed on Christians.

For the most part, Kennedy and Willow had gotten along so well because they avoided arguments. Sometimes Kennedy wondered if God wanted her to be more confrontational, if he was upset with her for letting her roommate speak so badly about the church, but she hadn’t studied well enough to come up with counters to Willow’s unyielding stance. Besides, her dad had always taught her you couldn’t argue someone into the kingdom of heaven. Was Kennedy doing the right thing by keeping the peace, or was that just a fancy way of saying she was too ashamed of the gospel to stand up for it? She really didn’t know.

She stretched her spine and strained her neck for one last chance to catch a glimpse of Willow. At least they both had cell phones. They could always connect with each other later. Kennedy wasn’t very comfortable around Othello and was glad for a chance to avoid his crowd anyway. As the quiet woman up front finished her prayer, Kennedy froze. What if Othello told his friends about her? What if he told them that she was the mystery woman from the video? So far, Kennedy had avoided all that media attention and drama. She knew Willow would respect her privacy, but what about her friend?

She should have never come tonight. Every single person here knew about the piggyback attack. Most of them had probably seen her face in the video. She didn’t have the most unique features in the world, but what if someone recognized her? The candlelight was as bright as a hundred streetlamps. How had she let Willow talk her into coming? And why had she allowed herself to get separated from her roommate?

A tap on her shoulder. Kennedy whipped her head around. This was it. The end of her privacy. Her false sense of security.

“Excuse me, Miss.” A middle-aged man was frowning at her. “Do you have the time?”

Kennedy let out her breath, wondering if it was possible to get drunk on relief. She reached into her pocket. Where was her phone? “I’m sorry ...” She tried her coat as well as her jeans. Had she really been that stupid? Had she left it in her dorm? “I can’t seem to find my cell,” she muttered only to find that the man had moved on and was asking someone else.

No phone. How would she get a hold of Willow when it was time to go? She hadn’t even paid attention to where they parked.

Why had she ever come here?

“... And Lord, we come humbly to ask that you would bless our brother Reuben. Give him peace. Let him rest well tonight in comfort and safety. May you free his heart from all fear.” Kennedy wished she could shut her ears. While Dominic had prayed earlier, she found it odd he didn’t mention Reuben once. But this was even worse, this woman who had never met him, asking God to grant him a good night’s sleep in his jail cell. This stranger didn’t know anything about Reuben, didn’t know how many sisters he had, how he doted on his nephews and nieces back home, how steady he could keep his hands when it came time to do a titration procedure in the lab. Kennedy bit her lip. When had it gotten so cold? She needed her heavy winter jacket, not her trendy fashion coat. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. Why would anybody ever want to be in a place so crowded?

“And Lord, we also pray for the young lady involved. Wherever she is, we pray for her protection tonight.”

Tightening in her lungs. The hint of a diaphragm spasm.

“We pray that you would bless her.”

One gasping breath that did nothing to draw in air. A second attempt, and then a third before the oxygen wheezed in.

“We pray that you would keep her in your perfect peace.”

Her heart racing. Her brain’s limbic system in complete chaos.

“We pray that you would keep her safe.”

She had to get out. So many people. So many bodies. A middle-aged woman coughed right next to her. Was it influenza? Tuberculosis? Who would willingly expose themselves to so many people’s contagions?

“Thank you for the love you show us.”

Get away. There was no other option. She’d go find Willow’s car and wait for her there. But what if she got lost? What if she ran into a cop? Were the police out looking for her? Dominic had said she wasn’t in any danger of getting arrested, but hadn’t he said the same thing about Reuben just last night? Besides, Dominic was nothing more than the chaplain. What would he know?

The chaplain? Why hadn’t he told her that sooner?

“Thank you for your mercy and grace.”

Kennedy’s heart was about to burst its way out of her pericardial sac. There was no way her body could maintain this level of adrenaline. Could a nineteen-year-old have a heart attack? Would anyone notice her dying in this sea of strange faces?

Another gasping breath. Wheezing. Begging for life. For safety. For refuge.

She couldn’t support her weight. Her blood CO2 must have skyrocketed. Soon, acidosis would ravage her body systems. There was no way she could expect her muscles to work properly. She just had to get away from the crowd, otherwise she’d fall and just as likely get trampled as die from heart failure.

Choking on something that was half a sob and half a cry for help. There were hundreds of people here. Couldn’t one of them see she was about to pass out? Her head felt as if it would float off her shoulders. She would collapse any second. Her only hope was that her body would wait until she was on the fringe of this mass of humans before it gave out on her completely.

“Are you ok?”

She didn’t stop to address the young mother carrying a baby in a front sling. She couldn’t slow down. She had to get out.

“Can I help you?”

She became vaguely aware of multiple pairs of staring eyes. She was so focused on getting away from the people, so intent on forcing air into her lungs that she hadn’t realized she was crying, if that’s what you could call the sobbing, gasping, wheezing noises that came out of her mouth. She stumbled blindly ahead.

“Hey, can I help you?” When did people grow so nice? When did society ever care so much for one individual? And if Boston was really filled with such conscientious citizens, why was Reuben spending the night in jail?

Someone grabbed her arm. Someone she didn’t know. She wasn’t strong enough to shake him off. “Leave me alone.” Her voice was so garbled she hardly understood the words herself.

There it was. She recognized the bank across the street. Willow’s car was somewhere over there. The crowd had thinned out, too. She had made it.

Almost.

With the faint sound of the minister’s amen dying in her ears, Kennedy tripped and barely managed to throw her hands down to the pavement to break her fall. Someone knelt beside her. “Can I do something for you? Is there someone I can call to help you?”

It was hard to focus on his words. She knew you couldn’t die from a panic attack — she had looked it up once — but what if this was something else? What if her heart really was giving out because of all the stress she’d been under? Maybe she should have taken those yoga classes with Willow after all. She wasn’t ready to die. There were so many plans she had for her life.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. From a distance, someone called her name.

“Kennedy!”

Something in his voice, still so far off, beckoned to her. She could hardly focus on the Good Samaritan who knelt on the sidewalk beside her.

“Kennedy?”

Air rushed back into her lungs. She drank it in like a marooned Ben Gunn dying of thirst. She could almost feel her brain swelling with the welcomed influx of oxygen.

“You know her?” the stranger asked.

“Yeah. Kennedy, can you hear me?”

Relief and humiliation both clashed in her chest. “Pastor Carl?” Her voice broke. A second later, she was sobbing into his shoulder, oblivious to the crowd, the kindly stranger, and the prayer vigil for Reuben that persisted just a block away.