Praise for RITA® Award winner Shelley Bates and her novels

“Suspenseful and intriguing, Grounds to Believe starts off running and never slows down. Shelley Bates expertly contrasts a controlling and demoralizing religious cult with the true love and caring of God.

4½ TOP PICK!”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“Shelley Bates is a brave and talented author who looks at the darkness as well as the light.”

—Bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

“Bates delivers a gut-wrencher with poignant style.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Pocketful of Pearls

Grounds to Believe
Shelley Bates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Jeff, always,

and for Troon Nicholas Harrison

and Heather J. A. Graham, with love

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go to Kristin Hannah, for being the first to believe; to William C. Hopkins, M.D., for his assistance with the psychology of MSBP; to Troon, Heather and Jenny Andersen, for timely comments on short notice and unflagging faith in me; to my parents, Dan and Carol, for their love; and to Debbie aka Ms. Peaches, Connie, Marti, Apples, Marge and Bernice of the PMB, for their support and willingness to share.

FOREWORD

Ever since I was a child, I’ve solved problems by writing them into a story. This book began as I was struggling with issues of faith: Who is God to me? How do I know whether I’m saved? If faith without works is dead, what’s the point of grace? My struggles and discoveries became those of Julia, the woman at the center of this book. She has grown up in a toxic church, where worship is based on works, and the traditions of men take the place of doctrine and lead to judgment, not Jesus. The Elect of God, of course, are an entirely fictional group, as are all the characters and the town where they live. But Julia’s struggles were mine, and as she found her way, I did, too. The research, the writing and then living the journey were not easy. But they were worth it. I love to hear from readers; visit me on the Web at www.shelleybates.com, or send me an e-mail at shelley@shelleybates.com.

Prologue

1997

His daughter was in their hands.

Deputy Sheriff Ross Malcolm lay on a dusty hillside in central Washington State and watched the cluster of weathered buildings below. It had been a town once. The Apocalypse-focused Church of the Seventh Seal rented the few acres for cash from an absentee landlord. They’d thrown a wooden palisade around the unpainted houses, what looked like a barn or meeting hall, and half an acre of struggling vegetables.

Rocks and pieces of dead cactus dug into his belly and the worn thighs of his jeans. Ross put the binoculars down and slid his sunglasses back into place.

Kailey was only sixteen months old. With every fiber of his being, he wanted to get her away now, so she wouldn’t remember these people and that…cult. He had papers in his jacket pocket to start the process, ready to serve on Anne as soon as he found her. Paperwork was all he’d been able to accomplish since Anne had walked out of the house with the baby, joined the “Sealers,” and vanished. The last year was burned into his mind the way the sun was burning into his back now—focused and harsh and inescapable.

He needed a plan. Despite the heavenly promise of legions of angels fighting on their side, the Sealers were well-and illegally armed. According to the one source he’d been able to find, they had been stockpiling weapons in preparation for the end of the world since the seventies, but were too smart to do it overtly. In her last attempt to bend his beliefs to hers, Anne had told him one of the first signs of the end would be agents of the government breaking down people’s doors and dragging the faithful away.

Well, his paycheck had the county seal on it, so his ex-girlfriend was right on that score. But this wasn’t official business. Breaking down doors wouldn’t get him what he wanted anyway. Slumped shoulders and tears in his eyes might. For Kailey, he’d try anything.

He left the pickup on the far side of the hill, out of sight of any watchers at the windows who waited for an attack that would never come. In the distance a rancher was taking off his early hay crop. The valley seemed so peaceful. Ross was the only note of desperate discord in it.

His boots scuffed the dusty surface of the road, the quarter mile stretching in front of him the way roads did in his dreams—where he walked and walked and got nowhere. The compound was silent when he reached the gate. A hot, dry breeze whistled down the long valley, and a trickle of sweat ran between his shoulder blades. Maybe he should have called for backup.

He couldn’t. The local jurisdiction didn’t have the manpower for a parental abduction case, and no experience in prosecuting one. This was personal. Besides, the Sealers were too unpredictable. They might see an approaching car as the beginning of the government’s attack. Look what happened at Waco, they would say, and lob a grenade over the wall.

There was no one posted at the gate, nor did anyone challenge him as he approached the first of the ramshackle, weathered buildings. He had no doubt his movements were being carefully monitored, though. He knocked at the first door he came to, the dead sound telling him how thick the wood really was. Two minutes passed while he stood there perspiring in his T-shirt and leather jacket. He knocked again.

The door cracked open and a woman peered out, keeping the heavy panel between him and her body. “Yes?”

“My name is Ross Malcolm,” he said, trying to look harmless and smaller than six foot three. “I’m—was—Anne DeLuca’s partner. I’d like to see her, if that’s possible.”

“What for?” the woman asked. She wore a faded cotton print dress, and her gray hair was pulled into a knob on top of her head. The strip of leg that showed in the crack of the door was bare and unshaven, the foot stuffed into a brown loafer that had seen too much time on that road up the hill.

Ross shrugged and spread his hands. “I haven’t seen my little girl in a while. I’d just like to hold her. And visit with Annie for a few minutes.”

The woman gave him a narrow glare, as if searching for a lie hidden in his words. “Outsiders aren’t allowed in. I’ll have to see,” she said, and shut the door in his face.

Well, it was better than a grenade.

Ross looked around for somewhere to sit, but there was no comfort provided for visitors. He moved into the scant shadow of the wall as the sun slid over the shoulder of the house. Loose-limbed but alert, he leaned against the unpainted wood.

If he ever got to see Annie, it would take all his self-control not to shout recriminations at her for bringing Kailey into this. What kind of life was this for a child? There was no love for God here. From what his informant had said about the Sealers, they fostered an atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion, feeding their members the kind of ridiculous lies that only the truly brainwashed could believe. Kailey would know no stability in this environment, because the group moved every time its leader got spooked—part of the reason it had taken him so long to find them—and were so secretive they stuck to rural areas where outsiders wouldn’t bother them.

Annie could stay if she wanted to. She made her own choices. But she couldn’t make them for Kailey and him. Any love he might have felt for her once had been burned away in his quest to locate them over the last year. If he had to arrest his former girlfriend to get his little girl out of the Sealers’ hands, he’d do it without so much as a quiver of regret for the couple they had been.

Only one good thing had come of the whole terrible experience. He had been driven back to God, grieving and desperate, and had seen that he couldn’t manage the search for Kailey on his own. He needed strength from a source greater than himself, a source whose power he’d proven time and again.

He had to have faith that the loving giver of that strength wouldn’t desert him now.

He shifted, and something glinted in the dust. He nudged the object with the toe of his boot.

With a quick glance around, he pulled a piece of scrap paper out of his pocket and picked up a shell casing with an odd diagonal dent in the middle. To his knowledge, only one type of gun did that to a shell on its way out of the barrel.

There were more. Two. Five. He brushed away a pile of dirt. A dozen. More, all with the distinctive dent. Someone had been standing right here and had fired an HK-93 semi-automatic rifle with an illegal thirty-round clip right off the front porch. And when he was done, instead of picking up his brass, he had just kicked dirt over it and walked away.

Ross fought to be objective, fought to keep his emotions calm as he thought about Kailey somewhere within range of such a lethal nutcase. He picked up a couple dozen casings and distributed them among his pockets, then resumed his relaxed stance against the wall.

The door cracked open a couple of minutes later, and he levered himself upright, his heart rate kicking into overdrive. Annie stepped out onto the porch, Kailey sound asleep on her shoulder.

Relief washed over him with such intensity his knees almost buckled. The long search was over. His daughter looked all right. She wore a sleeveless cotton shift that rode up over her little diapered behind, and her arms and legs seemed plump enough, so they must be feeding her. She’d also grown about a foot.

“What are you doing here, Ross? How did you find me?”

He looked at Anne for the first time. Like the woman who had answered the door, she was dressed in shapeless faded cotton, her hair scraped away from her face to satisfy somebody’s aesthetic of submissive femininity. Her hands, clasped on Kailey’s smooth baby skin, were roughened with outside work. Her sunburned nose had begun to peel.

He struggled to find in this stony woman the laughing, savvy blonde that he’d fallen for a month after he’d met her. What an idiot he’d been, with a very young man’s naive ideas about female perfection. He knew better now. Since he’d allowed the spirit of God into his heart, he had a different slant on perfection.

“I’ve been looking for you both since you left,” he replied, pasting on a smile, his stance loose and unthreatening. The last thing he wanted was to spook her. In a second she could disappear back through that door and unleash a squadron of the faithful to chase him off the property. “You used your credit card for the first time about a month ago, at a hospital around here. I talked to some people and narrowed it down from there.”

“Kailey had an infection. Moses told me not to do it. I should have listened to him.”

And if she hadn’t, Kailey might be dead. He should be thankful for what was left of Anne’s independent streak, even if it had led him to a place that made the hair on his neck prickle with uneasiness.

“I’m glad you didn’t. Mind if I hold her?” His arms ached, his skin hungry for the comforting weight of his child against his chest.

“She’s asleep,” Annie said, frowning, and hitched the baby higher on her shoulder.

“I won’t wake her. Please, Annie.”

Her eyes narrowed as she considered him. Then, with a glance at the door and the safety behind it, she relented. Ross held out his arms and Anne put the baby into them.

Kailey murmured and he settled her against his chest, rubbing a slow, soothing hand over her back. The casings in his pocket gave a tiny clink, and he settled her more comfortably. With a sigh, the baby slid into deeper sleep. Every cell in his body focused on her, his whole being concentrated on this moment. Slowly, he cataloged the details that would sustain him. The fan of pale eyelashes against her cheek. The whorl of thick hair on the crown of her head. That baby smell that provoked immediate memories of bottle feedings late at night while Annie worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. Living the moment as intensely as he could, he willed the sweetness of it into his memory and the fear of losing her retreated. For the moment.

He had too few memories. Far too few for the sixteen months of his daughter’s life. He lifted his head to meet Annie’s gaze. “We need to talk.”

She shrugged. “Here I am.” No softness in her face indicated his emotion had touched her.

“Not here.”

“It’s as good as you’re going to get. Outsiders aren’t allowed in, and I’m certainly not going anywhere with you. Whatever you have to say, say it. I’ve got vegetables to weed.”

He forced his arms to stay relaxed. If the tension in them woke Kailey it would just give Anne an excuse to take her away from him.

“I’d like to work out some kind of arrangement with you so I can see her.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see how. Unless you give up the Devil’s government and join us. Allow God into your heart and learn to live for His return at the end of the world.”

He hated it when she mouthed her doctrine at him. “I know you don’t want to marry me and give her a conventional family. But I’m willing to overlook this last year and just go with occasional visits.” If he thought she’d go for that one, he was wrong. “Come on, Annie, she’s my daughter. I have a petition for custody with me. I won’t allow her to grow up without knowing me.”

