Missing. Jasmine Cresswell

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      In view of the annoying reluctance of either widow to speak to reporters, high ratings had to be sustained somehow, and Ellie Raven’s decision to hold a prayer service for her husband was counted as a blessing by news outlets everywhere. No less than thirty-five camera crews were on hand to record Stark County’s tribute to Ron Raven and lots had to be drawn to determine who would be privileged to film the service from the two available spots in the upstairs organ loft.

      The Reverend Dwight D. Gruber, pastor of Thatch Community Church for over twenty years, rose magnificently to the occasion. The choir, his personal pride and joy, performed “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace” with poignant beauty. Better yet, he achieved the remarkable feat of urging everyone to pray for Ron’s safe return without ever quite mentioning the disconcerting truth that all the evidence suggested the man was already dead and feeding the sharks somewhere off the coast of Miami.

      Even this omission paled into insignificance in comparison to the astounding fact that in twenty minutes devoted to recounting the highlights of Ron’s life, Pastor Gruber made not a single reference to the truth that the guy had been a bigamist. A bigamist, moreover, who had disappeared from a hotel room occupied not only by himself, but also by an unknown female companion. Who said that small-town pastors had few oratorical skills?

      In addition to the camera crews, the church was bursting at the seams with Ellie’s friends and neighbors. These folk appreciated their pastor’s efforts to put the best possible gloss on the sordid reality of Ron Raven’s life. Ellie was deeply respected in the community, and the residents of Stark County had spent the past week doing their best to remain aloof and dignified despite their collective moment of glory in the glow of the national-media spotlight.

      The official consensus among Stark County residents was relief that The Other Wife and her daughter hadn’t attempted to crash the prayer service. Still, Billy Carstairs summed up the feelings of many attendees when he admitted to his wife that he couldn’t believe Ron had been dippin’ his wick into two honeypots—could even be three—with nobody in Thatch any the wiser. He allowed as how it sure would have been interesting to catch a close-up view of the rival family. Sorry as he was for Ellie and her kids, Billy would really have liked to see what Ron Raven’s two wives had to say to each other.

      But with no rival wife on the scene, and reporters banned from the church meeting room after the service, Ellie’s neighbors resigned themselves to being on their best behavior. The etiquette for a prayer vigil loomed over by the specter of an absent and bigamous wife, not to mention a possible dead mistress, had to be considered a challenge, even for people who’d known each other for a long time and liked each other pretty well.

      For the most part, the men considered their duty had been done when they turned up and listened to Pastor Gruber’s sermon without a single one of them bursting into guffaws of laughter. The women, however, felt obligated to do something more than merely keep straight faces while listening to the pastor’s farcical eulogy. They’d risen to the occasion by preparing a quantity of casseroles, cookies and Jell-O salads that ensured the caloric requirements of everyone in Stark County could be met for several days simply by grazing the laden buffet tables in the church meeting room.

      Unfortunately, the bountiful array of food didn’t quite obviate the need to find something tactful to say to Ellie and her kids, but the residents of Stark County were a resilient lot, accustomed to dealing with drought, blizzards, insect plagues and the intrusive hand of the federal government. Determined to do what was right, they formed themselves into a tidy line and slowly wound their way past Ellie, Liam and Megan, mumbling their somewhat sincere wishes for Ron’s safe return—they figured it was just possible she was going to miss the bastard—and their much more sincere offerings of any sort of help they might be able to provide.

      Ellie looked ravaged, showing every one of her fifty-five years, but she accepted the good wishes and thanked people for their offers of help with quiet dignity. Liam, tall and even better looking than his dead father, stood at his mother’s side, his city-slicker suit and fancy striped silk tie reminding everyone that he had at least three strikes against him. First, he’d moved away and taken up residence in a big city. Second, he was a lawyer, and third, he hadn’t come back to Thatch more than a handful of times in the past five years. However, his excellent memory for names and faces reassured people that he hadn’t totally forgotten his roots. Despite the fact that he looked a lot like his dad, the neighbors were willing to grant him the benefit of the doubt and accept that in character and morals he took after his mother.

      After half an hour of listening to her neighbors’ well-intentioned lies, Megan realized that she wasn’t coping with the multiple hypocrisies of the occasion anywhere near as efficiently as her brother. She wished she could imitate Liam’s expression of bland and friendly courtesy, but the task was beyond her. The urge to scream became increasingly powerful with each hand she shook. Grateful as she was for the support of their neighbors, she could imagine all too vividly the pity lurking behind the polite, Sunday-go-to-church faces. She hated to be pitied—but she hated even more that she felt pitiable. As each excruciating minute slithered by, it took an increasing amount of willpower not to run from the room.

      She finally gave up. “I have to get a drink,” she murmured to Liam. “Would you like some punch? A cup of coffee?”

      He shook his head, leaning down to speak softly in her ear. “You okay?”

      “More or less. I need some breathing room. Can you stay here with Mom for a few minutes?”

      “Not a problem. Take however much time you need.”

      Megan helped herself to the alarmingly bright red punch, dry-mouthed enough to sip gratefully. Pastor Gruber was bearing down on her, accompanied by his wife, and she avoided them by dodging behind a mobile book cart. She was thankful for the lies of omission in the minister’s sermon, but she couldn’t take any more pretense. She’d zoomed past her cutoff level for bullshit concerning Ron Raven at least twenty-four hours ago.

      There was no escaping outside, she realized. The camera crews were lined up, waiting to pounce, so she’d just have to suck it up and be polite to her neighbors for another hour. Please God, it wouldn’t be more than another hour before this preposterous prayer service was over. What would any of them do if her father actually returned? she wondered. Turn him over to the cops?

      She spotted Cody Holmann, the lawyer her parents had used for years, walking purposefully toward her. Cody was probably as restful a person to talk to as anyone, she decided. He was a slow-moving but kindly man in his mid-sixties, who was still known in some local circles as Young Cody in order to distinguish him from his ninety-two-year-old father, Cody Holmann Senior.

      There was no risk that he would want to discuss legal business with her, Megan decided. Liam had already met with Cody on Friday afternoon and the news from their meeting had been mostly positive. Ellie’s financial and legal situation was complicated by the fact that Ron Raven hadn’t yet been officially declared dead. However, Cody was confident he would be able to find a judge willing to authorize payments from Ron’s accounts to cover living expenses for Ellie and salaries for the two full-time ranch employees. In addition, Cody had been able to confirm that the copy of their father’s will in Ellie’s possession was an exact duplicate of the document he had drawn up for Ron three years earlier.

      Amazingly, after all the startling revelations following their father’s death, it seemed that the disposition of Ron’s estate was going to generate few surprises. The provisions of their father’s will turned out to be more or less what Megan and Liam would have expected. Most importantly, the ranch had been left to their mother, along with an annual income that would be sufficient to subsidize the cattle operation in bad years.

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