CRITICAL PRAISE FOR LENORA WORTH:
“Suitable for CBA readers, this title is also a good pick for romance collections and those who enjoyed Kristen Heitzmann’s Halos or Hannah Alexander’s Hideaway.”
—Library Journal on After the Storm
“Worth takes readers on a thrilling ride….”
—Romantic Times on After the Storm
“…an inspirational romance and mystery thriller rolled into one… For a sweet, heartwarming story that is full of suspense, I recommend After the Storm.”
—Romance Reviews Today on After the Storm
“Talented new writer Lenora Worth combines heart-stealing characters and a tragic secret to make this page turner worth every reader’s while.”
—Romantic Times on The Wedding Quilt
“Ms. Worth puts a most unique spin on the secret baby theme to make this wonderul love story positively shine.”
—Romantic Times on Logan’s Child
“Lenora Worth creates another gem—a great, easy, entertaining read for everyone, inspirational or not.”
—Romantic Times on His Brother’s Wife
Echoes of Danger
Lenora Worth
The end of the matter; all has been heard.
Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
—Ecclesiastes 12:13–14
To my friend Jean Duncan.
You’re not in Kansas anymore and you left Louisiana for Texas. Jean, I miss you and wish you well.
And to Tom Palczynski—
a great teacher and a good friend.
Contents
Chapter One
“He’s dead, Dana. Murdered. He’s murdered!”
Dana Barlow looked at her twelve-year-old brother Stephen’s tear-streaked face and wondered how life could be so cruel. She’d always been honest with Stephen, while trying to make allowances for his physical problems. She’d have to be honest with him now.
“I know, Stevie,” she said, looking down at the bloody carcass of one of their two prize Brangus breeding bulls. Thinking of all the money wasted, of all the time spent in caring for this eleven-hundred-pound animal, she wanted to sit down and cry like a baby. But she couldn’t do that. Stevie was watching her; she was the only family he had and she had to stay sane for his sake.
Why, God? she asked silently.
“Who’d go and do a thing like that, anyway?” Stephen said in a voice edged with pain and anger. “Don’t nobody around here act like that, Dana. Everybody knows Otto was my favorite. He won the Grand Championship! Otto was Stephen’s favorite!”
Dana watched as her brother rocked back and forth, holding his hands to his stomach, repeating that same phrase over and over, his mind recoiling into its own little world. A world of autism.
Dana looked around the stark, flat Kansas prairie, her eyes scanning the rippling waves of bluestem for any signs of intruders, but the wind, dancing and prancing with unabashed boldness, was the only thing moving through the tallgrass. Stephen, highly intelligent and highly perceptive, was right. Prairie Heart, Kansas, was about as mid-America as you could get and none of the five hundred or so residents would be so mean-spirited and uncaring as to deliberately kill a prize bull, especially when the whole town knew how important the animal was to Dana and Stephen’s livelihood. Who would commit such a crime?
Dana’s green eyes shifted to the west, where thunderclouds darkened the sky with an ominous intensity, to the distant steeple of the Universal Unity Church. The religious complex bordered her hundred acres of land on two sides. And the church’s leader, a woman named Caryn Roark, had been badgering Dana for months. Caryn wanted Dana’s land.
Only, she wasn’t going to get it.
Could this be Caryn’s way of trying to nudge Dana into selling? Why would the woman resort to such a thing? When the church had taken up residence a few years back in an old farmhouse on the neighboring Selzer place, Dana hadn’t paid much attention to the comings and goings. She was a Christian, and a firm believer in the live and let live theory. As long as the strange cult members left her alone, she’d do the same by them. But lately, Caryn’s followers had been harassing several of the local farmers. And now, many of the small struggling landowners living around Prairie Heart had given in to Caryn’s tempting offers to buy their land.
“We’re the only ones left,” she said out loud, her words flying on the rising wind.
Stephen looked away from Otto’s bloated, bullet-ridden body. “You’ll find them, won’t you, Dana? Dana will find the bad guys.” He rose, sniffing back tears, smearing his dusty face in the process. Jerking his green-and-white Kansas Co-op cap down over his green eyes, he stalked to his sister. “You already know who done this, don’t you?”
Dana