Saving Faith By: David Baldacci

hard-packed gravel road, its dirt shoulders laced with the tangled

sprawl of dandelion, curly dock and chickweed. The ramshackle

structure rested on an acre of cleared flat land, but was surrounded on

three sides by woods where each tree struggled to find sunlight at the

expense of its neighbor. Because of wetlands and other development

problems, the eighty-year-old home had never had any neighbors. The

nearest community was about three miles away by car, but less than half

that distance if one had the backbone to challenge the dense woods.

For much of the last twenty years the rustic cottage had been used for

impromptu teen parties, and on occasion by the wandering homeless

looking for the comfort and relative safety of four walls and a roof,

however porous. The cottage’s discouraged current owner, who had

recently inherited the beast, had finally opted to rent it out. He had

found a willing tenant who had paid the full year’s rent in advance, in

cash.

Tonight the calf-high grass in the front yard was pushed low and then

straightened in the face of a strengthening wind. Behind the house a

line of thick oaks seemed to mimic the movements of the grass as they

swayed back and forth. It hardly seemed possible, yet except for the

wind, there were no other sounds.

Save one.

In the woods, several hundred yards directly behind the house, a pair

of feet splashed through a shallow creek bed. The man’s dirty trousers

and soaked boots attested to the difficulty with which he had navigated

the congested terrain in the dark, even with the aid of a

three-quarters-full moon. He paused to scrape his muddy boots against

the trunk of a fallen tree.

Lee Adams was both sweaty and chilled after the punishing trek. At

forty-one years of age, his six-foot-two body was exceptionally strong.

He worked out regularly, and his biceps and delts showed it. Keeping

in reasonably good shape was a necessity in his line of work. While he

was often required to sit in a car for days on end, or in a library or

courthouse reviewing microfiche records, he also, on occasion, had to

climb trees, subdue men even larger than he was or, like now, slog

through gully-filled woods in the dead of night. A little extra muscle

never hurt. However, he wasn’t twenty anymore either, and his body was

letting him know it.

Lee had thick, wavy brown hair that seemed perpetually in his face, a

quick, infectious smile, pronounced cheekbones and an engaging set of

blue eyes that had caused female hearts spontaneously to flutter from

fifth grade onward. He had suffered enough broken bones during his

career, though, and other assorted injuries, that his body felt far

older than it looked. And that’s what hit him every morning when he

rose. The creaks, the little pains. Cancerous tumor or merely

arthritis? he sometimes wondered. What the hell did it really matter?

When God punched your ticket, He did so with authority. A good diet

and messing around with weights or pitter-pattering on the treadmill

wasn’t going to change the Man’s decision to pull your string.

Lee looked up ahead. He couldn’t see the cottage just yet; the forest

clutter was too thick. He fussed with the controls of the camera he

had pulled from his knapsack while he took a series of replenishing

breaths. Lee had made this same trek several times before but had

never gone inside the cottage. He had seen things, though-peculiar

things. That’s why he was back. It was time to learn the secret of

this place.

His wind having returned, Lee trudged on, his only companions the

scurrying wildlife. Deer, rabbit, squirrel and even beaver were

plentiful in this still-rural part of northern Virginia. As he walked

along, Lee listened to the flit of flying creatures. All he could

envision were rabid, foaming bats blindly cleaving the air around his

head. And it seemed that every few steps he would run straight into a

twister of mosquitoes. Though he had been paid a large amount of cash

up front, he was seriously considering increasing his daily fee on this

one.

When he approached the edge of the woods, Lee stopped. He had a great

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