Ramona Richards - The Face of Deceit

“I couldn’t tell who it was,” she added, “but there was this face.” She tapped the photo of her vase again. “I woke up in such a panic that I…” She swallowed. “I’d never felt a fear like that. I did the first vase in an attempt to get rid of the nightmare. I never expected to sell it—or that it would be the start of dozens of others.”

“Any idea what the dream meant?” Mason asked.

She frowned. “You mean, like an interpretation?”

“Sure. Remember that the Bible is full of dreams and visions, and most meant something significant.” Mason paused and shoved his hands into his pockets, a little puzzled by his own words. Where had that come from? He knew the Bible, but not much beyond a childhood Sunday-school level. “What if your memory is picking up on someone you really know and plopping it on those vases?” he asked.

Karen turned to him. “It can’t be.”

“Why not?” If her dreams were a memory trying to work its way out, this was the logical response, the only response. He swallowed hard, dropping his voice. “Karen, has anyone ever tried to kill you?”

Karen’s eyes met his, evenly, solidly. “Yes.”

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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.

Ramona and her daughter live in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. She can be reached through her Web site, www.ramonarichards.com.

In the morning, O Eternal One, listen for my voice;

in the day’s first light I will offer my prayer to You

and watch expectantly for Your answer.

—Psalms 5:3

To Sunny,

who first put me on a wheel

and let me disappear into the clay.

Your unparalleled friendship is a true blessing.

With special thanks to Vickie C. Martin

and her team at Goodlettsville, Tennessee’s

Scentaments,

for the first drops of inspiration

for Karen’s “face vases.”

“Before you do anything else,

before you center it on the wheel,

before you think about what you’re going to make,

listen to the clay. God created it;

it’s part of His world.

Honor it. Honor Him.

Listen closely.

The clay has a voice. It has a memory.

It will tell you all you need to know.”

—Jake Abernathy

Lessons to a Young Potter, 1989

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

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

“Not again!”

Karen O’Neill stared at the pottery shards clustered at the base of the open door, a twinge of fear tightening her chest. Her sudden words, although barely more than a whisper, startled the cat in her arms. The gray velvet half-Persian leaped free in a graceful arc over the threshold and disappeared into the hedges bordering the backyard.

“Lacey!” Karen stepped over the remains of the ceramic vase, her sense of fear escalating. “Wait!”

No good. The cat, cooped up all morning as Karen worked in her pottery studio, wasn’t listening. “As if you ever do,” Karen muttered. She quickly scanned her sloping, tree-covered backyard, searching for any signs of danger, any other human presence…any indication of who could have smashed a vase against her back door.

Karen’s own vase, in fact. One of her own unique “face vases,” a design she had first created a few years ago. Slender and marked by a distinctive white face on one side, the vibrantly colored vases had become her artistic trademark. Recently, they had become increasingly popular among galleries and collectors in the Northeast, a trend predicted by art historian Mason DuBroc, who had published an article on them. Mason, intrigued by the vases, had warned Karen that she needed to increase her output, to prepare for growing popularity. “Everyone will love them,” he’d insisted.

Someone, however, had taken a distinct dislike to the vases. A violent dislike.

Around her, the yard remained silent, revealing no clues. The only motion was from the prowling cat and a squirrel annoyed by the Persian’s presence. Even the pink and gold flowers near the door, their heady scent lured out by the warm May sun, showed no indication of a breeze or a passing human. No lurking villains, no suspicious shadows. Peaceful.

Except for the shattered vase. The third vase this month. Karen hadn’t ever heard a crash, making her think the attacker knew when she was in the house and when she was not. As a result, Karen fought a feeling of being stalked. Watched.

She shivered despite the warmth of the spring sun, then scolded herself. You’re just being paranoid. She pushed the thought away and turned back to the door, bending to look closer at the remains of the vase, careful not to touch any of the pieces. Yep, there it was, as with the other two—the scrap of paper, weighted down by one of the larger shards, that read simply, Stop!

“Stop what?” She straightened and stepped over the vase into her basement studio, still talking to herself. “Stop making vases? Stop these vases? Stop pottery altogether?”

Karen froze at the idea, looking around, her gaze moving from her shelves of pottery supplies, to the worktables, to the wheel. She could no more give up pottery than walk on the moon. Pottery wasn’t just something she did. It was her life. It had saved her life.

She took a deep breath. “Lord, give me strength,” she whispered, then headed up the narrow, wrought-iron spiral steps that led from her studio to her living room. Time to call the police. Again.

“Vandalism? That’s it? After three vases!” The barely restrained anger in the dark male voice on the other end of the phone gave Karen an odd sense of comfort. She had been tense when she’d called the police, but now she relaxed as she leaned back against her couch cushions and stretched her legs. Lacey, who’d scratched at the front door to get in almost as soon as Karen had come upstairs, sensed the change in mood. She leaped into Karen’s lap and started kneading one thigh, sharp claws pricking through Karen’s jeans.