Free White Heat by Brenda Novak Page B

home—still made her cringe.
    God, what a fool! Why couldn’t she have salvaged her pride?
    Because she’d been lonely too long. And because she’d let him mean too much to her. When she realized that feeling wasn’t mutual, she simply didn’t have the skills to shrug it off or act indifferent.
    He’d taught her a good lesson, though. One most people learned in their teens, but better late than never…
    At least she’d never make that mistake again. She’d demand more from any lover she took in the future.
    But there were times she was tempted to lower her standards. Times like now, when she lay in bed, remembering Nate’s hands on her body and craving them there again.

6
    E very Wednesday, Ethan called his entire church together for morning prayer. Then Bart and his guards took over for two hours with armory drills. In the summer, they met in the courtyard outside the Enlightenment Hall as the sun came up, like they were doing now. It wasn’t Wednesday, but the sudden disappearance of Courtney Sinclair had to be addressed. At Bartholomew’s urging, Ethan had called for a special prayer so he could handle the issue via public announcement. This would enable everyone to hear what he had to say on the matter. But he hated that this was the second time he’d been forced to convene a meeting for the sake of damage control within the past two months.
    He could feel Bartholomew behind him, keeping silent watch, as always. Bart took his job as head of security very seriously. The way he’d supported Ethan after that fight with Courtney, how he’d hidden the body and then buried it, proved he could be trusted with anything.
    Ethan had been lucky the day Bart had attended one of his first Introduction Meetings. Claiming she couldn’t live with his sexual dysfunction—which probably had more to do with his orientation than his impotence—Bart’s wife had recently left him. Dayslater, he’d closed his failing chiropractic practice. He’d been in the middle of a full-blown midlife crisis, had been searching for an anchor of some sort, a devotion that felt worthwhile, and Ethan had been there to offer him that. Bart was so grateful to have a purpose, to be valued that he’d become one of Ethan’s most loyal followers.
    But he hadn’t tracked down Martha, and that grated on Ethan. He couldn’t abide the thought of a Covenant member leaving the group and then spouting off about him to the outside world. Martha was a Judas and would suffer God’s wrath, just as traitors like her deserved.
    The other Spiritual Guides stood behind him, too, but Ethan wasn’t as completely sure of them as he was of Bartholomew. Some had been with him since college, but whether they stayed because of loyalty or self-interest, he couldn’t say. He protected himself by telling them only what he wanted them to hear.
    Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep this particular situation between him and Bart, as he would’ve preferred. Harry Titherington knew he’d been with Courtney the night she went missing. Ethan had spent an hour trying to convince the entire group that she’d been alive when she left his apartment, but he wasn’t positive they all believed him. Especially Harry…
    Head bowed, Ethan waited for the prayer to come to a close. It was beneath him to have to reason away doubts and accusations, but he had to put the rumors concerning Courtney to rest. He also had to prep his people so they’d know how to react if Courtney’s parents reappeared at the gate or, God forbid, sent the police. He wasn’t sure Paradise could tolerate anothermedia onslaught, not on the heels of the botched stoning.
    The sudden silence notified him that the prayer, said by one of the Spiritual Guides, was finally over.
    â€œThank you for your eloquence, Brother Whitehead,” he called out.
    A resounding “Praise be to God”