“She’ll grow up knowing her heavenly Father, which is far more important in the long run, Ross. Her relationship with Him is going to benefit her for eternity.”

“But it isn’t going to benefit me. I want to see my kid grow up. I want to be part of her life.”

A mistake. He knew it instantly.

“You,” she spat. “Always you. You want this, you want that. Well, for once you’re going to have to accept what I want. And I want my daughter to grow up knowing God, in the safety of His house, away from the kind of influence that will only distract her from what’s important. I don’t recognize your papers or your rights. When Armageddon comes, Ross, what you want will be—quite frankly—irrelevant. What she’ll have will save her.”

He took a deep breath, controlling his welling frustration for Kailey’s sake. “What about when she gets older? What about her education? I w—I’d like to be involved there. Even if it’s only financially.”

“She’ll learn everything she needs here. Two of us were teachers before we came to God.”

“But she—”

“Schools are the tool of an evil government, Ross. They’ll rot her mind. Everything she needs to know, she’ll learn here. With me and God’s chosen Church.”

“And that’s final?” he asked. His arms trembled. His rage and fear were threatening to overcome his faith that God would give him the words to convince her. He had to try one more time. “Isn’t there some kind of compromise we can work out?”

She held out her arms. “We can’t compromise with the world and keep ourselves pure. Give her to me, Ross.”

Involuntarily, his grip tightened, and Kailey woke. She pushed back and gaped at him. Her eyes widened, tears spurted into them, and she shrieked, her little hands pushing fearfully at his chest.

Anne snatched her away from him. “I told you. You’re a total stranger to her. She stays with me, where she belongs.” She wrenched the door open.

“I wouldn’t be a stranger if you hadn’t run off and—wait!” The door slammed, and he was alone in the shabby porch.

Heat shimmered around him as he ran back to the truck. Jamming it into gear, he roared into town, throwing up a plume of dust that spiraled thickly in the rearview mirror.

Lord, help me. Help me.

As he burst into the sheriff’s office, Ross knew he looked like a crazed gunfighter, covered in dust and sweat, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

“What happened to you?” Sheriff Cornoyer looked up from the blizzard of reports on his desk. “You get run over by a cattle drive?”

“It’s not funny, Corny,” he told the sheriff, who had been patient in helping a fellow officer with his quest. “I need a warrant.”

Cornoyer gave him a searching look. “You have grounds to believe there’s a crime somewhere in my jurisdiction?”

“My ex-girlfriend won’t give me access to my daughter.”

“She’s a Sealer. I told you she wouldn’t listen. But you had to go out there and prove it for yourself.”

“Knock it off, Corny.”

“Get real, Ross. You’re supposedly on leave, and you’re on my turf. Show me some evidence that will give me the Sealers and we’ll talk.”

“How about this?” Ross pulled the empty casings out of his pockets and rolled them onto Cornoyer’s desk, where they scattered dirt all over his reports. “If those aren’t from an HK with a thirty-round clip, you can send me home.”

Corny sat back in his chair and considered. “I hope you take the detective’s exam some day, son. Apply to that organized crime task force I hear they’re putting together in Seattle. You’re wasted on patrol. Okay. We’ll go have a look around first thing tomorrow.” He looked up. “But you need to calm down. Get some rest. You’ve been running on nerves alone since you got here.”

Every instinct demanded that he pound on a judge’s door and get the piece of paper that would allow him to search the compound until he found his child. But instinct had to give way to common sense. They’d go tomorrow, when his head was clear and he could think rationally instead of emotionally. And after he’d spent a good long time on his knees.

I’ve never been so afraid, Lord. Help me.

“Okay. I’ll be here when shift changes,” he said aloud.

“Good man. Don’t worry, it’ll all work out. With any luck, we can get ’em on a couple dozen weapons charges and seize the property.”

But luck had run out. When he and Corny drove up to the compound the next day and prepared to demand entry, only the hot wind answered them. The door he’d knocked on yesterday stood partly open, swinging on rusty hinges. They ran inside, then searched the other houses and the barn in about twenty minutes, but came up with nothing more incriminating than some broken windows and another cache of bullet casings out by the field of vegetables.

The Church of the Seventh Seal had pulled up and moved out, and taken his daughter with them.

Six years later

Memorandum

Date: June 3, 2004

To: Sergeant Bruce Harmon

Organized Crime Task Force

From: Lt. Leslie Bellville

Hamilton Falls P.D.

Re: Cult

File Ref: HF04-193

Per my e-mail yesterday, attached please find Forms 17A and B outlining evidence of what is believed to be a religious cult known as the Elect of God operating in the Hamilton Falls area. We believe there is child abuse among members of this group, but are unable to investigate with uniform members due to its closed social structure.

We understand Investigator Ross Malcolm specializes in cults as part of his duties in the OCTF. We request his assistance for a period not to exceed three weeks, overtime and expenses to be charged to the Town of Hamilton Falls.

Please advise Investigator Malcolm’s availability ASAP.

Chapter One

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.

—Romans 8:33

The pager beeped as Ross pulled off the freeway for gas. He glanced at the number and frowned. What was the matter with those guys? Couldn’t they survive for two days without yanking on his electronic leash for help?

He tilted the motorcycle onto its side stand at the deserted pump and pulled the pager off his belt. He frowned at the number on the display and stalked over to the pay phone next to the ice machine.

His partner picked up on the first ring. “Organized Crime Task Force. Harper.”

“This had better be good, pal.” Ross leaned on the dented metal of the bracket protecting the phone from the weather.

“Oh, it is. How’s the vacation?”

“Two days isn’t a vacation. It’s a weekend. I’m scheduled for five days leave, Ray. Five. You page me, you better be telling me my apartment building’s burning down.”

“Nope. Worse than that. They got a live one.”

“Who?”

“Hamilton Falls. We just got a memo asking for your services. The lieutenant out there says their fink just blew the whistle. A near-miss this time—which adds up to two and a half kids total over the last couple of months. That’s ‘reasonable and probable grounds to believe,’ in my book.”

Ross stood silently, watching a flock of children spill out of the fast-food place next door. Shrieking, their giggles high-pitched, they tumbled into the play area.

One small town. Two deaths and a near-miss in four months.

“Ross?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Think fast. Harmon knows I’m talking to you.”

So much for his hard-earned five days. “Tell him I’ll call him from Hamilton Falls.”

“What about your vacation?”

“I guess scenic Interstate 90 was it. Look on the bright side. The woman of my dreams could be anywhere, even in Hamilton Falls.”

Ray Harper snorted. “Just make sure she doesn’t have kids.”

Ross sipped a cup of coffee and considered the manila file folders on the blotter. The lieutenant who usually occupied this office was out at an accident scene. At the front counter, a uniformed patrolman just out of the academy took a complaint, while a telephone rang insistently at an empty desk in the bullpen. Outside the door of his borrowed office, a laser printer began to wheeze.

He had never been to Hamilton Falls before, but the familiar government-issue furniture, the beige linoleum, the numbering system on the files, and even the bad coffee combined to make him feel at home. He could have been in any law-enforcement office in the state.

Ross stretched as the caffeine hit his bloodstream. He ran his fingers through his thick brown mane. Hair. One of the perks of working on the Task Force.

He stacked the files and spread the contents of the first one on the blotter. He hated reading this stuff.

The autopsy report on the so-called SIDS baby, Andreas Wyslicki, lay on top of a transcript of a police interview with the pediatrician, Michael Archer. Ross started with the interview, reading slowly. His approach to such a witness was to absorb details not of medical procedure, but of per sonality, of speech patterns, of hints to the habits and pre occupations of the speaker. And Archer was definitely preoccupied.

Archer advises the baby arrived by ambulance approx. 18:40 March 12th. Parents reported that the baby alarm had gone off because he had stopped breathing. They had done CPR to no effect. Paramedics could not revive him, and he was pronounced DOA at the hospital.

Ross took another sip of tepid coffee.

Archer cannot account for victim’s death. Has been victim’s pediatrician since he was born two months ago. Archer requests he be allowed to view autopsy report when completed.

No doubt.

The station clerk’s voice penetrated his concentration. “He’s in Lieutenant Bellville’s office, Harry.”

A uniform leaned in the door. “Investigator Malcolm?”

Ross put his hands on both arms of the chair and levered himself to his feet. “Yes. You’re Harry Everett?”

“The same. Glad you could join us.”

“I’m not. I was two days into a five-day leave.” The other man looked intimidated until Ross smiled. Then Everett smiled back.

“Sorry about that. But these kids…well, we needed the help.”

“Yeah. I’ve been reading the reports. I’d like to get some background on your informant.”

“No problem.” He leaned out the door. “Jenny, would you bring me the fink file on Rita Ulstad?” Ross watched as the station clerk, a pretty blonde with a Meg Ryan haircut, sashayed out to the records room and returned carrying another manila folder. That short skirt did less for her than she probably imagined. “Thanks.” Everett smiled absently and opened the file she handed him.

“Anything for you,” Jenny crooned to Everett as she moved away, but her glance remained on Ross, sparkling with interest. Ross had no doubt about the message. He considered it briefly and rejected it. If there was a woman in his future, he hadn’t met her yet. That was one thing he was happy to leave up to the Lord.

“So.” Ross tilted back in the chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “What do you have in mind for strategy?”

Harry Everett handed him the file to give himself a moment. “I’ve heard about you,” he said finally. “That you got broken in at Waco.”

Ross frowned and moved restlessly. “You heard wrong,” he said shortly. “That was long before my time.”

“But you’re a cult specialist, right? The only one the Task Force has. You did that bunch of Aryan wanna-bes in the hostage situation in Spokane, right?”

Ross fought against the memories that welled up out of the dark place inside him, a place he tried to keep scabbed over and undisturbed. His last sight of Annie and Kailey floated in his mind’s eye for a moment, the way it did every time he busted into a run-down apartment or staked out a house, searching for evidence of the organized crime these little cults were so good at hiding. The kids were the worst. Big frightened eyes. Utter distrust. Just like Kailey, screaming at the sight of him.

Ross came back to the present with a jolt and struggled to remember what Harry Everett had been talking about. Oh, yeah. Spokane. “I was involved.” He got the conversation back on track with an effort. “Tell me what you need.”

Everett backed off and got to the point. “I think we need an undercover. I think you need to buddy up to one of the members and find out as much as you can. I’d suggest our informant, but she’s lost their trust and doesn’t interact with them anymore. There’s got to be a reason for these deaths, but no one knows enough about the Elect to find out what it is. They could be into blood sacrifice, for all we know, and faking the accidents afterwards.”

“What does your informant say?”

