Saving Faith By: David Baldacci

precisely placing the fork and butter knife perpendicular to one

another.

“I don’t want you to leave.” On this she rose, quickly crossed the

room and then raced up the stairs.

Lee heard her bedroom door slam shut.

Lee took a deep breath, stood and was surprised to find his legs so

rubbery. It wasn’t from the run, he knew. He showered, changed and

came back downstairs. Faith’s door was still closed and he had no

intention of interrupting whatever she was doing in there. With his

nerves unraveling, he decided to spend an hour with the mundane task of

thoroughly cleaning his gun. The downside to salt and water was that

they were tough on weapons, and automatic pistols were notoriously

finicky anyway. If the ammo wasn’t of a very high quality, you could

count on the thing misfiring and then jamming–or a little sand and

grit could cause the same malfunction. And you couldn’t clear an auto

pistol by simply pulling the trigger and bringing up a clean cylinder,

as you would a revolver. By the time you got your gun all straightened

out, you’d be dead. And with Lee’s luck to date, it would happen right

when he absolutely needed the thing to fire true and straight.

However, on the plus side, the 9mm Parabellums fired by the compact

Smith & Wesson had excellent stopping power. Whatever they hit would

drop. He prayed he wouldn’t have to use the gun, however. Because that

would probably mean someone was shooting at him.

He reloaded the fifteen-shot magazine, inserted it in the grip and

chambered a round. He clicked on the safety and holstered the gun. He

thought about taking the Honda down to the store for a newspaper but

decided he didn’t quite have the energy or desire to undertake even

such a simple task. He also didn’t want to leave Faith alone. When

she came downstairs, he wanted to be here.

When Lee went to get a drink of water at the kitchen sink, he glanced

out the window and almost had a heart attack. Across the roadway,

above a wall of tall, thick brush that ran about as far as the eye

could see, suddenly exploding into his line of vision was a small

plane! That’s when Lee remembered the runway Faith had told him about.

It was across from the house and shielded by the brush.

Lee hurried to the front door to watch the landing. By the time he got

outside, the plane had already disappeared. Then whizzing above the

top of the brush was the tail of the plane. It flashed in front of him

and then continued past at a fast clip.

He went up on the second-story front porch and watched as the plane

taxied to a stop and the passengers deplaned. A car was waiting to

pick them up. Bags were off-loaded and stored in the car, which left

with the passengers through a small paved opening in the brush not far

from Faith’s house. The pilot got out of the twin-prop plane, checked

a few things and then climbed back in. A few minutes later the plane

taxied to the other end of the runway and turned around. The pilot

opened the throttle and came roaring down the runway in the same

direction he had landed, and then lifted gracefully into the air. The

plane headed out toward the water, made a turn and quickly disappeared

into the horizon.

Lee went back inside and tried to watch some TV, while at the same time

listening for Faith. After roaming through about a thousand channels,

he concluded there was absolutely nothing worth watching, and he played

a game of solitaire. He enjoyed losing so much, he played another

dozen games, with the same result. He wandered downstairs and shot

some pool in the game room. When lunchtime came around, he fixed a

tuna sandwich and some beef barley soup and ate out on the deck

overlooking the pool. He watched the same plane land once more around

one o’clock. It shed its passengers and soared once more. He thought

about knocking on Faith’s door to see if she was hungry and then

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