Ramona Richards - House of Secrets

She moved to push past the police officers that were blocking the door.

She didn’t get far. Instead, Ray Taylor abruptly grabbed her shoulder and spun her into his arms, pressing her tightly against his chest. “Let it go, June. Stop fighting what you really feel.”

June resisted him only a moment, then her body crumpled and she sank against him, wild sobs bursting from her as she clenched his shirt in both hands.

A writer and editor since 1975, Ramona Richards has worked on staff with a number of publishers. Ramona has also freelanced with more than twenty magazine and book publishers and has won awards for both her fiction and nonfiction. She’s written everything from sales-training video scripts to book reviews, and her latest articles have appeared in Today’s Christian Woman, College Bound and Special Ed Today. She sold a story about her daughter to Chicken Soup for the Caregiver’s Soul, and Secrets of Confidence, a book of devotionals, is available from Barbour Publishing.

In 2004, the God Allows U-Turns Foundation, in conjunction with the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA), chose Ramona for their “Strength of Choice” award, and in 2003, AWSA nominated Ramona for Best Fiction Editor of the Year. The Evangelical Press Association presented her with an award for reporting in 2003, and in 1989 she won the Bronze Award for Best Original Dramatic Screenplay at the Houston International Film Festival. A member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and the Romance Writers of America, she has five other novels complete or in development.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

—Romans 8: 15-16

This one is for Diane, Krista, Jessica, Emily and Tina, with thanks, appreciation and gratitude for your intelligence, guidance and support through it all.

Y’all are a true blessing in my life.

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

EPILOGUE

Letter to Reader

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

“I did not kill Pastor David.”

June Presley Eaton tried to swallow her fear as well as the lump of grief in her throat. Her upraised hands trembled, and she felt the phone clutched in her left hand slip slightly. I have to maintain control. June lifted both hands a bit higher and forced her voice lower. “I found him. I wanted to help,” she said to the man standing behind her.

Please, Lord, let him believe me. It was a desperate prayer, and June fought a tightening sense of panic. She had a dead pastor lying at her feet and, she was pretty certain, Sheriff Ray Taylor and his deputies at her back, guns drawn. Without turning, June wagged the cordless phone in her hand. From it, the flattened and tinny screeches of the Bell County dispatcher bounced off the kitchen walls of the Victorian parsonage.

“June Presley Eaton! Is that you? Don’t tell me you decided to upset Pastor David right before his big event! Someone already heard the fight and called us and Ray is on his way right now, and—”

June hit the off button with her thumb. “I just got here, Ray. I wasn’t the one fighting with him. There are footprints leading farther into the house. See them? And when I got here, I could still hear someone back there.” The lump in her throat had eased, but the fear still bore into her, tensing every muscle in her lower back and sending a shudder up her spine. Please, Lord.

No response came from the sheriff, however, and in the silence that followed, June knew that all of Ray’s instincts had kicked into gear. His brown eyes scanning the room, he’d assess the scene in front of him with that precise, military-trained way he had of observing everything quickly before making a judgment. He would calmly evaluate the crime scene while she stood over a dead body, covered in blood, hands raised, cops clustered at her back with their guns pointing at her. June knew that only the phone in her hand kept her from looking like a suspect. She closed her eyes, praying that Ray would see the same thing she had as she’d approached the broad back porch of the White Hills Gospel Immanuel Chapel’s parsonage: bloody footprints leading away from the door and out into the yard.

That had been her cue to fly into the house, calling David Gallagher’s name. June had entered the kitchen, moving fast, and her sneakers had hit the red pool gathering around David’s body before she could stop. She’d skidded and fallen forward, hitting the floor with a painful thud, her hands splashing down on either side of the butcher knife protruding from David’s ribs.

Even during her years as a street kid, she’d never come face-to-face with violence like this.

Once June had stopped screaming, she’d scrambled to her feet and lunged for the phone, barely having time to dial 911 before the screen door had banged open and Ray’s command to “Freeze!” had brought everything to a standstill.

In the silence, a fly buzzed around her blood-coated right hand. Trying to look over her shoulder, June struggled to speak in a quieter tone. Control. Stay in control. “Please, Ray. I’m a witness, not a suspect.” She took another deep breath, working to sound much more dignified than she felt. “And please close that door. You’re letting the flies into the house.”

No one moved. Then, after a few seconds that felt like at least a decade, Ray spoke, his baritone voice even and thoroughly professional. “Rivers. Gage. Clear the house.”

Silently, Ray’s deputies, Daniel Rivers and Jeff Gage, moved through the kitchen and past June and the pastor’s body into the main areas of the grand old Victorian. Over the next few minutes, their calls of “Clear!” echoed through the rooms.

“Can I at least put my arms down?”

“Why are you here, June?”

“I came to confront David about what he’d said—” She broke off, suddenly realizing how suspicious that sounded.

“About what?” Ray’s tone grew more agitated as he holstered his gun, stepped over David’s legs and moved in front of her. “What did you need to confront him about?”

June straightened her back and took the holstered gun for a sign she could lower her arms. “What he said yesterday morning from the pulpit.”

The tension in Ray’s voice revealed his impatience. “About what?”

“Hunter Bridges.”

Silence reigned in the room again as Ray simply waited, eyes dark and demanding.

June’s hands suddenly shook at her sides, and she looked around for a place to put the phone, her words picking up speed. “Hunter Bridges is a canker sore on the face of this town and you know it. I don’t care how much David wants to see him in the state senate. He’s a lying, manipulative, womanizing cheat, and I don’t want him representing me or to have my name connected to his.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve witnessed his ability to manipulate people to get what he wants. He’s propositioned two married friends of mine. I’m done with him.” With no flat surface close enough, the phone grew awkward in her hand. A wicked pain snapped through her head, making her grimace. “David’s implied before that I support Hunter, and I’ve politely asked him not to. He did it again yesterday morning, in front of the whole church, and I knew polite just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.”