Page 56 of One Final Target

“No one did, Levi. Don’t start blaming yourself.”

Levi looked at her with pain in his eyes. “Just find the little cretin, please. Find him.”

“It’s my mission.”

Macnut pushed the door open and rushed at Jodie. Right behind the dog was Estella. Levi turned away and walked to the back of the house. Jodie could tell he was hurt and angry, but she didn’t know how to help him. She couldn’t even help herself.

“Oh, Jodie, it’s you. Can you tell me what is going on over there now?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you.” She followed Estella to the kitchen and told her about what they’d found in the house. Estella offered her tea as they sat at the kitchen table.

“No thanks. I’m fine, just tired,” she said. “I only want to go home and go to bed.”

“Would you be safe? I mean Kent, or whatever his name is, is after you.” She sat kitty-corner to Jodie, bent elbow, chin resting in her palm. “To say he’s obsessed with you is an understatement.” She tsked.

“Yeah, I know,” Jodie said, not wanting to share that there were pictures of Gus as well. “Mike wants me to go to a safe house.”

“You don’t want to.”

“No. I don’t want this guy disrupting my whole life anymore.”

“But?” Estella met her eyes, gaze penetrating. “I hear abut.”

“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me.” She almost wanted to take the words back. Collins was simply a killer.

“Jodie, Gus and your team died because of this Kent-Dennis person, this evil man, not because of you.”

“Yeah.” Jodie frowned. “Still, he’s after me. I’d rather deal with him than have someone else become his victim.”

“I can understand. But, Jodie, you quit. Shouldn’t you leave the search for the people who are still in uniform?”

Jodie sighed and stared at Estella. “I quit because the memories were too much. I quit because the sense of loss was so overwhelming at times I couldn’t breathe. I quit because sometimes I can’t forgive myself for s-s-s-urviving,” she stuttered and stopped to breathe, surprised she’d admitted this truth so freely.

Estella put her hand over Jodie’s. “I know the feeling of loss.”

“I know you do,” Jodie said, putting her other hand over Estella’s. “Right now what I want more than anything is the evil man who took so much from us stopped.”

“At what cost?”

“What do you mean?”

“His capture can’t be the be-all, end-all. It’s not all about him. It’s about you, too, Jodie. If you choose to live in the past, regretting things you can’t change, it will destroy you. God is sovereign. Lamenting the past is denying his control, saying you know better than God. That’s not possible. God can fix what is ugly; you need to let him. In one breath you say you realized the carnage wasn’t your fault, and in the next you say you can’t forgive yourself. Which is it?”

Jodie sat back, pulling her hands away and letting them hang by her sides. “Are you saying I need to forgivea cold-blooded killer?”

“I’m saying you can’t let bitterness take root. I don’t want youstuck in the past. I don’t want this evil person to have such a hold on you that you can’t move on and live your life. You have so much more life to live.”

“I can’t move on until he’s caught. Don’t you want this guy brought to justice? He killed Gus, after all.”

“I do want him brought to justice; I just don’t want revenge.”

“You think I want revenge?”

“Why did you come to his house today? All by yourself?”

Caught, Jodie looked away. What Estella said stung. She did want Collins dead. As dead as those two men in the freezer. As dead as her team.

“How do I not want revenge?”

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