Destiny's Wrath (Destiny Series - Book 3) by Straight, Nancy (manga ereader txt) 📕

“Noah, I think you shouldn’t lie to the woman who took care a’ you since you was little. I think you should tell her the truth.” He said it with a smirk on his face as if daring Noah to let Abigail in on their secret.

“Come on, Jimmy.” Noah was walking to the door and didn’t dare look up to catch Abigail’s glare.

“Jimmy, so tell me, what is the big secret that Noah is keeping from me?” She feigned mild curiosity, but was dying to know what the two boys were planning.

Jimmy looked to Noah, who glared back at him and said, “I’ve got the ball. Let’s go, Jimmy.” That look could not have been a more clear warning to leave now.

“Noah’s going to help me figure out how much fertilizer I need for the bomb. You know he’s as smart as they come. I think I need twenty-two bags. If I try to buy that many, ATF will be breathin’ down my neck in five minutes. Noah says he’d take a look at my numbers. I might only need fourteen bags.” Jimmy had said all this matter-of-factly. Chills shot down Abigail’s spine.

Jimmy watched Abigail to see the reaction. She nodded empathetically, as if someone had just shared that he needed help studying for his Algebra exam. Abigail didn’t shriek or raise her voice, she didn’t forbid them from walking out the door; she gingerly stepped past him, giving Jimmy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as she crossed the room.

Of all the reactions Jimmy had contemplated, hers was not one he had expected. Abigail calmly made her way to the other side of the room, picked up the telephone and dialed a number just as casually as if she were picking up a remote control for the television.

“Hello, this is Abigail Camden. Is the sheriff in?” There was a momentary pause as the person on the other end of the phone spoke to Abigail. “That’ll be fine. I’ll hold.”

Those were the last words Abigail ever spoke. She watched Jimmy run across the room. She saw the knife coming out of his pocket as if it were in slow motion. Abigail did not watch the boy plunge the knife into her abdomen and then her heart; instead, she looked across the room to where Noah stood with a look of horror on his face.

Noah stood frozen in place as he saw Abigail’s body slump to the floor. Jimmy immediately hung up the phone, grabbed her ankles, and moved her to the wall of the living room, half tucked behind a sofa. Without missing a beat, Jimmy asked Noah, “So, you can look at them numbers now? I think I’ve got the right formula; jus’ need you to double check the numbers for me.”

Noah had never seen someone die. He had never seen a dead body, and he never imagined he would ever see someone murdered right in front of him. Abigail had been the only caregiver he had ever really known. He loved her, and, in that instant, she was gone.

Chapter 3

Noah stood watching the blood pool around her. He thought back to the day when he and Jessie had come to live with her.

Abigail Camden had been everyone’s favorite “Kool-Aid Mom.” Her children were long gone; her grandchildren were beginning families of their own. Abigail had been a homemaker her whole life. After her husband passed away, everyone just assumed she would go on cruises, vacation in exotic places, meet friends on the internet, whatever people did when their life emptied in front of them. She and her husband had been married for thirty-seven years when he had a massive heart attack at work and never came home.

When she realized she had done all she could do for her family, and was more of a holiday novelty than a pillar in their lives, she began to feel sorry for herself. This is pretty common for women of Abigail’s age, but rather than slumping into a depression that she would just have to climb out of – she did the unthinkable. She started all over again, this time by herself.

She lived alone in a five bedroom house, and the emptiness began to envelope her. One evening she watched a news program about a shortage of foster families. She made up her mind before the news segment was over that she would be a foster mom.

Abigail started with two siblings, Jessie and Noah. The day they came, Jessie was six, with cute pigtails, a little shy but as bright a child as Abigail had ever known. Noah was Jessie’s older, protective brother, who was eight. The two had been in and out of foster homes for over two years before they came to Abigail’s home. They shared the same mother, and, every now and again, their mother would get sober enough to get custody back, but her latest arrest included prison time, so the children were again wards of the state.

When the two came to Abigail’s house, they were a bit stoic, “seasoned” their case worker called them. They knew not to trust adults. They knew not to get too comfortable because this home would be like so many before – only temporary. Abigail didn’t have a degree in psychology; truth be told she had never visited a therapist her whole life. She worried that she had become a foster parent for the wrong reason – sheer loneliness.

Jessie and Noah’s case worker was Miss Bryant, and in spite of the reputation social workers have for being too overworked to check on their assignments, Miss Bryant didn’t ever think of any child as just a number. She knew each child, knew their favorite colors, their favorite activities, things they were scared of, and, somehow, she always knew exactly what to say to make them feel at ease. Miss Bryant was a person whose very nature inspired trust in