“She says they’re not like that. But there’s two and a half dead kids. That’s evidence of something weird, in my opinion.”

“Two of them were natural, weren’t they?”

“You have to ask yourself. Look at the last one. A pillow and some steady pressure wouldn’t be very natural.”

“But to what purpose? If you’re going to make a blood sacrifice, why do it that way, with no ceremonial?”

Harry shrugged. “Who knows how they think?”

“Okay. So where do I find these people?”

“Easy. Pick the most upstanding citizens in Hamilton Falls and you’ll find one. The principal of the high school. A fireman. A bookshop owner.” He nudged the informant’s file and it slid off the stack. “We’ll arrange a conference for you and our fink can give you the details.”

Ross pulled his notebook out from under the folders and began jotting down notes. “All these upstanding citizens belong to a cult? Usually cult members isolate themselves, don’t mix.”

“They don’t. You can’t get them to socialize at all. They won’t even let their kids play sports.”

“Then why are they so successful in Hamilton Falls? Do they have something on the mayor or what?”

“That wouldn’t be hard,” Harry scoffed. “I didn’t vote for the guy. But these people are honest, even if they’re trusting to the point that it’s easy to rip them off. They don’t believe in lawsuits or stereos or anything.”

“And this makes them a cult?”

“You tell me. You’re the expert.”

“I will, when I know more. So who else belongs?”

“You’ll love this. The doctor on all these cases.”

Ross’s eyebrows lifted with interest. “Yeah? The pediatrician?”

“Couldn’t find a thing on him. But maybe you can—from the inside.”

Sounded like the logical place to start. “Tell me about the most recent family.” Ross turned a page of his notebook.

“The Blanchard kid is the son of the high-school principal. You should see the wife. What a doll. The sister’s not bad, either, if you like the wholesome type.”

Ross set his teeth and ignored the bait. “How did they come to your attention?”

Everett jerked his chin at the folder. “Ulstad. She’s a nurse at the hospital, and to hear her tell it, these people are knocking off their kids one by one. She used to belong and got kicked out. You’ve got to take her with a grain of salt because she’s got a massive hate on for these people, but her information is worth looking into. Especially with the Blanchard kid. He was the near-miss.”

“How soon can I talk to her?”

“I’ll try to get it set up for this afternoon. After that, you’re on your own as far as finding a way in. Although I have a few suggestions.”

He gave Everett a long look. “Like what?”

“The sister I just mentioned.”

“What about her?”

“She’s single.”

It took a second to sink in. “Are you suggesting I pursue one of the women?” For the first time in his career, he wondered if his obsession was going to take him where he wasn’t willing to go. An angry, uneasy heaviness began to swirl in his stomach as his body recoiled at the thought.

“There’s worse ways to earn a living. Let’s see what we can get on her.” Harry leaned out the door a second time. “Hey, Kurtz! C’mon back in here, would you?”

Jenny Kurtz smiled as she did so, perching on the edge of the desk to be sure that Ross got a good view of her legs. “What’s up?” she asked.

“You’ve lived here all your life, right?” Harry said. “You know the folks in town pretty well.”

“Sure. What do you need to know?”

“Do you know the Blanchards?”

Jenny shrugged. “Madeleine was a couple of years ahead of me in high school. I don’t know her husband. But I graduated with her sister Julia.”

“What can you tell us about her?”

“That stick-in-the-mud?” Jenny looked amused. “What do you want to know about her for?”

“Because she’s connected to this case Investigator Malcolm’s here for. Tell us about her.”

“I don’t see her much anymore, thank goodness.” Jenny giggled with a sudden memory. “She was such a Goody Two-shoes in high school. Some of the boys thought it would be funny to write her phone number up on the bathroom wall—you know, ‘for a good time, call…’ A couple of the crazy ones actually did it. She wouldn’t know what to do with a guy if she had one. She probably tried to save their souls.”

Ross eyed her with distaste. There was nothing quite like the cruelty of the “in” crowd to the outsider, all the more amazing when he reflected that high school for Jenny had been a good many years ago. Some people matured. Some just stayed stuck at seventeen forever. “How do you think she felt about it?” he asked in spite of himself.

She shrugged. “Who knows?” And who cared, from the tone of her voice.

“Do you know where she lives?” Harry asked, bringing them back to the matter at hand.

“No, but she works at that bookshop downtown. Quill and Quinn. I never go in there. They don’t stock anything good.”

“What about her religion?” Ross asked. “Know anything about that?”

“Only enough to know it gives me the creeps,” she said, making a face. “Nothing but black to their ankles and high-maintenance hair. I went once, for a joke, when they had some kind of meeting at the hall downtown, but—”

“Where’s the hall?” Ross interrupted.

“Fourth and Birch, right next to the post office. It’s easy to miss, though. No signs, no cross, no nothing. Boring.”

“Thanks.”

Harry glanced at him and took his cue. “Thanks for your help, Jenny. Shut the door on the way out, would you?”

She slid off the desk. At the door she looked over her shoulder. “Anything else you want to know about old Julia McNeill, you give me a call.” With a toss of her hair, she swiveled around the door and closed it behind her.

“We need to talk about my cover story,” Ross said. “You dragged me in here with the clothes on my back. I’ve got a good pair of jeans and a shirt outside on the bike. At the moment I’m not very convincing convert material.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think they’re too fussy.”

“I don’t want to take the chance. I need an image, and I need a good reason to join.”

“Why do people usually get religion?” Harry waved his hand. “They get in a car accident, they lose a loved one. Take your pick. Have a revelation on me.”

They lose a loved one. He’d gotten a revelation over that, all right. The law made a great weapon, even if he sometimes felt he was fighting alone, spurred on by his fear and his memories. He’d find Kailey some day. One assignment at a time. One prayer at a time.

First, the persona—a grieving husband escaping his loss. Talk to the informant. Then, track down Miss Goody Two-shoes.

Chapter Two

The woman had called herself Miriam for so many years that she’d pretty much forgotten her real name. The only entity her real name mattered to was the government, and she didn’t have anything to do with them.

Or hadn’t, anyway. Until now.

She looked at the child sleeping on the orange plastic bench at the bus depot and sighed. She’d signed up to do the right thing, so she had to go through with it. Moses had told her where they were going after they’d buried Annie, and she’d just have to meet them there when she was done.

Minus the child.

She picked up the pay phone’s receiver and dialed Information.

“What listing, please?”

“The sheriff. And could you put me through to the number?”

“That will be a dollar twenty-five, please.”

Miriam put the quarters in the phone, and the number rang through.

“Inish County Sheriff’s Department.”

“I’m looking for a deputy named Ross Malcolm. Could you transfer me, please?” The formal language, the politeness, felt stilted on her tongue.

The woman rang her through, and Miriam dared to feel a little hope threaded through the mass of her built-up distrust and fear.

“Human Resources.”

“I’m looking for a deputy named Ross Malcolm who works there.”

A clicking sound rattled in the background. “The only person by that name who’s worked here since I’ve been here transferred up to Seattle several years ago.”

The flicker of hope died. Seattle was on the other side of the state. At the ends of the earth.

“Did he go to a sheriff’s department there?” she asked faintly.

“Nope. Seattle P.D. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No.” Dispensing with politeness, Miriam hung up the pay phone a little harder than she had to.

Seattle. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. It would be less trouble to take the girl back with her. She was small, but even the little ones paid their way. She might make a good shill. God knew those eyes had made Miriam herself act completely out of character.

Had forced her to make a promise she no longer wanted to keep.

Rita Ulstad had agreed to meet Ross near a drooping Japanese maple on the hospital grounds. In front of them was the parking lot, scattered with cars. Ross turned as the petite nurse slid onto the bench beside him.

“Ms. Ulstad?”

Her face was so immaculately made up she could have passed for thirty. Fashionably mussed, her hair was tinted taffy-blond. “Call me Rita.” She looked him up and down. “You’re Ross Malcolm? The cop?”

He crossed his denim-clad legs, and his heavy riding boots sank into the lawn. “A lot of my work takes me undercover.”

“Wow. I guess I’ve never met anyone in plainclothes before.”

“I clean up when I have to.” He smiled at her. “Harry Everett says you can tell me about Ryan Blanchard.”

“Whatever you need to know. I’m past the point of professional discretion here. All I want is to see justice done and those people exposed for who they are.”

“Okay…who are ‘those people’?”

“The Blanchards? Or the Elect in general?”

“Start with the big picture and work in. What’s your history with this group? What are they called—the Elect?”

“As in ‘Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect.’ I don’t know how much you know about the Bible, but they use that verse as a recipe for justifying just about anything, let me tell you. Anyway, to get back to your question, I grew up in it. Spent thirty years in Gathering, three to four times a week. It’s mind control, plain and simple.” The waving leaves of the Japanese maple flicked shadows across the baby-fine wrinkles in her skin. “They’re a cult. They tossed me out because I fell in love with someone they thought was unsuitable. It was that or give him up and spend the rest of my life in my correct but miserable marriage. There is no freedom of choice in the Elect, Ross. No second chances. You follow the rules or lose everything.”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“Friends, family, community support, everything that’s important.”

“Did they abuse you?”

She gave him a look hardened by resentment into implacability. “The worst kind of abuse is to deny another person their freedom.”

Ross thought about that for a moment, about the haunted eyes of all those little kids. The real root of all evil. “How well do you know the Blanchards?”

“Ryan’s dad, Owen, is an Elder so he’s well educated in mind control. The famous Blanchard charm is just a front. The whole town thinks Jesus has already come back, and is alive and well at Hamilton High.” Bitterness crackled in her tone.

“He’s the principal there, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t the Outsider parents have a problem with that?”

“Oh, I’m not saying he’s a bad administrator. He’s too smart to bring his beliefs to work in an obvious way. But he’s not the one I came to talk to you about. His son is.”

“What about him?”

“That child is four years old. He’s been admitted no fewer than twenty-five times. Had three major surgeries. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“It strikes me as hard on him and his family.” Ross tried to imagine sitting in a hospital waiting room twenty-five times, wondering over and over if your child would survive. A chill ran over his skin. The maple leaves rustled behind him. “What’s the matter with him?”

“That’s the problem. Nothing conclusive. He has seizures where he chucks up everything in his stomach. Sometimes he’s lethargic and unresponsive afterwards, sometimes not. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. We’ve thought it was some kind of massive gastric infection, but it can’t be pinned down with tests. Whatever he’s got, it won’t be diagnosed.” She paused for breath, and the angry color faded from her cheeks. “And now here he is again, back on the ward. Something isn’t right. I’ve tried to talk to Michael Archer but he’s one of them. His loyalty is to Blanchard and no one else. I took it to the head of my department here and got the door closed in my face. As soon as you bring religion in, no one will touch it. They think I’m nuts and Archer is in the right. So now I’m taking it to you.”

