Read the Protector by Dee Henderson Online

  THE PROTECTOR

"At that place are very few books that bear upon the soul and the heart while trying to evangelize an inspiring bulletin, but Ms. Henderson e'er manages to accomplish this feat."

BOOKBROWSER

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HANNAH ALEXANDER, author of Sacred Trust, Solemn Oath, and Silent Pledge

"A page-turner with romance, love, and finely crafted writing that will continue you read ing until the dramatic ending. Ii thumbs up!"

ROMANCECENTRAL.COM

"A riveting addition to the series!… Dee Henderson's magical pen combines the allure of Thrillers, Romances, and Christian books to brand one of the best serial I have ever read!"

HUNTRESS BOOK REVIEWS (www.huntressreviews.com/thril.htm)

"The Protector is very exciting with lots of edge of your seat burn down-fighting scenes…. I couldn't put the volume down."

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THE TRUTHS EEKER

"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!"

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THE BELLES AND BEAUX OF ROMANCE

"For a complex story and profound argument on Christianity, read The Truth Seeker. "

THE ROMANCE READERS CONNECTION, INSPIRATIONAL CORNER

THE GUARDIAN

"An entertaining thriller-cum-romance-cum-conversion story is what readers make it this fastpaced novel…. Christian readers volition relish this intriguing tale."

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

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

ROMANTIC TIMES Magazine

"Another exciting new thriller from an up-and-coming talent in Christian fiction."

LIBRARY Periodical

THE NEGOTIATOR

"Sterling romantic suspense."

ROMANTIC TIMES MAGAZINE Top Pick

"Solid storytelling, compelling characters, and the promise of more O'Malleys make Henderson a name to picket. Highly recommended, with a cantankerous-genre entreatment."

LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Topnotch writing."

SCRIBES Globe REVIEWS

DANGER IN THE SHADOWS

"Dee Henderson had me shivering every bit 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 han dled, just I got scared, anyway! I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes sus pense."

TERRI BLACKSTOCK, Acknowledged AUTHOR OF Cape Refuge

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

COMPUSERVE REVIEWS

THE HEALER

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

BOOKBROWSER

"The Healer mesmerized me! A masterful balance of life and death, skillful and evil is created within these pages, and I could non walk away unchanged. At times all as well real, The Healer had me crying, laughing, and wondering 'what if.'"

ROMANCEREADERSCONNECTION.COM

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The Protector

Copyright © 2001 past Dee Henderson. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of fireman copyright © by Index Stock Imagery. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of fire copyright © by Photos.com. All rights reserved.

Designed by Ron Kaufmann and Dean H. Renninger

Previously published in 2001 by Multnomah Publishers, Inc. under ISBN 1-57673-846-nine.

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

This novel is a piece of work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously. Whatsoever resemblance to bodily events, locales, organizations, or persons living or expressionless is entirely casual and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4143-1059-6

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 Serial

True Devotion

True Valor

True Honor

Kidnapped

The Witness

Before I Wake

For God so loved the world that he gave his simply Son,

that whoever believes in him should non perish just

have eternal life.

For God sent the Son into the world,

non to condemn the globe,

but that the world might be saved through him.

JOHN iii:16–17

Contents

Prologue

One

Ii

Three

Iv

V

Six

Vii

Eight

Nine

10

11

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

16

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Xx-i

20-ii

Twenty-iii

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Xx-half-dozen

Twenty-7

Twenty-eight

Xx-nine

Xxx

30-1

30-ii

30-three

Thirty-4

Thirty-5

Xxx-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

30-9

Forty

Xl-ane

Xl-two

Twoscore-three

Twoscore-iv

Forty-v

Prologue

The electricity was out. The candle nightlight on the dresser was barely bright enough to scare away the ghosts. Jack watched the dancing shadows flicker on the wall and wished his mom had brought him the torch flashlight his dad used when they went camping. Dim was worse than night, and the shadows were laughing at him.

If only there were a full moon, not a storm. He could hear the air current picking up. He tugged on the blanket, prepare to yank it over his head when the lightning struck. Sometimes lightning could herald action heroes coming to save him and sometimes information technology was but aroused bolts. Tonight the tempest was angry.

"Mom?" He didn't shout it. He wasn't supposed to still be awake; he wasn't supposed to be afraid of the nighttime. But if she would maybe just come up check on him…

Thunder cracked.

His dog raced into the room from the hall.

