Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) by Kay Hooper Read Free Book Online Page A

not so unusual. Nothing worth talking about, for most people. So what if this town hadn’t had a murder in a decade or so until two days ago, when they had a really odd one. Maybe nobody’s that bothered. Maybe Melanie’s wrong in believing it’s bigger than murder, worse than murder.
    Maybe . . . maybe it’s just Melanie.

 
    On some level of himself, he was aware of being hunted. Not frightened, because the voices had told him he didn’t have to worry about the hunters; there was a place in the plan for them as well.
    So he didn’t worry.
    There were other things to occupy him. At first, it had been much easier to be God’s avenging sword. He had felt so powerful, suffused with the light of justice. It had been so easy to snatch the first two from under the very noses of their friends and carry them off. Easy to keep them quiet with the injections. And easy to punish them. Though he was still uneasily confused by the fact that they somehow got all bruised and battered long before he used his avenging sword to mete out justice.
    That was troubling.
    Even though long distances had to be covered, and quickly even over rough terrain, he thought he slept a lot, because there were long gaps in his memory. That was troubling, too, because he was growing more tired rather than more rested, and sometimes when he woke up his whole body ached, as though he had run a marathon.
    And his sleep, though deep, was often restless, his dreams filled with red. Everything red, so much red.
    And screaming.
    He thought the screaming made a kind of sense, because the second pair of harlots had been a bit more difficult to subdue and had screamed a lot. They had screamed and fought, one giving him a black eye. And that one had screamed even more later. Every time he woke up, it was to hear her screaming.
    Still, if he concentrated on a song he liked and kept that music in his head, he could mostly block out the screaming. So he did that, most of the time.
    It didn’t really help with the smell, though.
    He tried to ask the voices when they could leave the place because it smelled so bad, but they were impatient with him for the first time, and that was troubling.
    That was very troubling.
    The time he liked best was when he was making the crosses. He had always been good with his hands, and the voices hadn’t had to teach him for long before he had it all down. He loved melting the silver, bits of jewelry and coins and other things the voices told him to use. And he loved pouring the liquid metal into the mold.
    He loved filing away the rough edges, and drilling the tiny, perfect hole for the ring, and sometimes stamping names and messages into the metal.
    He felt so much more righteous when he was making the crosses, so . . . in control.
    That was it. When he made the crosses, he was in control. He felt like himself.
    The rest of the time . . .
    Well, it was troubling.
    Very troubling.
    But he was a soldier of God. He was doing great and noble work, important work.
    He just wished he could sleep without dreaming in red.
    And he wished he could escape the screams.
    And the smells.
    —
     
    MELANIE JAMES HAD worked at the Hollow Creek Bank for more than three years, and she liked her job. The bank truly was a “hometown” sort of place and had been for at least three generations, its canny local investors and managers both smart and skilled enough to keep it prospering even during the periodic economic downturns of the state and even the country.
    And since Sociable was a small town where neighbor still helped neighbor and most had very strong work ethics, being the loan officer for the bank seldom involved unpleasant duties such as turning down a request for a loan, whether personal or business.
    “It’s just for the rest of the winter,” John David Matthews was saying in his laconic, matter-of-fact voice. “Got some fine stock to sell in the spring and over the summer months.”
    “You’ve always been a good credit