When writing a novel, I jot down the names of the people/organizations who helped with research, insights, and motivation. For this book, my deepest thanks go out to:

Natasha Kern, Don Pape

LB Norton

Ingrid, Amy, Caitlyn, Jack, Karen, and the awesome team at Cook

Patty, Abigail, Hannah, Esther, and Creston

Joseph Cheeley III

Mark Mynheir, James Scott Bell, Jerry B. Jenkins

Terri Blackstock, Colleen Coble, Harry Kraus

Donna Lampkin, Randy Powell, Bob Lutz, Tommy Woodsmall

Julie Garmon, Belinda Peterson, Amy Wallace

Missy Tippins, ACFW/Word, ChiLibris

John Njoroge, Scott Bull

Ian Hunter, Stephanie Powell, Wayne Scott

Jesse Garcia and Building 429

Ginny Owens

Steve “Boxcar” Vibert

Buck and Frank

Jason Chatraw

Mark and Janet Sweeney, Julee Schwarzburg

Ivy Creek Church, 12Stone, CCG, and North Metro Church

My readers

“It’s a very long story, but the short version is this: I realized that I could no longer reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of life.… I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world, given the state of things. For many people who inhabit this planet, life is a cesspool of misery and suffering. I came to a point where I simply could not believe that there is a good and kindly disposed Ruler who is in charge of it.”

Bart D. Ehrman

“The L
ORD
has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.”

Proverbs 16:4

The husky man lurking outside the front door of Pamela Crittendon’s house carried a black leather satchel, like a doctor’s bag.

Hiding behind a column between the foyer and dining room, Pamela could see the stranger through one of the narrow vertical windows situated on each side of the door.

His face was hardened and pasty, with tiny eyes and a thatch of curly red hair. He wore all black, from his T-shirt and leather vest to his jeans and cowboy boots. And he stood uncomfortably close to the door.

The doorbell rang a third time.

Pamela’s head buzzed.

Backlit by the midafternoon sunlight, the man turned toward the street. Covering half his face with a blocky, gloved hand, he shifted his huge frame from one foot to the other. Then he turned and rapped hard at the glass, knocking the wind out of Pamela.

“Who’s at the door, Mommy?” Seven-year-old Rebecca appeared at the top of the stairs wearing pink plastic high heels, a red sequined dress, and a purple boa. Bumping into her from behind was her five-year-old sister, Faye, who wore a long white dress, a furry brown stole, and turquoise gloves that went up to her armpits.

“I’m not sure,” Pamela said, her voice constricted. “Go back to the media room and play. Hurry, go on.”

Taking a deep breath, she fought her way through a force field of fear to within three feet of the door and made herself yell deeply, sharply, “Who is it?” She searched the man through the glass.

He clamped the doorknob. “Open!”

The hardware made a sickening racket.

“Get out of here!” Her stomach turned. “I’m calling the police!”

She rushed for the phone in the kitchen.

Boom!

Pamela halted, turned toward the noise at the door, and gawked in horror as the stranger bent over and drove his shoulder—the size of a medicine ball—into the door, splintering the wood frame.

BOOM!

“Mo-omm-my?” Rebecca cried from the top of the steps. She was clutching Peep, her favorite doll. “Who’s banging at the door?”

“Get down here,
now
. Both of you!” But as soon as the words left her mouth, Pamela realized she couldn’t wait. She shot up the stairs, swept up both girls, and plunged back down.

Each frantic step felt like an adrenaline-laced nightmare.

As they passed within four feet of the front door, the glass shattered.

“Ahhh!” Pamela shrieked, dashing away from the eerie closeness of the intruder, hoping the girls wouldn’t see the man, but their little eyes were huge. Rebecca let loose a terror-ridden scream. Faye was frozen. Pamela kept going, like a soldier bolting through a minefield, with both girls locked in her arms, one thought in her brain:
get out.

She heard the man reaching in, groping for the bolt lock.

This cannot be happening.

Dropping the girls to their feet, she flipped the lock to the back door and shoved it open.

She heard glass crunching beneath the man’s boots.

“Wait!” he called.

Pamela grabbed the girls’ little hands and rocketed through the door onto the screened porch.

