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  WORDS OF PRAISE FOR TRAVIS THRASHER’S FICTION

  The Second Thief (Moody Publishers, 2003)

  A suspenseful novel about a man who survives a plane accident and has a second chance at life. As he runs from his present mistakes while making amends for past ones, he comes to grips with his own lack of faith.

  “The end of Thrasher’s tale has an unusual twist that will surprise the reader … steady pacing and competent prose keep the story moving.” —Publishers Weekly

  The Watermark (Tyndale House, 2001)

  Sheridan Blake’s life changes for the second time when he meets a beautiful Filippina girl named Genevie Liu. Having left college seven years ago after an accident almost ruined his life and destroyed several others, Sheridan has returned, but he is still trying to cope with his feelings of guilt.

  “Thrasher expertly paces the story, blending touches of humor with poignant moments.”—Publishers Weekly

  “A beautiful, sometimes whimsical journey to faith as a man grapples with feelings of unworthiness while learning that God has been there all along. A highly recommended work.”—Library Journal

  “Thrasher’s novel is … told with intensity and passion. This is good fiction that should find a wide readership.” —CBA Marketplace

  The Promise Remains (Tyndale House, 2000)

  A heartrendering story about a young couple, long separated, who find their way back to each other, along the way learning about God’s provision in the face of their own doubts and fears.

  “Driven by authentic characters … Sara and Ethan are two of the most real and sensitive lovers to grace the genre, and readers will find themselves moved.”—Publishers Weekly

  Travis Thrasher

  MOODY PUBLISHERS

  CHICAGO

  © 2004 by

  TRAVIS THRASHER

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Fragments of Psalm 40 found in chapter 69 are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  The Lord’s Prayer, quoted in chapter 72, is Matthew 6:9–13 taken from the King James Version.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thrasher, Travis, 1971-

  Gun Lake / Travis Thrasher.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-8024-1748-5

  1. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 2. Prisoners—Fiction. 3. Escapes—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.H6925G86 2004

  813’.6—dc22

  2004001881

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my father,

  William L. Thrasher Jr.,

  for his love, his encouragement,

  and most of all, his example.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EVERY NOVEL IS A JOURNEY I take, and there are many people I need to thank who help me along the way.

  My wife, Sharon, continues to be my biggest source of inspiration and encouragement. I love you, Shar.

  Thanks, Mom, for putting up with the two writers in your life, even though we’re not even half as talented as you are.

  For those of you who aren’t from Michigan, Gun Lake is a real place. My brother-in-law, Russ VanderVelde, helped provide the spark for this book with a pontoon boat ride on that very lake in July of 2002. My in-laws, Warren and Willamae Noorlag, finally got us all up there and continue to want us back as often as possible. Thank you, guys, for helping inspire the setting of this novel.

  I appreciate Michele Straubel at Moody for giving me the green light on something bigger, something harder.

  Barry Smith—you’re amazing at everything you do. Thanks for your talent, your time, and all your hard work.

  I want to acknowledge Thomas Newman for providing the emotional soundtrack to another novel.

  Thanks to all the many who encourage me in my writing: Anne Goldsmith; Jamie Cain; Ron Beers; Linda Gooch; KarenWatson; my small group; the guys from HYACKS; and all my author comrades who provide inspiration and encouragement.

  And finally, gracious reader, thank you for taking yet another journey with me.

  “This is the life we chose, the life we lead,

  and there is only one guarantee.

  None of us will see heaven.”

  Road to Perdition

  PROLOGUE

  HE COULD SEE HER down by the water. Framed, it would be a pretty picture, an image with a lasting impression. What right did he have to wander into it and mess it all up? He didn’t have any right being here, period. But a promise was a promise. And sometimes you had to see things through to the end.

  Beyond her stretched blue. Beautiful and peaceful, this blue. Someday, maybe, he would have that kind of peace. But not now, not today. There was so much he still had to do. So much to make up for.

  He’d make this brief.

  His fingers remained tight, carrying it for her. He’d pass it along, say a few words, then leave.

  Children’s voices echoed with laughter. An engine on the water roared to life. He passed a couple, blond and sunburned and calling it a day. He nodded as they greeted him with a friendly, “How’s it going?” All around him were signs and sounds of a life. Of life.

  He looked out over the water again. She noticed him and started approaching from the dock. Beyond her, all that blue.

  One day, maybe, there’d be a place like this for him. He’d liketo have a place like this. Nothing big. A small lot by the water. As long as he could spend a lot of time outdoors. And as long as the sounds of happiness filled the streets.

  They would one day. He knew that in his heart.

  She called out his name. He lifted his hand and smiled.

  These are the words of a dead man, and I write knowing I won’t be around to see them read. Beauty’s all around me here, and yet I know I don’t deserve it. Words mean nothing and apologies nothing, but that’s all I can offer so I’m going to try in some way. I just don’t know quite how to yet.

