Lynn Bulock - To Trust a Friend

Joshua felt his cheeks flush. “You don’t want to know,” he told her, meaning every word of it. He had no desire to tell Kyra all the stupid choices he’d made in the last eight months. He was probably lucky that the worst his actions had earned him was this dead-end investigator’s assignment. If this was the answer to that prayer—or whatever it had been—in his car a few days ago, it was a pretty goofy answer. “So fill me in on what we’ve got so far. Nobody at the Bureau seemed to have a lot of information.’

“That’s because there isn’t much yet,” she said. “I can let you have a corner of my office to use for your research.”

“Great,” he said weakly. Maybe this assignment would teach him to improve his attitude. A few weeks of working closely with Kyra would either reform him or send him over the edge.

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lives in Thousand Oaks, California, with her husband of nearly thirty years. They have two grown sons. When she’s not writing, Lynn stays active in many ministries of her church, including serving as a Stephen Ministry Leader.

And those who know your name put their trust

in you; for you, O Lord, have not forsaken

those who seek you.

—Psalms 9:10

To Joe, always

Soli Deo Gloria

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

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Would he be eternally condemned for breaking his promise? The Watcher stood in a clump of trees that hid him from the two old people with binoculars and pondered the question. It wasn’t as if it had been a promise to God, but it had been a promise to Mama and she’d asked him to promise before God. He’d kept his promise while she was alive, but she was dead now and he could hardly contain himself.

For six long years he’d been good. He’d gone to work every day, kept to himself, hadn’t strayed into those places that called to him and drew him toward the Bad Things. But Mama had died years ago and the pull of his promise was weakening. The voices had stopped whispering in his ear and were speaking out loud. The little girls had started staring at him again, almost begging him to take action. Before long he wouldn’t be able to control the voices any more. Promise or no promise, he was going to have to start hunting again. Soon.

For a long time just visiting here had been enough. Then, this year’s heavy spring rains had overrun the tiny creek, making it into a regular stream. The whole area had turned into a marshy mess, changing his special place so that he could hardly recognize it.

Nothing was in the right place. Things he’d hidden sat out in the open. His treasures lay strewn about, displayed for anybody to see. That was not a good thing. And now, when he needed to be alone, these two gray-haired old fools were here and they wouldn’t leave. They’d stayed in a twenty-foot-square area for more than an hour now, whispering to each other once in a while, pointing to something up in one of the trees.

Suddenly one of them gasped, making the Watcher jump. He cursed silently as a twig snapped under his feet, but nobody noticed except maybe a bird that flew out of the treetops.

“Helen, don’t move,” the old man said to his companion. “Does your cell phone get any reception out here?”

“Why, Roy? What’s going on?” The old lady’s voice quavered.

“I found something I think the police are going to want to see,” Roy said.

“It’s not…a body, is it?” Helen’s voice shook.

Roy was silent for a minute. “Not exactly. It was a body once, or at least part of one. What it is now is a very small pile of bones. I can’t even tell for sure if they’re human or not.”

Helen sighed with what sounded like relief. “Just bones? Then it’s probably something a dog killed and dragged under here.”

“I don’t think so. Do you have a signal?”

“Just a minute, Roy.” The Watcher could hear the faint short tune of a phone being turned on. “Now it’s on. I don’t get the best reception out here, but it looks like I could make a call.”

“Good. Then dial 911.” Roy’s voice sounded firm.

“That number is for emergencies, Roy. I don’t see what the emergency is here. It’s not like anything is going to move.”

“Just dial 911, Helen. The police are going to want to see this before anybody gets a chance to mess it all up.”

“All right.” While Helen talked to the dispatcher, the Watcher realized that it was time to get out of here. Being here when the police arrived would be a major problem. Then he would be condemned for sure, and much sooner than he wanted to think about.

Just once, Kyra thought, it would be nice to be treated like a lady. In old movies and books, heroes were always holding up their hands and saying, “Please, there are ladies present” when people got out of hand. She wondered if anybody would ever treat her that way. Maybe this wish was a little over the top—because Kyra Elliott didn’t see herself as the ladylike type—but being treated like something other than one of the boys would be good.

It wasn’t as if she looked like one of the boys. She wore her dark auburn hair long, sometimes restraining the waves while she worked, but still in a feminine style. Her clothes were not terribly girlie and were often covered by a lab coat or evidence coveralls, but no one would have mistaken her for anything but a woman.

Still, there was something about her that always seemed to make the men she worked with treat her as if she was just one of the crew. Sometimes there were advantages to that, she decided as she watched her colleagues from the lab continue their mild harassment of a Maryland state trooper. At least they were honest and open around her. They didn’t try to hide their shenanigans, either.

While Bill and Terry pointed out all the more spectacular things about the contents of the body bag that the young man had brought in, Kyra stood nearby. The trooper, who must have been all of twenty-two, tried not to lose it in front of the two older, more seasoned men. He wasn’t doing all that well, turning a pale shade of green under his tanned skin and short blond hair. After a few minutes Kyra knew it was time to step in.

“Come on, guys, knock it off,” she finally said. “Don’t let them get to you,” Kyra told the young officer. “They only give you a hard time because all of this bothers them, too.”

“Come on, Doc, we were only having a little fun,” Terry grumbled. The older of the two technicians, he should have known better. The trooper probably wasn’t much older than the son Kyra had seen in pictures on Terry’s desk.