Read Online For His Name's Sake (Psalm 23 Mysteries) by Debbie Viguié - Free Book Online Page A

“Are you hurt?” he asked Cindy.
    “Just shaken.”
    “Okay, let’s move this party inside,” he said.
    Jeremiah took one last look out toward the forest, furious that the man had escaped, before turning and following the rest of them inside.
    In the foyer Cindy recounted her experience of finding the intruder.
    “And I’m guessing you heard her scream and came running?” Mark said drily as he glanced over at Jeremiah.
    “Don’t I always?” Jeremiah asked with a shrug.
    “Samaritan,” Mark muttered. It was an old joke between the two of them.
    “He had grabbed Cindy and had his hand over her mouth when I...got down here,” Jeremiah said, omitting the part about vaulting the staircase.
    Cindy either hadn’t seen that or didn’t let on. “I tried to bite him, elbow him, everything. When he saw Jeremiah though he threw me onto the floor.”
    “I thought he was going to attack me, but instead he went out the door,” Jeremiah finished.
    “Did either of you notice anything in particular about him?”
    “He was close to my height, but he was dressed all in black, wearing a mask, can’t tell you anything else about him,” Jeremiah said.
    “When he had hold of me, he did say something,” Cindy said, looking suddenly uneasy.
    “Well, what was it?” Mark prodded.
    Cindy glanced quickly at Geanie and then just as quickly away. “He said, ‘tell him there won’t be any happy ending’. That was it. His voice was low, raspy.”
    There was silence for a moment and then Geanie sat down abruptly on the stairs. She looked like she was about to cry. “Who would try to sabotage our wedding?” she sobbed after a moment.
    “That’s what we need to find out,” Mark said grimly. “At least now we have proof that that’s what’s going on here. I think it’s safe to rule yesterday’s events as anything but accidents.”
    An officer came in, interrupting them.
    “What is it?” Mark asked tersely.
    “We discovered that the alarm system for the main house and grounds were tampered with, that’s why no audible alarm sounded. It was a real slick job, too, the guy knew what he was doing. Simply cutting the alarm triggers a signal but he worked around it somehow. He took out the phone line at the same time.”
    “Then how did you guys know to show up?” Joseph asked, sounding bewildered.
    “The independent system halfway down your hill that monitors all approaches up he missed. That triggers a silent alarm to the alarm company who called us,” Mark said. “And we tried to call you, but this explains why your phone line was down. It doesn’t explain, though, why you weren’t picking up your cell phone. I tried calling a dozen times on my way here.”
    “Battery’s dead,” Joseph said, flushing uncomfortably. I wore it out texting Geanie after we both turned in for the night.”
    Mark rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.
    “You should have called my phone,” Jeremiah said quietly.
    “Well, clearly I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s been a bit of a crazy night, you know?” Mark snapped.
    Jeremiah sensed more had happened than Mark was sharing, but he didn’t press. The detective would tell them what was going on in due time.
    Another officer came in. “No sign of the intruder.”
    Jeremiah wasn’t surprised but Mark looked like he was ready to kill someone. “Great, just great,” the detective said, heaving an exasperated sigh.
    Jeremiah held his tongue, not wanting to end up the focus of the other man’s frustration. He glanced at Cindy who was staring at Geanie with a worried look on her face. He knew it had killed her to admit in front of the other woman what the assailant had said to her, but the truth had to come out sooner or later. Geanie deserved to know that she really was in danger. He could only imagine what might have happened if it had been Geanie who surprised the intruder and not Cindy. This whole night could have easily turned tragic.
    Mark passed a hand in