Opening Snippet From 'Confessions'
Below is the first part of the first chapter of my theological mystery, Confessions.
[image error]
Chapter One
Calling
I am dreaming when the phone rings.
We are children. My sister and I. Romping along the shore of the lake. Wind waves lapping at our feet. Our parents watching from the porch. Savoring the slice of summer that is no more singular than the next, but no less either.
Ring....
My sister is five. She is chasing me. Kicking tiny splashes at me as she runs. I steal a glance back at her. She is giggling madly. The late day sun painting a glow upon her.
Ring....
I sprint a bit to pull away. To heighten the chase. And I look back to sample that perfect face. To see it once again.
Ring....
But it is not there.
Ring....
She is not there. Just an endless shore stretching out empty from where I have—
Ring...
My head jerks up from the pillow, the fractured remembrance of a time long gone still echoing vividly as I cross the boundary from slumber and wake quickly in the darkness. For a moment I do not reach to the bedside table to stifle phone, and though awake I close my eyes and draw a breath, wanting to hold the remnants of the dream in my thoughts. But the images of my sister from our shared age of innocence begin to flee, as they do each time I stumble up from sleep, watching helplessly as the days at the lake, or the candy trading after Halloween, or silly faces made at the dinner table recede from my waking world. They are gone to me.
As is she.
My eyes snap open and my feet swing over the bed's edge. I sit in the filtered glow of moonlight slanting through the curtains and reach to the phone, silencing it mid ring as I bring it to my ear.
"Hello."
"Father Mike?" All memories scatter to nothingness when I hear the voice. A voice I know. I am instantly awake. I am instantly worried.
"Yes."
"We have an officer shot," Captain Dennis Kerrigan says, and another thing happens instantly—I am on my feet, juggling the phone as I turn on a lamp and begin to dress.
"Where and how bad?"
"District Twenty Four, Rogers Park," Kerrigan explains. A half dozen voices chatter urgently behind his. "I don't have anything on his condition. He was arresting some meth freak when the guy pulled a gun. His backup scooped him up and rushed him to Lakeview Memorial."
I awkwardly button my pants after contorting into them and twist my feet into a pair of sneakers, the phone wedged between my shoulder and cheek as I open my closet in search of a sweater. "What's his name?"
"Luke Benz," Kerrigan answers, and for a moment my quickened dressing slows, and the questions I have directed at him stop. It is enough a reaction that he confirms what I suddenly fear without query from me. "Your dad worked with his."
I remember. Dave Benz. One of my father's first partners until the man traded his patrolman's uniform for a detective's shield and began a steady climb through the ranks, finally retiring as a captain a short time after my father.
One of the last cases he oversaw was the murder of my sister.
I am still stuck in place when a memory of Dave Benz rises. A brief snippet of a fleeting interaction between he and my father. Seven or eight years ago. Talk of his first grandchild. Friendly prodding as to when Katie was going to get busy and give my father and mother one.
"Does he have any kids?" I get moving again, slipping the sweater over my head.
"Two," Kerrigan says, and now it is he who quiets. For an instant that shatters the veneer of toughness all police officers wear—until the talk of children comes. "Boys, four and seven."
"I'm on my way." I hang up and reach into the closet one more time, retrieving a windbreaker from its hanger. It is blue and thin. A coat for brisk summer nights, at best. But I have not chosen it for warmth, and it stays bunched in one hand as I leave my room and move quickly down the hallway. The stairs hardly have time to groan as I bound down, and at the bottom in the foyer the wall clock draws my eye. It is the first I have noticed the time since waking—2:21 a.m.
I am one step from the door when I hesitate. I look behind to the small table close by, bowl still atop it, a collection of sweets skimming the bottom, remnants from the night's rush of costumed kiddies padding up the walkway in search of candy. I reach quickly and take a small mix of treats in hand, pocketing them as I open the door and step out into the chill.
My car is in the rectory's driveway. I jog slowly toward it, my breath jetting as I cross the browning lawn, one arm slipping into my windbreaker, then the other. There are letters of gold stamped across its back, identifying my role this terrible, terrible morning—CPD Chaplain.
[image error]
Confessions is available as an eBook for Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other devices using the appropriate reading apps. For just $2.99 you can purchase Confessions at the following places:
