House of Secrets

by Ramona Richards

  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.”
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  “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.”

  “You need a doctor for that wound.”

  Ray turned and headed toward the ladder. “I’m not dying. First things first. Let’s clear the crime scene, then I’ll go over and have them stitch this up.”

  They headed upstairs to find that the kitchen held only the coroner and her assistant. A pair of handcuffs dangled from one cabinet’s door handle. Ray glared at Daniel, who said weakly, “We have her car blocked in. She couldn’t have gone very far.”

  “June!” Ray bellowed suddenly, almost amused at how Daniel jumped.

  “What?”

  The quiet question came from behind them, and they turned to see June, wiping her hands on a small towel.

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. “How did you—”

  “Why are you bleeding?” June stared at the side of his head. “Did you get shot?”

  “I’m fine. Answer my question.”

  “You’re not fine. You have a hole in the side of your skull. Being a Marine doesn’t mean you’re invincible, you know.” She reached for Ray, but he caught her wrist.

  “Just answer the question.”

  Relenting, June rolled her eyes as she pulled her hand away. She turned and pointed at Daniel. “You. You should never handcuff anyone next to a drawer full of tools.” She looked back at Ray. “Don’t have a fit. Your deputies wouldn’t let me go to the tunnel, and standing there handcuffed to the cabinet was distinctly undignified.”

  When Ray continued to stare, unmoving, June gave in with a soft sigh. “Okay, I had to go to the ladies’ room before things got dire. And it wasn’t easy in this suit.” She plucked at the arm of the white coverall.

  “You washed your hands.”

  She nodded. “I only touched the floor and the phone, Ray. No evidence at all on my hands.”

  “Unless you killed him.”

  “Well, if I did, then your deputy is going to have to find a new career, isn’t he?” she said with a forced smile.

  There was a false lightness in June’s voice that worried Ray. He wondered if being handcuffed might have pushed her into her dark past, dredging up memories she’d do anything to avoid. Ray moved closer to her. “Are you okay, June? I feel like I’m losing you a little. Is there anything you want to tell me?” He looked at her, hard.

  June stilled, her deep blue eyes narrowing as she searched his face, her skin losing its color again, stark against her dark brown hair. When she spoke, her words were flat and void of emotion.

  “If you’re going to arrest me, get it over with, Ray. But I didn’t kill him.” She pushed past the two men blocking the door.

  She didn’t get far. Instead, Ray Taylor abruptly grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “June, I wish I could just let you walk right out of here, but you know I can’t. Now sit back down in that chair or I’m going to have Rivers handcuff you again.”

  And then June did something that surprised everyone, especially Ray.

  She burst into tears.

  THREE

  June wiped her face on the same towel she’d dried her hands on only ten minutes before. She perched on her kitchen chair again, a headache slowly but steadily circling her skull with pain. She clutched the towel, looking for some kind of reassurance, but her mind was flooded with memories. Seeing David’s dead body brought back the horror of being fourteen and watching her father beat her mother halfway to death. She had been sprawled out at June’s feet, so still June had thought her dead. Three years later, she would be. June’s father had kicked June out of the house the day her mother died, forcing her to live on the street.

  Memories of her parents gave way to visions of her brother Marc, just thirteen, his face raw with wounds and gray in death. And her sisters, bruised and terrified, huddling away from the rages of their father, a man who turned home into a horror house that had sent April into a brutal early marriage and June into the dark world of the streets. Only Lindsey, four years younger but somehow wiser, had conquered the terror. After their mother’s death, she’d sued her father for emancipation at fifteen and won. Righteously angry at the world, Lindsey had walked away from her entire family. June had kept track of her on the internet, but neither she nor April had seen their sister since.

  As June watched the coroner zip the body bag closed, she shook off one last memory: JR, three years ago, collapsed on the floor beside his pulpit, dead before he’d hit the floor from a heart attack so massive the doctors doubted he’d felt anything.

  June forced herself to come back to the present. She looked around the room. Deputy Gage was finishing last-minute tasks with the crime-scene kit, pulling fingerprints from the kitchen table and labeling the last of the blood samples.

  Standing in the hallway door, Ray and Daniel conferred over diagrams of the crime scene as the coroner and one of the deputies loaded Pastor David’s body on the gurney and wheeled him out. Outside, dozens of faces peered intently, dodging back and forth, trying to get the best view through the door.

  The parsonage, like the church itself, sat in the middle of one of White Hills’ oldest and most established residential sections. One reason the Victorian had been the house of choice to replace the crumbling cottage where she and JR had first lived in this small town was its proximity to the church. It was literally next door, surrounded by the homes of potential members.

  Members who now peered inside, desperate for more information. Tears coated the faces of most of the women and some of the men as the news about David spread. They held each other, some scared and anxious, others angry. They stared at her through the open door, sitting there in her white suit.

  Guilty. They thought she was guilty.

  June closed her eyes, memories again flashing through her mind. Other times that people stared and pointed. As JR was carried from the sanctuary. As her mother’s body had been removed from their house.

  The day she had been arrested.

  June had traded the abuse of home for the violence of the streets. She’d lived in abandoned boxes or sometimes at missions, working hard-labor jobs. As a kid, she’d discovered she was good with computers, so she tried to practice her gift in libraries and friends’ apartments whenever she could crash with someone, hoping it might help her get a job and get off the street somehow. And it did—in a way. An underground hacker discovered her talents, giving her a place to sleep while recruiting her to wreak mischief on corporations and local governments. She could defeat almost any firewall, b
reak through almost any security system. And she’d loved it. Finally good at something, finally praised for her work, June took pride in tackling what she saw as the greatest puzzle-solving game ever.

  When the police arrested her for computer crimes, June’s world crashed. A year later, she was eighteen, on parole and back on the streets, broke and hopeless, ready to get back to hacking. Until the night she wandered into one of Jackie Rhea “JR” Eaton’s mobile soup kitchens.

  “June?”

  She blinked up at Ray as if coming out of a dark dream.

  “Are you okay?”

  June pointed at her temple. “Headache.”

  Ray smiled wryly. “Yeah. No doubt.”

  The wound on his head had begun to bleed again, and June resisted the urge to reach toward it, to tend to him. “You ever going to the doctor with that? Seriously. You look awful.” The coroner had cleaned his injury with a first-aid kit, putting on a temporary bandage, but dried blood still streaked his neck and matted his dark brown, closely cropped hair. Fresh blood discolored the bandage and tape.

  “Thanks. You don’t look much better yourself.”

  “No doubt,” she replied, using one of Ray’s favorite expressions. But she knew the truth as well. She’d skidded when she’d fallen and slipped twice trying to get up. Even with her washed hands and white suit, she had David’s blood in her hair, which had to be topsy-turvy by now. And half of her makeup had shifted dramatically from its original location on her face.

  “We still need to test your hair.”

  June’s eyes widened in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The blood. David fought back. Not a lot and not for long, but he could have injured one of his attackers. There may be blood from—”

  “One of his attackers?”

  Ray hesitated, then nodded. “You saw the footprints on the porch. So we think there were at least two. One went out the back, one through the tunnel. And maybe one of them left his blood here, too.”