Kristy overheard Ethan's words as she came up behind them. Reliable. That's all she meant to Ethan Bonner.

Good old reliable Kristy Brown. Kristy'll do it. Kristy'll take care of it.

She sighed to herself. What did she expect? Did she think Ethan would look at her the way he'd been looking at Laura Delapino only a moment earlier? Not likely. Laura was flashy and perky, while Kristy was plain and uninteresting. She had her pride, though, and over the years she had learned to hide her painful shyness behind a brutal efficiency. Whatever needed to be done, she could do. Everything except win Ethan Bonner's heart.

Kristy had known Ethan nearly all her life, and he'd been attracted to flashy, easy women ever since eighth grade when Melodie Orr had gotten her braces off and discovered shrink-wrapped jeans. They used to make out every day after lunch next to the choir room.

"Kristy!"

Edward's face lit up as he spotted her, and warmth spread through her. She loved children. She could relax with them and be herself. She would have much preferred working in child care to her job as a church secretary, and she'd have quit years ago if she hadn't so desperately needed to stay close to Ethan Bonner. Since she couldn't be his lover, she'd settle into the role of his caretaker.

As she knelt down to admire the collage Edward had made that day, she thought about the fact that she'd loved Ethan for more than twenty years. She clearly remembered watching him through the window of her third-grade classroom when he went out for recess with the fourth-graders. He'd been just as dazzling then as he was now, the handsomest boy she'd ever seen. He'd always treated her kindly, but then he'd treated everyone that way. Even when he was a child, Ethan had been different from the others: more sensitive, less inclined to tease.

He hadn't been a pushover, though; his older brothers had taken care of that. She still remembered the day Ethan had fought D.J. Loebach, the junior high's worst bully, and given him a bloody nose. Afterward, though, Ethan had felt guilty and gone over to D.J.'s house with a couple of melting grape Popsicles to make peace. D.J. still liked to tell that story at deacons' meetings.

As she stood and took Edward's hand, she caught the whiff of a heavy, sensuous perfume. "Hey, Eth."

"Hi, Laura."

Laura flashed Kristy a friendly smile, and Kristy felt her heart curdle with envy. How could some women be so confident?

She thought of Rachel Stone and wondered where she got her courage. Despite all the horrible things people in town were saying about Rachel, Kristy liked her; she was even in awe of her. Kristy was certain she'd never have the courage to face people down the way Rachel was doing.

She'd heard about Rachel's encounter with Carol Dennis at the grocery store, and yesterday Rachel had stood up to Gary Prett at the pharmacy. The intensity of people's hostility upset Kristy. She didn't believe Rachel had been responsible for Dwayne Snopes's greed, and she couldn't understand people who called themselves Christians being so judgmental and vindictive.

She wondered what Rachel thought of her. Probably nothing at all. People only noticed Kristy when they wanted something done. Otherwise, she was white wallpaper.

"So Eth," Laura said, "why don't you come over tonight and let me throw a couple of steaks on the grill for us?" She rubbed her lips together as if she were smoothing out her lipstick.

For a fraction of a second Ethan's eyes lingered on her mouth, then he gave her the same open, friendly smile he gave the old women in the congregation. "Gosh, I'd love to, but I have to work on my sermon."

Laura persisted, but he managed to fend her off without too much difficulty. Kristy suspected he didn't trust himself to be alone with Laura.

Something painful twisted at her heart. Ethan always trusted himself to be alone with her.

8

Rachel kept the beam of her flashlight low. As she neared the back of the house where she'd known so much misery, she bunched her hooded sweatshirt more tightly around her, warding off a chill that came as much from within as it did from the cool night breeze. The house was as dark as Dwayne Snopes's soul.

Even though the night was cloudy and visibility poor, she knew where she was going, and, with the few shards of gray moonlight that penetrated the clouds, she managed to navigate the curved path across the small stretch of overgrown lawn. The paint-spattered skirt of her dress caught on some shrubbery. As she freed it, she considered the fact that she would have to buy something else to wear soon, but her new resolution to take better care of herself didn't extend to luxuries like clothing, and she decided to postpone it.