She could feel him coming, maybe fifteen feet behind.

She kicked the screened door open.

They hit fresh air.

And grass.

Run.

Faster than you ever have.

Pamela flew toward the neighbors’ house, ripping at the girls’ hands, feeling as if their little legs had left the ground, as if they were the dollies now.

Across the flat green lawn they dashed, the girls whimpering and squealing with each panicked stride.

Without knocking, Pamela tried the handle, found it unlocked, and burst into the Sweeneys’ house with the girls—slamming the door and dead-bolting it behind her.

Tommy Sweeney shot out of his office then stopped when he saw them. “Pamela? What on earth is going on?”

“A man broke in … while we were there …” It was difficult to breathe. Her heart hurt. Her brain banged against her skull. Her neck and shoulders felt torn from the weight of the girls. “He may be coming … check, Tommy. He was right behind us.” She stroked the girls’ hair with trembling hands and drew them tight against her body.

Tommy darted toward the kitchen window, reaching for the phone on his belt clip. “I see him out back. He’s turning around … He’s going back in.”

Pamela could only nod, relieved that at least someone else had seen him.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now.” Tommy punched at the screen of his cell phone and looked out the window. “Tell me what happened.”

“He rang the doorbell a bunch, then pounded. I told him to go away, that I was calling the police—”

“Did you?”

She shook her head. “No time. He broke the glass at the front door and came in.”

When he’d shattered the glass, found the bolt lock, and entered, there must have been only ten feet between them. Ten feet and how many seconds? Three? Maybe four? If she’d delayed only that long in getting the girls, the monster would have had them. And done what? To her?
To them?

“Jesus took care of us,” she whispered and nestled the girls close.

Tommy was still peering out the window, focused on her backyard.

“Do you see him?” Pamela asked.

“No. He’s still inside.” He held up an index finger and spoke into the phone. “Yes, ma’am, we’ve had a break-in next door to the address I’m calling from … I will in a minute, but you should know the intruder is still on the property …
hurry
.”

“You still working on that water-rate-hike piece?” Cecil Barton, editor of the
Trenton City Dispatch
, approached Jack Crittendon’s computer with his thin arms crossed and a crisp white piece of paper sticking out of one hand.

“Yep.” Jack looked at his watch, certain Cecil was about to toss another ball into the mix he was already juggling. That’s how the extra assignments always came from Cecil, on a folded white piece of paper, just like the one tucked in his jittery hand. “And the mayor’s homeland security address, and the follow-up on the bereaved parents feature, and the editorial Hernandez assigned me this morn—”

“Forget the editorial. I’ll have Sheets do it. She’s light right now and chomping at the bit to do another.” Cecil unfolded his arms and, sure enough, thrust the piece of paper toward Jack. “This is hot.”

Everything was
hot
to Cecil. He yanked at his thinning fray of brown hair. His narrow eyes appeared to be forced wide open by his taut nerves. The up-and-down motion of his protruding Adam’s apple was difficult to ignore.

“Someone emailed it to me a few minutes ago,” Cecil said, “from the online magazine of the Methodist Church.”

Jack snatched the piece of paper.

“He’s a local pastor,” Cecil said. “I want you to cover it. You’re the perfect fit. We’ll be the first to have it.” Cecil lived to scoop the popular local radio station WDUC 550 AM.

Great.
It was 3:48 p.m. and Jack knew whatever it was, Cecil would want it for the next day’s issue, which would mean Jack would have to stay late to make deadline. Rebecca and Faye would probably be asleep by the time he got home. He hated missing time with them on the evenings he had to work late.

Cecil’s heels bounced left-right-left-right-left as he waited, arms crossed.

Jack wheeled his chair away from his computer, stretched, sighed, sank back, and read the copy his editor had handed him.

FAITH LINE

The Official Web Magazine of the Methodist Church

Ohio Pastor Missing

Dr. Richard Billings, clerk of the Central Ohio Methodist Church Office, wrote to inform us of the following: Pastor Evan McDaniel of Five Forks Methodist Church in Trenton City, Ohio, disappeared Friday, taking with him a significant quantity of medication and leaving behind communication indicating his intention to take his own life. This is all that is known at this time. His body has not been found, but coworkers believe he was genuinely determined to follow through on his expressed intentions. The church and the family—Wendy McDaniel and her three boys—are finding the grace and mercy of God through the ongoing ministry of associate pastor Dr. Andrew Satterfield, the elders, deacons, and others. Please keep the family and church in your prayers.

