The Rescuer Read online

  THE HEALER

  “Expect high demand from fans as Henderson turns in her most powerful, moving entry in the series yet.”

  LIBRARY JOURNAL

  “The Healer is a poignant love story, a five-handkerchief reading experience that readers will never be able to forget because it is so beautiful…. Dee Henderson is a brilliant storyteller who constantly writes tales that the audience wants to read.”

  BOOKBROWSER

  “Few Christian novelists are currently as hot as Henderson, who is burning up CBA bestseller charts with two different series and earning a reputation for her action-packed stories of suspense, romance, and courage.”

  PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “Ms. Henderson writes with painful lucidity about the struggles endured while watching a loved one slip away. Many times, the truth of Jen’s story bored holes into my heart…something that can only be attributed to the writer’s proficiency at bringing a character to life…. Readers won’t want to miss this emotional story of love—and loss.”

  ROMANTIC TIMES MAGAZINE

  “The Healer mesmerized me! A masterful balance of life and death, good and evil is created within these pages, and I could not walk away unchanged. At times all too real, The Healer had me crying, laughing, and wondering ‘what if?’”

  ROMANCEREADERSCONNECTION.COM

  DANGER IN THE SHADOWS

  “Dee Henderson had me shivering as her stalker got closer and closer to his victim. The message that we have nothing to fear as long as God is in control was skillfully handled, but I got scared anyway! I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes suspense.”

  TERRI BLACKSTOCK, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF EMERALD WINDOWS

  “A masterstroke!… Dee Henderson gives the reader not one but two irresistible heroes.”

  COMPUSERVE REVIEWS

  THE NEGOTIATOR

  “Solid storytelling, compelling characters, and the promise of more O’Malleys make Henderson a name to watch. Highly recommended, with a cross-genre appeal.”

  LIBRARY JOURNAL

  “Dee Henderson has deftly combined action, suspense, and romance in this first-class inspirational romantic suspense.”

  AFFAIRE DE COEUR

  THE GUARDIAN

  “An entertaining thriller-cum-romance-cum-conversion story is what readers get in this fast-paced novel…. Christian readers will relish this intriguing tale.”

  PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “More than an investigative thriller, this is a great romance dealing with complex matters of faith.”

  ROMANTIC TIMES

  “Page-turning excitement…true spiritual conflict…romance. I can’t wait to read her next one!”

  HANNAH ALEXANDER, AUTHOR OF SILENT PLEDGE

  THE TRUTH SEEKER

  “Another fantastic, page-turning mystery by Dee Henderson! Heartwarming romance and exciting drama are her trademark, and they’ll be sure to thrill you a third time!”

  SUITE101.COM

  “Read one book by Dee Henderson, and I guarantee you are gonna be hooked for life!”

  THE BELLES AND BEAUX OF ROMANCE

  THE PROTECTOR

  “There are very few books that touch the soul and the heart while delivering an inspiring message, but Ms. Henderson always manages to accomplish this feat.”

  BOOKBROWSER

  “A riveting addition to the series!”

  HUNTRESS BOOK REVIEWS

  “The Protector is vintage Dee Henderson.”

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  Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  The Rescuer

  Copyright © 2003 by Dee Henderson. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph copyright © 2005 by David Bailey. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of tornado copyright © by Sonja Foos/iStockphoto.com. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Ron Kaufmann and Dean H. Renninger

  Previously published in 2003 by Multnomah Publishers, Inc. under ISBN 1-57673-073-4.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4143-1061-9

  TITLES BY DEE HENDERSON

  THE O’MALLEY SERIES

  Danger in the Shadows (prequel)

  The Negotiator

  The Guardian

  The Truth Seeker

  The Protector

  The Healer

  The Rescuer

  UNCOMMON HEROES SERIES

  True Devotion

  True Valor

  True Honor

  Kidnapped

  The Witness

  Before I Wake

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Prologue

  Paramedic Stephen O’Malley drove north from Chicago the night of June 25, leaving behind life as he knew it. The wipers pushed rain off the windshield, but even on high they gave a clear view of the road for only a few seconds. Cars ahead were visible as red diffuse taillights that occasionally brightened as drivers touched their brakes.

  A semi with a trailer rolled past him, throwing water up in a sheet across his windshield. For several seconds he was effectively blind as the wipers struggled to shove the water off. As the deluge cleared, the semi pulled over into his lane. The trailer crossed too far and went into the edge of the roadside. Gravel peppered his car. Stephen immediately slowed, trying to avoid an accident.

  He didn’t want to die on a stretch of highway tonight. One funeral in a day was enough. It had been overcast at his sister’s graveside this morning. By the time the O’Malley family dinner broke up, a heavy drizzle hung in the air. He should have known the weather would turn into a thunderstorm during his drive.

