My Soul to Keep Read online

  Praise for

  My Soul to Keep

  “My Soul to Keep, the third and best Dylan Foster thriller, again demonstrates Melanie Wells’s wit, intelligence, and knack for telling a swiftly paced, complex story. Through a wonderful network of plots and subplots—and the ruminations of the ever-complicated Dr. Foster—the novel reveals the helplessness and fierce love at the heart of parenting, as well as the way that each of us is responsible for children, our own and others. Wells takes kids seriously—their fears, their vulnerabilities, their spiritual wisdom and resiliency. Written with passion, a good dose of humor and, dare I say it, soul, this novel reminds us that we all, with grace and good fortune, bumble our way toward salvation.”

  —K. L. COOK, author of Last Call and The Girl from Charnelle

  “My Soul to Keep is a rich and meaningful story. Like water rising to a boil, its suspense sneaks up on you—before you know, you’re in the thick of a frightening drama. This is a story painful to witness but a pleasure to read. Superbly crafted.”

  —ROBERT LIPARULO, author of Deadfall, Germ, and Comes a Horseman

  “My Soul to Keep is a great example of gritty reality colliding with spiritual questions. Melanie Wells proves to be one of the most consistent writers around, threading mystery and supernatural intrigue around memorable characters. I’m a huge fan.”

  —ERIC WILSON, author of A Shred of Truth and the novelization of Facing the Giants

  “My Soul to Keep is a marvelous book. Lyrical and moving, the story and characters will stay with you long after you turn the last page. I can’t wait for Melanie Wells’s next novel.”

  —HARRY HUNSICKER, Shamus Award-nominated author of Crosshairs

  “In My Soul to Keep, Melanie Wells delivers tightly-woven mystery and profound drama with nail-biting intensity and a light touch. The struggles and triumphs of the wry and delightfully-flawed Dylan Foster allow us a glimpse of God’s mercy at our worst and His best. My Soul to Keep is Melanie Wells’s best book yet and one not to be missed. I can’t wait for the next one.”

  —KATHRYN MACKEL, author of Vanished

  “One moment, My Soul to Keep will have you laughing out loud, and the next you’ll be under the covers with a flashlight, questioning unseen things, and hoping the ride never ends. Melanie Wells has one of the freshest, most uniquely readable voices in fiction. A few pages will have you hooked.”

  —CRESTON MAPES, author of Nobody

  PREVIOUS NOVELS BY MELANIE WELLS

  When the Day of Evil Comes

  The Soul Hunter

  MY SOUL TO KEEP

  PUBLISHED BY MULTNOMAH BOOKS

  12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Melanie Wells

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any forms or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

  MULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wells, Melanie.

  My soul to keep : a novel of suspense / Melanie Wells. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-56155-8

  1. Psychology teachers—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Children—Psychic

  ability—Fiction. 4. Texas—Fiction. 5. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.E476M9 2008

  813′.6—dc22

  2007037278

  v3.1_r1

  For Dot and Ron, who inspired me

  He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.… He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.

  —SCREWTAPE TO WORMWOOD IN THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS BY C. S. LEWIS

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from When the Day of Evil Comes

  1

  WHEN DID I GIVE up on certainty?

  At what hour on what day did I realize that you never get to know the answers? Especially not the juicy ones?

  It was a misguided affectation, I realize, my little preoccupation with verity. One that served no more purpose than a set of wisdom teeth or a manual typewriter—fitting, perhaps, in some other millennium, but out of place if not archaic in a postmodern world of news cycles, reality shows, and million-dollar half-minute Super Bowl ads. I never saw it as dangerous, though. Of course, that was back when I was young and dumb and blissfully wafting through my days as though nothing sinister was sharing the air with me.

  But the air is indeed crowded. And the other inhabitants rarely announce their presence, much less their intentions. Which sends the rest of us spinning around in unexpected directions, bumping into invisible barricades and teetering off into unseen ravines.

  Eventually, of course, if you have any spunk at all, you right yourself and find your bearings. But just when you think you’ve spotted the lodestar, you discover that what you thought was true north is neither. That truth in the universe is the most elusive of the elements. And that if you’re dumb enough to go looking for it, you’re liable to get smacked in the face by one of the legions of liars you’re trying to outwit.

  My own personal liar—the one assigned to me by some force out there in the ether—is named Peter Terry. He’s a nasty, ratfink bottom-dweller—a mind-stalking, soul-dissing prevaricator of the first degree. He lies, cheats, and steals, amusing himself by shoplifting, pickpocketing, breaking and entering, or outright armed robbery.

