A Test of Faith Read online

  A Test

  of Faith

  Mystery

  and the Minister’s Wife

  Through the Fire

  A State of Grace

  Beauty Shop Tales

  A Test of Faith

  The Best Is Yet to Be

  Angels Undercover

  Into the Wilderness

  Where There’s a Will

  Dog Days

  The Missing Ingredient

  Open Arms

  A Token of Truth

  Who’s That Girl?

  For the Least of These

  A Matter of Trust

  Funny Money

  To Have and to Hold

  How the Heart Runs

  A Thousand Generations

  Home to Briar Mountain

  Flight of the Sparrows

  A Firm Foundation

  Off the Record

  A Distant Memory

  Tea and Sympathy

  The Master’s Hand

  Strangers in Their Midst

  Mystery and the Minister’s Wife is a trademark of Guideposts.

  Copyright © 2007 by Guideposts. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to the Rights & Permissions Department, Guideposts, 110 William Street, New York, New York 10038.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

  Guideposts.org

  (800) 932-2145

  Guideposts Books & Inspirational Media Division

  Cover design by Dugan Design Group

  Cover illustration by Rose Lowry, www.illustrations.com

  Interior design by Cris Kossow

  Typeset by Nancy Tardi

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Emmalee, who brightened our lives by coming

  into the world as this book was being written.

  Chapter One

  Heart pounding, Kate Hanlon bolted upright and tried to figure out what had awakened her. Her eyes probed the darkness, searching for anything out of the ordinary in the dark corners of the bedroom. Nothing seemed amiss. But something had jolted her out of a sound sleep. What was it?

  A loud jangling broke the silence, and Kate realized it was the telephone. Reaching across Paul’s sleeping form, she scrambled for the receiver, hoping to still the ringing before it woke him.

  She yanked the cordless phone off its cradle and jabbed at the Talk button in time to cut off the next ring. The bedside clock read 1:15 AM. Kate’s throat tightened. Calls that came in the middle of the night seldom meant good news.

  “Please don’t let anything be wrong with the kids.” She breathed the prayer in a quivering whisper, then pressed the receiver against her ear. “Hello?”

  “Kate? Is that you?”

  The high-pitched, breathless voice on the other end of the line only heightened her concern. She shook off the last remnants of sleep and tried to keep her tone even.

  “Yes, this is Kate. Who’s calling, please.”

  “It’s LuAnne Matthews. I’m callin’ from the diner.”

  Kate’s anxiety rose another notch. The Country Diner wasn’t an all-night establishment, so LuAnne couldn’t be waiting on tables at this hour. Nothing short of an emergency would have brought her friend down there in the middle of the night.

  “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

  She heard LuAnne draw a shaky breath before she answered. “There’s a car sittin’ in the dining room.”

  Kate pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t have heard correctly. Maybe she was having a bad dream. Too much paprika in last night’s Hungarian beef perhaps?

  “Say that again. Slowly.”

  “A car, Kate. It crashed through the front window, and it’s sittin’ smack dab in the middle of the dining room. It plowed right through the tables and chairs, and there’s glass everywhere. It looks like a tornado came through here.”

  “Oh, good heavens!”

  Paul stirred and grunted, and Kate dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “No, thank goodness. There weren’t any customers here, of course, and Loretta and I both went home hours ago.”

  “What about the driver?”

  “There isn’t any.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “There isn’t any driver here,” LuAnne repeated, enunciating each syllable with care. “No sign of him—or her—anywhere.”

  Images played through Kate’s mind of someone wandering the streets of Copper Mill in the wee hours of the morning, injured and possibly in shock. “Whose car is it?”

  “I don’t know.” LuAnne’s voice wobbled. “I don’t recognize it, and the sheriff can’t tell either. The license plate’s missin’.”

  Paul pushed himself up on one elbow and rubbed his hand over his face. “What’s going on?” he murmured, his voice heavy with sleep.

  “No driver and no license plate? How can that be?” Kate cupped one hand over the mouthpiece and explained the situation to Paul. “There’s been an accident down at the diner. No one’s hurt, but LuAnne’s terribly upset.”

  Kate swung her legs over the edge of the bed, flipped on the bedside lamp, and stood unsteadily. Goose bumps prickled along her arms as she padded across the carpet to the closet, mentally sorting through her wardrobe for something that would protect her against the chilly February night.

  “It’ll only take us a few minutes to get dressed. We’ll be right down to help you clean up. Is there anything I can—”

  “Oh, I’m makin’ a mess of this,” LuAnne cut in. “That’s not why I called. There’s already a passel of people down here, and the sheriff just told us we can start straightening the place up...”

  She paused so long, Kate wondered if the connection had been broken.

  “It’s your wallet,” LuAnne said at last. “It was lyin’ on the passenger seat.”

  Kate’s hand froze in the act of pulling a warm pair of navy slacks from their hanger. “What? That’s impossible!”