  Part 1

  FIVE TO ONE

  1

  LET’S TRY THIS ONE MORE TIME, the man thought with excitement.

  He wore black pants, a gray shirt, and a black cap that read “Security.” On the side of his arm was a patch with the insignia of SARC, a nearby security service. He glanced at his watch. Nine forty-five.

  It’s about that time.

  He brought the shopping cart to the front of the store. Only one person staffed the checkout aisle—a girl in her late teens. Other employees roamed through the sporting-goods store—a chubby, forty-something guy near the firearms section, a college-aged guy probably assigned to stocking, another tall and lean fellow he’d passed in the aisles. But the husky, short-haired woman behind the customer-service counter was the one he wanted to talk with.

  “Excuse me. Are you the manager?” he asked with eyebrows raised and a friendly but courteous smile. They always responded to that smile.

  She nodded. “What can I help you with?”

  She had a heavy Louisiana accent and big arms for a woman. Surprisingly muscular. He wondered absently how much she could bench press.

  “My name is James Morrison, and I’m from SARC. The service you guys work with?”

  She nodded, looking as though she knew the service and wondered where this was headed.

  He glanced at the name tag on her blue button-down shirt that was the standard uniform for the sporting-goods store.

  “Vicki, I’m wondering if I can show you and the rest of the employees here a number of photo
graphs of some guys that have been robbing stores in the Pineville area. We feel this store might be in their sights and wanted to make sure you and the rest of your staff have ample knowledge of who they are.”

  Vicki nodded with a “Sure, why not?” shrug. “Y’all should’ve come on a weekend when I have more staff. I only got three working tonight.”

  The man nodded, bringing out a black three-ring binder and putting it on the counter that separated them. “There was another robbery yesterday.”

  “Where? I didn’t hear about one.”

  “At a Harman’s over in Marksville. They’ve kept it quiet because a lot of guns and money were stolen.”

  “You worried we might be next?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I am This will only take a few minutes, and we can make sure to get out of your hair before too long.”

  Vicki looked at her watch.

  “It’s almost closing time anyway. Monday nights are generally slow, you know. The weekend’s when everybody does their shopping. You get occasional crotchety types who want to try out a new handgun or are looking for fishing tackle or something like that. It’s been pretty dead tonight.”

  The stout, short woman walked over to a half-door that let her out into the aisle. Her gaze landed on the briefcase he carried. It was a black canvas bag. She looked again at the patch on his shirt, then glanced at his eyes, then asked him to follow her as she sauntered to the front of the store as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

  He watched her go, a smile barely crooking one corner of his mouth.

  Sean, my man. This is going to be the easiest one yet.

  They got the guns, he thought. But we got the numbers.

  Oh yeah.

  2

  KURT WILSON COULD FEEL his heart beating. He took in slow breaths, but the blood still raced through his body. Adrenaline pumped, and all he could do was sit there behind the wheel of the Ford Explorer, looking out the open window toward the Harman’s sporting-goods store and waiting for word. Underneath his legs, next to the boots he wore, rested the forty-five. He’d never fired a handgun in his life. He hoped that would still be true after tonight.

  He looked at the time on the dashboard. Nine fifty-five. Five minutes until closing. They would be starting now.

  He had tried to make sure he would be inside, but Sean had said no. Sean knew how inexperienced he was at these things. The Radio Shack robbery had proven that, especially when he waved the forty-five and everybody saw his hand shaking. He didn’t fool anybody. Thankfully he wasn’t the only one holding a gun. This time, he would be on the outside, waiting in the getaway vehicle.

  He lit up a third cigarette to pass time. Even now, in the sanctuary of the SUV, his hand shook slightly. Kurt knew exactly why.

  Somebody might get hurt.

  They’d argued about this, but Sean had won out. Of course Sean would win out. That made sense too. But this would be their second robbery in three days, and the take on this one would be a lot bigger. More people involved, more money and equipment taken. Things could get ugly fast.

  “I’ve done this several times with just one other guy,” Sean told him with a confident smile. “With four it’ll be no problem.”

  “Yeah, but you got caught, didn’t you?”

  Sean shook it off and said it was bad fate, bad karma, a case of bad mojo that made his last robbery before prison go awry.

  “Unfortunately the guy I was with turned out to be an idiot.”

  “What about these guys?” Kurt had asked.

  “They’ll do exactly what I say.”

  Kurt had kept his doubts unspoken. And even now, sitting alone, a warm sticky silence coating him on this July night in Louisiana, there was nothing he could do except wait. Wait for word to swing the Explorer around and help load up everything. Really a simple job. Nothing to be nervous about.

  somebody might die

  And if somebody did, so what? Should it matter to him? What would happen if they were caught? Would his sentence be any worse than it had been?

