Page 23 of Every Deadly Suspicion

Uncle Gary

He’d also left a phone number, but Jared barely saw it. His dad had never told him not to leave but had said,“Your dad and your room will always be here for you, when you decide to come home.”

Not anymore. Dad was gone.

Tears blinded his vision and he let them fall freely.

After a minute, Ken knelt next to him. “Hey, man, what is it?”

Jared told him, composing himself and wiping away tears.

“What a son I am. Dad’s been dead for six months, and I had no clue.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. I doubt Ben would want that.”

Jared pushed himself to his feet. With the pain he felt, he might as well have fallen off the roof.

“Come in and have some lunch or something.”

Jared bent over, hands on his knees, and shook his head. “Thanks. I, uh, I’ve got to go.”

He straightened, climbed into his truck, and started the engine. Tears began again as he drove down the long driveway. How on earth had his big adventure turned into such a disaster?

He left his dad, he left Hanna, and after all this time, what did he have to show for it? When the truck reached the road, Jared stopped, rested his head on the steering wheel, and wept.

When he finished, he went to find a phone in downtown Coeur d’Alene. Uncle Gary didn’t condemn him.

“You couldn’t know; none of us knew. I’m just glad my brother didn’t suffer. You’ll come home now?” Gary asked. “Haven’t you wandered enough?”

Jared didn’t give him an answer.

After he talked to Uncle Gary, Jared went for a walk through the downtown. The night air was frigid. Jared barely felt it. His mind kept churning over what a colossal waste his life had been. He thought of Hanna, not that she’d ever really left his thoughts.She’d really made something of her life, achieved all that she’d dreamed of all those years ago. Gary had told him that she’d just been elected chief of police. All he had to show for his last ten years was a beat-up truck and a great set of tools.

He’d accomplished nothing. His life to this point was meaningless. His pride wouldn’t let him run home with his tail between his legs now.

Hanna was the only person he wanted to call. She understood purpose and meaning; she’d tried to tell him about that often enough.

Even after all the years apart, he remembered the many conversations he’d had with her. She’d shared her faith with him often, when he’d listen. He’d always felt that church, like Dry Oaks, was a prison.

He was wrong about so much. Was he wrong about that as well?

Hanna and her pastor both had talked to him about sin and salvation and saving love. He’d thought it was so nebulous and unbelievable at the time.

“The church is my family,”she’d said.“It gives me purpose and direction.”

Jared stopped in front of a church. He needed purpose and direction.

Pain and loss forced him to open the door and walk inside.

“Can I help you, young man?” A white-haired gentleman arranging folding chairs greeted him with a smile. “You look lost.”

Something in the man’s soft tone, his earnest gaze touched Jared. He felt as if he’d missed a handhold on a rock face and was in free fall. For the first time in his life, he fell apart. He bared his soul to the old man. The guy just listened.

“I’ve wasted my life,” Jared said when he finished. Exhaustionhit, making him feel as though his body were made of lead. Shoulders sagging, head down, he doubted the man could help him. He doubted anyone could help him.

“You’re carrying such a burden. If pain brought you here, it’s not a waste.” He prayed, “Lord, I ask you to touch this man. You know what he needs, the burden he’s bowed under. Help him, heal him.”

Jared listened, remembering the prayers his father had prayed for his mother while she lay sick with cancer when Jared was ten. Dad’s faith and prayers had not saved her.

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