The hospital brass thought Rita Ulstad’s concerns were nothing but sour grapes and a desire for attention. Well, Harry had warned him. Her attitude toward the Elect colored her information—maybe even twisted it. Where did that leave his investigation? Or the well-being of the little kid?

A group of people emerged from the cafeteria door and walked toward the parking lot.

“Oh, no.” Rita Ulstad swung to face him, bracing an elbow on the back of the bench to put a hand to her face as a shield. “It’s them. The Blanchards, visiting the boy. They’re going to walk right behind us. Don’t let them see my face.”

All he needed was for the targets to see him with someone they didn’t trust. He should have anticipated that they’d be visiting the kid and insisted on a meeting away from the hospital. Ross slid over and put an arm along the back of the bench, bending close to give the appearance of a tête-à-tête. He peered cautiously over Rita’s shoulder.

Two young women bracketed a tall blond man. An older couple, the woman as well-upholstered as a pouter pigeon and the man so conservatively dressed he practically disappeared, followed them. The redhead on the blond man’s left was likely the mother. She was crying, holding a tissue to her face with both hands. All of the women were dressed in unrelieved black, right down to their stockings and shoes, as though they had just come from a funeral. The men’s shirts, at least, were white, but their ties were black, and devoid of anything so frivolous as a pattern.

“Julia, not so loud,” the pigeon said, tapping the redhead on the shoulder with two stiffly curled fingers. “Showing so much emotion in public is like saying you don’t accept God’s will. Look at Madeleine. Her resignation shows a lovely spirit.”

“Resignation, my foot,” Rita hissed in his ear, her lips brushing his skin. “She doesn’t deserve those kids.”

“The brunette is the mother?” he whispered. “Not the redhead?”

“Yes. And the harpy is Elizabeth McNeill, their mother. Isn’t she a terror?” Ross and his informant watched the family climb into separate four-door sedans and pull out onto the street. “All that rot about not showing emotion in public.” Rita sounded disgusted. “It’s unnatural.”

“I don’t get it,” Ross admitted. “Crying over a sick kid is reasonable.”

“That’s because you’re a rational man. It shows you how twisted their thinking is. To show her acceptance of God’s will in putting her kid in the hospital, Madeleine never drops a tear. That’s our Madeleine. Always the perfect example of godliness in public. Who knows what she’s like in private? If I had to live with someone that perfect, I’d choke. Poor Julia.”

“The sister?” The one Harry Everett wanted him to cultivate?

“Yes. She hasn’t got much of a life. Imagine having Madeleine thrown in your face every time you didn’t measure up.”

“She’s having a little trouble accepting God’s will.”

“She’s the most human of the whole bunch. I used to like Julia, even though she never has a word to say for herself. The self-confidence of a rabbit and no wonder.”

Would she make a good informant? Ross asked himself. Did she have the spine to talk to an Outsider, or would she scurry for cover before he could convince her he meant no harm? More important, would she make a good advocate for him with the church?

There was only one way to find out. He thanked Rita for her time and swung himself onto the bike.

On an assignment like this a guy needed a book to read. And if Jenny the clerk was right, he knew just where to look for one.

Miriam gritted her teeth and tried to remember Moses’ sermons on patience. But waiting patiently for the end of the world was a whole different kettle of fish than trying to deal patiently with the minions of bureaucracy.

On the whole, she was better equipped for Armageddon.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t give out that information,” the very young woman who answered the phone for Seattle P.D. said for the second time.

“Please. I’m his aunt. I’ve been out of the country for years and I’m trying to make contact with my nieces and nephews. Now, the sheriff’s department in Inish County had no problem telling me he’d signed on with you folks. Don’t you think Ross would want to know his aunt is looking for him?”

“I don’t doubt that at all, ma’am. But I still can’t give out information about present or former members of this department.”

“Former? You mean he isn’t with Seattle P.D. after all? Why, those girls in Inish County, they’ve made me waste all this money in long-distance charges for nothing.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t mean—”

Miriam gave a theatrical sigh. “I guess I’m just going to have to reconcile my differences with that boy’s mama. Much as I hate to do it, since she was the one who started it all, but if it means not being able to see my favorite nephew after all these years in Africa, why…”

The girl on the other end of the phone was beginning to get flustered. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble, ma’am. It’s just that the OCTF…well, we try to help them keep a low profile, if you know what I mean.”

Who or what was the OCTF? “Oh, I do indeed, young lady. Well, thank you for your time. I’m going to call my sister and give her the shock of her life. Goodbye.”

Miriam hung up the phone with a mixture of anger and glee. So the child’s father had moved on from the police department, too. What kind of a fly-by-night was he, anyway?

Now she had to find out what in the world’s end the OCTF was.

Chapter Three

Julia McNeill crouched in the display window of the bookshop, draping blue muslin to form an artistic backdrop for a collection of children’s books—a display designed to catch the eye of a tired parent with a car full of antsy children.

She heard the throaty rumble of a big motorcycle coming down Main Street, and glanced out in time to see the biker ride past—the one who had been cuddling in such a disgraceful way with the nurse on the hospital lawn. Dark hair was almost completely covered by a helmet shaped like a chamber pot. His hands gripped brake and clutch with careless control, his boots riding at an insolent angle on the foot pegs. Everything about him shouted testosterone. The set of those broad shoulders and long legs proclaimed that he couldn’t care less what people thought of him.

Unlike herself. What people thought shaped her behavior, her choice of words, sometimes even her own thoughts. When you were one of the God’s own Elect, you had to be responsible for your example every minute of the day. You never knew who might be watching—and be saved because of it.

“Where are the police when you need them?” she complained, looking over her shoulder into the interior of the shop. Rebecca was checking inventory in her big ledger behind the till. Quill and Quinn was no dusty hole-in-the-wall bookshop. Bars of sunlight from the skylights picked out the creamy paint, and the green trim accented the living green of ficus trees and fat, healthy plants on every flat surface not piled with books.

“What’s that, dear?” Rebecca frowned at the ledger.

Julia’s admiration for her boss ran deep. Rebecca was a wizard at math, her pencil flying down the columns of figures. There was no doubt she could have taken a degree and been a teacher. But showing off her brains was neither womanly nor humble. Instead, Rebecca’s talent had found its outlet in taking over the bookshop after her brother Lawrence passed away, rest his soul. It was a good thing the Shepherds had decided computers were the tools of the Devil, along with radio and television. If she had a machine to do her figures for her, her talent would probably atrophy. God certainly knew best.

“It’s that biker,” Julia said. “I don’t know why they don’t arrest him for belonging to a gang. I saw him when I was at the hospital. It makes you wonder if Hamilton Falls is safe anymore.”

Rebecca looked up. “Maybe he was visiting someone,” she replied gently. “Even bikers have families.” She made a note in one of the columns. “Look at this, will you? They’ve shorted me again, by six copies. You’d think a distributor as big as they are could get an order right. If you’re done with that window, dear, you might try and make some sense of the back room. Aurelia Mills had her coffee group in here yesterday and the place is a shambles.”

Julia finished up her window display and stepped out the front door to have a look at it from the sidewalk. The cheerful, eye-catching covers of the books contrasted well with the blue backdrop. A few more copies on the right side to balance the whole thing, and she’d defy any passing parent not to break stride and have a look.

Main Street had been created to convince the traveler to stop driving and spend some money, and it looked its best in summer. White tables with umbrellas were scattered outside the door of the ice-cream shop next door, and across the street at the coffee bar, where Aurelia Mills’s women’s group got their lattes every Thursday, people lounged on benches and strolled past slowly. The air smelled of the petunias and moss in the baskets hanging from the lampposts above Julia’s head.

She gave a halfhearted wave to Dinah Traynell, who was across the street looking at some dresses hanging outside on a rack, although why she bothered was beyond Julia. Everyone knew Dinah made her own clothes because store-bought things weren’t good enough.

The poor girl. Despite the fact that she was from a family as high-ranking as the McNeills themselves, she was so standoffish she hadn’t a hope of attracting a husband.

“Hey, there,” a voice said behind her. “What are you up to?”

Julia turned and stretched her mouth wide in a smile. Speaking of husbands…Derrick Wilkinson smiled back. Looking neat and dependable in his white dress shirt, black trousers, and sober tie, he joined her in front of the window.

“I just finished a display.” She bumped shoulders with him in a companionable way. They might be a proposal away from getting engaged, but still, PDAs—public displays of affection—were out of the question. Julia rolled her neck, enjoying the warm weight of the sun. It seemed as though she hadn’t seen it in weeks. “I feel horrible for enjoying the sunshine,” she confessed. “Madeleine and Owen have been with Ryan from dawn till dark.”

“I’m sure you do your part, too,” Derrick said loyally.

“The Elect are wonderful. There’s a constant stream of casseroles on the front porch, and people must be cleaning out the fruit stands on their behalf. Everyone is looking after them, but still…Michael says it will be some time before Ryan can come home.”

“No wonder I haven’t seen you lately.”

Another prickle of guilt crept through her. Derrick was everything an Elect girl could want in a man. He was nice-looking, employed, responsible and drove a car that was neither too small to take elderly people to Gathering nor so big that it would be considered flashy. He was fifth-generation Elect. He was perfect husband material, and everyone in the congregation, including Derrick himself, expected that the next time he proposed, she would say “yes.” Their future would be secure—and because she was the daughter of an Elder, Derrick would be named Deacon automatically. He would be given spiritual responsibility and social privilege second only to Owen’s and her father’s, who themselves were one step down from Melchizedek, the Shepherd of their souls and the final authority in the district.

Derrick’s shoulder bumped hers again and she realized she hadn’t replied to his gentle hint. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’ll call you, okay?”

“No hurry. You know where to find me. I’ve got to get back to work.” Dinah was still watching them from the store window, no doubt making sure they didn’t misbehave on the sidewalk. He gave her a cheery wave as he walked back up the street to the lawyer’s office where he worked.

Julia watched him go. So why hadn’t she said “yes” the last time? His proposals were starting to become a family joke. There was no reason to hesitate, and yet when he did something as innocent and expected as sitting with her family in Gathering, she got annoyed and put him off again. Was it that she wasn’t quite ready to give up her freedom for a life that focused on home and children? Every girl wanted that. She certainly didn’t want to end up like Dinah, pushing thirty and haunting the edges of everyone else’s lives.

But she still didn’t want to say yes. Not yet.

With a sigh, Julia turned and went back inside to deal with the used books. Her mother said she was stubborn and unwilling, and she was probably right.

