House of Secrets

Ray replaced the pen in his pocket and stood again, his mind turning over a hundred possibilities. He ignored the relief he felt at finding some possible evidence that pointed away from June. Tobacco stains didn’t exactly narrow the suspect pool much—Bell County remained tobacco country and there were as many fields of the bright, wide-leafed plants around here as there were of corn and soybeans—but it might not be a bad place to start looking. Especially if it could help clear the name of the woman he could not get off his mind. The woman who just wanted to be “friends.”

The scuff of shoes on dirt made Ray look up, and he shined his light down the tunnel behind him, expecting to see Daniel and his lone crime-scene investigator, Jeff Gage, heading his way. Instead, the beam of his flashlight faded away into the darkness.

Then the scuffing sounded again, now clearly from the opposite direction. Ray drew his pistol and swung around, dropping to a crouch.

June perched on the outside edge of the carefully placed kitchen chair, tense and weary. Her foot bounced nervously, the white crime-scene suit she now wore crinkling and crunching with every movement. Before he and Daniel had headed off to explore the tunnel, Ray had given her the suit and insisted she exchange her bloody clothes for the Tyvek coverall. He also pulled a chair from the far side of the room and told her to sit there once her clothes were in evidence bags. He placed it where every officer on the premises could see her. For her safety, he’d said.

She could see them as well. She watched as Jeff Gage went to his patrol cruiser and returned with the crime-scene kit, beginning his work on the body. Photographs, diagrams and evidence bags. He’d placed brown paper bags around David’s hands, and for the first time June saw the defensive wounds on her pastor’s arms.

You fought back. Good for you. Tears stung June’s eyes again as she realized that there was no forced entry. David must have let them in—he must have known his attackers. Her stomach knotted as a sense of betrayal shot through her. How could anyone…? June pressed her fingers to her lips, fighting a wave of grief.

When JR first took over here at Gospel Immanuel Chapel in tiny White Hills, Tennessee, the congregation had barely numbered one hundred. She and JR had worked hard to build the church, and within a year, JR had needed an assistant and an associate pastor. He’d hired Kitty Parker as his assistant and David Gallagher as his associate pastor, for his knowledge of scripture, charisma in the pulpit and genuine love of people. After JR’s death, David became the senior pastor. Over the past three years of his tenure in that role, David had grown the church even more, and he knew every member by name and their problems and their hopes.

June shifted in her chair, her heart aching for David. You were a good shepherd. Did you know them? Were they friends?

David had either let his attacker in…or the killer had come in through the tunnel.

Not many folks knew about that underground passageway in and out of the house. In fact, when she and JR had started the renovation of the parsonage the year before he’d died, the entrance on the second floor had been sealed. The contractor told her it had probably been closed off for at least twenty years, since the house had been empty for more than ten years. And the previous owners had known nothing about a tunnel.

JR had found the tunnel fascinating, even though the dark passageway was little more than a deep ditch that had been covered over with railroad ties and sod. It let out at the spring house. Although deep enough for a man to stand up in, only two feet or so of dirt and wood separated it from the expanse of grass that grew fresh and even across the backyard. JR had insisted on having the tunnel inspected for safety. They’d never really used it except for the time they had left the house that way in order to sneak away undetected by the neighbors for a romantic three days in Gulf Shores. A pretend adventure that still made June smile.

A rhythmic thudding on the main stairway of the house made June turn, and she stood as Daniel entered the kitchen. “Where’s Ray?”

“Still down there.” He motioned for Gage to follow him. “Bring your kit.”

“What did you find?” June asked, taking a step toward her brother-in-law.

“Later. Stay here.” He waited as Gage repacked the kit. As they turned to go, two muffled thumps echoed from somewhere deep in the house. They looked at each other, puzzled, as two more thumps sounded, like a car backfiring in some far distant place.

Gage recognized it first. “That’s gunfire!”

TWO

Ray Taylor’s ears rang, and his head throbbed with an almost blinding pain. Blue and white dots danced angrily before his eyes, and a spreading dampness on the left side of his skull slid through his hair and down his neck. Ray clenched his jaw and sank heavily against the wall of the tunnel, sliding to a sitting position.

When he’d swung around, only his instinct to crouch and weave to the right had kept him alive. A bright spotlight flashed suddenly, blinding him, and one of the shots that followed went wild, while the other grazed the left side of his head instead of hitting him square in the chest. He’d returned two quick shots, and the intruder had dropped the spotlight and fled out of the tunnel. The bouncing stream of light from the abandoned spot had illuminated the attacker’s path out of the tunnel but nothing about his identity. Definitely a man, a slender, wiry one, but otherwise Ray had seen only shadows among the flashing dots in his eyes.

