Thr3e by Ted Dekker Page B

. . I think he might be someone we both know.”
    The phone sounded hollow for a few breaths.
    “He knows me. What’s the sin he wants you to confess?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “Okay, we can cover this later. We’re running out of time. What’s the riddle?”
    “In life he’s your friend, but death is the end.”
    “Opposites.”
    “Opposites?”
    “ What falls but never breaks? What breaks but never falls? Answer: Night and day. What in life is your friend, but death is the end, I don’t know. But they’re both opposites. Any ideas?”
    “No. I don’t have a clue.” Night falls, day breaks. Clever. “This is crazy!” He ground the last word out between his teeth.
    She was quiet for a moment. “If we knew the sin, we could infer the riddle. What sin are you hiding, Kevin?”
    He stopped pacing. “None. Lots! What do you want me to do, spill my whole life of sins to the world? That seems to be what he wants.”
    “But there must be something you did that sent this guy to the moon. Think of that and think of this riddle. Anything connect?”
    Kevin thought about the boy. But there was no connection between the riddles and the boy. Couldn’t be him. Nothing else came to mind.
    “No.”
    “Then let’s go back to your best friend.”
    “You’re my best friend, Sam.”
    “Sweet. But this guy wanted you to call me, right? He knows I would be warned, and if he knows me, he also knows that I have the capability of escaping his threat. I think I’m safe for now. There’s another best friend you’re missing. Something more obvious—”
    “Wait! What if it’s not a person?” That’s it! He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to go. Barely enough time to get there. Call waiting sounded in his ear. That would be the police.
    “Ignore it,” Sam said. “Such as—”
    “I’ll call you back, Sam. I don’t have time to explain.”
    “I’m coming down. I’ll be there in five hours.”
    “You . . . you are?”
    “I’m on leave, remember?”
    Kevin felt a surge of gratitude. “I have to go.”
    He hung up, nerves buzzing, stomach in knots. If he was right, it meant going back to the house. He hated going back to his aunt’s house. He stood in the office, fists clenched by his sides. But he had to go back. Slater had blown up the car, and now he was going to do worse unless Kevin stopped him.
    Slater was forcing him back to the house. Back to the past. Back to the house and back to the boy.

    Kevin’s watch read 4:39 when he passed the park at the end of Baker Street and pointed the car toward the white house. The faint sound of children playing on the swing sets faded. Then silence except for the purr of the Taurus. He blinked.
    A row of twenty elms lined the left side of the dead-end avenue, one in the front yard of each house, casting a dark shadow over the entire length. Behind the homes, a narrow greenway fed into the park he’d just passed. To his right, warehouses backed up to train tracks. The street had been freshly paved, the lawns were all neatly manicured, the houses modest but clean. By all appearances it was the perfect little street on the edge of town.
    He had not visited in over a year, and even then he’d refused to go inside. He needed Balinda’s signature for the seminary application. After four failed attempts to secure it through the mail, he finally dragged himself to the front porch and rang the doorbell. She appeared after several minutes, and he addressed her without making eye contact and told her that he had some evidence in his old bedroom that would interest the authorities and would make the police station his next stop if she refused to sign. It was a lie, of course. She turned up her nose and scribbled her signature.
    The last time he’d seen the inside of the house was five years ago, the day he’d finally worked up the courage to leave.
    Rolling down the blacktop under the canopy of elms wasn’t so different from driving through a tunnel. One that led to