Glory Be! by Ron & Janet Benrey

Author:Ron & Janet Benrey [Ron & Benrey, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Suspense, Religious
ISBN: 9781426844003
Google: tjM3s7c1D60C
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-08-01T08:38:45.585000+00:00

TEN

Emma set the pile of newspapers to her left on the sofa in the front parlor and placed the steaming mug of flavored coffee on the lamp table to her right. She made herself comfortable on the sofa and began to read.

Emma loved Sunday afternoons at The Scottish Captain. She thought of them as battery chargers—precious periods of solitude to read the Sunday papers, watch a movie, or curl up with a novel. She wasn’t quite sure why, but guests who’d spent the weekend at the Captain invariably left after breakfast on Sunday morning and new arrivals never seemed to arrive before Sunday evening.

More often than not, she could count on seven or eight peaceful hours with few responsibilities.

Emma felt a bit edgier than usual on this Sunday afternoon, though, because there was a chance—slim but real—that the regional newspapers had joined the Greenville TV station’s “campaign” against hooliganism in Glory.

She scoured the pages of the Raleigh News and Observer. No mention of Glory or the Phantom Avenger, or—most worrisome of all to Emma—the fact

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Glory Be!

that Simon Rogers had spent three nights at The Scottish Captain. She moved on to the Daily Reflector from Greenville. Also nothing. She even checked the New York Times. Ditto.

Emma murmured, “No news is great news,” and began to flip through the Times’ s magazine section.

She needed a moment to interpret the bell-like sound that she heard in the distance. It seemed strident and insistent, not at all akin to the calming bong of a church bell. Emma suddenly realized that she had fallen asleep while reading the newspaper, that the telephone was ringing in her office and that the wall was shut.

Whoever designed the residence building that became the Captain had made provision for a small office—a windowless room that measured about seven by seven—adjacent to the front parlor on the first floor.

The really odd thing about the office was its thick sliding “pocket door” that had been papered in the same pattern as the parlor. When open, the extrawide door disappeared into the parlor’s wall. When shut, the door’s wallpapered surface seemed an integral part of the wall.

The door might have been difficult to locate, except for the large brass door handle near the right edge.

She slid off the sofa, moved clumsily to the pocket door and pushed the handle to the left. She reached the phone on her desk seconds after the answering machine had switched on: You’ve dialed The Scottish Captain.

This is Emma McCall. I’m unavailable right now, but if you’ll leave a message…

She yanked the receiver out of its cradle. “Hi. This is Emma McCall.”

“And this is Rafe Neilson.You sound like I woke you.”

“You did, but I shouldn’t have been sleeping.”

Ron and Janet Benrey 135

“How about a tall mug of coffee to wake you up?”

“A good idea. I think I have some in the kitchen…”

“I mean at my place. I’ve been studying our background file on Lily Kirk. I think you might want to see it.”

Emma considered the invitation. “I

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