Rebecca kept a large selection in the back room. She hadn’t been kidding about the coffee club’s depredations. Children’s stories were shoved on top of literature with callous disregard for Julia’s careful, genre-specific filing system. Someone had made off with a Jane Austen that had come in last week. Rats. Julia had been hoping to read it during slow midafternoons. She had to remember her example even in her choice of reading material—she’d heard once that a Shepherd in a neighboring district had pulled a sexy romance out of one of the Elect’s bookshelves and had spent the whole summer preaching about the dreadful things the lady of the house had allowed into her home and her mind—and by extension, into the Kingdom of God. After that, Julia had knelt by her bed and put the desire to read romances on the altar of sacrifice. She didn’t want Melchizedek preaching about her.

She pulled over one of the straight-backed wooden chairs that Rebecca kept for the benefit of customers—a surface to sit on, but not comfortable enough to read a whole book—and began stacking the misfiled books on it. Inconsiderate New Age hippies, she thought. Swirling through here in their scarves and India cottons, talking about freeing their inner woman and doing nothing but making extra work for other people.

Rebecca stocked only literature, wholesome contemporary fiction, and lots of nonfiction, as well as the used books that the coffee club loved. She put her foot down at romances, murder mysteries or books about worldly religions. The Shepherds might raise an eyebrow over a woman in such a public career, but Rebecca had been the instrument of salvation to so many people that the Shepherd had to admit that perhaps God used the bookstore as part of His mysterious plan. Her benevolent influence was probably the only reason Julia had been allowed to work here instead of at something more womanly, such as Linda Bell’s day care.

Julia sometimes wondered if God would ever get around to using her. Here she was, sister to the Elder’s wife, daughter of an Elder and practically engaged to the next Deacon, and no matter how hard she tried to keep her example shining, no one had ever come to God through her. What kind of a Deacon’s wife would she make?

Without actually taking the plunge and marrying Derrick, she had no way to know. Books, products of the world though they might be, were easier to deal with all the way around, she thought ruefully, and that in itself smacked of sin. She had reached the lower shelves containing the classics and was down on her knees when she became aware she was no longer alone. A customer stood in the doorway. Gathering the books that lay on the floor, she looked up with a “can I help you?” smile.

The biker smiled back.

Julia’s heart gave a panicked kick and she froze, clutching the paperbacks to her chest as though they would protect her. She had a sudden vision of herself and Rebecca being attacked by this Hell’s Angel. Things like that happened in the world all the time.

The blood drained out of Julia’s face and she scrambled to her feet. The spines of someone’s unwanted books dug into her back.

He wore a black leather jacket with the finish rubbed off one shoulder, as if it had scraped over the road. Faded jeans hugged long legs, and the toes of his boots were coated in dust. His hair was mussed and tamped down from the black helmet he held under his arm. A reddish brown lock fell over his right eyebrow. Pale gray eyes regarded her steadily—a killer’s eyes, ruthless and devoid of emotion.

His lips parted, and Julia tensed, her eyes going wide with fear.

“Sorry if I startled you,” the biker said in a soft bass voice that penetrated the roaring in her ears. “The owner said you’d be able to help me.”

“The owner?” Julia whispered. The one who could be lying unconscious in the other room at this very moment?

“I told him you’d know where it was, Julia,” Rebecca called from the front. “It’s that young man you saw a moment ago.”

Rebecca wasn’t unconscious. She was alive and well, and so, for the moment, was Julia. “Where what was?” she asked. Her mouth was dry.

“Are you all right?” the biker queried, looking at her strangely. “You look a little green.”

She took a deep breath. He wanted a book. That was all.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her arms relaxed around the stack of books and began to tremble. Gently, she placed the pile on the chair and gripped her hands to hide their shaking. “Sorry. What is it you’re looking for?” She tried to arrange her face in a polite, businesslike expression.

“Do you have anything by Donne?”

“Dunne. As in Dominick? I’m afraid we—”

“No. Donne. As in John.”

John Donne? This filthy biker had come in here looking for poetry? Julia wished she hadn’t put the books on the chair. She needed to sit down.

He was still standing there, waiting for an answer. “I th-think we have a used copy of the complete works,” she stammered finally. “If it’s still here, it would be under Poetry and Essays.”

She got her feet moving and brushed past him. He was taller than either Owen or Derrick, although the boots were probably good for an inch of it. He was also big. Julia was used to standing next to people like Madeleine and her best friend, Claire, and feeling like a haystack. Now she felt small and feminine and vulnerable. It must be the jacket. It added to his bulk and made him threatening.

Poetry and Essays comprised half a shelf. “He’s not very fashionable these days,” Julia offered hesitantly, pulling Donne out of his place next to Boswell and a beat-up college edition of The Norton Anthology. “Here.”

He leafed through the compact volume, holding it reverently. His hands were clean, she noted. Nicely shaped. Long, supple fingers turned the pages. The cuffs of his jacket pulled back briefly, revealing a dusting of dark hair on the backs of his wrists. “Maybe not. But he lost his wife, too,” he said softly, almost absently.

Julia smiled weakly in the direction of his collar in lieu of a reply, and withdrew to the other side of the room. He stood quietly, stopping to read a page here and there, as she collected the abandoned books and began to shelve them.

“So where did you see me?” he asked, disturbing the silence. Her hands were still shaking, and she fumbled. A paperback fell to the floor with a slap.

“You—you just drove past, didn’t you?”

“I did. Anywhere else?”

“At the hospital,” she said reluctantly. She must be crazy, making small talk with a biker. Drat Rebecca anyway, for giving him the opportunity.

“Oh yeah? Were you visiting a friend?”

How nosy and callous could he get? But he was still a customer. Ingrained politeness and years of strictures against causing offense overcame her distaste. “My nephew.” Maybe if she kept it brief he’d drop it. Ryan’s life was far too important for small talk.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a tone that was both soft and compelling. His boots made hollow thuds on the oak planks of the floor.

She concentrated fiercely on fitting the books precisely in their places, her back to him. When he spoke again, his voice came from directly above her. Instinctively, she tensed.

“I hope he’ll be all right.”

She didn’t want to accept anything from him, polite hopes included. Now he was so close she could smell dust and sun-baked cotton. She stood up and moved away, putting the chair between them. “Are you looking for anything else this afternoon?” she asked in her most impersonal sales voice.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, and one corner of his mouth quirked up in a half grin. A dimple dented his left cheek. How about you? She heard the unspoken words as clearly as if he’d said them.

Her skin prickled with discomfort, and the walls of the back room suddenly seemed too close together, squeezing the air out. Women of the Elect did not strike up casual conversations with worldly men, and certainly not men like this. By seventh grade she’d learned that talking to worldly boys at school only brought shame and ridicule. Being the sister of Madeleine McNeill Blanchard had made her shy and diffident anyway, uncertain of what others expected of her in comparison with her dazzling sibling. Julia had become used to losing even a godly man’s attention the minute Madeleine walked into the room.

But Madeleine was at the hospital, hovering over her son, and this man’s attention was total. His eyes held hers with a magnetic intensity that narrowed her consciousness to an intimate circle that contained only him.

The street door bumped closed and, startled, she broke eye contact. “Miss Quinn can ring you up out front,” she said breathlessly, and bolted into the sun-bright, welcoming safety of the front of the shop.

She made sure she was nowhere within speaking distance as Rebecca slid Donne into a green paper bag. She was well within hearing range, however, blocked from the biker’s view by the shelves.

“‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls,’” quoted Rebecca whimsically. She had years of practice in small talk with customers, walking the fine line between keeping her business successful and keeping herself separate. The Shepherds were firm about where that line was, and Julia was thankful for it. Beauty and safety lay inside the line. Chaos and sin prowled outside it.

“‘It tolls for thee,’” the biker responded. “Beautiful words. He wrote a lot of them.”

“That he did,” Rebecca agreed, handing him the parcel. “And some straightforward ones. ‘Hold your tongue, and let me love.’ One of my favorites.” Rebecca gracefully omitted the first words of the sonnet to avoid taking the Lord’s name in vain.

The biker didn’t seem to notice. “Your assistant’s pretty good at holding her tongue,” he said, neatly changing the subject and freezing Julia where she stood. “Not much on small talk.”

“Julia? Oh, I’ve never noticed that. But you need to understand, her family is under a lot of strain at the moment.”

Rebecca, for heaven’s sake. Stop giving out personal details. Julia stepped out from behind the shelving. “Miss Quinn, could you give me a hand in the back when it’s convenient?” she asked.

“Certainly, dear. I’ll be right there. Have a pleasant afternoon,” she said to the biker with a smile.

“Same to you,” he answered, the dimple appearing in his cheek. To hurry Rebecca along, Julia strode back to the used books, her sensible shoes unnecessarily loud on the wood floor. “And to you as well, Julia,” he added loudly as he pushed open the door.

Chapter Four

By nine o’clock, the day had softened into the lavender-edged twilight of a northern summer. Julia closed the front door of the bookshop and paused to turn the key in the lock. She liked working Friday evenings after Rebecca went home. The tourists were in a holiday mood, and the warm, welcoming light of the bookshop and its open door often tempted restaurant goers in after dinner. People killed time there while waiting for the movie to start down the street. Sometimes the young people of the Elect dropped in to gossip about one another, and once in a great while one of them even bought a book. The only time late shift bothered her was when there was a young people’s meeting or a hymn sing scheduled on a Friday night. Often she could talk Rebecca into calling on Jeremy Black, their part-time help, but sometimes she would just have to miss out and arrive late, after the singing was over and the hungry crowd had demolished most of the food.

The air currents moving down off the mountains cooled her skin after the warmth inside. The modestly long skirt of her dress—black, to signify the death of one’s wicked human nature—brushed her calves as she walked toward the lot where she’d left her car. Black stockings covered her legs, a symbol of a godly woman’s sacrifice of her vanity on the altar of obedience.

God’s peaceful spirit might lie in the quiet of the evening as she passed under the striped awning of the ice-cream shop, but Julia’s mind was full of worry and noise.

Ryan had been in her thoughts all day. Ryan and that biker. No, she thought hastily, just Ryan, lying weak and inert in the sterile hospital bed, his sock monkey the only spot of color beside him. It was no wonder she’d left the hospital crying on Wednesday. She’d dashed into the tiny waiting room a few steps down from the nurses’ station, after an urgent call had summoned her away from work.

She’d found her parents and Owen waiting anxiously on the uncomfortable vinyl couches. They weren’t the only ones keeping vigil for their loved ones. Madeleine had been sitting beside a young woman, her arm around the woman’s shoulder, saying something soft and low to her.

Owen got up and touched Julia on the wrist. “You made record time,” he said.

“I was scared. The message was that Ryan was in surgery. What happened? Who’s that?” Julia asked him, indicating Madeleine and the stranger with a lift of her chin. “What’s going on?”