  I thought I’d seen the worst of him. But with beings like Peter Terry, I’ve learned, low expectations cannot possibly be low enough. And where Peter Terry is concerned, I have lowered my expectations all the way down to the black pit of hell.

  This time it began on a sunny Saturday in May. Graduation day. My favorite day of the academic year.

  I teach psychology at Southern Methodist University. Like most professors, I experience a powerful surge
of enthusiasm every August when classes begin. In those first moments standing at the blackboard, chalk smudges on my fingers, my students’ faces aglow with curiosity, I swell with the intellectual and spiritual stimulation of my craft. I love a fresh roomful of unsuspecting minds, the smell of new school supplies, the squeak of the freshly waxed floors of Dallas Hall, the sound of the crowd at football games (a small crowd since 1987, unfortunately).

  Of course, that sentimental nonsense lasts about forty-eight hours. And then, like the rest of my colleagues, I spend the following nine months wishing the little darlings would quit bothering me and go home. The students are equally sick of us by May, however, which is one of the reasons graduation is a uniformly glorious occasion on campuses around the world. It’s one of the few Hallmark holidays about which everyone involved is truly unconflicted.

  On this warm summer Saturday (the solstice comes early in Texas, whether we want it to or not), I found myself hooded and tasseled, wrangling a roomful of rowdy degree candidates. Technically, they would not be graduates for another hour or so—which ensured my last, tenuous thread of authority over them. Our caps and gowns gave us all an impressive, if misleading, air of credibility, at least until you glanced down at the wild variety of (mostly tasteless) footwear on display.

  I was shouting instructions, trying to herd them all into a reasonably straight, alphabetically ordered line, when my cell phone rang. Amid hoots from my charges—I’d confiscated cell phones from several conspirators who were plotting to interrupt the festivities with coordinated Pink Floyd ringtones—I hiked up my gown and fished in the pocket of my cutoffs, which, paired with my stilettos, made me look like a streetwalker on a Dukes of Hazzard episode. I smiled sweetly and flipped open my phone.

  “We’re here, Miss Dylan!” the caller shouted.

  It was my little friend Christine Zocci, due to arrive from Chicago today to celebrate her sixth birthday with me.

  “Did you know this airport is called Love? Love, love, love,” she sang.

  “Where did you learn that song?”

  “Everyone knows love, love, love,” she said, clearly disgusted with me. “It’s the Bees.”

  “I think that’s Beatles, Punkin.”

  “I don’t like beetles. I like bees.”

  “Beatles is the name of the band that sang the song. Not a bug.”

  “I like bees,” she insisted.

  And that was the end of that.

  “Are you guys getting your bags now?”

  “The pilot has our suitcases.”

  “I don’t think so, Punkin. The pilot flies the plane. He doesn’t carry the bags.”

  “His name is Captain George. He’s nice.”

  As though that explained it.

  “How do you know his name is George? Did he tell you?”

  She sighed. “I had a bee in a jar once, but it stang me and died.”

  “How about if I talk to your mommy?”

  I heard a series of clunks as the phone changed hands, and then her mother came on the line.

  “Hi, Liz. Where are you guys?”

  “All I know is, we landed at Love Field. We’re …” She paused. “I don’t see any signs. I’m not sure where we are.”

  “Baggage claim is on the bottom floor. Take the escalator down.”

  “The pilot has our bags.”

  “Um, okay, Liz. Have you guys been doing a lot of craft projects lately involving glue? Because glue fumes can cause serious brain damage. You should be aware.”

  “Oh, there he is.” I heard her shout to someone named George. I pictured an American Airlines pilot carrying Christine’s lavender Barbie suitcase. And then, of course, I realized what was going on.

  Liz and Andy Zocci are the primary shareholders in a Midwestern regional airline called Eagle Wing Air, founded by Andy’s father. They have more money than the Mormon church.

  “You guys brought your own plane, didn’t you?”

  “It was just easier,” Liz said, sounding embarrassed.

  “Oh sure, well, I always think it’s easier to take my own plane. Because, you know, the other ones are so … crowded. All those peeeople!”

  “Dylan …”

  “And the snacks are just not acceptable. Crummy little packets of pretzels passing for food. And don’t even get me started on those filthy blankets. I hate those things.”

