Shadowed by Grace by Cara Putman Read Free Book Online

now, happily starting life together in a brownstone her parents bought them. Instead he bounced over rutted roads in a dilapidated jeep with an Italian priest and an intriguing photographer.
    Thirty minutes later Scott stopped to refill the petrol from a can.
    “Do we have enough to get back?” Rachel whispered as he set the empty container in the narrow space beside her.
    “We’ll make it.”
    “Over the next hill and down a narrow road.” The priest pointed toward the coast. “I hid the pieces where I felt certain they would survive. Vesuvius, she gave me sleepless nights with her eruptions. I have worried the Germans found them. But the telephone lines are down, and it is impossible to know. Maybe God sent you to answer my prayer to know the altarpiece’s fate.”
    Scott wanted to be an answered prayer.
    “Do you believe God can use you? Answer prayers through you?”
    “I hope so, Father.” Though it seemed doubtful.
    “In a kilometer we shall find out. You already are an answer to the prayer resonating in this old heart.”
    Scott hoped he still felt that way when he steered the jeep from the village.

    Rachel braced herself as Scott maneuvered the jeep around potholes and craters. She’d glanced back a few times but hadn’t seen any vehicles trailing them. If the priest sent the altarpiece here to hide it, she couldn’t imagine there’d be a good outcome. Not based on the state of the road. Heavy fighting must have pounded the area. She hoped, no prayed, the battle was long over.
    Could she be an answer to prayer? The words lingered in her soul. She’d never considered being part of an answer. Instead, she tended to focus on the answers she needed, like finding her father before it was too late. Only as the armies battered through the Purple Heart Valley could she hope to follow them into Tuscany and beyond.
    Her camera bounced against her and she clutched it. If it broke, she’d get a quick ticket home. That couldn’t happen.
    “Turn here.”
    Lieutenant Lindstrom followed the instruction. The jeep jarred and Rachel’s teeth clicked together. She ran her tongue over them, grateful none had chipped.
    “Down this road and off another sits a small village. My brother once served as its priest.”
    “Where is he now?” Rachel leaned toward the front seat.
    The man shrugged, a gesture both weary and heavy. “I cannot say. He disappeared on a dark night in December. The villagers think the Gestapo took him.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    He shrugged again. “It is all in God’s hands. We all are.” He turned and pointed into the woods. “Now we walk.”
    Fifteen minutes later he led them to a network of caves. “At different times Italians have hidden here. Avoiding German demands to transport to labor camps. The Germans demand too much.” He pulled out a flashlight and flicked on the light.
    Scott waited for Rachel to enter. Did she want him ahead or behind? Either felt dangerous, but she entered the dim reaches of the cave and followed the father through its twists and turns. When the flashlight’s beam flickered, the priest pointed to the left. “In that hollow.”
    Scott slipped past her and reached into the darkness. “Nothing’s here.”
    The priest pushed forward. “You missed it. It is in pieces. We dismantled the altarpiece.”
    Scott reached back into the darkness. “I’m sorry. I don’t feel anything.”
    The priest groaned, a sound that seemed to reach from the depths of his being. “It must be here. No one knew I hid it here. No one but my brother.”
    Rachel tried to stay out of the way in the confined space as the priest brushed past her. The torch’s light wavered again, and he thrust it into her grasp. “Steady it.”
    Scott groped in the darkness but shook his head. Rachel’s heart sank. Whatever had been hidden here was gone, or Father Guilliamo led them to the wrong place.
    Scott and the father huddled in front of the place where the painting was supposed to hide, and