Free The Secret by R.L. Stine Page A

elilah!”
    Jonathan screamed her name in a choked voice he didn’t recognize, and let the rifle fall.
    Before he could run to her, Delilah’s eyelids slid shut. She uttered a faint gasp and slumped to the floor.
    Jonathan dropped beside her. “Delilah! Delilah!”
    He called her name again and again.
    But, he knew, she could not hear him now.
    The dark blood puddled beneath her white dress.
    â€œOh, Delilah,” Jonathan sobbed, cradling her head in his arms.
    Behind him, Jonathan heard a click. He turned.
    Ezra had picked up the rifle, which he was now pointing at the minister’s head.
    â€œAll Goodes will die,” Ezra said calmly, hate burning in his eyes.
    The Reverend Wilson fell to his knees beside hisdaughter’s lifeless body. “Please do not shoot me!” he cried. “Please!”
    Jonathan gently laid Delilah’s body on the floor and stepped toward his father. “Papa, please—”
    Ezra leveled the rifle at Jonathan. “Do not get in my way again, son,” he growled, his voice hard and sharp as a steel blade. “I am warning you.”
    Jonathan said nothing. Ezra turned back to the minister. “All Goodes will die,” he repeated.
    Reverend Wilson clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “Please do not shoot me,” he begged again. “I am not a Goode!”
    â€œYour lies will not succeed with me,” Ezra snapped. “You cannot save yourself. My wife is dead because of you—and now you must pay the price.”
    Delilah’s father shook in terror. “It is true! I swear to you! I am not a Goode. Delilah was not a Goode either!”
    He turned to Jonathan and added, “Jonathan—she lied to you!’

Chapter 17

    â€œW hat are you
saying?”
Jonathan cried in disbelief.
    â€œDo not listen to him, boy,” Ezra urged coldly. “He is only looking for a way to save himself.”
    â€œI am telling the truth!” the minister insisted. “It was all a trick. A fraud! I
swear
it!”
    Jonathan ignored his father and the rifle. “A trick?” he repeated weakly, grabbing the front of Reverend Wilson’s robe. “A trick?”
    â€œI—I wanted Delilah to marry you, Jonathan,” the minister sputtered, his eyes on Ezra’s rifle. “We are so poor, you see. And you are so well off. Delilah—she came home and told me the story of your feud with the Goodes. I—I had an idea. I saw a way we could use it—to trick you into marrying her.”
    â€œTo trick me …” Jonathan murmured.
    â€œI made her do it!” the minister cried. “I forced herto.” He lowered his gaze to his daughter’s body. He stared at it for a moment as if he just realized she was dead. Then, with a shudder, he pulled his eyes away.
    â€œDelilah was a good girl at heart,” Reverend Wilson muttered. “A good girl.”
    â€œThis is all nonsense!” Ezra snarled. “Prepare to die, Goode! I have waited so long, so long—all my life—for this chance. You will not cheat me of my revenge with your desperate lies.”
    â€œPlease, Papa,” Jonathan begged, pushing the rifle aside. “Let him speak.”
    â€œI forced Delilah to pretend that she was a Goode,” Reverend Wilson confessed sadly. “But I knew you would not marry her just because of that. So she made you think your dead sister was haunting you. She made terrible screaming noises at night. Delilah filled your well bucket with chicken blood. She made a cap with blue ribbons on it, like the one she saw in a painting of your sister. And she climbed your rose trellis to appear in your windows at night.”
    Ezra lowered the rifle. His face grew red and his jaw trembled as he listened.
    â€œDelilah lured your mother outside with that blue-ribboned cap,” the minister continued in a quivering voice. “She threw it into the well. Your mother leaned