at school called her trash because I worked there. But I stayed, because it brought in good money and kept a roof over their heads. In the long run, it didn’t matter anyway. My son ended up in jail, and my daughter—she died. I’m all alone.”
Angie’s heart clenched again, this time for Ida. She met the other woman’s eyes. Really looked at her—and saw the same pain she’d seen reflected in her own many times. “I’m sorry. I know how hard it is to not have anyone.”
Ida nodded.
“Belonging to a church helped me. It’s like having family around.” The next closest thing, especially when the family you’d been born into hated you. “We’re having a bring-a-dish lunch after services Sunday. Lots of ladies your age to talk to, if you’re interested.”
Ida waved her hand through the air. “I’d never fit in with church people. I’m not that good.”
“Don’t worry, neither am I,” Angie assured her.
“I actually loved church when I was a kid,” Boone said out of the blue.
Angie turned to look at him, frowning. The eccentric caretaker was getting more information out of Boone about his childhood than she’d ever managed to. Had she really been the right person for him, or had she just been fooling herself?
Boone added, “But I’ll never go back.”
“Why not?” Ida asked.
At first, Boone hesitated, but then he shrugged as they followed the access road past a couple of rows of gravesites. “Unfortunately, those nice, friendly church people soured when my dad got falsely accused of a crime and went away, and my mother couldn’t afford to meet her tithe. They asked her if she’d like to be taken off the membership rolls, and she accepted. We never went back.”
“That’s why I don’t go.” Ida sniffed. “Hypocrisy.”
“I agree—except for Angie,” Boone said. “You can trust her totally.”
“Oh, no, Ida, now I’m going to have to like the guy again,” Angie joked to cover up the flood of compassion Boone’s story had started in her. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, she sensed his gaze on her again, and she sucked in her breath to stop herself from telling him how sorry she was about his childhood and his father, and the church people. How she wished she could change his life for him. How she wished she could make everything right between them and overlook their differences because she needed to love and be loved.
Just like her sister was overlooking everything scary about Detry because of her needs. The realization brought Angie up short, but before she could explore it further, Ida stopped and pointed down a long row of graves.
“The Detry one is at the end.”
Boone followed Ida down the wide path, his dark blue gaze constantly watching everything around them, and Angie followed him. Ida stopped at a lavish gravestone with the engraving “To My Darling Wife. I never stopped loving you.”
Love as in two holes in his wife’s forehead. Angie’s skin crawled. Detry terrified her. That could be dangerous, because she needed to keep her wits about her. Lord, help me not to be afraid.
This is not about you, she thought.
Lord, please help me save my sister from him.
That was better—she felt a peace about that. Scanning the ground in the front and rear of the stone for signs of recent digging, she ended up disappointed. Nothing but nicely trimmed grass that colored the ground a rich green everywhere. Upkeep charges on the grave must run a fortune. What a man, that Warren Detry.
“At least we know where some of the insurance money went.” A lavish gravesite and romancing her sister, who liked nice, expensive things after growing up poor. Angie’s thoughts went back to her earlier realization about Chloe’s overlooking Detry’s past and that he was almost old enough to be her father. Her sister had always had a passion for money, which apparently Detry had, in spades. Detry could take care of her.
Yeah, like he took care of Laurie Detry.
Not that she was harping on Chloe. Angie rotated the power knob on the metal detector to On and swept it over the ground around the grave. She understood her sister’s need for money. It represented security. Her own passion had been finding love—that was her form of security. Love was something she’d sorely missed growing up and meant everything to her. Used to be, she’d do anything to get love.
But now, her focus was turned to Christ, and she was pursuing a relationship with Him and letting God supply the love and security. Only with Boone so close, her inclination was to forget all that and fall into his arms. It would be so easy.
Trying to forget what she wanted to do, she concentrated on what she needed to do and frowned at the expanse of grass around the gravestone. The gauge hadn’t budged. A wave of disappointment hit her. Maybe Cliff’s words about letting the dead rest in peace hadn’t been a word puzzle, but rather, an instruction to her, and he’d hidden the evidence somewhere else. If only there was some way of knowing for sure that he hadn’t buried it somewhere around the cemetery…
Her eyes darted up, surveyed the area, and she spotted a camera in a nearby oak. She was right. Spycams.
“Ida, do you have access to the surveillance footage?” she asked, pointing toward the tree.
Ida shifted position, as she took in the camera, and she shook her head. “Those are only up for show to scare off the juvenile delinquents.”
Disappointed, Angie turned toward Boone. He had walked from the graves to the chain-link fence that bordered the east side of the cemetery, his dark gaze studying everything but her. She’d have to break her vow of silence to him after all.
“Apparently, I was wrong,” she said in his general direction. He still didn’t look at her.
She carried the metal detector the dozen or so yards to where he was, and repeated, with a spread of her arms to emphasize she was speaking, “Apparently, I was wrong, Boone.”
A light squeal erupted from the detector, and startled, Angie almost dropped it. She stared down at the search coil at the bottom of the rod, and the cluster of marigolds near it.
Boone did likewise. She stepped closer to him. Right over the single cluster of candy-orange marigolds in the line of yellow ones, the squeal became louder and the gauge stick shot up.
“That’s either your evidence, or you’ve found buried treasure,” Ida said from behind them.
“In this case, maybe both,” Angie said.
Boone saw the light in Angie’s eyes. If she’d found the missing murder weapon and by some remote possibility Detry’s prints were on it in a manner that proved murder, that meant he had been wrong and had been directly responsible for a murderer going free. A mistake like that was inexcusable—not to mention what he’d done to Angie in court.
On the other hand, he was not looking forward to what was more likely to happen—someone else’s prints being found on the gun—maybe even Cliff’s. That would take all the light right back out of Angie’s eyes.
Either way, he almost wished the evidence could stay buried. He simply could not be wrong, and he didn’t want Angie hurt all over again.
The squeal was maxed out, so Angie turned off the metal detector. The sudden silence was velvet to her ears.
“Cliff must have picked those flowers specifically so you would notice them,” Boone said. He turned to Ida and explained in a manner that fully invited her sympathizing with him, “She has a car painted the same orange that’s on candy corn.”
For a change, instead of agreeing with Boone, Ida smiled at Angie. “Nice choice. At least other drivers can’t claim they didn’t see you coming.”
“Ida, I’m beginning to like you a lot,” Angie said. Boone shook his head in mock disgust,