“Her strength amazes me,” Owen said, looking at his wife. “There’s nothing any of us can do right now for Ryan while he’s in the operating room, but instead of going to pieces, what does she do? She heard that woman’s little boy was admitted with a growth on his neck, and she’s over there giving her crisis counseling.” Owen’s face was illuminated with love for Madeleine, rising like a warm tide behind his grief and apprehension.

“Do we know anything?” Julia whispered, her voice colorless. “What happened to Ryan?” If only she could do something besides stand here asking useless questions!

Owen sat, pulling Julia down next to him. “He had a relapse. Lina went to get a cup of coffee and the nurse called her back. He was passing blood.”

“What did they do? What—?” The fear was like a smothering blanket, cutting off her ability to put a coherent sentence together. “Is he—?”

“We knew they would have to operate eventually to find out what’s going on.” Owen’s gaze was locked on his wife, as if he could draw strength from her the way the young mother did. “But they’re doing it right now instead of waiting. The poor little guy. I’m never going to forget his scared little face as long as I live.”

Madeleine gave the woman across the room a hug and came over to her husband. Julia expected fear, the traces of tears on her face, but she was wrong. Madeleine was never so beautiful as she was in a crisis.

“The poor thing is deathly afraid of hospitals,” she said softly, winding her husband’s fingers in her own. “She can’t be there for her son until she gets past that. I hope I helped a little.”

“If experience is the best teacher, she couldn’t have a better one,” Owen replied, touching her cheek. “But what about you?”

“I’m all right. I just wish we knew something. I’m tempted to go find that sweet R.N. and get her to tell me if they found what caused the bleeding in his G.I. tract.”

Elizabeth squeezed her. “Now, now, dear. Have faith that he’ll be all right. God knows best.”

Some time later the swinging doors leading to the operating rooms had opened wide enough to let Michael Archer through. His scrubs were wrinkled and stained. Owen straightened, alert as an animal scenting danger, and dislodged Madeleine, who was dozing, exhausted, on his shoulder. She murmured, and as her husband’s alarm communicated itself to her, came fully awake.

“Michael!” Madeleine whispered. She got up and took a step toward him. Her shoe caught in the edge of the pastel carpet and she stumbled. Owen reached for her, but she pushed his arms away as though they were branches blocking her path. “Michael, what have you found? What caused the bleeding? Is Ryan all right?”

Dr. Archer had the kind of spirit and gentle demeanor that had made Julia trust him even as a little girl, coming to him for colds and bumps. His face, usually grave with a twinkle of humor behind it, was still and drawn as he looked into the white cameo of Madeleine’s. His eyes seemed to have sunk a little way into his skull, as though withdrawing from the pain he was going to have to inflict on her.

Apprehension tingled through Julia’s stomach. She gripped the rolled edges of the couch, her blunt, unpolished fingernails sinking into the worn vinyl.

Dr. Archer took both Madeleine’s hands and looked into her eyes. Owen hovered at her shoulder. “Madeleine, Owen,” the doctor said softly, “you need to be strong. We might not understand God’s will, but we know it’s always right in the end.”

“No,” she said.

“I’m so sorry I—”

“No,” Madeleine said, louder, as though he were arguing with her. Her eyes were bright with challenge, her head thrown back.

“—have no good news to tell you, but—”

“I don’t believe you! It was a simple investigative procedure. I never meant—it’s impossible!” She covered her ears with both hands. Owen pulled them away, holding his wife’s wrists, staring at the doctor in horror.

“Madeleine! No, it’s not that. He’s alive…barely. Alain Duboce can pull him through if anyone can. He’s just completed the surgery. If he makes it through the night, the prognosis is good. But I wanted to prepare you. He’s not out of the woods yet.”

Julia’s nails pierced the vinyl once, twice. Help me, Lord, she had begged an unseen spirit. I’ll do anything You ask me to. Just save Ryan’s life.

With a sigh, Julia drew the cool, moist night air into her lungs and shook away the vivid memory. Ryan had made it through the night, but no one seemed able to tell them when he’d be well enough to come home. What she needed to do was pray more. That was her problem. Worrying constantly about Ryan was selfish—as if God paid any attention to worrywarts. Prayer was a different thing. Prayer could—

Twenty feet away, a man slowed his approach, the sound of his booted feet carrying in the sweet, heavy air. “‘Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you as yet but knock,’” he said.

Julia froze. That voice. A smooth bass with music in it. The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and she wished she’d been paying more attention to where she was walking. How far away was the car?

“Pretty violent for a preacher, wasn’t he?” he said. He stopped just inside the shadow of the shop’s awning, a slim-hipped, broad-shouldered silhouette. “I’ve always thought they should make a movie of his life.”

Donne had been a preacher? She’d have to tell Rebecca, who had a real thing about selling the literature of worldly religions. “I don’t go to movies,” she said in a tone devoid of expression. She pivoted and moved into the cold radiance of the streetlights, balancing on the edge of the curb. Out in the open, she realized how deserted the downtown area was. There were people in the coffee bar, but would they hear her if she cried out for help?

“Don’t go to movies? Even one about the Dean of St. Paul’s?”

“He was a worldly man. Leave me alone, please.” She was almost past him now, walking fast, heading for the parking lot and the safety of her car. Her heart bumped inside her chest, almost making her sick. This was more than shyness. This was the fear of a small animal locked in a predator’s gaze.

He followed her, his boots heavy on the asphalt. “Julia, please? I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

“I don’t even know you. Go away!” She didn’t like him using her name. It was personal. Presumptuous. Her cheeks burned, but the area between her shoulder blades felt cold.

“I’m trying to fix that. Hey, slow down.”

She swung around to face him. “I said, leave me alone!”

He stopped dead, the painted lines of two empty parking spaces between them. Lifting empty hands, he moved them apart, palms up, in a gesture of appeal. His leather jacket opened to reveal a clean white T-shirt under it. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft. His eyes were hollows filled with pain. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just wanted to have a cup of coffee and…” He shrugged and let the sentence trail away. “I…I lost my wife last year and I’m a little out of practice at this. Sorry.”

Julia bit her lip. Her conditioning against talking to outsiders warred with compunction that she had hurt the feelings of another—one who seemed to have been deeply hurt already. The needs of others always came before your own. She had jumped to conclusions about his character because of the way he was dressed, and had let those assumptions guide her behavior—just like a worldly person. Outsiders had done the same to her often enough.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized in her turn, her voice quieter but still edged with caution. “But I can’t. I’m…I’m expected somewhere.” She’d run over to Madeleine’s and see if Owen was home with news, thereby turning her little fib into the truth.

The biker looked down at the asphalt, and shoved one hand into the pocket of his jeans. “At least let me introduce myself properly, as one lover of books to another.” He took a step toward her and held out the other hand. Automatically hers came up. “I’m Ross Malcolm. And you’re Julia…?” His big hand, warm and callused, engulfed hers in a firm grip. As she pulled away, his fingers slid along hers as though he didn’t want to let go.

Her hand tingled and she jerked it back. “McNeill,” she said reluctantly. Her upbringing wouldn’t even allow her the safety of a lie.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Julia McNeill,” he said, a smile flavoring his voice with warmth. The streetlight lit his face from the side, leaving it half silver and half black. Shadows filled the hollow curve between eyebrow and cheekbone. He looked like Satan himself. Satan after God had barred him from paradise. She circled past him, edging toward her car. A truck turned the corner, coming toward them, its headlights sweeping away the dark.

“Sure I can’t change your mind about that coffee?” he asked with a smile, shrugging one shoulder toward the warmly lit windows.

For half a second she actually wondered what it might be like. Then her good sense returned. Choose as a date one who’d make a good mate. The aphorism was printed on a fridge magnet in her mother’s kitchen, handmade by Linda Bell ten years ago. She’d seen it so many times it was photographically reproduced on her brain cells, ready for moments like this.

She longed suddenly for Derrick’s arms. Safe, reliable Derrick, who was both date and mate material. Bikers in leather jackets were not, great smiles notwithstanding. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she repeated a little desperately. She dashed to her car and locked herself in. As she accelerated out of the parking lot and down the street, she passed his motorcycle. It was parked at the curb, its front wheel facing out.

Choose as a date one who’d make a good mate.

“Organized Crime Task Force.”

The no-nonsense male voice told Miriam the folksy aunt persona wouldn’t work this time. She was about at the end of her tether, chasing the wretched man all over the countryside. It was only by sheer dumb luck that she’d thought to ask the bus driver if he knew what OCTF stood for as they’d roared into Seattle the night before. She’d already found out that he had a daughter in the police department, and at the time it had seemed like a shot in the dark.

A shot whose aim had surprised her. God surely worked in mysterious ways.

“Ross Malcolm, please.” There. That was a pretty good imitation of a lawyer in a hurry.

He put her through without further comment.

“O-Crime, Harper.”

End it all. It was never easy. Of course Malcolm wouldn’t pick up the phone. He’d probably moved to Alaska. In which case she and the girl would pack up their things and get out of this homeless shelter on the first available bus back to the meeting point.

“Ross Malcolm, please,” she repeated.

“He’s not here. Can I take a message?”

“But he works there, correct?”

“Correct. He’s out of town. Can I help you?”

She sighed. One step forward, two steps back. “No. Can you give me a number where I can reach him?”

“Who is this?”

She hesitated. Best to go with the truth, now that she’d finally found someone who seemed to know something.

“I’m a friend of the family. I’m trying to get in touch with him.”

There was a pause. “If you give me your number I’ll have him call you,” the man called Harper said with equal parts cordiality and caution.

“If you would just tell me where he is, I’ve got news for him. About his daughter.”

“Daughter?”

The man sounded so flummoxed that Miriam gave up. “Yes, daughter. Condemn that man, I’ve tracked him all over the state and I’m done trying. You tell Ross Malcolm that Annie’s dead, and if he cares about the girl, he’d better get himself back here.”

She banged the receiver down on yet another pay phone, this one in the hallway of the shelter, and resisted the urge to shriek with frustration. Moses was so right. The government were all about hiding and obfuscation and preventing honest people from doing the right thing.

It wasn’t until she’d returned to the cots assigned to her and the girl that she realized she’d hung up before telling the Harper man where or who she was.

Just as well. Let Ross Malcolm try and find her for a change.

Chapter Five

“He asked you out?” Claire breathed in fascinated horror. “A real biker?”

Julia bent at the waist and began to brush her hair. “As real as they get.” The image of Ross Malcolm riding that machine past the bookshop was etched on her mind as permanently as the rhyme on Linda Bell’s fridge magnet. “How many bikers can there be in Hamilton Falls?”

“Not very many. This is a four-wheel-drive town if ever I saw one. So what did you do?”

“Do?” Julia straightened and flipped her hair down her back. Claire, standing at the mirror, tucked a few wayward strands into her own neatly braided bun. “I said no, of course. What do you think?”