  Stephen reached down and changed the radio station, looking for talk radio and a distraction. The oak casket he’d helped carry from the church to the waiting hearse and then to the graveside had been too light. Even with the weight of the casket, it was impossible to hide the fact Jennifer died a shadow of herself. She’d lost a hard fought battle with cancer, convinced until the final weeks that God would work a miracle and heal her. A senseless faith. Stephen shoved a button on the radio to change to a different station. He wasn’t going to think about Jennifer. He’d just start fighting tears again.

  Wind gusts struck the driver’s side of the car. Stephen spotted a blue exit sign advertising gas, food, and hotels and hit the turn signal. He needed a break. If he planned to drive all
night, at some point he would need a full tank of gas and something cold to drink. It might as well be now.

  He chose a gas station with a canopy over the pumps and a general store for supplies. He topped off the gas tank, checked the oil and fluids, then went inside to pay. The place was deserted but for one other person paying at the register and the sound of a radio announcer listing sports scores.

  He wasn’t hungry, but food would help keep him awake. He stopped at the self-serve counter in the center of the store under a sign advertising chili by the pint. He could hear Jennifer reminding him about the inevitable heartburn. He shook his head and moved past the kettle.

  He had a choice between a Polish sausage spinning on a heat rack that looked as if it had been there for hours or a cold deli sandwich that he couldn’t identify. He slid open the cover, used tongs to pick up the Polish, and stuffed it in a hot dog bun. Onions, pickles, and hot mustard made the meat disappear. A store special offered the drink for an extra fifty cents. He tugged a large blue cup from the stack, set it under the dispenser, and was generous with the ice. The Diet Pepsi was sputtering with air so he added regular Pepsi to fill the cup. At least the plastic lid fit. He tucked a straw in his pocket.

  The clerk rang up the items. Stephen added a newspaper to the stack.

  “It’s a bad night for driving. They’re saying this rain will get worse before it gets better.”

  Stephen pulled bills from his wallet. “At least there’s less traffic.” He pulled change from his shirt pocket, and as he did so green M&M’s tumbled into his hand. For a moment Stephen simply looked at them. He rubbed his thumb across the chocolates, turning two of them over. Ann’s son Nathan had been sitting on his lap after dinner, having M&M’s for dessert. The child provided a welcome distraction from the solemnity of the funeral meal. Nathan had picked out the blue ones for himself and shared the green. Stephen hadn’t even realized. You’re so precious, little man.

  Stephen slipped the M&M’s back in his pocket. Jennifer would have been pleased to know that Ann had brought her two children to join the dinner. It was a meal where the boys had to be on their best behavior, but they didn’t grasp—nor should they—the reality of death and the loss it brought. That empty chair at the table where Jennifer had once sat haunted Stephen through the meal. The boys’ presence had indeed been a welcome distraction.

  Life went on.

  He took the receipt and nodded his thanks.

  Wind whipped the bag as he stepped outside. He turned his shoulder into it and walked to his car. He tossed a roll of paper towels on his jacket in the backseat. The Emergency Medical Services patch on the left sleeve had come up in one corner, and the EMS logo on the back of the jacket was encircled with fluorescent orange tape rubbed nearly through in spots.

  He had grabbed the jacket out of habit rather than need. The leave of absence from his paramedic job was open-ended. His boss avoided accepting his resignation, and Stephen had conceded the theoretical possibility that he would change his mind.

  He had spent a lifetime rescuing people. The last few months had left him with the certain knowledge that he couldn’t carry the weight anymore. He didn’t want his pager going off. He didn’t want to face another person injured, bleeding, and trying not to die. Stephen was done with it. The profession that had been his career for the last decade no longer appealed to him.

  He parked near the exit so he could note down the gas, mileage, and date. Where was he going? He picked up the map, studying it in the dim overhead light. He was driving north, with no particular plan except to be out of the state by morning. He just wanted—no, needed—some space. The decision had been coming for years.

  What would his family be saying right now? “He’s hurting…give him space…let’s call him tomorrow.” Kate had nearly strangled him when she asked him not to go, or to at least let her come along as navigator. As if she could navigate any better than he could. Outside the city she was notorious for getting lost. He smiled as he chose the road he’d take, then folded the map. If it wasn’t for the fact she was married, he would have said yes just for the pleasure of her company.

  The bond between the seven O’Malleys went deep. At the orphanage where they had first met, family was nonexistent. They had chosen to become their own family and decided on the last name O’Malley. Now with Jennifer’s death there was an undercurrent of fear that the bond between them would change in unpredictable ways, would not hold.

  Maybe he was the first sign that it was breaking.