She couldn't believe the difference having a full stomach made in the way she felt. It had been her turn to cook dinner tonight, and she'd eaten a full meal. Although she was still tired, the dizziness had vanished, and she felt stronger than she had in weeks.

The house loomed over her. She turned off her flashlight as she approached the back door. It led into a laundry room, and from there into the kitchen. She hoped Cal Bonner and his wife hadn't installed a security system. When she and Dwayne had lived here, their only problems had been with overly zealous fans, and the electronically controlled gates at the bottom of the drive had kept them at a distance.

She also hoped they hadn't changed the locks. Slipping her hand into the pocket of her sweatshirt, she pulled out a house key attached to a loop of coiled purple plastic that she used to slip over her wrist when she went on her walks up the mountain. This had been her spare key, the only one the police hadn't taken. She'd found it several weeks after she'd been evicted tucked into the pocket of this very same sweatshirt. If the key no longer worked, she would have to break one of the windows in the back.

But the key did work. The lock caught in the same stubborn place, then gave way when she pulled on it. A sense of unreality encompassed her as she stepped inside the mudroom. It smelled damp and unused, and the darkness was so thick she had to feel her way along the wall to the door. She pushed it open and stepped into the kitchen.

She'd always hated this room with its black marble floors, granite counters, and a crystal chandelier more suited to an opera hall than a kitchen hanging over the center work island. Dwayne's well-groomed appearance and polished manners camouflaged a man who'd been born poor and needed opulence surrounding him so he could feel important. He'd loved the house's garishness.

Even though it was dark, she knew the kitchen well enough that she could ease her way along the counters until she arrived at the entryway to the family room that stretched across the back. Even though the house was deserted, she moved as quietly as her heavy shoes allowed. Enough weak moonlight came through the sliding-glass doors for her to see that nothing had changed. The pit sofa and matching chairs still conjured up memories of an eighties bachelor pad. In the oppressive silence of the empty house, she crossed the room toward a back hallway and, with the aid of the flashlight, approached Dwayne's study.

The lofty room with its Gothic furnishings and heavy draperies had been Dwayne's idea of something that might be used by a member of the British royal family. A quick sweep of the flashlight revealed that the animal trophy heads were gone. So was the Kennedy chest.

Now what? She decided to risk turning on the green-shaded desk lamp and saw that the desk had been cleared of papers. There was a new telephone, a computer, and a silent fax machine. She gazed at the shelf where the Kennedy chest had been positioned in the photograph and saw only a pile of books.

Her heart sank. She began to search the room, but it didn't take her long to discover that the chest had disappeared.

She turned off the desk lamp, then slumped down on the couch where Cal Bonner and his wife had been photographed. Had she really thought this would be easy when nothing else had gone her way? Now she would have to search the rest of the house and hope that they'd simply moved the chest, not taken it away.

Using the flashlight to see, she made quick work of the living and dining rooms, then moved through the foyer and past the night-club fountain, which was mercifully unlit. The foyer rose two stories above her. The upstairs bedrooms opened onto a balcony surrounded by gilded wrought iron. As she mounted the curving staircase, she began to feel strangely disoriented, as if three years hadn't passed and Dwayne were still alive.

She'd met him when he was on his first crusade through the midwest. He'd been appearing in Indianapolis as part of an eighteen-city televised tour to expand his cable audience. Most of the members of her little church had agreed to be volunteer workers, and Rachel had been assigned to act as one of the backstage gofers, a task, she later learned, that was always given to the more attractive of the young female volunteers.

She was twenty at the time, and she hadn't been able to believe her luck when one of the crusade's staff members had assigned her to deliver a pile of preselected prayer cards to Dwayne. She was actually going to see the famous evangelist up close! Her hand had shaken as she'd knocked on the door of his dressing room.

"Come in."

She'd opened the door tentatively, just far enough to see G. Dwayne Snopes standing at the lighted mirror and running a silver-backed hairbrush through his thick blond hair, so attractively graying at the temples. He smiled at her reflection, and she felt the full jolt of Snopes's charisma.