House of Secrets. Ramona Richards
took a deep breath. “How? Do you think Hunter would tell me if he knew what the killer was after?”
Ray watched June’s face closely. “What do you think he was after?”
“You’re asking what a pastor keeps in his study?” She shrugged. “Depends a lot on the pastor. And the church. Gospel Immanuel is small enough that JR did most of his work at home.”
“So he kept anything valuable in his study?”
“And anything private.”
“What kind of private information did JR have?”
“Counseling. He helped a lot of people, and he was a fanatic about people’s privacy. Any notes he kept from counseling sessions were locked away in a fireproof box and stored in one of the dozens of hiding places in the house. He didn’t even tell me where they were.”
Ray shifted, then stood, reluctantly letting go of June’s hand. Counseling records could provide a motivation for murder. David, what in the world did you get into? What got you killed? “Did JR tell David?”
She shrugged. “No way of knowing now.” She plucked at the sheet again. “I don’t know if David took on any of JR’s folks for counseling. That’s not the kind of information anyone shares.”
Ray nodded. “There were a lot of hiding places in the house?”
“It’s an old Victorian, and the original owner, Sieg fried Osborne, was a little nutty. Siegfried, as you know, was the grandfather of Rosalie Osborne. Poor thing just vanished into thin air. Her disappearance was never solved, right?”
Ray shook his head. “And we’ve got enough to worry about without adding anyone else to the mix, June.”
June gave Ray a small smile. “Anyway, we uncovered at least a hundred secret cubbyholes, rooms and sliding panels. Every time we moved a wall or redid paneling, we found something.”
Ray stared. “You found stuff?”
“Oh, yeah. That house is a time capsule. Letters, diaries, dried flowers. Jewelry, silver, candlesticks. JR once found a tin box full of papers that…” As her voice trailed off, June grew still and the color left her face.
“What was in the box?”
“I don’t really know. He wouldn’t let me see it. We’d discussed everything else, but he wouldn’t let me see that one box. He said he planned to destroy it, the box and all the contents.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” June clutched Ray’s hand again. “He just promised to get rid of it, said what was inside was far too dangerous to keep in the house.”
Ray closed both hands around hers as they turned to ice in his grasp. “Looks like he may have been right.”
FIVE
“How did he know where we were headed?”
Daniel grimaced and squirmed a bit in the visitor’s chair of Ray’s office. The late-afternoon sun always shone directly through the windows and Daniel shifted the chair so that the blinds shaded his face. “Maybe he has a scanner. We did notify dispatch that you were taking June to NorthCrest.”
Ray stared at his deputy. “Maybe.”
“You don’t buy it.”
“You radioed after we pulled out of the driveway.”
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