  Sean had it right with his carefree attitude and cocky smirk. One might think the guy didn’t have a care in the world, or a plan in place. But Kurt knew deep down that the guy had both plans and fears. The question was exactly what they were.

  As for Kurt, he just wanted to be out. To be free. To light up a cigarette when and where he wanted to and to breathe the air of a free man. To go where he wanted and do what he wanted to do.

  He was free now, if you could really call it that.

  If they could make it through this night, he might be able to stay that way.

  3

  THE EMPLOYEES WERE ALL near the front. The young woman in a checkout aisle helped a skinny guy with a massive order that filled two shopping carts, but the rest of the staff working that night stood near the front. Vicki made sure they were all there—four including her and the woman assisting the last customer of the night.

  The security man shook hands with everybody and told them his name, James Morrison, as he thanked them for their time. Two other SARC employees were near the front of the store, watching Morrison and waiting for everybody to gather around the front customer-service aisle.

  Clockwork, he thought.

  He looked in the checkout aisle at the customer and decided it was time to go.

  He knelt down and unzipped the black bag, taking out the lightweight handgun. He waved it so that the employees gathered in a half circle close to him could see it.

  “This is a Glock 31 handgun, as some of you might recognize, and it’s fully loaded with ten bullets, more than enough for the group you see here.” So far, nobody looked alarmed or even surprised. “I’d like everybody to step up and put their hands on this counter.”

  The acne-faced teenager looked around and was the first to do so, a puzzled smile on his face. Vicki grinned at the guy with the gun but didn’t move. The older man looked skeptical and just stood there.

  “I want you all to know that you are being robbed, right now, as we speak, so I would not do anything except do what I say.”

  Vicki’s casual grin broke as she looked at him, then at the other men. The older guy stood there. The young woman at the checkout counter stopped scanning items and held the gloves in her hands, frozen suddenly in fear.

  “Is this—what you—are you trying to show us—”

  “Just stop thinking and put your hands on the counter,” Sean told Vicki, pointing the gun at her. “You too, Pops. And come on over here. We won’t bite.”

  The slender girl walked nervously over to where the rest of the group stood. The two other guys wearing SARC shirts and security hats produced handguns as well. One of them was a big guy who looked like a bodybuilder. The other was a frumpy, chubby-cheeked man who moved slowly.

  The big guy began to tie the employees’ hands. As he did, Sean spoke.

  “Nobody’s going to get hurt unless you have to be,” he said. “We’re going to tie you up and put you in the back room and do a little shopping, and then we’ll be out of here.”

  “Is this a drill?” Vicki asked.

  “Why don’t we say it is to put everyone at ease,” Sean replied. “But this does happen to be a real gun, and people don’t die in drills, do they? So let’s don’t test it out.”

  The young blonde began to cry as the big guy tied her arms together with a plastic zip-tie.

  “Hey, easy, okay?” Sean said to the big guy. “Go ahead, Craig.” He nodded at the chubby-cheeked guy, who began to frisk those who had already been tied.

  They took keys and wallets and asked where purses were. The big guy asked the older employee where his car was. The guy cursed at him, so the big guy slapped his face with the steel barrel of his gun.

  “Wes, come on!” Sean shouted sharply.

  He went to help the older man stand back up. “It’d be smart if you just told us.”

  “It’s a truck in the back. Black. Chevy.”

  “Fabulous. That was hard, huh?” r />
  The older man’s lip was bleeding, and the right side of his face had already begun to swell. Sean looked over at Wes Owens, who finished tying Vicki’s hands together. The only one left was the skinny, scruffy-faced customer who looked unbothered by the whole thing. They ignored him for now as Sean asked everybody to form a single-file line and follow him to the back.

  Sean looked at his watch. Ten-sixteen.

  He figured they had perhaps another fifteen or twenty minutes.

  They didn’t blink when I called myself James Morrison, he thought with an inward laugh.

  He walked them to the back room, where they’d finish tying them up and leave them where they couldn’t hurt anybody or get hurt and where they’d be found later. Hopefully much later.

  Sean took the two-way radio out of his pocket and turned it on.

  “We’re ready to do a little shopping,” he said into the radio.

  That was all he needed to say. Soon they’d have enough clothes, guns, and ammo to ensure that no more robberies were necessary. The only question mark was the cash on hand. That was something Vicki would help him out with. And she would help him out, no problem there.

  He didn’t think Vicki would be a problem. But he could handle her if necessary.

  4

  IT WAS AMAZING HOW LIFE could be determined by single events, single actions. How you could live one way your whole life and then wake up and find it all over, as quick as someone might cut a license in half with a pair of scissors or toss a passport into a huge, bottomless lake. Kurt was living proof that all it took was one mistake to change a life. Sure, there were other mistakes, other failures and actions leading up to the one big granddaddy of them all, but it still came down to one.

  And no matter how much time passed, that single act would follow him to the grave.