“Well, of course you said no,” Claire said, lifting her chin to adjust the bow of her black silk blouse. “What I meant was, did he give you any trouble?”

“No. Just tried to talk me out of it. Good grief, Claire, there must be a thousand worldly girls in this town. Why couldn’t he pick on one of them instead of bothering me?” She took up a combat position in front of the bathroom mirror and tried to surprise her unruly red curls into a roll like Madeleine’s. She never stopped hoping that a few obedient hair genes might have been distributed to her as well. A modest, godly hair style—or the lack thereof—was the biggest cross she had to bear.

Claire met Julia’s eyes in the mirror. “Maybe he’s searching. Maybe he sees something in you that he wouldn’t find in a worldly girl.”

“Oh, my,” Julia murmured weakly. The roll sprang out from under her fingers and unwound itself down her back. He’d said he’d lost his wife. His eyes had confirmed it. Had she really been so self-centered that she’d mistaken a cry for help for interest in herself? She closed her eyes in shame.

“I’ve had total strangers walk up to me in the street and ask what I stood for,” Claire went on, pretending not to notice. “Don’t you think you should give him a chance?”

Nobody ever asked her things like that, but when she did get the chance, she’d blown it. “You think I should have gone out with him. What would the Shepherd say?” She gave up on the roll and began the same old boring French braid.

“Julia, for goodness’ sake, it was only coffee. It wasn’t like he asked you to something that would jeopardize your soul, like a movie or a dance.”

“But still…Elder’s Sister-in-law Spotted in Café with Biker. Try explaining that one to dear Alma Woods. She’d think I was condemned for sure. Not that she doesn’t think that now.”

“I know. I wore heels last Sunday and you should have heard her. But really, you wouldn’t need to explain a thing if it meant he came to Mission.”

This conversation was getting completely out of hand. “Speaking of which,” Julia said, snapping a covered elastic around the tail end of the braid with a sound of finality, “we’d better get going. Mission starts in twenty minutes.”

On Sunday evenings, Melchizedek presided at the hall, spreading the word of God to Stranger and Elect alike. As they walked in, Julia spotted Owen and Madeleine already in the front row.

“Madeleine is such an example,” Claire whispered to her. “Her service to God always comes first, doesn’t it?” The first Sunday after Ryan had been admitted to hospital, Julia had been prepared to take her sister’s place at the old upright piano for the hymns, thinking that Madeleine would be unable to do it. She’d even gone so far as to sit in the front row, closest to the instrument. But Madeleine, putting her own emotion aside for the sake of service to her Lord, had walked to the front and played as flawlessly as ever, even on “Suffer the Little Children.” And Julia’s gesture of help to her grieving sister had gone unnoticed. Which was just as well, Julia reminded herself. The sacrifices God valued most were performed in secret, anyway.

She and Claire seated themselves three-quarters of the way back with the young people. Julia barely had time to put her purse under her seat when Derrick sidled into the row from the other side and took the empty seat beside her. As Melchizedek announced the first hymn, she quietly put her hymnbook on the floor next to her purse and allowed Derrick to hold his for her.

No wonder everyone thought they were going to announce their engagement any day. Couples who were going together might sit side by side in Mission, but only the ones who were “serious” actually shared a hymnbook. If she wasn’t serious about him, she should never have allowed him to do it the first time. If she was, she should stop being so difficult and tell him so.

Unbidden, the image of Ross Malcolm rose up before her, all silver and shadow and pain. She couldn’t imagine a greater contrast to the man beside her. Derrick, his clean, gentle hands holding the hymnbook, was a true sheep, obedient and innocent. Ross? He was like a wolf, slipping from light into darkness and back again, stalking her for who knew what reason.

Or maybe she did know the reason. Julia bowed her head, convicted in her heart of her own guilt. She hadn’t opened her heart to the promptings of the Spirit when Ross Malcolm spoke to her. She had ignored his pain and thought only of herself.

Well, she was listening now. When you heard God’s voice through the medium of His Shepherd, you didn’t question it. You obeyed.

When the service was over, Melchizedek walked solemnly to the back door to greet everyone as they left. As they filed toward the door, Owen and Madeleine joined them. “Four Strangers tonight,” Madeleine said with a gentle smile. “Melchizedek’s influence is increasing.”

Julia nodded and squeezed her sister’s hand. Four? She scanned the crowd. You could pick a Stranger out right away. Beside a man who must be her husband, the lady from Jim Bell’s office was wearing slacks, for goodness’ sake, and even a necklace. Several of the Elect women were trying hard not to stare. She glanced at the couple from Alma’s apartment building, now shaking hands with Melchizedek. The man’s hair was too long and his wife’s too short, and their faces had a closed, uncomfortable look that the faces of the Elect lacked. However, the Spirit worked miracles. With God’s help they would see their need to conform to the image of Christ, and begin dressing to fit in.

Julia struggled against an upswell of guilt and inadequacy. She had never brought anyone to Mission in her life. Madeleine brought lots of them. Even Derrick and Claire had brought friends from school. It was an unspoken measure of your worthiness when you brought people, so what did that say about her?

Maybe she could disappear gracefully, she thought as she emerged onto the sidewalk outside. Not that anyone would notice, with all the new lambs to—

The streetlights glinted off chrome and Julia stopped as though she had run into a plate-glass window. The man behind her ran into her back and let out a surprised breath. “Sorry, Julia,” he murmured, stepping around her. She was too dismayed to answer.

Ross Malcolm was sitting on his motorcycle at the far end of the parking lot. Cold streaks of light gleamed on the straight lines of the machine’s exhaust pipes, curved into infinity on the front wheel and the headlights. No one could possibly miss him.

Oh, no. Please tell me he’s not waiting for me. Please don’t let him see me.

The parking lot was brightly lit. Julia wished she could melt back into the safety of the hall, but the stream of departing people edged her farther out into his line of sight. “The biker at the Mission” would be fodder for the gossip lines for days. It would rate a paragraph at least in people’s letters to their friends. Madeleine brought visitors to God. But what did Julia do? Caused a scandal with a biker.

She dodged between two cars, her head down, clutching her Bible case as she had clutched the paperbacks in the bookstore.

“Julia,” he called.

The flock of old ladies spilled out the front door, chattering. Derrick was right behind them, craning his neck, looking for her. Behind him she caught a glimpse of Owen’s red-gold hair. What would they say if they caught her speaking to him? The evening air felt chilled and clammy on her cheeks.

You’re thinking of yourself again. She stopped, gripping her Bible, as the thought came to her, almost as if a voice had spoken in her head. She was. She was reacting in exactly the same way she had before—with human instinct instead of godly compassion. Well, the still small voice had spoken. Cost what it may, she had to listen.

Ross rose from his lazy position on the seat of the bike, and crossed the parking lot with the loose-hipped, rocking swagger that boots gave a cowboy. She leaned weakly on the rear fender of her car. He ought to know better than to walk like that. He ought to know that she couldn’t speak to an Outsider at Mission, in front of everybody. No matter what the Spirit told her, she was never going to live this down. Never.

The old ladies had caught sight of them now. Alma Woods’s eyes were so big that a rim of white showed around her muddy irises. Her mouth opened to give the alarm as she grabbed Rebecca Quinn’s elbow.

Ross closed the last few steps between them. “Hey. What’s the matter?” His leather jacket creaked.

“Nothing,” she replied, her mouth dry. Blue jeans never looked like that on Derrick. “Wh—what are you doing here?”

Alma had the attention of three of the others, now. Even Rebecca looked horrified as she tried to steer the fizzing little group away from Julia and over to their cars. Rebecca’s eyebrows lifted in a stark question: Are you all right? The whole crowd was looking their way now, people gawking over their shoulders as they hesitated beside their cars.

“I just came over to say hello,” he said, leaning a hand on the roof of her car and cocking one hip as though he were prepared to stand there and discuss it for the rest of the night. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, of course not, it’s just that—”

“Julia, is there a problem?” Melchizedek called from the doorway.

Ross braced a hip on the side of her car and crossed his arms. Beyond him, Melchizedek made his way over to her, followed by Derrick and Owen. Expressions of serious concern fought with disbelief. No one had ever made such a scene at Mission. Owen’s gaze searched hers, telegraphing the same message as Rebecca: Are you all right?

“No,” she answered Melchizedek reluctantly. To the outside observer, Ross Malcolm hadn’t done anything wrong—just walked across a public parking lot to speak to her. To an insider, it was the most scandalous thing to happen in Hamilton Falls since Rita Ulstad had deserted her husband for the man renting their downstairs bedroom seven years before. How on earth was she to think about his pain and his soul when he could cause so much agitation with so little effort?

Melchizedek lifted his chin and regarded Ross Malcolm, caution mingling with his sense of duty. He extended a hand. “Melchizedek,” he said, infusing the name with the authority of the law and the prophets.

Owen moved forward to ally himself with the Shepherd, and shook Ross’s hand as well. The contrast between their conservatively cut suits and Ross’s denim and leather was so extreme that Julia felt the hysterical urge to giggle. She bit her lip and let Melchizedek take control of the situation.

“Are you a…friend of Julia’s?” Melchizedek asked. His voice was calm, but his eyes conveyed his doubt.

Ross leaned on Julia’s car, his big body separating Julia from her protectors, his casual stance somehow conveying possessiveness. “We’ve met.”

Melchizedek and Owen glanced at each other, and Julia could practically see the uncertainty telegraphed between them. Where did they meet? How does he know her? What does he want?

Mark McNeill joined them, lifting an inquiring eyebrow at Owen, who shook his head. Behind her father, Julia could see Elizabeth surrounded by her best friends, watching them with sympathetic horror. She could just imagine what her mother was thinking.

“You came too late,” Melchizedek went on. “If you’d come a little earlier, you could have joined us inside.”

“I was here,” Ross replied easily. “But I made a bad guess on the time. I heard you singing and figured the service was over.”

Melchizedek seized on his last words. “Next time, don’t wait out in the parking lot. Come in. We start at seven.”

“Thanks for the invitation,” Ross said. “I’ll take you up on it.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Good night, Julia,” he said in a soft voice, as if they were intimate in some way, and sauntered off across the parking lot.

The Devil tempted her to stare. And she lost.

The Elect scattered for their cars. Not for worlds would they embarrass Mark and Elizabeth with a flurry of questions, thus betraying their own lurid interest in the scene. The details would be common knowledge by tomorrow. They could wait.

Elizabeth advanced toward the little knot of men standing around her daughter.

“Julia, why don’t you and Melchizedek come to the house for coffee and cake?” she asked in a cordial tone that only the most foolish person would fail to recognize as an order. Ten yards away, Ross fired up the motorcycle and its throaty roar drowned out her next sentence. Every head in the parking lot turned as he rode the gleaming machine out the driveway, paused to check for traffic, and accelerated loudly up the street.