He pressed his left hand against his wound and took two deep breaths, holding each for several seconds before releasing them slowly. His right hand still held his pistol in a crushing grip, but both hands now shook furiously. Adrenaline seared through him, and anger that he had not been able to follow the intruder made his stomach roil. But blinded, deafened by gunshots and bleeding, Ray knew he’d be more of a target than aggressor. He tried to radio Daniel, but the signal wouldn’t penetrate the earth and wood overhead.

Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut, waiting for the blue and white sparks to dissipate and his ears to clear. As they did, he could hear the frantic thuds of shoes on the narrow ladder leading from the parsonage’s second floor. Hidden behind a sliding panel in one of the hallway closets, the solid wooden ladder had been built into one side of a thin shaft between the walls, exiting into the tunnel through the home’s foundation.

One by one, five of his officers cleared the ladder and rushed in his direction, led by Daniel Rivers. The streams of gold from their flashlights bounced around the tunnel like out-of-control basketballs. “Slow down!” Ray commanded.

Daniel reached him first, shining his light on Ray’s head. “What happened?” he asked, digging a handkerchief out of his pocket. He peeled Ray’s hand away from the wound and pressed the cloth tightly against it.

Ray filled them in, then instructed Gage and the others to continue the search down the tunnel. He pointed at the big handheld spot, which still shined its penetrating light down the tunnel. “Use gloves. Take that with you. He’s long gone now, but go slow. Look for any sign that I hit the guy.”

As they moved away and the light dimmed, Ray took the cloth from Daniel, folded it into a neater square and pressed it to his head again. Daniel watched his boss’s face a moment, then said quietly, “What are you thinking?”

Ray holstered his gun, then pushed himself to his feet with his free hand. Daniel steadied his off-balance sheriff with a hand on one arm.

Ray nodded his thanks, then checked the handkerchief to see if his bleeding had stopped. His head still throbbed from the blow, and he squinted from the pain. His mind, however, spun furiously with his recall of the past few minutes.

Demonstrating his attacker’s actions, he held his right hand at shoulder level. “He held the light here, out to the side and pointed down. If I hadn’t ducked, the shots would have hit me square in the chest. A fraction more to the right, and this one would have knocked me out, at the very least. I don’t think he expected me to survive, much less return fire. I fired to the left of the light and hit nothing. When I fired right at it, he dropped it and ran, probably realizing that the shots would bring you guys running.”

“So you think he’s a pro?”

“Or a former cop. At least he’s someone who’s pretty good at his job. And there’s a good chance he’s left-handed.”

Daniel nodded. “The knife entered the right side of David’s body, low, an upward thrust.”

Ray pressed his fingers to his skull again, and they came away only slightly sticky. “That’s a combat move. Misses the ribs and goes straight to the heart.”

“But to complete that move, wouldn’t he have twisted the knife and pulled it back out? Why didn’t he take the knife?”

Ray shook his head. “I thought about that. Not sure. But I bet we don’t find any prints.” He gestured down the tunnel. “My guess is that’s our killer.”

“So David lets him in—or maybe them—in the back door because he knows them. They kill him, but then they hear June drive up. You know that old Corvette of hers needs a new muffler.”

“And a transmission.”

Ray went on, his words picking up speed. “One takes off across the yard, while the other one heads down here, giving himself more time to get away. If a pro had to run, he may have not wanted to take a chance of getting caught with the knife.”

“So you’re convinced this wasn’t a botched robbery or home invasion.”

Ray shook his head. “Whoever it was came specifically to kill David Gallagher.”

“He just didn’t expect June to show up.”

Ray nodded. “She made him get sloppy.” He paused. “You did send someone to the other end of the tunnel?”

“The minute we heard the shots. June told us the tunnel came out at the spring house. I sent the rest of the crew there. Carter was already out in the crowd out front, so I put him on point.”

Ray scowled. “Who’s watching June? She’s still officially a suspect.”

Daniel glanced down, his lips twitching slightly. “The coroner was there, but I…uh…I handcuffed her to the kitchen cabinet in case the coroner needed to leave.”

Ray’s eyebrows arched as an image of exactly how well that idea must have gone over flashed through his mind. “I’m glad you’re the one married to her sister.”

“Well…”

“Well, what?”

“The handcuffs weren’t just to keep her away from the evidence. They were to keep her from coming down here. She heard the shots and took off for that ladder. I almost had to tackle her to keep her out of here.”

Ray stared at his young deputy. His racing thoughts stalled for the first time as conflicting emotions and images swirled through his head and heart. June, his suspect—his lovely, brown-haired, blue-eyed suspect—had stood terrified and trembling over David’s body. Yet when gunshots rang out, her instinct had been to run toward him…and into potential danger. What is going on with her?

Ray wrestled his thoughts about June aside, his mouth tightening into a thin line. “Let’s go upstairs and soothe the ruffled feathers.”