  Paul sat up in bed. “What’s impossible?”

  Kate gestured for him to wait.

  “Impossible or not, there it was,” LuAnne said. “I saw it myself.”

  “There must be some mistake. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Paul joined Kate at the closet and reached for a pair of jeans and his favorite sweatshirt. “I’m assuming that conversation made more sense when you could hear both halves of it.”

  Kate warmed with gratitude at Paul’s willingness to join her with no argument, and with little explanation from her. “Not really. Nothing seems to be making much sense right now.”

  She stepped into her slacks and pulled a thick patterned turtleneck sweater over her head, then hurried to the chair where she had left her purse before going to bed. She unzipped the center compartment and reached inside.

  The air whooshed out of her lungs. “It’s gone.”

  “What’s gone?” Paul stood before the mirror, running a comb through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I’m perfectly aware we’re getting ready to head down to the diner at one thirty in the morning, but it would be nice to know a little more about what’s going on.”

  Kate zipped her purse closed and tried to still her whirling thoughts. “Someone drove a car th
rough the diner’s front window. It sounds like a disaster zone.”

  “And LuAnne’s trying to handle it on her own? Isn’t Loretta down there too?”

  “I didn’t ask, but I’m sure she is.” Kate stepped to the dresser, picked up her brush, and ran it through her strawberry-blonde hair with a few quick strokes. “Doesn’t the sheriff usually notify the business owner when something like this happens? I’d assume he contacted Loretta, and then she called LuAnne.”

  While LuAnne was the public face of the diner, Loretta was the devoted owner and head cook.

  “So we’re heading down there to be the cleanup crew? Not that I mind helping out, but I’m trying to understand why LuAnne phoned us.”

  Kate tossed her brush back onto the dresser and turned to face him. “No, we’re going there to pick up my wallet.”

  A puzzled frown formed a crease between Paul’s eyebrows. “You mean they found your wallet at the diner? I didn’t know you’d lost it.”

  Unexpected tears stung Kate’s eyes. “I didn’t either. But that isn’t the worst of it. LuAnne said it was inside the car that went through the window.”

  Paul wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned against him, drawing comfort from his quiet strength. “I know I had it in my purse earlier today...yesterday, rather. How could I have been so careless as to lose it?”

  Paul cradled her head against his chest. “It may not have been your fault at all. If you lost your wallet, why would it have been found inside that car? Sounds more to me like someone may have stolen it.”

  Kate sniffed and tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Sorry.” Paul’s rueful grin eased her tension a bit. He kept one arm around her shoulders while they walked out into the chilly garage. “Your car or my truck?”

  “Let’s take my car.” Kate started toward her Honda Accord and then stumbled to a stop. She raised her hands, then let them drop against her sides. “I don’t have my wallet. That means I don’t have my driver’s license.”

  “My truck, then,” Paul responded before she could tear up again. He helped her into the passenger seat, then he hurried around the back of the pickup to take his place behind the wheel.

  Kate stared out the window as he drove. “That doesn’t make sense either.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “If someone stole my wallet, why wouldn’t they have just taken the whole purse?”

  She could see Paul’s smile in the glow of the dashboard lights. “You don’t have to make a mystery out of everything. Why don’t we wait until we get down there? Maybe we’ll find the answers then.”

  Kate settled back against the seat. While Paul navigated the length of Smoky Mountain Road, she went back over her day.

  “I know I had it with me at the Mercantile and when I got a manicure at Betty’s Beauty Parlor. I didn’t open my purse while I was at Smith Street Gifts, but it was still there when I used my library card.”

  She knotted her hands in her lap. “I just don’t understand where I could have lost it.”

  They turned right onto Mountain Laurel Road, then left onto Smith Street. Up ahead, lights spilled out of the diner, piercing the darkness. Paul pulled his truck against the curb, climbed out, and walked around to help Kate step down to the sidewalk.

  She held his arm as they closed the distance to the diner, where a gaping hole had been ripped in the front. The flashing lights atop the black-and-white sheriff’s SUV lent a note of eeriness to the scene.

  They stopped at what used to be the diner’s entrance and stared at the wreckage within.

  “How awful,” Kate murmured. “It’s even worse than I imagined.”

  Paul wrapped his fingers around hers and nodded, grim-faced.

  Inside, a contingent of people moved about like a colony of ants. Kate spotted Emma Blount and Marissa Harris sweeping shards of glass into piles while Sam Gorman and Jack Wilson stacked the remains of blue Formica-topped tables against a side wall. At the counter, Deputy Skip Spencer was dusting the cash register for fingerprints.

  Kate scanned the room and pointed to one of the few booths that stood untouched. “LuAnne’s over there with Loretta.”

  She smiled at the workers as she led the way across the room, skirting a tangled heap of blue gingham curtains that had once adorned the front windows.