  He was thirty minutes away from family and already wondered what he was doing. He rubbed the back of his neck. He could turn around and go back. His family wouldn’t pry that much. They’d just swallow him back into their fold and do everything they could to try to help him.

  He couldn’t go back. He loved the O’Malleys. He just didn’t think he could handle being around them for the next few months. He was the odd man out. They were all couples now and he was still unattached. They had all recently come to believe in God, and he didn’t want to explore the matter. They said Jennifer was in a better place, talking about heaven as if it was real. Maybe it was, but it didn’t change the fact that his sister was gone.

  For all his discussions with Jennifer about the subject before she died, the reality of her absence overrode any comfort that nebulous concept of heaven gave.

  He pulled back onto the highway. He was going to drive and see the country until he found a sense of peace, and if it took a year, then so be it.

  The flashing lights in the rearview mirror caught his attention—the blue and red medley bright in the rain—and then the sound of emergency sirens reached him. Stephen pulled to the right lane. The word ambulance on the front of the vehicle grew larger as it approached.

  The vehicle rushed past.

  Ten minutes later highway traffic began to slow, and then both lanes of cars ground to a halt. Stephen eventually reached the spot where a cop was directing traffic to the far left lane. The ambulance, lights still flashing, was angled in ahead of a fire engine crowding the right lane.

  A trailer that had broken free from a semi lay overturned in the road and a smashed-in car had taken a nosedive into the ditch. Through the rain he could see the firefighters working to extract a passenger from the car. Remove the window before you force that door. The frame was crumpled to the B-Pillar that went from the undercarriage to the roof and provided structural support for the door frames. If the firefighter popped that door before he took care of the window, they would be working on an extraction while kneeling in shattered glass.

  He should stop and offer to help. Stephen didn’t act on the fleeting thought. He knew what to do—they probably did too— and if they didn’t, they had to learn somehow. Most rescue skills came from hard-won experience. He couldn’t rescue everyone in the world who got into trouble. He had tried and it about killed him.

  The cop finally signaled his lane of traffic forward. Stephen made one last assessment of the wreck as he slowly passed by. In another lifetime he’d written the book on vehicle extraction. The paramedics were bringing in the backboard and just about had the victim free.

  He turned his attention back to the road.

  He owed Jennifer. She had asked that he be happy, settled, and at peace with life. She had pushed her version of a solution—encouraging him to settle down with Ann and to come to church, but he wasn’t able to believe as she longed for, and she hadn’t lived long enough to see him settled down, even if he’d been inclined to do so. He had let her down. And it hurt.

  Jenny, I already miss you something terrible. Why did you have to die?

  Silent tears slid down his cheeks, and he wiped them away.

  He pulled out a bottle of aspirin from the glove box and dumped two tablets into his left hand. He popped them in his mouth, grimaced at the taste, and picked up his soda. The sides of the cup were sweating and the paper was getting soft. He took two long draws on the straw to wash down the tablets.

  His
phone rang for the fourth time. Stephen looked over at it. He had a feeling the caller wouldn’t give up, so he flipped the phone open with one hand. “Yes?”

  “Stephen?”

  Meghan Delhart’s voice was like the brush of angel’s wings over a bruise, a tender balm to a painful hurt. His hand tightened on the steering wheel and he glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure he could slow down without causing problems for someone driving too close to his car. He dropped his speed another five miles per hour. “Hey there, beautiful.” Meghan had been at Jennifer’s visitation last night.

  “You were on my mind and I took a chance you’d still be up. It sounds like you’re on the road somewhere.”

  “Just driving, thinking.” She would understand what he didn’t say. There had been nights when she walked out of a shift as an ER nurse not sure whether she wanted to go home, let alone back to work. He’d often played checkers with her on the ambulance gurney while he followed up on the patients he’d brought in.

  If anyone had a right to complain about life, it was Meghan. She’d run away for a year in her own way after her car accident and its aftermath. She retreated to live with her parents and told friends not to visit. She went away to lick her wounds, and when the year was over, she came back at peace, with no signs of how hard the transition had been. He envied her strength. If Meghan could adapt to the tragedies that came in life, so could he. Jennifer was gone. He had to live with it.

  “How far are you planning to drive?”

  “Until sleep says find a hotel.” He changed the radio station he was listening to. “I took a leave of absence from work.”

  She let that sink in. “That might be good.”

  He rolled his right shoulder. Good, bad, it just was. He didn’t have the emotional energy to handle the job right now.

  “Are you driving through rain? The storm is getting close here.”

  “Wind driven rain,” he confirmed. “Where are you staying?” She’d come into town for the funeral, so she must still be in the area.

  “I borrowed the keys to my grandparents’ vacation place in Whitfield.”

  Whitfield…he finally placed it on his mental map. She was about twenty minutes northwest of his position. The storm must be tracking her direction.