Chapter 1 of 54

Book 3 - Part 6: Facing Evil - Chapter One

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishing, Inc.

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Foreword

There will be robberies, a few fist fights in local bars, a missing child that has the city in an uproar, an insurance agent makes an appearance to discuss discrepancies, new relationships form, and Freddy prepares for the final reckoning. Who will die? Who will be scared for their life?

This is about relationships coming about, people helping people, friends helping friends.

To be sure, Freddy practices on a few people to “tune up” for sweet Janis.

Enjoy.

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Excerpt

Daniel Watson checked into Room 131-A.

He hadn’t planned to be so secretive or vague about his visit with Baker, but because of an unknown insurance policy recently found, and secretly hidden away for an exceptionally long time; he felt doing things this way, without a lot of fanfare, or just blurting out,

“Guess what? There’s more money for you and you’ll never guess in a million years from who.”

Doing it this way would be the better way. Ease the anxiety as well as the surprise, or most likely, the shock.

Tomorrow, he would arrive at her office, and explain the near-fatal mistake made.

After all, Daniel Watson wasn’t a man for making mistakes. Twenty-seven years in the insurance field, and in all those years, he has never seen an error in reporting like this, ever. An error that resulted in both theft and fraud.

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Evil perpetually tends to disappear. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small. Proverbs 24:10

Failure has never been an option. Everyone has a weakness.

Once I find it, your mine. Trust me, when I squeeze the trigger,

the pressure of your life is but a failed memory.

And will I disappear? Not on your life. Freddy

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The Baker-Manning Home

111 Homestead Lane

December 19th – 3:55 p.m.

“It’s not the same, but at least we have a roof over our heads again which is better than no roof at all.”

“Look at it this way, mom; new home, new start, with a new year around the corner.”

Baker winced at the words ‘new year.’ She knew what was awaiting her when the new year would surface.

She just didn’t know when.

“You have a point, bub. At least one amazing thing came out of that fire.”

She looked at the top of a new Christmas tree they bought. Another real one with brand new ornaments hanging from its prickly limbs, new lights twinkling off and on, and tinsel again adorned in its silvery, glistening way.

“The angel from the tree, huh, mom?”

“That’s right. Somehow, when the blast hit, the force was so great, the angel shot out through the picture window before it had a chance to be engulfed by the flames.”

She thought over what Carl and Fire Marshall Jessup told her.

“It was pre-set on a trigger mechanism, a ten second delay, whereby once the door handle was twisted in any direction, it set off a pulse signal to the reactor which triggered a tiny relay box to set off the charge. It’s been noted there were, at minimum, twelve C-4 charges, three on each side of the house, approximately ten feet apart. It would be a surprise if anything inside your home were left undamaged,” said the Fire Marshall.

The angel was the only thing that survived and undamaged.

“J.B., since you mentioned this was Freddy's doing, he’s changed his M.O. Maybe he has someone else helping him. If not, he’s breaking away from the norm, but then again, I’m no mind-reader, but it seems he’s in a hurry to try to eliminate you.”

“Maybe, just maybe, Carl. He knows if he gets too close to me, I will bring him down. Maybe he’s trying to kill me via long-distance, so to speak.”

“One thing is certain; that blast killed Matthews and his team, just obliterated them. We were lucky just to find a few bits of bone and skin tissue just to make an Ident.”

Baker’s mind drifted to the night where her and her team and a few other officers crowded the space in Benny’s Pub on two separate occasions. Each time to remember four men who gave their lives doing their job.

It was always in Benny’s that anyone who wished could stand up and say fitting words of brotherhood, to talk about their partner, their friend.

Gone.

Taken away in the line of duty. Men never expecting one moment to be their last. Never to know what the next moment held. To be sure, each man and woman who fell doing their job knew the risks of being a police officer. A good police officer. It’s just that no police officer knew when. Or how.

Then came the funerals. Eight good men within a few weeks. It was as if the Twenty-Second had a curse placed on it.

If Freddy had his way, there would be three more funerals. Two more dead police officers, and Stevie.

Baker shook away the thought, thinking at least another good thing came out of all this; other than finding a new home (which they did as quickly as possible as living in a motel wasn’t Baker’s thing), and having it completely furnished just a few days before Christmas, which also was Satchell’s promotion to Captain. It was supposed to go to her, but she declined. When Captain Todd approached Ed, he refused the offer faster than she did.

And now, here she sat, Stevie by her side, home from school break, the first full day they were in their new home while Ed said he had errands to run, and he dropped them off with the keys to officially enter their new home.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time in the house. Ed and Baker spent the past week arranging and rearranging the furniture they purchased to fill the echoing void.

When you walk through the front door, the first thing you see is a spacious living-room, furnished with a western-style motif. The kitchen was large. And it had the stove centered in the middle where you could walk around it. It came with a dishwasher and trash-compactor. A large double-wide fridge with self-making ice-cubes (as long as it stayed plugged in or didn’t lose power). Two full baths and a half-bath. The half would be for company. The full baths were for her and Ed, the other, Stevie. There was a spare room that became a study, complete with a new computer, and printer-fax. It was open for use to whoever needed it. It was really for Stevie, but it was still up for grabs.

The house also has an attached double-garage, which, until Baker got her insurance check (which her agent said would be forth with), it would only house Ed’s car. Hers was destroyed in the blast. Cringing at the thought, she was grateful none of the neighbors injured, died.

Overall, it was still a modest single-story home. Huge backyard which meant a lawnmower come Spring.

As she and Stevie sat in front of the tree which sat in the living-room to the far right of the fireplace, and just to the right of a large picture window, Baker glowed from within as she looked at the tree adorned the way it was. Ed went a long way without telling her or Stevie when he first put it in the house. It was one of his many surprises. The angel on top made her positively warm inside herself.

The only thing missing were the gifts under the tree, but she would take care of that part, either tonight or at least by the twenty-fourth.

Six days away.

She had given Stevie five-hundred dollars to spend as he saw fit. After all, he earned it after his daring efforts during the basketball tournament. The doctor’s and staff at the clinic said it would be sometime after the twentieth of next month before he would get a new bionic leg, new and improved even. Until then, Stevie was back to crutches.

But that wasn’t the only thing holding him up.

Less than a week before, a girl named Ellie Whitmore entered his life. Besides basketball next year, suddenly it was Ellie this, and Ellie that. She already knew where part of that five hundred would be going and to who.

Baker had remembered it had been Ellie who had called the police over Jason Kempler and the shootings at the school. She’s in Stevie’s life now. Just a part of the circle of life we live in.

He’s fallen in love. A most fortunate curse.

Both her and Ed had to find Freddy first, before he found them. That way, Stevie and Ellie can enjoy their time together, and longer if it amounts to something.

Geeze. Christmas, New Year’s and then January tenth. Stevie will be sweet sixteen, but he’ll have already been kissed before then.