Where Truth Lies

The pastor looked so genuinely interested in her answer that she had to tell him the whole story. “Winnie made it for me about twenty years ago.”

“It looks like a well-used treasure,” Greg pointed out, endearing himself to her for good. He could have noted instead that the pink corduroy was faded and thin in spots and that it was worn down past the wale from years of use. Instead he’d noticed how cherished it was.

“You’re right. It is the one link I have with my mother that I can carry around every day.” She fingered the cloth lovingly. “When I was ten, my mother and father had a terrible fight and she left home. The next morning, Father told us that she had been in a terrible accident after she left and had died. Of course we know now that wasn’t true….”

THE SECRETS OF STONELEY: Six sisters face murder,

mayhem and mystery while unraveling the past.

FATAL IMAGE-Lenora Worth (LIS#38) January 2007

LITTLE GIRL LOST-Shirlee McCoy (LIS#40) February 2007

BELOVED ENEMY-Terri Reed (LIS#44) March 2007

THE SOUND OF SECRETS-Irene Brand (LIS#48) April 2007

DEADLY PAYOFF-Valerie Hansen (LIS#52) May 2007

WHERE TRUTH LIES-Lynn Bulock (LIS#56) June 2007

LYNN BULOCK

has been writing since fourth grade and has been a published author in various fields for over twenty years. Her first romantic novel came out in 1989 and has been followed by more than twenty books since then. She lives near Los Angeles, California, with her husband. They have two grown sons.

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to

Lynn Bulock for her contribution to THE SECRETS OF STONELEY miniseries.

Jesus looked at them and said,

“With people it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

—Mark 10:27

To Joe, always

And to Toni…she knows why

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Journal entry

June 1

Why is everyone being so horrible to my darling Ronald? How can the police believe that someone with his wealth and reputation might be guilty of murder? If I went to them and confessed, he would be free, but then all my efforts would be in vain. I’ve worked so hard so that we can be together. Even that awful woman didn’t get in our way. Now if his daughters will just stop their infernal digging into the past, maybe Ronald and I can finally be happy.

Was her father truly guilty of murder? The question whirled through Miranda Blanchard’s thoughts as she tried to concentrate on the familiar, repetitive work of making endpapers for her latest edition of handmade poetry books. Swirling the heavy paper through the color bath to create the marbled design she favored usually took her mind off her troubles. But on this beautiful late-spring day her worries crowded in so close that not even this task succeeded in distracting her.

Setting the latest sheet with its rich green, teal and indigo design aside to dry, Miranda pressed the back of one hand to her throbbing temple. Even gloved and swathed in an apron, with her dark hair swept away from her face, she would probably find a way to dot herself with paint.

Normally her workroom and studio tucked up under the eaves of her family’s huge house, near her grandfather Howard’s third-floor suite, was a peaceful haven. Cool and pleasant, with pearl-gray walls and a large window to let in just enough light, it was where Miranda went to relax, write poetry and craft the chapbooks and limited editions she made for her own work and a select few other writers.

Relax, or hide? a cynical voice from inside taunted her. Pushing back a stray lock of wavy hair, she could feel the flutter in her stomach and the tightening of her chest that heralded the beginning of a panic attack. Not another one. She couldn’t afford one now, when she was so behind in her projects.

She hadn’t written anything new in months, or nothing worth keeping, anyway. Even the piece she’d tried to do for her mother’s funeral came out flat. Of course when they discovered later that it wasn’t Trudy the family had buried, Miranda tried to convince herself that somehow she’d known all along, but she couldn’t manage to fool herself that way.

This batch of a hundred books for another poet at the university in Augusta should have been finished weeks ago. So many other things had claimed her attention in the first five months of the year that Miranda had trouble believing everything that had gone on.

From the moment Bianca had produced that picture of Mama with her friend on Cape Cod, dated after her supposed death, life had been a jumble of highs and lows. Trudy Blanchard was apparently alive after all, or at least she had been recently. This last blow had been the most wrenching. Miranda still had flashbacks of her father and sisters around the grave in Stoneley’s windswept cemetery, all of them weeping to think that they’d come so close to rediscovering the wife and mother taken from them so long ago, only to find her dead in the house instead.