Now
that
was intriguing. Jack and Pam had attended a marriage retreat at Five Forks Methodist that spring. He distinctly remembered McDaniel, a soft-spoken, balding man, middle-aged, in good shape. He and his wife, Wendy, led one of Jack and Pam’s favorite sessions that weekend on rekindling the fire that brought couples together in the first place.

Jack would never have taken McDaniel for a suicide candidate. However, after working as a newspaper reporter for more than twelve years, he knew full well that things—and people—were not always what they appeared.

“Well?” Cecil snapped. “Sound like something you can sink your chops into?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“Darn right it is.” Cecil smirked and loosened the too-big knot in his tie. “I knew you’d be all over it. I mean, considering how religious you are.”

Religious.
After working closely with the frazzled editor five years, Jack had hoped he’d come across in a more alluring way to Cecil than simply “religious.” Apparently not.

“How ’bout you give me two or three hundred words for tomorrow’s front page?” Cecil pressed. “That’ll get the ball rolling, make sure we get the scoop. Then it’s yours daily after that. Whaddaya say?”

“What about the water-rate-hike piece?”

“Still need that for tomorrow; the other stuff can wait.”

Jack got a bit of a rush thinking about immersing himself in such a mysterious and timely piece. Who knew, maybe he could even help Evan McDaniel or at least be there to support his family through a heart-wrenching time.

“Tell me you can handle it.” Though an exceptional journalist, Cecil wasn’t the best manager. He had an annoying habit of piling too much work on his star reporters—often at the last minute. Under Cecil’s economy of scale, the most thorough and efficient writers worked harder and longer than the others, but got paid basically the same.

The new story would, however, get Jack out of covering a school board meeting or two, and probably at least one group photo down at the local VFW hall.

“Okay, I’ll do it.” Jack wheeled back to his computer with a new zeal and dropped the piece of paper onto a sea of other notes. “I’ll have the first story to you by the time I leave.”

Cecil turned to go. “Fine, and listen.” He stopped. “If you can get more out of it tonight, even four or five hundred words, we’ll find room for it.”

Right.

Too often Jack had stayed late to write more in-depth stories, only to have them sliced and diced by the editors at the copy desk—the remnant of the story getting buried on page 12 next to the obits.

“I’ll do what I can,” Jack said, determined to finish the rate-hike piece, do his two hundred on the missing pastor, and get home.

Cecil forged off, bouncing down the five steps, past the city desk, and on toward the double doors of his cluttered office.

Maybe Pam would let the girls stay up late. They always thought that was better than ice cream. He would come into the lamplit house after dark, and the girls would race in and tackle him, screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

While he and Pam chatted quietly, either standing at the kitchen island or sitting on the couch in the family room or back porch, the girls would dart about the downstairs, dancing in their little flowing pink nightgowns and nibbling crushed ice from their plastic Disney cups. Eventually Jack would gather them up in his arms on the carpeted floor of the family room and tickle them until their freckled cheeks turned pink and they cried breathlessly for him to “Stop, Daddy,
stop
!” He felt a smile lift his tired face, and his heart calmed at the thought of all that was good in his world.

Pam would be interested in the McDaniel story. She had spent time with Wendy during one of the breaks at the marriage retreat and had liked her very much.

Jack turned to reread the water-rate-hike copy that glowed back at him from the computer screen on his desk in the bustling newsroom.

His phone rang.

“Jack Crittendon.”

“Jack, Tommy from next door.”

“Hey, neighbor.” Jack was quickly reminded how fortunate Tommy was to work out of his house as a regional sales rep for a large food distributor. “What’s new in the ’hood?”

“Well … I’m with Pamela and the girls at your house.” There was a catch in Tommy’s voice.

Jack sat up on the edge of his chair and peered out at the glowing computer screens, reporters, and editors dotting the newsroom. “Is everything okay?”

