House of Secrets

Published:

Publisher: Steeple Hill Love Inspired

“I did not kill him!”

June Eaton’s declaration doesn’t quite convince Sheriff Ray Taylor of her innocence. After all, he found her standing over the dead body of their pastor, frantic and covered in blood. When June becomes the killer’s next target, Ray realizes that not only is June innocent, she alone holds the key to this murder . . . and one more than twenty years old.

“Ray, 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. I have to maintain control. June lifted both hands a bit higher and forced her voice lower. “I found him. I wanted to help.”

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, the county sheriff 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 Gallagher right before his big event! Someone already heard the fight and called us and Ray is on his way right now, and–”

June snapped 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 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 sneaker-clad feet 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 side.

Once June stopped screaming, she’d scrambled to her feet and lunged for the phone, barely having time to enter 9-1-1 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, trying 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, two of Ray’s deputies moved 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 fluttered at her side, 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.” With no flat surface close enough, the phone grew heavy and awkward in her hand, and 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.”

“So you were here to yell at him. You were mad.”

“Well, yes! Hunter’s awful, and I won’t have my name and his mixed up together.” She threw up a hand in front of her, then stopped, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “But I was too late. When I got here, I saw the bloody footprints on the porch, I ran in. I slipped . . .” She paused, pointing down at the floor. “I fell.”

“Is that why you’re covered in his blood?”

She nodded.

Ray’s gaze on her held an intensity that aggravated her growing sense of panic. “But you didn’t kill him.”

June’s knees began trembling, and she fought the urge to throw the phone at him. He’s doing his job. He has to push you. Don’t lose it! “No, I did not kill him. David and I have been disagreeing about Hunter Bridges for weeks. We’ve debated politics over coffee, over lunch. He wouldn’t give up trying to convince me. He just knew Hunter had great things ahead of him. I think Hunter should be locked in his law office and kept away from sharp objects.”

She shook her head and pointed at a stack of political flyers lying on the kitchen counter. “I don’t know why David suddenly wanted to be politically active. He never had before. I thought he followed JR’s philosophy on keeping politics out of the church. But that’s his business. Then he started in on me to support Hunter because, for some unfathomable reason, he thinks people in this county still listen to me. I’d warned him that if he didn’t stop mixing my name with Hunter’s I was going to take out a full page ad in the paper explaining exactly what I thought of Hunter Bridges, his politics, and his mother. David thought I was stubborn, and I thought him politically naïve. That may be grounds for an argument but not murder.”

“Wasn’t David hosting a political dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes, and he invited me. But I told him I’d rather chew glass than mingle politely and talk politics. You know I don’t like mixing politics with religion anymore than JR did.”

The pain spiked under her scalp, and June pressed her palm to her forehead, trying to push the headache away. Her whole body seemed to quiver now, and she felt as awkward as a teenager at a new school. Even her voice held a tremor, and tears abruptly stung her eyes. “You know how hard JR worked to keep politics out of the church.”

Ray’s low voice turned gentle. “Yes. Everyone knows.”

June took a deep ragged breath and closed her eyes, trying to stave off the tears. Of course, everyone knows. David, why didn’t you follow his guidance? After three years, what changed? June tried to push away a sudden flood of memories of JR, from their wedding day in a tiny mountain chapel to the instant a heart attack took him from her—and the entire congregation.

“Come back to me, June.” Ray’s voice, so low that it seemed to merely vibrate in his throat, urged June back from her memories. “Don’t retreat from this. Stay in control.” Ray’s soft bass tones resonated in an almost comforting way. “There’s a dead man at your feet, June. You’ve been trembling like a leaf since I walked in and you’re about to have the worst adrenaline headache of your life, if you don’t already. But you have to hang on to it, girl. We’ll get through this. I’ll get you through it.”