Page 82 of Love in the Storm

“I think Mom has been waiting for this day her whole life. She tried to read those books to me when I was little, but talk about a snooze fest.”

Lyric and his mom gasped at the same time.

“Don’t talk about the Ingalls family like that,” Lyric said. “They’re doing their best.”

“Are you saying they’re real?” Asa asked with a smirk.

“Real enough,” his mom said. “Now be quiet so we can hear.”

Lyric giggled as his mom resumed the show. Asa rested his head back on the couch and closed his eyes. He needed to go home and rest, but everyone he loved was here.

28

ASA

Asa pulled into the Calvary Baptist Church parking lot and scanned the area lit up by the headlights. Not a soul in sight.

If he had to get held over on an already busy shift, at least he’d gotten a trespassing call and not the multi-vehicle wreck on the highway. He’d circle the building a few times, talk to the neighbor who made the call, and be back at the station before Jacob went to bed.

He’d rounded the building once before another cruiser pulled into the parking lot. Dawson radioed in, associating himself with the call.

Asa pulled up beside him and rolled down the window. “Want to do a perimeter check with me?”

“We’d better take a look at the parsonage too. That place has been abandoned for years. Probably kids messing around.”

Asa stepped out into the cold night and shone his flashlight on the gravel and up toward the church. No signs of a disturbance at the front entrance or any of the windows facing the street.

“Let’s go this way,” Asa said, pointing his flashlight toward the right side of the church.

“I’ll check the building. You check the woods,” Dawson said as he ran his hand over a dark window.

On the back side of the church, the parsonage loomed in the field off to one side. What used to be a yard was now overgrown, and brush weaved in and out of the open windows and doors. The awning was drooping on one side, and the roof sagged in the middle.

Asa’s light moved over the brush until it illuminated a trampled path leading to the old house. He stopped to get a better look at the disturbed grass, and Dawson doubled back.

Asa stilled the light on the trail as Dawson stopped beside him.

“You think someone’s in there?” Dawson asked.

“Dispatch said the caller reported the trespassers behind the church. Maybe they’re squatting in there.”

Asa keyed up on the radio, announcing his call sign, then waited for the dispatcher’s reply that she was ready for him. “Do we have a premise history on the parsonage?”

A few seconds later, Nancy from dispatch wasback on the radio. “Two calls for service: 2000 and 2001.”

Asa wasn’t surprised that there weren’t other calls for service. Everybody in town knew Jeremiah Dunn bought it from the church in the late 1990s, and he and his wife lived in a house on the property adjacent to the church. Without an extensive history on the property, they didn’t know what to expect.

“Show us going in,” Dawson radioed back. “Signs of foot traffic. Negative vehicles.”

Asa led the way up the path. Briars tugged at his pants legs, and a flurry of grasshoppers and moths fluttered in the spotlight ahead of him. He stopped to test the second step leading up to the half-rotted porch. It groaned beneath his weight, but it held.

A low noise caught his attention, and he stopped to listen. Was it a woman sobbing? Asa took a tentative step forward, trying to discern any other sounds.

“Let’s go,” Dawson whispered.

“Stop!” a man screamed from inside the building, followed by feminine whimpers.

A loud thud vibrated the boards beneath Asa’s feet. He radioed to dispatch, “Subjects inside.” He kept a hand on his weapon as he banged a fist against the rotting wooden doorframe. “Blackwater PD.”

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