“What did you say, Elizabeth?” Melchizedek asked, staring after him.

“I said, I think we could all use a little calming down.”

Chapter Six

Julia had never been in a courtroom in her life—she’d never even received a traffic ticket—but sitting in the defendant’s chair must be something like this. She had tried to escape attention by helping her mother pass her treasured bone china teacups filled with decaffeinated coffee to their guests, but Owen and Melchizedek had isolated her in a corner of the living room so neatly and politely she didn’t realize they’d done it until it was too late. Julia sat in the upholstered corner chair, Owen on the sofa next to her and Melchizedek on a dining-room chair he’d pulled up on her other side.

“This Ross Malcolm looks like an interesting man,” Melchizedek said in a friendly, noncommittal tone, selecting a slice of cake from the china tray Elizabeth offered at his shoulder.

“Yes,” Julia said, sipping hot coffee, hiding behind the teacup. Her mother never served coffee to the Shepherd of her soul in an everyday mug. The Shepherd deserved every family’s best in return for the sacrifice of his life for their souls.

“Do you know anything about him?”

“No.”

“He said you’d met,” Melchizedek persisted, his face intent. “Where was that?”

“At the bookshop.”

Melchizedek and Owen exchanged a glance. She’d made a mistake. Both Shepherd and Elder were used to the Elect telling them everything—usually far more than any human being had a right to know about another. The Shepherd was marriage counselor, psychiatrist and social worker all in one, his only training the guidance of the Spirit of God. At any other time Julia would talk to Melchizedek with loving respect, as if he were an uncle. He expected her to have nothing to hide. Anything held back from the scrutiny of the representative of God must by definition be something wrong.

She cleared her throat and put her teacup down with a tiny clink. “He came in last Friday to buy a book and talked awhile with Rebecca about poetry. I saw him once after work, too. He wanted to have a cup of coffee.”

“Did he?” Melchizedek said, his eyes on her above the rim of his cup. The delicate piece of porcelain looked ridiculous in his big hands, hands that held their salvation. “With you?” Melchizedek exchanged another glance with Owen. “But he came to Mission. Has it struck you that it’s what you have in your life that might attract him, not you yourself?”

Only a self-centered person would think the question insulting. She really had to learn to conquer this fault. It seemed to be cropping up all the time lately. She needed to focus less on herself and more on others, as the Spirit had told her. “Claire seemed to think so,” she ventured.

Melchizedek looked past her with a faraway expression. “I wonder.”

Owen spoke up. “Do you think you might see him again?”

Julia floundered for an answer. She was sure of it—for some reason she couldn’t explain, Ross Malcolm wanted to spend time with her. She could see where Melchizedek’s questions were leading, though. She felt like a kayaker in a swift river, backpaddling frantically to avoid committing herself to the waterfall up ahead. “I—I don’t know,” she stammered finally. Melchizedek was frowning at her long hesitation. “He just turns up.”

“Do you feel comfortable with him? Safe?”

Julia choked down a mouthful of tepid coffee. Safe? Who could feel safe around someone who wore jeans to make women look at him instead of to work, like any sensible man? “I…don’t think he would assault me, if that’s what you mean,” she replied cautiously. “But I don’t know anything about him.” She paused, remembering. “Well, he did say he’d lost his wife recently.”

Melchizedek looked pleased. “I knew it! He is seeking spiritual comfort. Julia, if you see him again, and he asks you for coffee or something, would you go? Think what it would mean to him to hear about the Lord’s work.”

Anyone else would say yes without hesitation. There must be something wrong with her. “I…I don’t….”

“This is serious, Julia,” Owen put in. He put his cup and saucer down and leaned toward her. “If he misses his chance of salvation, it could be on your head for all eternity.”

“It looks like you have a heavy responsibility in this,” Melchizedek agreed. “God has chosen you for this work out of all the Elect in Hamilton Falls. It’s a tremendous privilege. Are you able for it?”

The coffee had dried out the inside of her mouth. Though the room was warm, a chill crept into her hands and feet. “I don’t know,” she whispered. A piece of apple-sauce spice cake sat on the side of her saucer. The thought of taking a bite, of feeling it stick to the roof of her mouth, made her ill.

“I feel it in my heart,” Melchizedek said. “Think of the service you can render to the poor man. And to the Elect. A man who drives a motorcycle as expensive as that one may feel moved to make sacrifices for God’s work in gratitude for comfort in his loss. Remember, Saint Paul commended the liberality of the Corinthians because it meant furthering his efforts in the mission field.”

Julia nodded wordlessly. Satisfied, Melchizedek and Owen finished up their coffee and cake, and turned their chairs to include the rest of the room in general conversation. As soon as she decently could, Julia slipped out of the living room and took refuge in her old bedroom down the hall.

Her mother had cleaned out any evidence of the teenager who had left it, and turned the room into a second guest room. Julia sank into the easy chair next to the window and covered her eyes with one hand. She’d only have a few minutes of blessed solitude to regroup and regain her composure before someone came to find her.

Every one of the Elect wanted to be used by the Spirit to bring someone to Melchizedek. They were brought up to it practically from birth. But her salvation depended upon bringing this particular man to the fold. What would happen to her if she failed? Would he ride away on his motorcycle, leaving her doomed to hell for eternity? Would God ever forgive her? Would Melchizedek? He lived with this kind of responsibility every day, but he had been called and equipped by God for it.

She was still contemplating the terrifying prospect when Madeleine pushed the door open. It scraped on the carpet just as it had for years, providing an early warning system. Julia looked up, resting her head on the back of the chair.

“Here you are.” Madeleine pushed the door shut and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing, hiding behind closed doors?”

“Just, um, meditating,” Julia said. It was an answer that could cover a multitude of other reasons. Should she confide in Madeleine? No. Her sister had never failed at anything. She would just tell her that God’s grace was sufficient for her, and secretly pity Julia for her lack of faith.

“You should be praying,” Madeleine said firmly. “I really wonder about you sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Your Shepherd and Elder have more important things to do than talk to you about your choice of company.”

Julia stared at her. “It wasn’t like that at all. Ross wanted to come to the service. When he saw he was late, he just waited in the parking lot to talk to me.”

Madeleine tucked in her chin and looked at Julia over a pair of imaginary eyeglasses, as if trying to see in her younger sister a reason for a worldly man to do such a thing. Easy for Madeleine. Men had been trying to get her to talk to them from the age of twelve.

“He wanted to come to the service? Dressed like that? Hmph.” She paused, but when Julia said nothing, her curiosity got the better of her. “What did Melchizedek say, then, if he wasn’t giving you a talking-to? It was too quiet for any of us to hear.”

Julia bit back a caustic remark about her sister’s own lack of faith. She was going to need her—the Elder’s wife—to go to bat for her reputation, the way things were heading. “If Ross is searching for God, Melchizedek thinks I could be useful.”

“Really.” Taken aback, Madeleine allowed her spine to relax. This was obviously not the conversation she had expected.

Julia’s mouth twisted. Had the whole family thought she’d been getting a lecture on her bad taste in men? If they only knew. She stood up. “Well, I should be going. I have to work tomorrow.”

“You poor thing. If you’d said yes to Derrick last year, you’d be married by now and wouldn’t have to worry about things like this.” Her sister hugged her, and Julia made an effort to hug her back.

When she got out of the car at home she stood for a moment in the driveway, breathing in the scent of damp soil and Rebecca’s Peace roses. She must have been out here with the hose in the cool of the evening. Rebecca lived on the main floor of the tall Victorian at 1204 Gates Place, and rented the top suite to single Elect girls, of whom Julia was the latest in a long line.

She felt restless and uneasy. All she wanted was to get away from people, from speculation, from impossible spiritual burdens laid upon her by people who were supposed to love her. Besides, if Rebecca heard her going up the stairs, she might want to talk about the biker too. She just couldn’t face a third interrogation.

She still had on the running shoes she used for driving, a habit she’d developed to save wear on her pumps. Locking her purse and Bible case in the car, she slipped her keys in the pocket of her dress and walked briskly down the street.

The lakeshore was nearly deserted. A few late strollers moved slowly past the darkened refreshment stand next to the public washrooms. Julia took a shortcut through the trees and came out on the beach, a narrow strip of silver washed by moonlight and the ripples of the lake.

Alone at last.

The air revived her, the silence soothed her ruffled spirits. Out here she could think. Or at the very least, feel.

Let’s face the ugly truth, she thought. You’re just not up to this. But somehow she had to be. Resisting the will of the Shepherd was the same thing as resisting the will of God, and that was unthinkable. That would send her to hell for sure. They wanted her to be a sort of spiritual funnel, making it easier for Ross to enter the Kingdom of God. But after that, what? Go on her way rejoicing? Marry Derrick and sit in the same Gathering with Ross Malcolm every week, trying to ignore the prickly feeling she got every time she laid eyes on him? She tried to define what it was about him that put her on edge. His masculinity, for one thing. Oh, yes. Confident, unfettered, don’t-care-what-you-think maleness. With her limited experience in that department, Ross Malcolm scared her to death. And yet something about the unhappy look in his eyes in the parking lot behind the bookstore had caught at her heart even as she’d pushed him away and run. The buried pain of loss called out for comfort. Could she be the one that could give it to him? Could she approach and tame the wolf without losing her own salvation?

That was even more frightening. The future Mrs. Derrick Wilkinson, who would be the Deacon’s wife some day with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto, had no business thinking such things. But on the other hand, she didn’t want to be responsible for a man missing the way to heaven. What was she going to do?

She looked up and saw she’d arrived at the worn granite steps that led up the cliff face, where the Hamilton River leaped over timeworn ledges of stone on its way into the lake. There was a small park at the top. She’d go up to the overlook and then head home.

Deep in thought, she kept her head down until she rounded the semicircular rock wall that formed the overlook. She didn’t see the big motorcycle parked in the shadows until it was too late.

Ross had seen the woman approaching since she’d emerged from the trees, and had wondered why anyone would go beachcombing in a dress. She gesticulated toward the sand, as if she were having an argument with someone in her head. It wasn’t until she was climbing the steps that he’d seen her face clearly, and recognized the hair that was always trying to escape its confinement.

A ripple of dismay ran through him at the thought of sharing his solitude with a cult-conditioned woman, of getting close to her in any way. But it was his job to get close to her. Kids were dying, and he had less than three weeks to find out why.

Controlling his face, he spoke in what he hoped was a light, bantering tone. “‘Once, and but once found in thy company, all thy supposed escapes are laid on me.’” A sound halfway between a gasp and a moan issued out of the shadows close to the shrubbery, where he’d parked the bike. “Except I’m the one who escaped,” he added conversationally. “Didn’t look like you made it.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.