Free Left Behind: A Novel Of Earth's Last Days by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

her wedding ring near the pillow, where she always supported her cheek with her hand. It was too much to bear, and he broke down. He gathered the ring into his palm and sat on the edge of the bed, his body racked with fatigue and grief. He put the ring in his jacket pocket and noticed the package she had mailed. Tearing it open, he found two of his favorite homemade cookies with hearts drawn on the top in chocolate.
    What a sweet, sweet woman! he thought. I never deserved her, never loved her enough! He set the cookies on the bedside table, their essence filling the air. With wooden fingers he removed his clothes and let them fall to the floor. He climbed into the bed and lay facedown, gathering Irene’s nightgown in his arms so he could smell her and imagine her close to him. And Rayford cried himself to sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE
    BUCK Williams ducked into a stall in the Pan-Con Club men’s room to double-check his inventory. Tucked in a special pouch inside his jeans, he carried thousands of dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks, redeemable in dollars, marks, or yen. His one leather bag contained two changes of clothes, his laptop, cellular phone, tape recorder, accessories, toiletries, and some serious, insulated winter gear.
    He had packed for a ten-day trip to Britain when he left New York three days before the apocalyptic disappearances. His practice overseas was to do his own laundry in the sink and let it dry a whole day while wearing one outfit and having one more in reserve. That way he was never burdened with lots of luggage.
    Buck had gone out of his way to stop in Chicago first to mend fences with the Global Weekly’s bureau chief there, a fiftyish black woman named Lucinda Washington. He had gotten crossways with her—what else was new?—when he scooped her staff on, of all things, a sports story that was right under their noses. An aging Bears legend had finally found enough partners to help him buy a professional football team, and Buck had somehow sniffed it out, tracked him down, gotten the story, and run with it.
    “I admire you, Cameron,” Lucinda Washington had said, characteristically refusing to use his nickname. “I always have, as irritating as you can be. But the very least you should have done was let me know.”
    “And let you assign somebody who should have been on top of this anyway?”
    “Sports isn’t even your gig, Cameron. After doing the Newsmaker of the Year and covering the defeat of Russia by Israel, or I should say by God himself, how can you even get interested in penny-ante stuff like this? You Ivy League types aren’t supposed to like anything but lacrosse and rugby, are you?”
    “This was bigger than a sports story, Lucy, and—”
    “Hey!”
    “Sorry, Lucinda. And wasn’t that just a bit of stereotyping? Lacrosse and rugby?”
    They had shared a laugh.
    “I’m not even saying you should have told me you were in town,” she had said. “All I’m saying is, at least let me know before the piece runs in the Weekly. My people and I were embarrassed enough to get beat like that, especially by the legendary Cameron Williams, but for it to be a, well—”
    “That’s why you squealed on me?”
    Lucinda had laughed again. “That’s why I told Plank it would take a face-to-face to get you back in my good graces.”
    “And what made you think I’d care about that?”
    “Because you love me,” she had said. “You can’t help yourself.” Buck had smiled. “But, Cameron, if I catch you in my town again, on my beat without my knowledge, I’m gonna whip your tail.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you what, Lucinda. Let me give you a lead I don’t have time to follow up on. I happen to know the NFL franchise purchase is not going to go through after all. The money was shaky and the league’s gonna reject the offer. Your local legend is going to be embarrassed.”
    Lucinda had begun scribbling furiously. “You’re not serious,” she had said, reaching for her