Killer at the Cult (A Reverend Annabelle Dixon Cozy Mystery Book 6) by Alison Golden & Jamie Vougeot

Author:Alison Golden & Jamie Vougeot [Golden, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Annabelle decided to leave talking to Scott for another day. She was eager to be home. At the junction with the main road, she eschewed the path tracked into the grass next to the hedgerow, and noticing the green public footpath sign that pointed across the fields, crossed the road to climb over the stile. Navigating it in her cassock wasn’t easy, but after several attempts and much gathering of skirts, she managed it without snagging anything.

As she walked down the gentle slope into the village, her mind once again turned to Mike. They’d walked this grassy path just a couple of weekends ago. It had been a hot, sunny day like this one, and the dogs had gamboled up ahead; not far, but far enough for them to have a good stretch. They’d brought a picnic and walked down to the river, spreading their rug in the shade under the trees that overhung the water.

It was a romantic spot, and Annabelle thought, hoped, that Mike might take their relationship to the next level with a kiss. Even some kind of declaration of intention would have been progress. But while there’d been lots of direct eye contact and the occasional touching of fingertips, it had been incidental and accidental and hadn’t led to anything. She felt clouds of hopelessness descend, and she uncharacteristically felt sorry for herself.

She looked about her at the glorious countryside and sighed as she pressed on, telling herself she had much to be grateful for and that “God works in mysterious ways,” a truism she usually avoided in her work because she felt it hackneyed, supercilious, and unhelpful. She stopped to pick up a long, unusually straight brown stick. It would be perfect for staking the sunflower she had grown outside her kitchen window, but which was so bent over on itself that the yellow petals almost touched the ground. Annabelle put the stick in her belt and tightened the knot in front of her. “Come on, Bumble,” she whispered to herself, using the nickname her brother had coined for her. “Pull yourself together. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

“There are three things to remember, Bumble,” her mother had told her one afternoon after a hard day’s cleaning other people’s houses. “When times are tough, ‘pull yourself together,’ ‘least said, soonest mended’ and ‘mustn’t grumble,’ are the best pieces of advice. Don’t forget them, and you won’t go far wrong.”

Annabelle smiled at the memory. Annabelle’s parents were solid East London folk whose pride in their daughter’s acceptance to Cambridge University was matched only by her graduation three years later. Annabelle’s success had been extraordinary among her peers, and she knew that she lived her dream of being a countryside rector largely because of her parent’s sacrifices and the beliefs they had instilled in her, attitudes that still formed the basic fabric of traditional British life.

Annabelle looked ahead of her at the jumble of dwellings that rose up in the middle of the rolling green and yellow fields that spread outward as far as her eye could see.

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