“The thing is, there was a break-in, Jack, here at your house, a little while ago …”

Jack was suddenly standing.

“Is Pam okay?” He swallowed hard, snatched his keys, and started walking hurriedly toward the rear exit, ignoring the blur of faces and several gestures from colleagues. “What about the girls?”

“No one was hurt. Pamela and the girls are right here with me. They’re perfectly fine. The police are here—”

Police …

“Who did it, Tommy? How’d they get in?”

“Guy came in through the front door. Broke the glass, turned the dead bolt.”

“The girls were home?”

“Yeah, but Pamela was awesome, Jack. She grabbed them and got out of there fast. Out the back door. She came straight to our house. Barged right in!”

A blistering streak of rage fired through Jack’s mind like a missile.

“Did he have a gun?”

“Pamela didn’t see any weapon. He had a big black leather bag with him.”

Jack seethed as he flew down the back steps of the old three-story newspaper building, imagining the intruder—the slime bucket—on
his
property, in
his
house, with
his
girls! “Did they catch him?”

“Not yet.” Tommy exhaled loudly. “He was in your house for ten or fifteen minutes—”

“And the cops didn’t get there by then?”

“No. It took forever. I yelled to him from across our yards when he was heading for his car, but he was gone like a bat out of hell.”

“Did you get a good look at the guy?”

“Kind of. White guy, maybe in his thirties, really big. Driving an old brown Toyota. The cops are after him now. They’ll get him.”

“I’m on my way,” Jack huffed. “Did you get the plates?”

“No, but it was an Ohio tag. Couldn’t make out the county.”

“Was the guy on drugs or what?”

“We don’t know, Jack. But your wife was smart. She couldn’t have played it better.”

“You’re sure they’re okay. They’re right there with you?”

“That’s right, man. They’re here with me—and the police. Everything’s cool. Pamela asked me to call you. She’s holding the girls, still talking to the officers.”

Jack’s body bogged down as he approached his car. He felt like he’d hit a patch of molasses. The pavement zoomed into focus, as did his brown leather shoes. A wave of heat rolled over his face and chest. He opened the door and dropped into the driver’s seat, but it all seemed like slow motion.

How dare he? How dare this stranger break down my door and enter my home, with my wife there … and my two innocent little girls!

He felt violated. He wanted to
hurt
the creep.

“Did he destroy anything? Take anything? I mean, what did he
do
? What did he want?” Jack buckled his seat belt and started the car.

“The house looks almost untouched,” Tommy said. “He cleaned out Pam’s jewelry box. But your laptop is here, your camera is here. They’re still checking. They’ve got two people in here dusting for prints.”

There was commotion at Tommy’s end of the phone. Jack heard Pam say she would call him in a few minutes, when the police were finished with her.

Jack shook his head. It didn’t make sense. The guy could have gotten a good chunk of change for things like the laptop and camera. He thanked Tommy and hung up.

As he roared out of the
Dispatch
parking lot, he realized the only thing that mattered was that Pam and the girls were safe.

His work reminded Jack daily of the dark, evil world they had to raise their girls in. Some people, he believed, were possessed by demons. It had been true when the Bible was written, and Jack believed it was true now.

But Pam and his girls had been protected. And this wasn’t the only time. God had an uncanny way of showing up, often right in the middle of the trials life dealt.

He breathed a sigh of thanks and asked for help to keep his cool. Then he checked his cell to make sure the ringer was on. He couldn’t wait to hear Pam’s voice.

Please, let them be calm, let them feel safe …

He thought of Pam’s paranoid mother, Margaret, and how she would absolutely flip out if she heard about the break-in. Pam fought hard against such fears, which she grew up watching and learning from her mother.

Blanket Pam in peace …

As he merged onto the Ohio freeway and jetted toward home in the light pre-rush-hour traffic, Jack struggled to decipher what could possibly be of such value, such urgency, and such
risk
to break into someone’s home in daylight—with people inside.

The guy had to have been high.

Pam could have been raped … the girls kidnapped or murdered.

Jack pushed harder on the gas.

Faster.

My girls need me.

BOOK: Fear Has a Name: A Novel

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