Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(78)
The muted buzz in the church quieted as Pastor Snell rose and went to the podium. He spoke a few opening words, said a lovely prayer, and then the organ led them, standing, through the hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”
How well Tess recalled going to Sunday school downstairs and sometimes coming up to “big church” with Mom and Dad. How had everything gone so bad?
“O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.”
Tess knew Sandy Kenton must be thinking about home, longing for home, feeling frightened and abandoned right now. Thank God the child had not been hidden where Tess had been kept, which she was convinced had burned to the ground last night. The firemen and a BCI arson consultant were still sifting through the debris for bones, but Tess was sure there was some other place Dane and Marva—or someone—had been keeping Sandy.
During the next prayer, she thanked God for letting her escape her captor or captors and asked for more memories, however terrible, to help Gabe arrest the monster.
When her turn came, Pastor Snell introduced her as “our ray of hope for both Sandy and Jill.” He explained that Amanda Bell had been found alive in South America and that was an answer to prayer. “And now the greatest gift in all this grief,” he announced from the pulpit, “our own Teresa Lockwood, who now goes by Tess, who came home to us years ago and is back with us again. Though she still bears the mental scars of her captivity, she is here with us today to read words to encourage our hearts. Tess.”
As she walked up the three steps to the elevated platform, she was amazed that the audience broke into applause. It was too much. She teared up and sniffed hard. Even Vic was clapping. Gabe too, standing by the back door—her Gabe, who had been there at the time and was now her guard while these troubles lasted. She was surprised to see Sam Jeffers and John Hillman sitting together in the back left corner. It was wrong of her to judge them, of course, but she hadn’t expected them to be in church.
She put the open Bible down on the podium and held up a hand to still the applause. When it quieted, though she’d meant to say nothing personal, she shared her thoughts. “It means a lot to me to be home. We have to face and recall the past to face the present and the future. And I’m trying, getting better and stronger. Now, Mrs. Kenton has asked me to read to you from Luke 15:4 about a lost sheep who was found.”
Her voice caught several times as she read the passage. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he comes home, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’”
As soon as she sat down, Win Kenton got up behind the podium and explained that tomorrow at noon they were going to have another search for Sandy, through bare fields and even those still filled with corn. He explained that Aaron Kurtz needed prayers while bedridden with a dangerous blood clot and that others would soon be cutting his cornfields for him, but that they wanted to search them now.
“Also,” he said, his voice breaking, “we need to search the cornfields now so that when the big reapers come through, no one is in the way, no evidence Sheriff McCord or his assistants need to trace—to find Sandy...”
He meant, of course, her body could be out there. He choked up, just standing mute for a moment. “We need to find traces of her, not have them destroyed. Our family thanks you for your help and prayers.” He hurried back to his seat beside his wife.
Again, Tess visualized the cornfield, the big reaper. Then someone had leaped at her, put a needle right in her neck—she was sure of it. She jerked at the memory, and Miss Etta put a steadying hand on her arm. At least, Tess thought, she was remembering more and more, like the waterfall of memories. And, strangely, she kept seeing a mounted deer head—a stag—with its glassy eyes looking down at her, as if to say, “Bad things can happen to you if you don’t behave.” She would have Gabe ask Marva if her house had once had a deer head on the wall. But she might lie. And what if Tess was just recalling how creepy John Hillman’s taxidermy shop had been?
After they sang a final hymn and the pastor made an announcement about signing up for the new search, Tess stood to go. It was getting dark; people at each door were passing out pink candles with white paper drip guards. “Are you going to the ceremony at the gift store?” Miss Etta asked.
“Yes. Are you?”
“I think I’d best get home to Mother. She spends enough time alone as is. I just hope everyone’s careful with those candles. The gift store isn’t so far from the library with all those books. I know I’m a worrywart and a perfectionist, but I just hope everyone’s careful.”
“Miss Etta, can I ask you a question?”
She looked surprised. “Why, of course, my dear.”
“Were you ever in Marva and George Green’s house, their living room?”
“I was indeed, delivering books there more than once when George was so ill. Why do you ask?”
“You have such a good mind for everything. Do you recall if they had a big stag head mounted on the wall there? It was over the fireplace, I think.”