  LuAnne slid out of the booth and walked over to meet them. Clad in a pair of fleecy green pants and a dark gray parka, she looked lost without her white apron and order pad.

  “Thanks for comin’.” She accepted Kate’s hug and held on tight.

  Kate rubbed her hand up and down the other woman’s back and felt her shiver. “Are you cold?”

  The question struck Kate as foolish the moment the words left her lips. Of course LuAnne was cold. The breeze sweeping in through the gaping hole in the front of the building was enough to chill a penguin.

  LuAnne pulled away and swiped at her red, swollen eyes, her woeful expression so different from her usual cheery demeanor. “I feel like I’ll never be warm again, but it isn’t so much from the weather. It’s because of all this.”

  She swept her arm in a gesture that took in the smashed window, the splintered furniture, and the formerly cheerful dining area, now dominated by a vintage red Ford Mustang.

  The car sat diagonally in a sea of glass shards, straddling what had once been a window sign advertising the Wednesday-night special, meatball sandwiches with Cowboy Surprise.

  Paul reached out to squeeze LuAnne’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry this happened,” he told her.

  LuAnne folded her arms across her ample middle. “I know what you mean. I keep havin’ to convince myself I’m not in the middle of some awful nightmare.”

  “How’s Loretta?” Paul asked, nodding toward the wiry older woman hunched in the booth with her head cradled in her hands.

  LuAnne glanced over her shoulder before answering. “I’m not sure. I think the poor thing’s in shock. I mean, can you imagine lockin’ up your restaurant just like always, and a few hours later, getting a call that someone used it for a parkin’ space?”

  “It must have been a terrible jolt,” Kate agreed.

  “More than a jolt.” LuAnne gave her head an emphatic shake that sent wisps of flaming red hair into a wild dance around her temples. “She’s spent a bigger part of her life right here in this diner than anywhere else. Why, Loretta practically lives here. Ever since she opened the place forty years ago, it’s been more like a home to her than a business.”

  LuAnne swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “And I feel the same way. I’ve been workin’ for Loretta since I got out of high school, and we’ve gotten real close. She’s more like family to me than some of my own kin.”

  She glanced at the gray-haired woman in the booth once more, then pursed her lips and swallowed. “I’m worried about her, to tell you the truth.”

  Paul turned to Kate. “Why don’t I go talk to Loretta while you get your wallet?”

  “That’s a good idea. Where did you put it, LuAnne?”

  “You’re going to have to talk to the sheriff about that, darlin’. He has it over there.” LuAnne gestured toward the Mustang, then turned and followed Paul to Loretta’s booth.

  Kate eyed the mangled car, looking for the best way to approach it. Obviously the cleanup crew hadn’t been allowed anywhere near the vehicle yet.

  She picked her way across the splinters of glass in the clearest section. LuAnne was right, she noted when she drew nearer. The license plate was missing.

  And her wallet had been found on the passenger seat.

  That fact only added to the dreamlike quality of this mystifying night.

  What on earth was going on?

  Chapter Two

  Sheriff Alan Roberts glanced up from dusting the steering wheel for prints and waved Kate to a stop when she was five feet away.

  “I can’t let you come any closer, Kate. This is a crime s
cene.” His face looked haggard under the diner’s fluorescent lights.

  Kate halted obediently and stared at the car’s crumpled hood. “Do you have any idea who did this?”

  “Nothing yet.” The sheriff put one hand behind his neck and rolled his head from side to side.

  “We don’t even know whose vehicle it is at the moment. There’s no sign of the driver. Nothing in the car, either. No license, no registration. There’s no identification at all...except for this.”

  He reached through the car’s open door and retrieved a clear plastic bag containing a brown calfskin wallet.

  Relief swept over Kate. She stepped forward to take the wallet, but the sheriff pulled back his arm. “I can’t let you have it, Kate. Not now, at least. It’s evidence.”

  “But I need it,” Kate sputtered. “All my identification is in there.” She heard the sound of crunching glass and turned to see Paul step up beside her.

  She gestured toward the sheriff. “He won’t give it back to me. He says it’s evidence.”

  Paul nodded. “Could we at least verify what’s inside so she’ll know if anything’s missing? It would help to know if we need to cancel her credit cards in the morning.”

  Kate clapped her hand to her mouth. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  Sheriff Roberts shook his head. “I can’t let you go through it until I’ve checked it for prints. But it would be a good idea to cancel those cards regardless of whether they were removed from the wallet. Whoever took it could have copied down all the numbers. That’s all he would need to be able to charge something to your account online.”

  A wave of exhaustion washed through Kate. She leaned against Paul for support, and he pulled her snug against his side.

  “Ready to go home?” he asked. “I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

  “Not yet.” Kate forced herself to stand upright and looked at the chaos around them. “As long as we’re here, we ought to pitch in and help.”