Page 36 of Avenging Angel

“This is exactly what I was talking about!” I exclaim, standing up with enough force to knock the chair down.

Her face contorts in confusion, not only from my words but from my sudden outburst.

“Daisy, when will it ever be enough for you? A few days ago, I told you that your identity is tied to this quest and asked if you’d ever be able to let it go. The truth is that you can’t. It’s not about justice for you, or at least not only about justice. This is vengeance, plain and simple.”

“Someone has to avenge those girls, Angel. It’s my path. It has to be why I was spared. If no one will help me, then my only choice is to do it myself, even if that means I’m alone in my mission.”

She says that last part as though being alone is her destiny. It’s enough to propel me forward and close the distance Daisy has put between us. Gently lifting her chin until our gazes meet, I quote Romans 12:19. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”

“Then what is my purpose?” Daisy asks in a whisper. “Am I just supposed to forgive and forget? To do nothing?”

“Forgiveness is a start,” I tell her. My hand moves from her chin and down her arm until our fingers entwine. I lead her over to the small sofa and sit down. “I doubt you could ever forget, nor would anyone expect you to.”

Daisy sits quietly, her hand squeezing mine as though it’s a lifeline. With her other hand, she reaches for a chain around her neck. Her fingers run along it until they grasp a small pendant that had been hidden underneath her shirt. I’ve seen it before, down in Colombia when we were searching for my sister. Daisy always fidgeted with it whenever she was nervous, as though the small mustard seed encased in resin was a reminder of where she needed to place her faith.

She looks up at me with an almost pleading gaze. “How do I forgive someone who has ruined countless lives, destroyed families, and values life in dollars and cents without regard for what it costs others? What it cost me? I don’t know if I can do it, Angel. I don’t know if I have the strength to forgive an atrocity of that magnitude. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“It wouldn’t be for him, Daisy. It would be for you, so you can live a more peaceful existence where you don’t harbor hate. Love is a more powerful force if you let yourself experience it.” Letting go of her hand, I slide my arm across her shoulders and pull her into a soft, loose embrace. “It will take time and effort to forgive. No one, including me, believes it will be an easy endeavor. In fact, it might be the most difficult thing you’ve ever done.”

I glance down at the pendant she’s holding between her fingers. “It will take faith the size of that mustard seed to trust the Lord to move the mountain that still has you trapped in a world where vengeance is yours and not His.”

“I can’t sit by and do nothing, even if someday I find it in my heart to forgive the man who took me.”

“No one is asking you to quit, Daisy. That’s why we’re all here. We’re here to help you find the peace you deserve by catching the man who abducted you and seeing justice served. What we are asking of you, actually begging you, is to take it one step at a time and allow God to lead you rather than the vengeance in your heart. You asked what your purpose is. Well, ask God. Pray about it because taking on Dominion might not be what He has planned for you. He may use someone else to slay that Goliath, or an army of His making to fight that battle when the time is right.”

Daisy nods and fiddles with her necklace. We sit like that for a few minutes, neither of us saying a word until she breaks the silence. “Okay. I’ll back off from pursuing Dominion for now. But if God gives me the chance to enlist in that army you’re talking about, just know that I’ll be the first to sign up.”

I smile and kiss Daisy’s temple. “I’d expect nothing less.”

The image on the screen blurs after I’ve been staring at it for the past two hours. “Watching Brad audit the campground is as boring as watching a sloth gathering momentum,” I say to myself since I’m alone in Vinny’s cabin viewing the monitors. Scott and Vinny went to the grocery store for a few more supplies, while Owen took his sister to the diner to grab lunch for everyone. I lean back in my seat and yell out the open door, “Hey, Bennett! Are you sure this is your guy?”

Owen walks through the door with a bag of food and drinks, which means Daisy isn’t far behind him. Handing me a sandwich and a bottle of iced tea, he says, “Bennett is on the phone. I’m not sure who he’s talking to, but he doesn’t look happy about it.”

My stomach rumbles as the smell of the brown-sugared ham hits me. “Owen, have you confirmed Bennett’s information? This Brad guy is about as boring as standing in line at a post office. Nothing about him screams ‘criminal’ to me.”

Motioning for me to get out of his chair so he can pull up the data, Owen says, “Both names have full background histories that stand up to intense scrutiny. I’m not talking about a quick internet search or a few social media pages. I mean the kind that contains the smallest details, like elementary school records, years of social media history, and baby photos posted online by their parents.”

Lowering his voice, Owen adds, “They’re as detailed as the identities Daisy and our family got twenty years ago. From all outward appearances, Brad and Doug are two different people.”

“Then how can you be sure they’re not?”

Owen grins. “I hacked into Dominion’s servers, which took me the better part of the night. I found the email where Brad sent his resignation letter. It was around the same time Doug disappeared from the face of the planet. Coincidence? Maybe. But do you remember those social media pictures I just told you about? The ears are a match, with a ninety-three percent confidence score that they belong to the same person. Someone with a great deal of resources and capabilities created an alias that would fool even the best intelligence agencies.”

“Then he’s our guy,” I mumble.

“It would sure seem that way. Yet….”

I sigh. “That’s as bad as a ‘but.’”

“We already know that Brad Callahan only uses a corporate credit card rather than a personal one. During his time with Dominion, there are several transactions that coincide with the kidnappings. The problem is that he was nowhere near the sites and, in some cases, was halfway around the world. Since his time with the NPS, there are three transactions that place him within 200 miles of a disappearance, but they coincide with the audits he was performing at a neighboring national park.”

“What about his alias, Douglas Jenner?”

“I found several transactions that could be tied to the earlier abductions, but they were before he disappeared five years ago,” Owen tells me. “They put him in each of the areas, but no less than a month before the kidnappings, sometimes as far out as a year. Nothing during the timeframes when they actually took place.”

“Then the evidence you’ve found linking Douglas Jenner is circumstantial at best, and it gives Brad Callahan an alibi. It’s a dead end unless we catch him in the act, but we already suspected as much. Have you located Kenneth?” I ask.

“He’s a ghost,” Owen says. “If he’s still in the area, he’s gone completely off the grid. I haven’t seen him on any of the cameras you placed at the nearby campgrounds, the rim lodge, the post office, or the diner. So, I decided to run facial recognition again since Bennett disabled the shutdown virus, hoping to dig a little deeper. Do you know what I found?”