Overjoyed, Jack hurriedly tugged the sheets back up and buried hi

s face up against the pillow so he could pretend to be asleep. Mom had permit Shep inside the house. The dresser rocked as his dog crashed into it, squeezing around to get into the fort Jack had built earlier that solar day with blankets over chairs. The candle toppled and disappeared.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden black. This was not good. This was very bad. He heard his mom talking with his dad, the sounds echoing equally they came up the stairs.

The room started to brighten. He opened one eye a little to see if Mom had come up to the doorway with her light to cheque on him. The door stood open, empty. Jack opened both eyes. Fire peeked over the edge of his bed, licking at the Yard. I. Joe sheets.

Jack watched, wide eyed, fascinated. The flames grew similar marching soldiers in a spreading line.

He reached to move the Matchbox auto from the pes of the bed and drew back from the heat. "Mom."

The fire alarm in the hall went off.

The racket deaf the audio of thunder outside.

"Jack!" His mom rushed into the room followed by his dad.

She pulled him from the bed and swallowed him in a hug. She smelled like lilacs. His dad yanked back the rug and the covers, attacked the flames, and stomped them out. Wow. They had turned to flames fast; it had been just a flicker moments earlier. "I'd like Superman sheets to replace mister G. I. Joe," he told his mom, watching his dad save him.

She squeezed him. "Superman sheets," she murmured, her vox choked. "I tin can do that."

One

The firm was a total loss. Firefighter Lieutenant Jack O'Malley shone his vivid calorie-free on the dripping walls, looking for annihilation that would provide a source for the smoke he was notwithstanding chasing. Second floor beams higher up him groaned equally the edifice settled. Burn had shattered what had once been a beautiful, well-kept domicile. It was similar walking effectually within a sarcophagus. The place felt like it was dying.

The kitchen smelled of something nasty, the precipitous smell of burnt cleaning supplies making Jack's eyes water. Limp bananas were at present hanging over a bowl whose apples looked like cooked mush. Coupons fluttered from the counter to the flooring, turning to a sodden mass in the standing water. Pictures on the refrigerator had bled away color in the heat, leaving behind the ghosts of people barely discernible.

The big calendar on the wall beside the phone had been reduced to darkened, curling pages. A family's life, documented in dates and times and appointments, gone. Jack let the light linger on the agenda, the month of November one-half marked off with Xs, today'south date of the fifteenth highlighted by something now illegible in assuming red ink. Their vacation dates, he guessed. Thanksgiving was adjacent calendar week and they had chosen to travel early. He was grateful they had not been caught in the inferno.

This was so incredibly senseless. The fire looked like it had been set.

Jack could feel the weariness wash over him again, and behind it, edifice, the tick in his left eye that showed his growing anger. He'd like to notice the human responsible for this and deck him.

A wisp of greyness caught his attending equally the business firm breathed. Some smoke was coming through the cardinal air ductwork. Jack touched his radio. "Nate, check the utility room over again."

"On it."

Jack walked through what had in one case been the patio door, stepping out into the dark. The massive spotlights from the burn engines in front of the firm cast foreign shadows onto the backyard through holes in the firm where windows had never been intended.

Popcorn.

Jack stopped in his tracks when he spotted the white kernels lying at the edge of the deck protected from booted feet past the waist-high wooden railing. The edifice anger surged and fury swept through him. Someone had stood and watched the house burn, had come prepared to enjoy the sight. Information technology was a signature he'd seen before.

The white kernels were scattered, dropped equally though stragglers from an overflowing fistful. Jack searched the area. A few of the unpopped grains that had been flicked into the flames lay burnt with hulls split in ii. Jack had hoped with a passion this particular arsonist was going to stick to his nuisance fires of grass and trash. Instead, he'd just escalated to his kickoff house.

Fire was supposed to exist an accident, not a weapon, not something enjoyed. Jack kicked a smoldering chunk of wood ripped from a window frame abroad from the bear witness. His job was turning into that of a cop.

He hated arsonists. Painful experience from his by had taught him how ruthless a fire starter could get. Destruction of property. Innocent victims. Injured firefighters. They had to find this guy before someone got hurt.

He could fight a fire, merely fighting a human being… Jack felt like his hands were tied and he hated the feeling of being helpless. He was an O'Malley. He wasn't a human being to duck problem. He preferred to go subsequently it. This was clearly problem. How was he supposed to go after a man who chose to be a coward and hide behind a friction match?

Thanksgiving was coming, and then Christmas, and he had enough on his plate already with his sister Jennifer fighting cancer to desire to add this kind of tangle. The holidays were similar waving an invitation to make trouble. He couldn't be 2 places at once. They had to end this guy shortly. Only it was tomorrow's problem.

Around him the firefighters from Company 81 were pulling hose and shouting to be heard over the sound of a power saw. They were aggressively searching for hot spots within the burned-out firm and trying to discover the source of that smoke still ascension like a wavering cobra into the air.

Somewhere in the ruins this fire was however alive. Jack pulled dorsum on his gloves and looked over the ruins of the business firm with an experienced eye. A decade of fighting fires had taught him well, for it was not a forgiving profession.

Fire was an arrogant brute. If in control, it challenged with ferocious disdain anyone who approached. If forced to retreat, it liked to lie depression, patiently waiting, then exact a painful revenge.

They'd observe information technology. Impale information technology. And another dragon would be slain.

"Cole." Jack got the attending of the burn investigator.

There were few men who could dominate a fire scene just by being present; his friend Cole was i. Half-dozen-ii, one hundred and eighty pounds, prematurely gray at forty-ii, Cole Parker had fabricated captain at thirty-six, a decade before virtually. He now led the arson grouping. Jack trusted the human being in a way he trusted few exterior his family.

"What practice yous have, Jack?"

With his flashlight, Jack illuminated the popcorn.

Cole, a big man with a big shadow, stilled for a moment, then walked over to the deck.

"He's escalating," Jack said.

Cole aptitude to pick up a kernel. "We knew he eventually would. Five fires in seven weeks, he's non a patient man."

"He'southward ringing fires around the new boundaries of the fire district," Jack suggested, knowing it was at least a inkling to figuring out who the man was they had to terminate. The smaller, older fire stations had been closing over the past months, their engines and crews dispersed to expanded hub stations. The reapportioned equipment ameliorate reflected the new housing structure and demographics of the area, but cypher could change the reality that more territory in each district meant longer response times. This firebug knew how to have advantage of the alter.

Cole just nodded. "A dangerous man playing a dangerous game." He ate 1 of the popped kernels. "Salt. He's bringing his own refreshments."

"I really didn't need to know that."

His friend rose gracefully to his feet. "I thought this had the sound of i of his. Tardily at nighttime, edge of the district." He looked over at Jack. "Gold Shift."

The implication that his shift was being targeted hadn't escaped Jack's attention. They worked xx-four hours on, forty-eight hours off, yet all the fires had been fought past his shift, none by Black or Red Shifts. Jack would not easily admit he'd started to sweat when the tones sounded. It was hard to concord his trademark good sense of humour when someone out there appeared adamant to make sure he was going to face flames.

Cole brushed his hands on worn je

ans. He'd been paged to the scene from his home. "Tell me nearly this burn."

"It was in the walls."

First on the scene, Engine 81 had pulled up as fume began to cascade from the attic vents and around the eaves. Jack had pushed his style into the forepart hallway, shining his calorie-free, and had watched the paint bubble from the heat inside the walls. No flames had been visible, but as shortly as he had poked his ax into the wall, the dragon had leaped out, roaring. "We had a hard fourth dimension getting h2o onto the face of it."

Nate on the nozzle, Bruce pulling hose, they'd lost precious time cut into the walls. With no moon and the neighbors' homes a distance abroad, the fire had not been reported until it already had a good concord. Jack had been thinking information technology ignited because of an electrical brusque until he saw the intensity of the fire. He illuminated the smoke line and burn pattern with his light equally they walked.

"Middle of the house?" Cole speculated.

They slogged beyond the yard now turned into mud by the hours of streaming water. Jack stopped by a dogwood tree. "I retrieve then. There was as well much ambient heat to assume it started on the second flooring and worked down inside the walls, not enough burn down scarring on the siding to show an origin point in an exterior wall."

Arson for profit didn't fit this guy'due south pattern—probably a guy—Jack decided. It didn't feel like the piece of work of a young offender either. These burn locations were carefully planned. And it was odd for a fire starter who did it for enjoyment to acquire the gustatory modality late in life. "Remember he'south subsequently the printing attention?"

"Assuming plenty to stand around later the fire starts and movie popcorn into the flames, arrogant enough to set fires frequently. At present escalating in the type of fires he sets. Yes, he wants the attention—ours, the media's, and ultimately the public'southward."

"We'll have a panic on our hands if we don't stop him before the press connects the fires."

"Not to mention copycats."

Smoke twisted in their direction, the heavy ash particles making Jack cough. "What time is it?"

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