  “Dylan, this is very original humor. I’m laughing hysterically. Really, I am.”

  “You can see other people’s hairs on them. It’s disgusting.”

  “Are you done? Or is there more?”

  “Hmm … that’s about it. Do you want directions to my house, or should I meet you at your hotel?”

  “I think we’ll go unpack and then meet you at your place. Christine has been talking about this for weeks. I don’t think I can hold her back much longer.”

  “I’ve got another couple of hours here in the salt mines,” I said. “Can she make it that long?”

  “We’ll unpack and get some lunch. It might take me a while to find something Christine will eat. You know how she is.”

  “Is she still on crunchy food?”

  “It comes and goes. For now it’s crunchy food mainly. And orange, if at all possible. Carrots, Cheetos, things like that. Yellow’s okay too. We eat a lot of vegetables and corn chips.”

  “Your kid is weird.”

  “I try not—Christine, gum and hair don’t mix—try not to think about it.”

  “Did Andy and the boys come?”

  “They’re out of the country.”

  “Well, la-di-da,” I sing-songed. “They’re not even in kindergarten, and they’re already world travelers?”

  “It’s an Angel Wing mission.”

  “Oh.”

  “To your friend Tony DeStefano’s orphanage in Guatemala.”

  “Well, that’s different.”

  “Thank you. I thought so. Want to retract your la-di-da?”

  “Da-di-la.”

  Angel Wing Air is the Zoccis’ charity airline. They fly small planes into remote areas around the world to supply and transport medical personnel and missionaries. Tony DeStefano was a friend from my seminary days. He’d also been a sort of spiritual touchstone in recent years, an ally in that whole Peter Terry, life-disintegration fiasco. He and Jenny had recently returned to the mission field.

  “I made a cake,” I offered, more to change the subject than to announce the menu. “A regular, spongy, noncrunchy cake.”

  “What kind?”

  “Strawberry. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Yep. She makes exceptions for strawberry anything. What time do you want us? We’ve got a car.”

  “La-di-da again. You didn’t bring a limo too, did you? Like, in the cargo hold?”

  “We’re renting a regular, run-of-the-mill car, just like the little people.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Crescent. Do you want me to call you? Or just show up?”

  “I’ll call with directions when I’m done here. Hey, you didn’t tell Christine about her present, did you?” I said. “I want her to be surprised.”

  “Not a word.”

  “Great.” I checked my watch. “I think I can be out of here by two o’clock, assuming no one blows anything up or passes out or anything.”

  The students in my immediate vicinity began making explosion noises and pretending to faint.

  “I gotta go, Liz. I’m losing control here.”

  Someone shouted, “She never had control!” into the phone as I hung up.

  I spent the next two hours sweltering under my regalia—surely one of the more enduring medieval torture devices—enjoying one of the slim gratifications of another year of largely thankless effort. As much as I gripe about my work, there’s no fighting off the joy when my students high-five me as they walk off the stage toward the rest of their lives, clutching four years of hard-won education in a maroon leather folder, their families cheering from the seat
s. It’s one of the few times of the year when I feel proud of my incredibly low-paying, bottom-of-the-academic-ladder job.

  The rest of the time I feel poor, mainly.

  After the ceremony, I walked a hot half mile to faculty parking, swept off my mortarboard, and drove my crummy pickup home to my tiny house. I parked in the driveway under the sycamore tree that always needs pruning and cut the motor, which shrugged reluctantly to a stop. I hauled my stuff to the porch and unlocked my front door. The air conditioner hummed a pleasant little greeting, which is always good news on a hot Dallas afternoon. I threw my keys on the kitchen table, placed my once-a-year heels in the back of my bedroom closet, tossed my graduation gown into the dry-cleaner hamper, Frisbeed my mortarboard onto the dryer for sponging and Febreze, and walked over to the rabbit hutches in the corner of my bedroom.

  “Bunnies, I’m home,” I cooed, peering into the cages. Two small rabbits hopped over to greet me—a little red one, whose auburn coat matched my hair color exactly, and a tiny gray lop-ear. Melissa and Eeyore. I reached down and scratched them behind their ears.

  I’ve never really been a pet person. All those bodily fluids and floaty little hairs are prohibitive for a person of my obsessive inclinations. Even the smell of a pet store is a problem—I order all pet supplies online to avoid that trauma entirely. But both bunnies had been orphaned the previous winter when their owners were caught in one of Peter Terry’s snares.